Tiny Leaps, Big Changes

Latest Episodes:

861 - How to Take Control of Your Life Jan 09, 2023

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Instagram: https://instagram.com/tinyleaps

With the start of a new year, many of us set big goals and try to focus on specific things in an effort to feel in control of our lives. While habits, routines, and life hacks can be helpful in achieving these goals, they are not enough to truly create lasting change. In this episode, we will explore the concept of the Fresh Start Effect and the importance of identifying an outcome and working towards it with direction in order to gain a sense of control in our lives. We will also discuss the challenges of maintaining motivation and offer strategies for making lasting change.

In this episode:

The Fresh Start Effect - a phenomenon where people are more likely to try to create change in their lives around predetermined moments
Why habits, routines, and life hacks are not enough to create lasting change and a sense of control in one's life
The key to creating a sense of control is to identify an outcome and work towards it with direction
How motivation, often felt at the beginning of a new year, can fade over time
Strategies for maintaining motivation and making lasting change

860 - "I don't have the time..." Dec 28, 2022

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In this episode we get real about the question of having enough time...

Instagram: https://instagram.com/tinyleaps

859 - Self-Care 101: A Beginner's Guide Dec 14, 2022

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Around this time of year, when we’re all caught up with the mad rush of gift giving, holiday attending, and sitting in traffic, it becomes extremely easy to lose track of our own self care. This can lead to major issues such as a weakened immune system, increased anxiety, and decreased performance at work or school.
That’s why it’s more important than ever to develop strong self-care habits and maintain them during the holidays. Especially if you intend to start the next year strong. So in this episode, we’ll do a beginners guide on self-care…what it is, why it matters, and how to build it into your life.

What is self care?

Self-care is the practice of taking care of one's own physical, mental, and emotional well-being. This can include activities such as exercising, eating well, getting enough sleep, practicing mindfulness, and engaging in leisure activities. The concept of self-care has been around for centuries, but it has gained popularity in recent years as more people have become aware of the importance of taking care of themselves.

First coined by psychotherapist Thomas Adam in the early 19th century
Dates back to ancient Greek and Roman times…the concept of hygeia was the practice of taking care of one's own health.

Today, self-care is largely viewed as an essential, but secondary practice across genders and cultures.

But it really should become a primary practice…

The benefits of incorporating self-care into your daily routine

Self-care can provide numerous benefits from a productivity and self-actualization perspective. Such as

Improved physical and mental health
Increased motivation and productivity
Enhanced creativity and problem-solving abilities
Better relationships and connections with others

Overall, self-care is essential for achieving productivity and self-actualization. By taking care of yourself, you can improve your physical and mental health, increase your motivation and productivity, enhance your creativity and problem-solving abilities, and improve your relationships and connections with others.

Incorporating Self-Care into Your Daily Routine

To ensure that self-care is a regular part of your daily routine, you can follow some simple steps:

Create a plan - this is critical so that you know how you’ll practice
Set aside dedicated time - this ensures you know when you’ll practice
Change your environment to support it - this ensures that the space you are in pushes you towards practice

858 - How do we end racism? Dec 05, 2022

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Stats about racism

In the U.S., as of 2019, 65% of those surveyed in a Pew Research study believe it's more acceptable to express racist or racially insensitive views
59% of white republicans and republican leaning people believe that slavery has had not much or no effect on black people in society today
And 77% of white republican and republican leaning people believe the biggest problem with racism is seeing racism where it does not exist

The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee

In The Sum of Us, Heather McGhee explores the history of racism in America and offers solutions for building an inclusive society. McGhee begins by recounting how America was founded on principles of racial inequality, which have been perpetuated through policies and cultural norms. She argues that racism has always been used to divide and conquer the American people, and that it benefits no one in the long run.

Resources:

857 - Unbreaking Culture Nov 17, 2022

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Idea: In order to shift a collective culture that reinforces unconscious bias across the board, we surprisingly may need to place a larger spotlight on our individual differences within communities.

The End of Bias: A Beginning (Jessica Nordell)

These passages are from Chapter 10: Unbreaking Culture

Passages:

Transforming the minds, hearts, and habits of individuals i one way to change bias. Another, as we’ve seen, is to change processes, structures, and the culture of organizations. The two, of course, are intertwined: individuals create the processes, structures, and organizational culture, and these in turn shape individuals’ thoughts and actions. But we are also the product of our larger culture – the broader environment in which we live. Change can additionally begin from this third starting point.

In a set of experiments by Abdelatif Er-Rafiy and Markus Brauer, researchers created large posters with photographs of people of Arab origin. The posters had the person’s name, age, and a distinct personality trait such as “Optimistic” or “Stingy”. Finally, each poster had the words “What makes us the same is that we are all different” as part of the campaign.

Researcher’s then measured an individual’s unconscious bias towards people of Arab origin after seeing the posters and found that they acted in a less biased way. Jessica goes on the highlight that the findings suggest that unconscious bias towards racial, cultural, or ethnic groups require one to view those groups as one body over which one can apply their beliefs or view. The idea of “all black people are…” or “every Muslim is…”. But when the idea of individuals within these groups are highlighted, it becomes more difficult to make sweeping assumptions about the whole group.

This is Interesting Because:

One would assume that the key to shifting cultural bias would be to help people recognize their connection to a larger collective. The idea being that if we can each understand that our actions and thoughts and feelings play a real role in the larger society we live in and can affect things in major ways, that we’d find it easier to act with others in mind.
This study actually shows the opposite, that by showing people that this group and that group are made up for individuals each with unique characteristics, it makes it harder to cast assumptions in the first place.
It also means that, while I still believe that capitalism as a system is one that places far too much weight on the idea of you as an individual, so much so that it disconnects you and your role from the society you live in, the idea of individualism as a whole is incredibly valuable and has it’s role to play.

856 - How to Fix Productivity Nov 03, 2022

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How productive were you today? Do you know? Did you track it? What method did you use? A to-do list? A pomodoro timer? I’d bet you were really really productive. I bet you got a lot of things done and checked off all those little boxes right? So here’s a different question…did any of it matter? Sure, you were productive…but for what purpose? To what end?

I think many of us forget to ask that last question in our day to day lives and work. As a society, we’ve been so focused on how to be productive that we’ve developed an endless stream of strategies and tools to make it easier. This exploded further in 2020 and the following years as the pandemic created a national and global shift towards fully remote or hybrid work. A shift that, I hate to break it to you, isn’t going to go away.

Resources

https://www.etymonline.com/word/productivity

https://www.zarvana.com/new-productivity-definition-that-wont-burn-you-out/

https://www.oecd.org/sdd/productivity-stats/40526851.pdf

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/a-brief-history-of-productivity

https://prezi.com/d7swdmdturqy/us-economy-in-1600s/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z49g-A2AQI

855 - The Cult of Entrepreneurship Oct 20, 2022

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When you think of a cult, you might conjure some very specific imagery. Groups of people dressed in white, huddled around a charismatic, long-haired leader. Glasses of red fruit punch, mixed with other things, in the background. And a general sense of impending doom as the leader shares their celestial or holy visions with the crowd.

This idea of a cult may have been popular in the 70s and 80s but the modern cult is more sophisticated, often choosing to weave cult-like practices into more acceptable industries such as self-help or entrepreneurship. In fact, you may be being influenced by cult indoctrination techniques right now, without even knowing it…but in order to talk about that, we first need to look at cults more generally and the practices that cause their followers to behave the way they do.

From Jonestown to NXIVM, cults have caused massive damage to their victims and destroyed the lives of everyone they’ve come into contact with. So much so that, through various podcasts, documentaries, and exposes, they have become a pop culture phenomenon. A kind of lens for us to view the world from a slightly darker perspective. Inevitably, once the interest in cults hit, each of us asks the same questions…how did this happen?

Why do these people fall for such obvious lies? Why do they follow someone who is often cruel to them? And why do they become cruel themselves? The answers to these questions can be found in the psychology of indoctrination. Indoctrination is defined as “the process of teaching a person or group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically.”

YouTube: https://youtu.be/sIvnrvpwyuE

Resources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_Reform_and_the_Psychology_of_Totalism

https://www.verywellmind.com/understanding-and-using-the-law-of-attraction-3144808

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKqQ1CyneWw&ab_channel=FactFile

What do you take for granted? | a TLBC virtual event Oct 12, 2022

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Download the app: https://connectwithspark.com/tlbc

854 - Your idea of success is wrong Oct 06, 2022

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Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and billionaires like them are treated in society as geniuses deserving of their massive wealth. After all, they created it by their own ability to identify an opportunity, gather resources, and bend reality itself through sheer willpower and an unwillingness to give up. Their hard work earned them that fortune, and they use it to better society by creating new jobs, solving big problems, and giving back through philanthropy. To deprive those who are successful of their hard earned wealth through taxation would dis-incentivize them, and society at large, from bringing their genius to the world. This is a commonly held belief in the United States but…what if it isn’t true?

YouTube: https://youtu.be/xdJuGox034E

Resources:

https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/personal-finance/your-odds-of-becoming-a-millionaire/

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Personal_responsibility

https://www.gotquestions.org/personal-responsibility.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internalized_oppression

853 - How to Get a Better Job Sep 28, 2022

Show notes

This episode is about how to get a better job by beating your limiting beliefs.

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take. You've probably heard this quote before. It's supposedly from Wayne Gretzky, the Hall of Fame hockey player who scored 2,857 points in his career and it spread like wildfire in recent years. It's easy to see why this quote speaks to something that we all experience and struggle. Especially in our job search.

Have you ever looked at a job listing or a potential promotion and thought to yourself, I can't do that. Maybe you've gone as far as to not apply to a particular position because you didn't think you had the requirements or maybe right when things were working out for you, you stepped on the brakes and slowed down because you were too scared of what would happen if you kept going.

This is something we all do in some form or another, and I call it self elimination. Self elimination is the process of removing yourself from consideration based on your own insecurities and it's often tough to navigate because how do you know if you're self eliminating or if you just really aren't qualified for the job? But unfortunately, the effects of getting it wrong can be massive. Self elimination leads to stagnation.

It causes us to only reach for and accept positions that we know will be comfortable in. By definition, this keeps us locked in a cyclical pattern, limiting our earning potential, limiting our ability to serve our family and our larger community, and even in some cases affecting our overall happiness.

So it's a real problem. Let's talk about it.

YouTube: https://youtu.be/YXSKOuhn3Ag

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