Uniquely Brilliant Podcast

When we forget to treat our needs as equal to the needs of others in our lives, we become stressed and frustrated. We prioritize their needs over our own and shortchange things like rest and relaxation. We also neglect enforcing our boundaries which puts on the highway to exhaustion.

Becky and Diana discuss the tricky areas of honoring our time and our money.

Diana reminds us that money is an exchange of energy. And it’s easy to find ourselves in debt, overspending, or giving our money to others. When we’re not mindful about money matters, we feel drained.

Becky shares her struggles with managing her calendar (aka her time). She forgets to do things like schedule enough times between clients and allow time for rest. When we overcommit by doing too many things or by not taking breaks, we can feel frustrated and overwhelmed.

Becky brings up a favorite Uniquely Brilliant discussion topic: Essentialism. She’s reading another book relating to essentialism: 4,000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. The concepts in the book echo the concepts of Essentialism: setting priorities, saying no, and enforcing boundaries.

Some tips on putting our needs first and equal:

1. Establish boundaries. When we set and enforce boundaries around the time we want to spend communicating with others or on social media, it helps us maintain our positive energy.

1. Ask for help. It’s important to be bold when we ask for what we need. If we need to reschedule an appointment, ask for it. As Diana mentions, oftentimes we don’t even know what our needs are and that’s ok! When we figure them, it’s okay (actually, it’s critical) to put our needs at least equal to the needs of others in our lives.

Additional Uniquely Brilliant episodes on essentialism:

Episode 130: Essentialism and Coronavirus

https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/show/uniquelybrilliant/id/13999148

Episode 88: Essentialism

https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/show/uniquelybrilliant/id/5585187

©2022 Cronecast Podcast Network | Music ©2015 Max Brodie

On today’s episode of Uniquely Brilliant, Diana Bader and Becky Berry discuss the March Slump. 

Diana begins this episode by reminding us that two years ago at this time the whole world was shut down because of COVID, and our feeling that we’re in a slump could be a trauma response.

The pandemic and the response to it are different now, but not completely different. Masks, boosters, quarantines - change constantly.

Becky and Diana point out that everyone has a different comfort level with how to approach the world today. While Covid is still a big threat, Diana points out that there are equal threats to those who are immunocompromised that are rarely mentioned. 

Becky points out that because of the strangeness of our last two Marchs plus  now, it’s easy to lose our sense of agency. We can forget that we can impact our own lives by the choices that we make. 

The unpredictability of the weather in March adds to the slump. The temperatures and weather are all over the place: it can be 80 degrees one day and snow the next day. 

Diana and Becky share their strategies for maintaining their equilibrium. The overarching strategy is to go with the flow of the weather. Diana takes advantage of sunny weather by pursuing outdoor activities. When it’s cold, she stays inside and cooks. 

They also touch on the power of doing activities that soothe you. They go deeper into the power of soothing in Episode 146. 

Full link to 146:
https://uniquelybrilliant.libsyn.com/episode-146-soothe-yourself-by-grounding

We can empower ourselves by:

• Picking our battles by choosing what we think about and focus on
• Looking our emotions in the face and accepting them and choosing whether to surrender to the current circumstance or rise above them
• Staying in the moment
• Distracting ourselves with something that makes us feel lighter - listening to music, watching tv, reading, or cooking
• Changing scenery - going outside, taking a drive, taking a walk

When we purposefully choose what we focus on, we feel a greater sense of agency.

©2022 Cronecast Podcast Network | Music ©2015 Max Brodie

In this episode of Uniquely Brilliant, Becky Berry and Diana Bader discuss ways to approach the smorgasbord that is life.

Diana starts by discussing her recent experience on a cruise where she learned cruises no longer put out smorgasbords of food like they did before COVID. She draws a parallel between choosing from a smorgasbord and choosing priorities and goals that allow us to enjoy the smorgasbord of life. 

Becky brings this back to essentialism, since essentialism is about focusing on solely the things that are essential to our lives. 

Additional episodes where Becky and Diana discuss Essentialism:

Episode 88: Essentialism

Episode 130: Essentialism and Coronavirus. 

They also discuss the importance of delegating tasks so we aren’t taking on everything that’s thrown at us. Diana points out that in order to delegate, we must be able to relinquish control of the task. This also requires asking someone we trust to follow through with the task.

Becky shares her struggles with wanting to provide instant answers to everyone. She reminds us that we do not always have to answer questions immediately. It’s critical to ask when someone needs an answer so we can figure out where the request fits in our priorities. 

Diana and Becky observe that our priorities change throughout time. So, we may find that things we put on our plates even a year ago are no longer critical to us.

It is important to constantly query our options and evaluate what we can let go of that’s not important to us and what we can delegate.

When we like something, it’s okay to try it or taste it. And, if it’s not to our taste, we don’t have to do, wear, or consume it. We can think about our priorities, and choose to put it down. 

Diana shares that many of the things she procrastinates on are frequently things she can turn over to someone else.

Becky and Diana wrap up by reminding us that it’s okay to ask for help and stress that it’s critical to our mental health to know when to ask for help. And, if the people we ask can’t help us, we can ask them to refer us to someone who can. 

©2022 Cronecast Podcast Network | Music ©2015 Max Brodie

Diana Bader and Becky Berry discuss examining our assumptions about rules.

Their conversation is based on an article Becky read that reminded her to question the rules. In the article a therapist told a client who was struggling with depression and being able to do the things she wanted to get done on a daily basis that she could put her crusty, dirty dishes in the dishwasher and…wait for it…run it twice!

Sometimes we assume things are hard and fast rules when they’re not. Running the dishwasher twice is both energy and water efficient, while rinsing and scrubbing them by hand is not.

Becky and Diana also discuss Diana’s progress on tapping into her creativity again creative (you can hear the original discussion in Episode 157).  As a first step, Diana turned to cooking. Cooking grounds her because she uses all of her senses and creativity. She observes that cooking is creative and it gives her the means to prepare and freeze nutritious food for times when she might not have time to cook.

They remind us that coloring outside the lines is cathartic and remind us that not all decisions are black and white. As Diana says, when we look at things in terms of black and white, we miss out on all of the color.

They also talk about the little tasks you can do to gain control over a situation when everything seems to be going wrong. It can be as simple as running that cruddy load of dishes through the dishwasher twice. It can also be as simple as making our beds. Becky shares that making her bed soothes her into her mornings (because she’s *not* a morning person).

Diana reminds us that embracing the power of saying no to things eases our anxiety! Saying no determines where our energy goes, It defines our boundaries and priorities with others.

How we spend our time shows the world what we value, and having boundaries protects us from being overwhelmed because it helps us to say no when we need to.

Becky talks about different ways she makes her mornings less stressful, and Diana talks about how she’s learned to ignore things until she has met her priorities!

©2022 Cronecast Podcast Network
Music ©2015 Max Brodie

In this episode of Uniquely Brilliant, Diana Bader and Becky Berry talk about the importance of resting, resetting, and recovering.   

They begin this episode by discussing how many people experienced the beginning of 2022 as a rough start. They talk about their feelings about Omicron, the latest COVID-19 variant, and emphasize the importance of staying in the present moment.

One of the ways to cope with our problems and the world at large is to find humor everywhere we can. We can find sistraction in television show or movie that we enjoy. We can also hang out with a friend who makes us laugh. 

Diana doubles down on our need to be in the moment.  We experience huge amounts of stress from not forgetting to live in the moment. 

She suggests that we keep a list of things we enjoy doing so we can pull it out when we are feeling down. When we do something on the list, it helps us stay in the moment so we can enjoy it.

We can also think about our values (one of Diana’s is creativity) and do activities that align with them. Diana has noticed she needs to dive back into creative pursuits to help her ground herself. 

Becky and Diana give us permission to stop reading a book in the middle or listening to a podcast anytime we want if they’re not helping us feel better. 

They point out that it’s important to consume media that lifts us up.

They remain convinced that we have agency over how we move through our lives - even in year 2 of a worldwide pandemic.

©2022 Cronecast Podcast Network Music ©2015 Max Brodie

In this episode of Uniquely Brilliant, Becky Berry and Diana Bader talk about the value of being our uniquely brilliant selves.    When we embrace who we really are and how we really think, we embrace our unique brilliance!

 In their conversation, Diana and Becky recap some of the character differences between extroverts and introverts - including how they process information. Extroverts like Becky frequently process out loud, while introverts like Diana process within their own minds. 

Becky talks about the importance of working out her thoughts verbally while Diana discloses that she’s been working on building her ability to process out loud over many years.

They also discuss the difference between introverts and extroverts in terms of where they draw their energy. Generally speaking, extroverts are energized by people and flourish in groups. Introverts (again, generally speaking) prefer solitude and quiet.

Becky discusses one of her most frequently quoted phrases: “This is going to work out better than I can imagine.” She uses it because it reminds us to get out of our own way so we are open to possibilities out there that we can’t see or imagine.

Diana relates this to being in the woods with headphones on. If we are going through the woods with headphones on, then we miss the flowers blooming and the critters running around. When we remain open and remove our headphones, we can see opportunities when they occur. 

Diana and Becky also discuss what it’s like to fully embrace our uniqueness, and how it feels to reject it. They point out that it’s easier to be ourselves when we are in tune with others who are being themselves.

They also discuss the strange fact that many of the things people have told us are wrong with us are, indeed, the very things that make us uniquely brilliant.

Their conversation also covers why having allies at work, or anywhere we feel vulnerable, makes it easier to step into our unique brilliance and be our full selves. 

©2022 Cronecast Podcast Network Music ©2015 Max Brodie

Diana Bader and Becky Berry talk about their words of the year in this podcast episode! They choose words of the year as a means to focus their thoughts around their intentions for the coming year. In past years, Diana has selected bliss, blessed, and extraordinary, to name a few. She’s been doing this for ten years - she even had a word for the decade: impact.

The idea for the word of the year came from the book, Lifeword: Discover Your One Word to Leave a Legacy by Jon Gordon. Below is a link to the book. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N79M0D7?ref=KC_GS_GB_US

Becky's been doing the word of the year exercise for three years. Her first word of the year was unleashed; her second was steady.

This year Becky has chosen Knowing and Diana has chosen Release.

Becky explains why she chose an affirmational word instead of an aspirational one. She also writes about this on her blog: https://beckyberrycoach.com/your-word-of-the-year/

Essentialism episodes:

Episode 88: Essentialism -  https://open.spotify.com/episode/4G6TFbBuQ4tIi1zv8zCwnm?si=ab950ce6a1c24585

Episode 130: Essentialism in the Time of Coronavirus

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6FP70rbs96Ld1aHzHF4UMP?si=0148320a08fd4136

©2022 Cronecast Podcast Network Music ©2015 Max Brodie

In this episode of Uniquely Brilliant, Becky Berry and Diana Bader talk about the value of blowing things up.

• There is still so much uncertainty in the world during this pandemic. It makes it hard to feel settled.
• Diana talks about her criteria for an event mask being mask worthy. 
• Becky and Diana talk about how this pandemic differs from the 1920 pandemic. Becky points out that the main difference comes down to 3 words: international air travel. 
• Diana discusses the results of neglecting one of her core values: creativity and shares tips for bringing it back. 
• They also discuss resilience, its importance, and how we can only be resilient if we have a sense of agency in our lives. Agency is understanding we have the ability to impact our own lives. We exercise agency when we trust our gut instincts and continue to do the things we know will keep moving forward.
• Episode 114: Agency v Control talks about the importance of exercising agency in our lives.
• It’s necessary, not scary to blow things up when it’s time
• It’s important to be willing to blow things up (change everything) when things are not working for us and finding another way to move to the next place in our lives.

Episode 153: Get Out of Your Comfort Zone

In this episode of Uniquely Brilliant, Becky Berry and Diana Bader discuss the importance of getting out of our comfort zones.

We don’t always realize that we’re coasting in our comfort zone, so it can become uncomfortable when we do. 

For example, it can be our default to stay in a job because it has health benefits even when we don’t like that job. We end up stuck there because we think we can do the job for one more day, then another, and another - and, all of the sudden we’ve been there for years!

Luckily, we do not have to leap out of our comfort zones. We can tip toe out, instead. Once we’ve identified what we are struggling with, we can then evaluate what we are doing now compared to what we would like to do.

Diana talks about tip-toeing out of our stuckness requires us to assess our quality of life factors.

We can start by listing what we do not want to do and why we don’t want to do them as a means of evaluating why we choose to stay.

Sometimes we stay in our comfort zone to avoid conflict and hurting others’ feelings, which is a kind of conflict in and of itself.

To begin moving out of our comfort zone, we can reach for the thing that’s just a little bit out of our reach.

Just say yes to something. What is the smallest thing we can say yes to?

We can also change up our perspective by taking a new class or talking to someone.

Diana also talks about EFT, Emotional Freedom Technique, or tapping. She uses the technique to help clients balance their energy.

 Questions? Comments? Contact us at [email protected]

The Missing Step? Savoring Our Work

On this episode of Uniquely Brilliant, Diana Bader and Becky Berry talk about the missing step in our work and personal lives.

Diana begins the episode by talking about a conversation she had with her son about how he was improving his life. She shared his experience of playing a video game where he and a friend  came to the conclusion that to get tasks done in life, we must break each part down into little pieces. 

We should also remember to look at where we came from, and the work we did to get where we are. When we forget to look back to where we came from and the steps we took to get to our end result, we are being dismissive of the work it took to get there. 

Becky summed up this process by naming it “chunk and reflect.”

When we review the work that brought us to our current place, we are supercharged going forward. It gives us a focused momentum because we understand where we came from and acknowledge what it took to get here. 

Also, when we take what we like and leave the rest, we move forward. We unbind ourselves from other people’s ideas and expectations and exercise agency in our choices. We let go of what isn't working. 

Reviewing our work forces us to pause. And, when we embrace the pause, we think more clearly while moving forward. 

The process? 

Review progress (How did we get here? What needs to change?), Savor that progress, then move forward to the next action or project.