Ep #23: It?s Never Too Late

Welcome to Empowered Wellness for Leaders, a podcast that teaches CEOs, entrepreneurs and sales leaders how to deal with the unique challenges of balancing a high-stress career, family, AND their own health. Here’s your host, Certified Executive Wellness Coach, Diana Murphy.

Oh, my friends, I’m just so glad you’re here. I’m in Dallas and I’m staying in the sweetest Airbnb and waiting until my son picks me up to go work out and to continue our journey of eating our way through Dallas, that’s what we do. There’s so many beautiful, fun restaurants here and I’m just waiting in my Airbnb, giving myself some space this morning and coming to you.

And I’ve already recorded this podcast but I’m doing a second take because I realized how big this is. I realized how important this concept is. And my biggest desire for you today is just to listen and not let fear trump this conversation in your own life because I almost did. And what I’m sitting here realizing that I’ve created in the last five or six years and actually 10 when I started my weight loss journey 10 years ago, has created so much and has really affected so many other people. And most of all, it’s created a life for me that I never, never dreamt of until I stopped believing that it was too late.

So just take some time here, take a deep breath and listen in. I know this will serve you well today. Alright, so this belief around it’s never too late got my attention from a gift I’d received. So there was a box sitting on my desk and I really thought it was like, a save the date from a young girl who I have really enjoyed mentoring and am good friends with, had asked for my address and I know she’s getting married. And I thought it was a save the date, but it’s a box. Like, who sends save the dates in a box? I literally thought that she was turning into a bridezilla doing this over the top save the date.

My friends, she was asking me to be her bridesmaid. I literally started bawling, and I am now. Why did this rock me so? This young woman wanted to honor our friendship, my mentorship, what had happened between us during a real tough time in her life when she was a music student. And I just felt that honor, that thank you by being asked, and then realized there was something else going on that I’d just thought I was past the time in my life that I would be able to put a beautiful dress on and honor someone in their wedding.

I really had thought it was too late to be a bridesmaid. It’s not. So is there something in your life that you think is just not possible? That you believe is too late for? And it really is common as we get older, we hit some milestones. It might be a little innocent like, you know, I can’t wear that, I’m too old, I can’t wear a bikini, I can’t wear – like, I wear a lot of bohemian, really fun clothes that are so not Talbots, which was my core wardrobe for so long.

And you know, can it be as innocent as I can’t wear that, I’m too old, but you want to and you stop yourself? Can it be it’s too late to shift my career? You’re in your 30s and you’re building something really great but you’re afraid to make a shift and do something new. Or you want to be married and you’re not and you’re just thinking it’s too late. It’s such a lie. Or starting a new business as I did, is it too late for me to state a new business?

We’re in a really good economy, I would actually say that’s a real big lie right now. It’s a beautiful time to start a new business. Or leave your job. You know it’s causing you some harm but you just feel like it’s too late, you’ve paid your dues and you’re just going to live it out but you are tamping down something that is kind of burning in you that you’d like to do. Or leaving a relationship. You know, I’m not a relationship coach so I don’t have too many of these conversations with clients, but is it too late to leave a relationship that is really causing you harm?

Now, I’m always that coach like, do some thought work on your part in that, but you know, it’s never too late to have some shifts and changes around this. So what I’m going to share with you today is how to recognize if that is going on for you, and really what to do about that nagging goal or dream, or it can be something smaller. It doesn’t have to be as dramatic as the things I’ve shared. But is there something that you’re tamping down because you feel like it’s too late?

And then show you how these too late beliefs might be affecting your wellness, and in fact, it’s very funny. Many, many clients that work with me, there is that dream that starts coming up to the surface while we start working together because as I did, got rid of the distraction of losing weight and put that to a side, what happened? I realized I was dreaming about starting to be a coach. I didn’t know that I dreamed the business, but now I really did dream this business of what I’d like to do into place and now there’s nothing in my thinking that it feels like it’s too late around those issues.

But I had to honor the weight part first, which is interesting, but that’s not true of all of us, for sure. But it does affect our wellness when we are discouraged and living a disappointing life. Like, if we’re really feeling stuck. So I will cover that as well.

This type of believing, believing it’s too late doesn’t work because it makes us feel disappointed. Think about what’s coming up for you when you even think that right now. It’s too late. Just that sentence creates disappointment, let down, discouragement. It does not create a beautiful life. It’s hard to think of new ideas, we just stay where we are. It doesn’t create anything new.

And we stay – we play it safe. We basically start dying way before, ahead of time, right? If you are near retirement, it’s just too late to do something new, and you believe that really strongly and take action out of that, you basically are dying ahead of time. Let’s not do that, right?

And always remember, the reason that this is true is because our thoughts create a feeling state. So if you create discouragement, apathy, kind of that disappointment, it creates action or inaction and that’s what creates your results. So the brain loves to be right and it will prove to you that it’s too late. But it’s really only because you’re believing it’s too late and it’s creating discouragement, which creates no action, no inspired action, by the way, and then it creates the result. Yep, your brain’s right and it loves to be right. Yep, you’re right, it’s too late.

And so you’ll have to be onto yourself here to be able to change it. So I want to share with you what came up for me as I opened that bridesmaid gift of around what I believed about it’s too late. Alright, I want to share with you, I don’t have the opportunity to ask if it’s okay to share a story, so we’re going to just say that his name was John, and he worked at Gallup and came to Gallup when he, I believe, was in his 60s.

And I thought it was really weird. So you see how deep that belief was for me. And he really proved to many of us, he was doing the same job I was. I think I was a little offended that somebody that had a whole career was now doing this job of creating leads for a more senior consultant. And I think probably there was part of me that knew he could do something more than that, and he did.

He created this beautiful, beautiful second career at Gallup, and he is a man that I think many, many, many of us have just huge respect for, and he and his wife basically went back in, they lived in the same town that Gallup was in Lincoln, Nebraska, and they – she was one of the most star baby teachers and helped me to become a much better mom. Really helped me to calm down around taking care of my baby, and Frank began this beautiful, beautiful career of growing a division or two. I mean, he affected so much at Gallup.

And so do you see how I thought it was weird that he was that old? So watch this, if you’re a manager or a leader, you might be missing out on someone, and I hate our culture of like, people are nearing the age of 55 and being offered early retirement. It’s just crazy. You’re losing a lot of wisdom and you’re losing a lot of amazing growth that that person could have.

Okay, so another time that this came up for me was when I did my 25-year goal. I was working with Brooke, really on the very early end of becoming a coach, and she asked what is your five-year goal, your 10-year goal, and your 25-year goal? And I was like, oh my god, I will be 80, so I’m giving up. This was quite a few years ago but I was going to be 80. I’m like, what? Oh my god, I can’t do this new business, this is crazy. And I do know I shrunk back for a time and just, I gave myself space to kind of experience that fear and I knew I was going to coach school in a month and you know, obviously I did turn around those, those were beliefs I had to turn around or I would never have developed what I have in my business now where I serve a lot of people and you know, I’m doing a podcast, et cetera.

So thank god I did turn that around, but that came up for me when I was doing long-term goals. And this is really all about our own expectations of kind of like, what life should look like, but it really is about those sneaky subconscious beliefs that you need to bring to the air so that you can choose to either believe them going forward or turn them around.

And they are beliefs that have laid root in us, in our culture, so nothing’s gone wrong that we believe them. They’re just there. Our brain took them on either as a young person or the way our family thought about things, or as I watched cultural corporate life because I am in my 50s, like, we always thought about retirement as at a certain age. So I just bought into that thought and now with millennials growing and entrepreneur companies coming, like, watching Apple and watching Google and all the small companies in between, we really realize there’s something very different there that we can be doing.

But it started, again, when I was – without prior permission, by the way, those thoughts laid root. So if this is getting your attention, I want you to stop and evaluate what you’re believing about it being too late, about an age, about a particular goal. You know, it could be that you’re in your 30s and you shouldn’t change jobs right now. You know, et cetera. There are so many, many examples that this can bring up.

And so look at that for you. What are you finishing this sentence with? It’s too late to. In my world, the people I’m working with, they may thing it’s too late to lose weight because they’ve failed so many times, or it’s too late to find a life partner. It’s too late to shift jobs. It’s too late to go back to school. I watch this with 30-year olds, it’s like, oh, I have children now, it’s too late to go back to school.

But if that is your burning desire and a way that you’d like to shift, you know, really watch that thought creating discouragement and disappointment and making you feel tired before you even get started with something new. So if in general you are feeling discouragement, disappointment about your future, you’re probably believing this at some level.

So just answer the question and make a list. I want you to create an entire worksheet. This will be in the show notes. Answer, it’s too late, I’m too old to, write down everything. Like, it’s too late to go to the Caribbean and I don?t want to spend money on a vacation that way, it’s too frivolous, it’s too late to blank. Write everything down that comes up. Call your brain out on believing these things and create something new. It’s bringing those beliefs from subconscious to conscious so that you can decide what to believe going forward.

Okay, so now how do you believe something new? Notice that nagging dream and give it some air. You will need new beliefs to get moving, and it’s not as hard as I thought because I gave myself space when I was growing like this because I knew I loved school. And so going back to school, even though it was going to be weird to be in a classroom of 18-year olds, most of the people in my class were 18 when I went back to study anatomy and physiology.

And I knew that it was like, okay, I’m going to try this again. But I love school, so that helped me to open my brain to that, and I know that I thought no matter what the result is, I’m going to give this a try. And that’s a great way to get your brain believing something new. Give kind of some neutral space to believe, like, “I’m going to learn this, or I’m going to try this. I’m going to take these four steps and then I’ll see.”

And it moves us from being fearful that it’s triggering that old belief as well as learning creates like, how do I do this? It creates a lot of ideas. So be sure that you’re thinking a belief that creates a thought that feels yummy, that feels good and inspires you to action. And if you need some help with this, fill out those worksheets and then send me an email and then I’ll see where you’re getting stuck and give you some ideas of how to move forward.

So you always want to be creating a feeling state that creates action. So if you were wanting to shift careers, well, I’m just going to look at it, I’m just going to look at what’s out there, and you know, you will look into making a move, you will start that course, you will ignore the old belief. It’s kind of sitting there in your mind at the same time as believing something new as you try new things.

Honor your desire for growth no matter where it is. It will take you to that new place. You know, me going back to school was not the end result. I realized I did not want to go back to school. The investment financially and time wise wasn’t going to serve me in my retirement years. It would take me so long to start a nutrition practice. I knew that I wanted to be a coach, I wanted to learn how to coach and do that a higher percentage of time, not learn how to just do food.

But I honored going to that course brought me to that decision, and then I started looking for coach schools after that. So honor those first few steps. They may not be where you go end result, but along the way you will learn. So honor desire for growth, whether you’re 10, or 80, or somewhere in between. We are wired as human beings for growth, so honor it. That alone makes us feel alive, even if it’s a hobby. I’m not just talking to business owners. Do what you really want to do.

If you want to learn an instrument, if you want to learn a new craft, do it now. Honor that. And what are you going to commit to today? I want you to stop after this podcast and be honest with yourself. What is something new that you’re going to honor in your desire for growth?

If I can pull back the curtain a little bit, this belief that we’re too old plays a very big part in our wellness because if we belief them around things like how we eat, how we move, what our future would hold if we’re really believing that it’s too late to do something in particular, like shifting a habit around food, you’ll never get to your goals. And that is what I work with so often with clients that they believe it’s too late, like I just – I’ve overeaten my whole life, I’ll never be able to turn this around.

But they believe enough to hire me and that’s what’s beautiful. Believe enough to take a step and then watch what your brain’s doing with this and don’t honor the fear too much, honor your desire for growth.

What’s fascinating is then when I got rid of the buffering of overeating and started believing I could lose weight for good, it became crystal clear what I wanted to do next. In a step wise process, right? I was invited to become a Weight Watcher’s leader, especially because they offered it towards businesses, I had some classic Weight Watchers meetings and I loved those but I really loved going to big corporate businesses like Southern Company and CNN where I really realized that there was something bigger for me.

And so it was all a part of coming to this point today of honoring being brave enough to be a leader and then be brave enough to honor that I loved working with corporate people. But the first step was really honoring learning how to eat in a way that was going to honor my body long-term.

So it’s never too late to discover your inner athlete. I want to share a story real quick. My husband had not worked out one day. He had been a gymnast in high school and really loved it and was a work enthusiast and a very big career at Gallup, and as he transitioned from that and decided to be doing other things, he started working out, and it became the core focus of his life as he learned to work out. And he is – he works out at an athletic level.

And now learns how to work through injuries as I have, we’re the same age, and we have both discovered our inner athlete. I work out with 30-year olds and keep up with them. And because I’m now staying consistent and they take off for weeks and come back and are sucking air, and I’m sitting there with my two or three workouts a week and working at a really high level, and I love it. It’s a great place to be.

So it’s never too late to discover your inner athlete ever. And it’s going to look different for each one of us. It’s never too late to stop overeating now. Lean into all the tools I taught in April. Get on one of my webinars, get on my list and send me an email and I’ll send you a link to my latest webinar. It’s never too late. I was in my pre-menopause years when I learned to stop overeating. Everybody says, again, it’s a really wrong belief. When I turned 40, it became harder. No, your belief that it’s harder made it harder.

Our bodies have some shifts going on, but I, my friends, lost 35 pounds in the year that my body was going haywire marching towards menopause. It’s just an erroneous belief. Yes, there are some true biological things happening, but our brain is a much bigger part of this. It’s never too late to stop overeating now. It isn’t.

And it’s never too late to learn to cook if you need to because it can be so simple. We make it too hard. Like, I don’t want to cook, and we need to be eating fresh but we have these beliefs it’s too late, I’ve never learned how to cook and there are so many simple ways. Grill a meat, toss a salad, steam a vegetable. That’s my baseline eating.

So it’s never too late to learn how to operate around food by either preparing it more ahead of time on the weekends or it does not need to be perfect, but it’s never too late to eat lean and fresh. And in whatever way suits you with your fuel list. But if we believe it’s hard and if we believe it’s too late, we’ve done this so long and in another way, you will never do it because you’re discouraged. So really peel that way.

This it’s too late concept is really important in your wellness, and if you need more support, I’m going to offer a quick sheet here and lean into my April podcast. Start with the first one in April and go through each one of those in a likewise fashion and you will find out it is never too late to change and grow.

So I love what I’ve brought you today, it was a surprise podcast for me because of that surprise gift. And I am so touched that that happened for me, and I know it happened out of this new way of living that I’m doing. And I want to tell you that in the end, what really became so, so obvious and what has really happened for me is that I bucked these beliefs. It’s never too late to wear a bikini. It’s never too late to start a new business. It’s never too late to improve your relationships with your brother. It’s never too late to have a closer relationship with your mom. It’s never too late to work full time and have a business that you love, even though the rest of your peers are retiring. It’s never too late. That’s what I want to do and I have created that in my life.

Don’t ever let that sneaky belief be the way that you operate your life. It would be a tragedy. The people that I have affected by stepping into this life-giving way, of being onto what my brain believes and choosing to dream the dream and live the dream has created this beautiful coaching practice where I’ve affected the lives of so many, and others that are around me because I’ve improved my relationships, and just shown people in my life what’s possible, I know that it affects how my kids set goals because they’re watching their mom redo her whole life.

And there’s probably something – I know there’s something burning in you because you’re a human, and you’re on this podcast. This is really for people that really live life to the fullest, but you might have found yourself just stuck in a place that you’re discouraged, and I hope this helps you today to turn that around.

Thanks so much for listening. This was a really tender podcast for me to bring to you, and I’m so thankful for Caroline who surprise the hell out of me by asking me to become a bridesmaid and reminded me by how I looked at it that I created that. I created that fresh way of living that somebody in her 20s would think to invite me into her wedding party. It’s never too late, people. Ever, ever, ever.

And don’t let the people that are on the other side of that shift and change miss out on that new you. Don’t let you miss out on it and don’t miss how others are going to miss out on what you have burning in you to do next.

Thanks so much for listening, it really means so much to me, and know that I have resources for you in the show notes. I am available for a quick session. Even if you never ever intend on investing in coaching, these sessions are a gift, and I always have a few spots every week for them, and don’t be shy. Go on my website and connect with Diana is right there and you can either just send an email or get – it does give you access to my mini session calendar.

I would love to get to know you better, any of my listeners. If this rocked you today, I’d love to hear about it and be a part of helping you shift to a new belief. It can get tricky because it triggers a lot of fear, and I want to be there to support you in that process. It’s never too late, but it is time to stop this podcast and get ready to make the next one and to go see my son who is ready to go work out with me and get on with our eating our way through Dallas.

I’ll see you next week, thanks so much for listening.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Empowered Wellness for Leaders! If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, download our Free Video Series: Empowered Wellness Now. Visit?dianamurphycoaching.com?to sign up today!