Beyond the Achievement Trap: Finding Fulfillment in the Present Moment

Richard Zwicky: Hi everyone, it's Richard Zwicky with High on Healthy, the show where we know there's no one path to healthy, so we explore them all. And one question that came up recently and been mulling over and in some ways it'll become a little personal from the perspective of I fall into this trap and it's really what if the reason you're never satisfied isn't that you haven't achieved enough, but at that you've trained your brain to believe satisfaction is always somewhere in the future. And like I said, I'm guilty of this. I am satisfied and I'm happy and I'm pleased with what I have accomplished. But I have often have to force myself to appreciate what I have done. I finish something and immediately think okay what's next. I don't take the time to c I to celebrate it unless I force myself to. And recently I had another patent issue which is my 20th and I tried to celebrate it and I had a little bit of fun with friends but inside it was like hoham what's next and I published another book and my inside voice says okay next and it's not even like Ariana Grande thank you next. It's even less satisfying than that. But that's not uncommon, unfortunately. And we spend our lives chasing mplish the next version of ourselves. And you're not always the next relationship and not the next promotion. Sometimes we appreciate what we have and we embrace it. But when we don't have it, we chase it as opposed to wondering why. Sometimes it doesn't feel right when it arrives. And we have to take the time to mindfully appreciate that it is. And I'm going to take a little side note. I do re appreciate my relationships. That's the one area I don't have. I don't appreciate always my accomplishments, but everybody's different in that. We're not all going to fit in one box. And so joining me today we have Helen Zupanek and Beth Valdez who are both licensed professional counselors and co-authors of the book Sticky Note Mantras: The Art and Science of Choosing Your Thoughts.

Beth Valdez: Thanks madness.

Richard Zwicky: Welcome aboard the show, Helen and Beth. So you published the book and

Helene Zupanc: Thanks for having us.

Richard Zwicky: Obviously you've been looking at this question for quite a while and decide to collaborate on it. Why are so many accomplished people remarkably bad at enjoying the life they've worked so hard to create?

Helene Zupanc: That's a great question which I was just talking with a client before about this very thing. Most of my clients are very high achieving perfectionist little OCD tendencies. And that's kind of what it's learning that your brain is a prediction and problem solving machine rather than fulfillment machine. It's always going to looking and saying, What can I do next? And we really have to learn to do what you said and just notice and in spite of feeling maybe anxious or you need to get everything done feeling like that's just part of life, the feelings and thoughts will change. So that's one part of it, I think.

Beth Valdez: I mean the nervous system gets involved. It's predictive as well. What could possibly go wrong next? What's happening next? So we kind of get in this predictive pattern and it kind of right generalizes. So now we start kind of forgetting to appreciate and be present in the moment and kind of fall in line with that predictive. My nervous system and my brain is telling me I need to look what's next instead of right we have to work harder to say hold on let's focus in the now and the present and celebrate these small wins. I think it takes more effort. It's automatic to go to worry about the future and kind of what's next but I think it takes a little bit more mindfulness and a little bit more purposefulness to stay present in that moment. We're all working on that.

Richard Zwicky: I think it's a common part of the human condition but then when the way you just described it allegorically makes me think of attachment styles and how people who have,

Beth Valdez: What?

Richard Zwicky: Whether it's, any of the avoidant styles, it's always what's going to happen next, what's going to pull the rug out from under me.

Helene Zupanc: I know it's similar to my conversations with I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Richard Zwicky: This right?

Helene Zupanc: Someone was just telling me I feel even though she's very high performing, she always feels anxious. And has trouble relaxing and we're kind of working on in acceptance and commitment therapy they talk about how really thinking of your values and what matters to you instead of maybe that sort of fleeting pleasure, validations, status, all of that is it's achievement. It can give you that but it a s sense of accomplishment but it can't necessarily answer that what matters to me question. Really kind of learning your inner compass of your values and saying yeah even if I feel like something else is coming up it's important to me to take time to celebrate my wins or

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Helene Zupanc: Whatever it is doing things in spite of having that feeling

Beth Valdez: And we're wired for survival, So it's always like what can we do in emotional and physical safety they're the same to our survival system. And so we're constantly what's going to keep us safe and

Richard Zwicky: We do have to work hard at it. Sorry.

Beth Valdez: Throw in some dysfunctional attachment, some avoidant disorganized, right? It complicates it even it makes it even harder. So just even if I don't know anybody who's absent of trauma through their life but if you were to be absent of trauma. The way we're wired, our system would still kind of be looking for those things because it's really just all about what keeps you alive. And again, that physical pain, the survival system doesn't differentiate. So, it's just with the human condition. We have to work harder to be grounded in the present moment versus, okay, let's look to the future or let's worry about the past that might affect my future, All those things. Yeah. We have to work hard at it. Dang it.

Richard Zwicky: Go ahead, Helen. I thought you going to say

Helene Zupanc: No. I definitely think it's a skill though, just like anything else, and you kind of create a new neural pathway, and when you start doing it long enough, it kind of becomes a little bit more of your autopilot. But right now we just really have to point it out. Just 80 to 90 I think 80% of our thoughts are negative just naturally and 90% are repeated that from the days before really we're just creatures of habit. So really saying that's my brain's job and it can do that. I love one of the mantras Beth made up. Your thoughts and feelings can ride in the car but they can't touch the steering wheel. So there you're still driving towards your values and what's important to you and you're always going to have another thought or feeling crashing over you. And a lot of people feel like once I get all this done my brain's going to say okay and it's not going to do that. It's just going to move the bar. It's going to keep moving it because that's what it's meant to do. So we have a lot of strategies that we talk about. And they all kind of comprise psychological flexibility. And one of them is being present, one of them is acceptance, one of them they're all kind of like that acceptance part is actually really big for a lot of people. Learning that I can have this thought and I can have this feeling and I don't need to kind of run away with it. And I can still do what I want even though it's there. So that's kind of a big part of our work I think, is that accepting and being willing to be uncomfortable. Because we want to go away from that so much that, we kind of shoot us ourselves in the foot. So, we want to learn that, running away from these things makes them stronger.

Richard Zwicky: You touched on a point which is moving the goalposts of and I be happy? When will something produce happiness? When will I be satisfied? When will this feel right? H how do you help people recognize they're doing that and force themselves to do otherwise? Because it also ties back to that inner voice which often is, shaped by for people who have had trauma, it's shaped by all the negativity you heard from others who were framing who you were. And you have to unlearn that. And high performers often deal with that,

Helene Zupanc: We both Yeah. And we both do EMDR or believers in trauma work and kind of figuring out that story that you've been telling yourself and realize that all your thoughts are really stories. Some of them are true, most of them are not, but learning to reshape those stories and kind of update your thoughts and belief and get to that core. Yeah, I'm kind of doing these things so I feel enough. And then thinking about, what does it mean to feel enough? And those kind of questions

Beth Valdez: We talk a lot about balance too In the hideonic treadmill, you're going to habituate, you're going to want something, you're going to get it, and then you habituate, and then you want more. And so, with a little bit of psycho education, also recognizing again that more doesn't mean better. Yes, there's a reward system that makes you want to keep pursuing that. And a lot of people get stuck on if I don't have that, then How do I achieve things if I don't continue to want to pursue? And I think it's finding that nice balance. And it's individualized. There's not a one-sizefits-all. It's finding what works for you, but keeping in mind, right, that's not everything. That it's just a part of it. And that we will habituate to it. So, what else can we infuse in this?

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Beth Valdez: We do want to still achieve and accomplish, but we also want to be able to appreciate the moment and celebrate our little wins. So, it's finding that nice balance and that's trial and error and purposefulness and mindfulness and all the things because, right, we always want to do too much or we just want to assume our brain knows what it's doing. I got to trust my gut instinct. And Helina and I are both like, " no, our brain lies to us all the time." No, no, no, no, no. You don't always have to listen to that. Those are past experiences. That's your nervous system worrying. Question those thoughts. You don't have to roll with them.

Helene Zupanc: And I like you. I'm sorry.

Richard Zwicky: Go ahead and I'll circle back on this.

Helene Zupanc: I was just going to say I like what you said kind of bringing in internal family systems where we have different parts of ourselves and just kind of teaching people that there's no bad parts. They're all trying to protect you, but we just need to tell them that they don't have to work so hard and they don't have to carry it all themselves. That there's other parts of that self-compassionate part. We need to learn to get those at the table of all the parts of yourselves. I like to picture it in my brain with all these different parts at a big conference table. But in the middle is yourself, that calm, courageous, compassionate, centered person. And sometimes we need to learn to look to that and just realize and say, "Yeah, part of me really feels like if I don't do this, I'm not going to be enough." And another part of me feels like, okay, you're human and that's okay. So it's sort of having conversations and finding out what those parts really need.

Richard Zwicky: And that builds on Beth's response but it ties back to perhaps I want to rephrase it slightly differently is there a psychological difference between wanting something because it reflects our values and wanting it because we've been conditioned to believe it's what we're supposed to want. And how do we learn to differentiate

Helene Zupanc: That's a good one.

Beth Valdez: Tricky the slippery slope. Yes, it is hard. I think It's so powerful. We are brought up in a certain way. We've got social constraints and social, norms and what expected and it gets confusing, but it's remembering to check in and find that authentic voice and define what is important to me like she mentioned, what do I value what is important to me in my circle and building from there. But it gets tricky and it gets confusing and this is where self-compassion comes in because we're going to confuse them sometimes, but we treat it as, everything that we do when we misstep is just a lesson. It's not a loss. And we learn from We build from there. And so, yeah, it can be very tricky. Nice.

Helene Zupanc: One of my favorite mantras Beth has a great mantra for that, a fail forward or I never lo Nelson Mandela. I never lose, I win or learn, but really learning I think too that our psychological needs are like autonomy, competence, relatedness, connectedness and sometimes we kind of go away from those things and trying to achieve remembering that these are the basic things that we need is connected with having agency being able to do things feeling like we're part of something. And that kind of speaks to the attachment needs, too. That everyone's kind of looking for emotional connection and being safe and kind of realizing that's more powerful than anything you could ever try to achieve.

Richard Zwicky: It is and emotional safety is one of the most elusive things for people in general and so many don't have it or don't know how to recognize when it's available to them. That's a hard part. And that of course goes back to I think the whole attachment issue. People don't recognize it's available because they've never had it.

Helene Zupanc: I don't think so.

Richard Zwicky: So they've never learned to accept it. And the same is true of achievement from which right? And so, can a person be happy and still feel their life lacks meaning?

Beth Valdez: Whoa, I did that. My, that's an interesting question. Are we meaning driven? Is that this is a really I think we I mean

Richard Zwicky: Meaning, purpose, meaning Yep.

Beth Valdez: If you add Victor Frankle who survivor of concentration camp man search for meaning he says that is our man's is purpose we need to have a purpose otherwise we found or we're unhappy and so I think there is part of meaning and meaning can be very different for everyone so I don't know that you can be happy if you don't know what your meaning or purpose is Helen, hop in. I'm stuck on this one.

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Richard Zwicky: I mean, I know you can be incredibly unhappy but still have a life of meaning because you're doing and impacting others. Yeah.

Helene Zupanc: And that's the thing that even like acceptance and commitment therapy says it's not about living a comfortable life always, but a meaningful life. That you can kind of people that say, "I don't feel motivated or I feel anxious. It must be wrong." I think they're identifying so much with their feelings as being wrong instead of letting them make the decisions and then it kind of says, " I have the wrong life." And it kind of goes and it's like, " we need to kind of go back to the beginning." And you don't always have to feel it to value it. I parenting doesn't always feel meaningful, Sometimes it's a long-term goal that feels meaningful.

Richard Zwicky: It's okay.

Helene Zupanc: Exercise doesn't always feel meaningful. Marriage But it's kind of looking saying that you didn't fail.

Beth Valdez: All the things.

Richard Zwicky: I failed at that one.

Beth Valdez: It's a tricky one. It's a tricky one.

Helene Zupanc: You just had a Yeah.

Richard Zwicky: I learned from it.

Beth Valdez: And I think things get confused with our negative core beliefs,

Helene Zupanc: I think sometimes meaning isn't always a feeling. It means you're willing to show up for things.

Beth Valdez: I'm not achieving enough. I'm too much. All those things is like the lens in which all that is perceived and the way we perceive we interact with the world. And so it can make the meaning part really tricky because it confuses the meaning. We're striving for the wrong meaning. I'm trying to be good enough. You were always good enough, but that negative core belief you had about yourself is driving that meaning. But there's not fulfillment in that. And I think that's where people who I'm successful. I have everything. Why am I so unhappy? What are your core beliefs?

Helene Zupanc: And I mean we're not trying to replace every negative thought with a positive thought. It's more like changing your relationship with your thoughts. Recognizing that story. That I'm not good enough story again. Okay, I get that a lot. And knowing that as a pattern and we can I think Vtor Frankle says between stimulus and response there's a space and that's what we're looking for that it's going to happen. I think Buddhist says if you have a body pain if you have a body and a mind pain is inevitable right but suffering is optional. How much we pay attention to that and how much we say that's a thought and I'm going to go this way instead if that makes sense. Right.

Richard Zwicky: And it does make sense. So when you are dealing with clients, patients, achievement is often used by people to regulate their anxiety to prove to themselves they're worthy to prove any number of things and then they don't appreciate it when it happens is a whole other part of it. Which sometimes it go and it goes back to that whole thing about the goalpost moving, the milestones moving because it just created the need for another one. But the reality is the individual has to be able to sit back and appreciate what they've done so far, not just where this milestone is. How do you help people disassociate themselves from requiring achievements or those milestones to recognize where they are and not to use them as a means to regulate anxiety because then you get driven towards perfectionism. You get driven towards waiting for the right moment. The right thing, growing yourself thinking that eventually be ready, but that isn't how life works. But how do you help people see that? Yeah.

Beth Valdez: It's a tough cell sometimes isn't it? Who am I if I'm not achieving things? It can be really hard, but it was never the thing. Just like you mentioned, I achieved this, but I'm not Wait a minute. We expect if I just reach this milestone, I'm enough. I'll be happy. And then you reach it and wait a minute, I'm not happy. Nothing's changed here. Because that's not what was ever wrong. That is not the core issue here. But we confuse it. We assume that in our mind we come up with that. It's a belief we've learned along the way. And it probably felt good at some point and it probably did help at some point along your path. It helped. So it gets reinforced. But it isn't the way we know this. I think most of us can say higher reasoning on a cognitive log logical level. We know money doesn't buy happiness or success doesn't buy happiness. But in the mix of things, it gets very confusing and it's hard for people to differentiate. So we have to kind of walk it back and define core values and talk a lot about what do you want to create? I love the three cup question that we use where we say you tell me what you were like when you were little. Who are you now? And who do you want to be?

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Beth Valdez: And how do we get there and what is the path right and not what do you want to achieve but who do you want to be in 10 years and I think that can help people define the difference between achievement and the person that they want to grow into because we're always growing and learning that's the hope right if we're stuck and stagnant that's not helpful we want to continue to evolve and grow and so what is the direction and the path that we want to go it can be a hard cell though a lot hear me a lot of people who are very successful feel like Without that, I don't think I would continue to achieve or be successful or I got to yell at myself. I got to beat myself up in order to get here or I need to put in those long hours and sacrifice all this. And the getting them to realize that they're safe and that is not what defines them. It is absolutely a process. Look at it from a lot of different angles.

Helene Zupanc: I was just looking for a quote in our book, but I can't find it right now. But from the one where I can't remember who says it, but he says that there was always something else. Once I had kids, once I got the house, then my life would start this and this and this and then at the end he says I realized that those obstacles were my life and that's how it goes that it's happening right now. And that part of the whole umbrella of acceptance and commitment therapy is being present is that one of their psychological flexibility skills which leads to being more present and less stuck in the past or fused with thoughts. So a lot of people just have to work on that and do a body scan and see where you're at or breathing or anything to help the bottoms up approaches where you go from your body first is really helpful. And try to basically ground yourself and see that there's not a fire which most of your thoughts are those false alarms.

Richard Zwicky: They are right. They're us primal systems, our primal brains keeping us in alert for the next ambush, right? Yeah.

Helene Zupanc: Not physically. I mean, emotionally is the same. If you think speaking in front of other people is very stressful. Your heart rate's going to go up and all that stuff "What if I don't close this deal?" and then I have a lot of people that get imposttor syndrome and they're like, do I even belong at this table? Should I even be here?" I'm like, "You're so good at what you do." And you just kind of go along and you think that anyone can do it. And it's very interesting that actually giving themselves "Yeah, I am good at this." Yes.

Richard Zwicky: That's sometimes a very hard thing to admit for a lot of people Because your inner voice tells you otherwise because it points out all the things you don't know rather than appreciating what you do.

Helene Zupanc: And just like the gratitude and that's why that's so important because we will always look for what's wrong and you just have to point it out to yourself and that's why gratitude journals and things like that are so big because you just have to intentionally put your mind to it.

Richard Zwicky: You do. And you talk about that it's choosing your thoughts, but how much agency do we really have over our thoughts?

Helene Zupanc: So we don't have thoughts and feelings we really don't have control over but we can say that thought can be there and we don't have to be in the obey mode they call that an act the obey mode or the struggle mode we struggle against that one of my favorite OCD quotes is an OCD thought is a thought you're not willing to have and that's what it is you have it and usually their ego go donic. They're against your values. So, it's something really scary. And just because you had the thought doesn't actually mean anything. And that's where it trips a lot of people up. It doesn't really say anything about you. That's called their self as context that you can have a thought and these thoughts are in there. Everybody has weird thoughts, but some people they get kind of fused and run away with it.

Beth Valdez: I think where it comes in where you do have control is do I want to engage in this story with this thought? That's where you can pivot and this thought is unhelpful. I'm going to let you go this way. I'm going to choose healthier thoughts. And tons of research is on if we purposefully, focus our thoughts this way, we're going to create more of that mindset. We're going to start leaning more that way. But what we focus on, we find. So, if we're complaining and we're negative, we are going to find that. But if we start kind of being purposeful and practicing gratitude and self-compassion, we're going to build those neural pathways and that is what we're going to find. So, for us, using mantras is what we use to cue our brain to say, hey, this is our intention. This is where we want to go.

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Beth Valdez: Remember that. And so we just kind of, with songs and quotes and things that resonated with us, those were our cues to remind us hey, I don't have to stay stuck or I have this other option. I can redirect now and this is my cue. And man, it's been a lifesaver for me because when you're not at your best, you can build up all these great strategies, but your old patterns are going to resurface. And the cues can come in so handy because they're something that we have some muscle memory with and it can remind me yeah, hey, I'm going in old patterns. That's not what I want to do anymore. Let's pivot this way. Berry.

Richard Zwicky: And learning to ignore those thoughts those patterns is tough because they don't die off. They're always there. They may it's matter of learning. Ignore that. How long does it take people?

Helene Zupanc: Take a habit. It usually takes about I mean, if you do it every day, it starts getting better within two months and then, you build on that. But to make a habit, I think it's 60 days, but it's really hard because we can't do it all the time. It's not like, okay, I'm going to work out every day but at least if you're thinking about it every day, you can work out the mind a little bit, it's not quite as cut and dry.

Beth Valdez: It's like building a muscle When you work out, you build up that muscle. You stop working out, that muscle atrophies real quick. I think it's no different with our mindset. We have a negative bias. We're wired to go this way. When things go sideways and we're not at our best, that resurfaces. But when we remind ourselves hey, we're going to keep building these patterns, build this muscle stronger, that investment is worthwhile because it keeps our mind in good shape. This is what this is the area. This is the way I want to go. Yeah, we can't stop them. They're going to happen, those automatic negative thoughts. But do we engage in them? Do we Do we recognize them? I always tell my clients, awareness is where all the magic can happen, right? Because once we're aware,

Richard Zwicky: All right.

Beth Valdez: Now we can choose.

Helene Zupanc: You have a choice. Yeah. How much you want to pay attention to it. And it is technically we do have a choice on how much stuff we pay attention to even though it seems like we don't at the time

Richard Zwicky: We do have an incredible power to do so.

Helene Zupanc: But we can choose Right.

Richard Zwicky: And it's within each of us, Anybody who's gone through it and had to overcome it or deal with it and has done so recognizes, yeah, it's possible.

Helene Zupanc: And I think how we do it depends on the person. And some people really relate with, these different parts of myself that this is okay and I'm going to strengthen this wise counselor is going to come out. And then some people really like the okay, I'm going to act on my values and I don't have to worry about these feelings and thoughts. I just have to keep going. And there's so many different things that you can do to kind of integrate it into your life. Mantras, of course, are our favorite, but

Beth Valdez: And trauma really complicates this, right? Because your nervous alarm system just is loud and

Richard Zwicky: And doing so requires us to be somewhat vulnerable.

Beth Valdez: Strong and it feels trying to distinguish. That's what I'm always like, reprocess your trauma, I know it seems but it rewires those faulty networks to give you that room and space to challenge those thoughts to diminish they're less and less you have less of visceral reaction and It gives you that space to not just react and have that nervous system response but to provide space to start choosing and being more intentional with where you want your mindset.

Richard Zwicky: Why is that so frightening to so many people?

Helene Zupanc: Good question. I think all this work is hard to kind of identify maybe where core fears came from and you're kind of going back into your past and that's not comfortable. And trying to figure out where you want to go now and some of the things having that understanding can help you kind of reprocess it and let it go and say, "Yeah, that was then and I'm" because your body really obviously keeps the score as they say. So that's another part working somatically that even though you know that you're doing better and you're allowed to be at the table, you still have a panic attack when you go in and say, " my gosh, what if someone thinks this or that?" so getting that panic response is also something we have to work with both. Yeah.

Beth Valdez: And it's in the word vulnerable, right? We're opening oursel to risk. And some people who have had, just,

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Beth Valdez: Too many bad experience, that risk feels too big. I don't know if I can handle that we have to convince oursel that we're resilient enough to do that. But it's building the competence and confidence that we can do this. I can do this and start believing and having self-compassion with ourselves even when I wasn't vulnerable, I wasn't able to go there. Let's regroup. Let's learn. Let's try to figure out how we do this different next time. But it takes intention and slowing the processes down, having time to reflect and do the work. It's definitely not automatic. We have to work at it and that could be hard. We're a busy world. I think all of us have a 100 tabs open. We're running, many miles a minute. We have a lot of obligations. It's definitely a do more culture. So asking people to slow down and do all these things, it can seem daunting. It can seem overwhelming.

Helene Zupanc: But I like what you said about even though why the body keeps the score it also has healing. It has the ability to heal itself. It knows what to do and we just have to kind of give it a little guidance.

Richard Zwicky: We do have to give it guidance but one of the challenges I also look at like I've somebody I know who really great person but they haven't reconciled some things that happened in their past and

Helene Zupanc: That's such a good point.

Richard Zwicky: They're looking for personal growth so they can become who they should be. And I look at the way this person is going about it, their chase for a personal growth really is avoidance. They're trying to fix themselves so they don't to accept themselves. Now, if somebody listening or realizes, they're in that position or they've spent years pursuing a life that looks successful doesn't actually feel like their life they're not really accepting themselves and they're not able to fix themselves. How do you help somebody recognize they're not chasing the right thing, they're running away from the wrong thing?

Helene Zupanc: That's a really good one. I do have a lot of people that are just neverending self-help books and a projects and now they're going to do and it definitely is an issue as far as we want to always be lifelong learners and growing in everything but not on this achievement or it almost becomes an achievement thing too I'm going to get good at this and that and the acceptance part is really a big part of acceptance and commitment therapy, too, that a lot of people don't accept where they're at or how they're feeling how they felt in the past. And kind of opening that up is definitely part of I think every person we talk to, we talk about their traumas. It's always there.

Beth Valdez: And also s, We let's start looking at a What patterns are you repeating? Right? So if I'm chasing the same thing and I'm repeating the same pattern just in different iterations and achieving the same result, let's look at this and see what needs to change in this pattern for me to get a different result. And people resonate with that. I think people can kind of wrap their brain around I understand what a pattern is. I can see my choices and patterns. Sometimes they have a hard time connecting the dots like this pattern and this pattern are similar. Even this is about relationships but this is about work but it's the same pattern and so having them through Yep and

Helene Zupanc: Still that I'm not good enough pattern or whatever. I am

Beth Valdez: Through awareness right that's where magic happens start being aware of these patterns okay now that I'm aware of these patterns what can we do together what work do we need to do to change these patterns for you what needs and so avoidance is a pattern right I have this pattern of avoidance that feels uncomfortable that feels unsafe I'm going to have a drink I'm going to go for a run I'm going to go have a snack right that is a way of avoiding something.

Richard Zwicky: It is an investment.

Beth Valdez: So, we kind of look at that pattern and see how do we change that pattern to be more functional for you. And It is not easy work. It's not like, I'm going to change My patterns change. Nope. It's these little incremental changes that add up over time that create those new patterns. So, it's an investment for sure.

Richard Zwicky: So, we are running out of time, but people who want to learn more about

Helene Zupanc: I think we go It is. Yeah.

Richard Zwicky: What you're doing, who they can turn to sticky note mantras. Where do they find it? But also, at what point does it best serve somebody to read it?

Beth Valdez: It's an easy read. I think anyone could read like you there's different parts that resonate with different parts of your life that if you're going through a rainy day or if you're trying to practice self-care or wellness and So I think the book can be helpful. Going back we started off with a very stodgy academic very typical psychological at some point.

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Richard Zwicky: So that was the science part of the title.

Beth Valdez: It was very much a very kind of textbooky type and at some point Helen's like we got to make this fun and accessible for everybody and so there are curse words in there. We tend to have a little bit of authentic voice and that has some swear words in it. So I think people can resonate on different levels in different times of the book. Not everything in there is going to resonate with everybody, but I think there is kind of something in there for everyone. Does that make sense?

Helene Zupanc: Any time of your life.

Richard Zwicky: And where can people find it?

Helene Zupanc: Barnes & Noble, Amazon. Our website.

Beth Valdez: Sticky note mantra is our website.

Helene Zupanc: Thanks for having us. Thank

Richard Zwicky: Wonderful. Helen Beth, thanks so much for joining us today on High on Healthy. It's been a great conversation and thanks to everybody for listening.

Beth Valdez: Thanks, Richard.

Richard Zwicky: I'm Richard Zwicky with High on Healthy and we'll be back again with you soon. Helen Zupant.