Living Life on Purpose with Laura Noel

george grombacher 0:01
Well, hello, this is George G. And the time is right. welcome today’s guest starring a powerful Lorna. Well, Laura, are you ready to do this?

Laura Noel 0:08
Yes, I am. Let’s do it.

george grombacher 0:10
All right, let’s go. Laura is a leadership mindset expert. She’s a transformational speaker, Best Selling Author, her newest book is rat race reboots, unlock your full potential to achieve impossible goals. Laura, excited to have you back on the show. refresh your memory. Tell us a little about your personal lives more about your work. And what motivated you to put pen to paper for the book.

Laura Noel 0:32
Oh, my goodness. Well, thank you for having me back. I’m really excited to be here. And long story short, I was in the military for 27 years. I for many years, I was looking for my purpose collecting all these degrees and certifications, feeling like there had to be something else in life more than what I was doing. Even though I loved my my service. Once I started following my curiosity met my mentor Bob Proctor, who was teaching me about the the mind really about the your conscious subconscious mind that connection, and how to really reinvigorate my imagination, intuition, these mental faculties that are so important that keep us out of the rat race, really, when we learn to leverage them. And that’s I was a great student, really, I learned a lot from Bob and I started applying it to my work. And before you knew it, I found my purpose, I was coaching and leading people taking the leadership expertise that I gained from my service in the military and created a business back in 2017. And I’ve been coaching hundreds and hundreds of people since then. And now I’m doing a lot more keynote, speaking a lot of facilitations and organizations in terms of mindset. And that is like the cornerstone these days of, of everything I do whether I’m teaching time management, productivity, teaching teams to collaborate more effectively mindset is the foundation for all of that really.

george grombacher 2:12
Amen. So that feeling that I’m doing something very worthwhile, but there’s just something more for me, or I want something other. I think that a lot of us feel that way. But we don’t pursue it. We can’t put our finger on it. All these things.

Laura Noel 2:33
Yeah, yeah, that’s, you know, it’s interesting, because for many years, and really what set me off on this path, I was still in the service. But I kept having this urge to get yoga teacher certified. And it didn’t make sense. I’m like, What are you thinking, you’re not going to be a yoga teacher, like why? And so for many years, I kept having this idea, you know, I really want to do this, it was like this nudge. And I just didn’t, for whatever reason. And then one day, I’m like, Okay, I surrender, I’m just gonna do it. And it it, like the world opened up to me, this was a yoga certification that was on the weekends and during summer week when I could take leave. And that is what really inspired so many things. So many things were in my path. And I attribute it to finally listening to my curiosity, because it opened me up to other opportunities that were in alignment. And that’s actually how I met Bob Proctor and started talking to him. And that’s how I got clarity on really what I wanted to do with my life like so the yoga, it wasn’t a path that I was following, because I was going to be a yoga teacher per se. It was just I was following my curiosity. I wanted to learn more about it and just expand my knowledge. But when I started to teach yoga for free in my organization, I noticed how, how much better people felt in their mindset and their clarity. And I said to myself, if I could bottle this up in a curriculum, I want to teach people this mindset piece of it. And that’s because I was open when I met Bob Proctor, it was like, boom, that’s I want that. Whatever he’s teaching, I want to do something with that. Three months later, I was retiring from the service and I had planned on doing it in three years. That’s how fast things can happen on me. We follow that curiosity. We lean into it, we don’t try to overanalyze it, and we move

george grombacher 4:42
I think that that’s super exciting. And I love it. So you’re getting these nudges or these pings you know, you’re just feeling this pull towards for you it was you know, get get get a teacher training certification to do yoga for other people could be anything. You decided to follow up This connection between or I’m wondering if there’s a connection between the rat race that so many of us are on myself included for a long time. And then the clarity, the escape during our longer 90 minute yoga class.

Laura Noel 5:16
Yeah, you know, there definitely is. And I think our path, one of the paths out of the rat race is really reconnecting with who you are, you know, our work, the, the things that we do, they’re not who we are, they’re things that we do. And they might be really wonderful things and rewarding things. You know, I love my service. But that’s not who I am. That’s a wonderful thing that I was a part of and could do. And I think when we take and claim back some of our personal space, and set healthy boundaries, and create and carve time out, to be able to think and I love, Bob Proctor always used to say mental activity does not constitute thinking, you know, all the external polls and demands on our time. We’re not thinking we have all these things external to us, that are vying for our attention. And I mean, I when I say think I mean, quieting down, breathing for 1015 minutes, and just being present, being mindful questioning, how am I feeling right now? What do I need right now, you know, asking yourself those kinds of questions and carving that time out for yourself. That’s what enables you to tap into your creativity to even know what’s going on in your heart, in your your mind, your deepest thoughts. And that’s, that’s definitely a way out of the rat race.

george grombacher 6:53
I’ve struggled and continue to, to do that. I, I’ve heard, I’m a human being not a human doing. I’m like, Well, I’m more of a human doing that I am a human being. And I don’t know what percentage of the population kind of falls into that category, I’m guessing a very, very large number.

Laura Noel 7:14
Yeah, and I was definitely more of a human doing. And that’s a natural way of being for me. So I have to catch myself, when I start to, oh, my gosh, there’s not an like a minute to spare in my calendar, like, I don’t have time to do anything, I have to catch myself, because that’s a natural progression for me. But I just, I catch myself quicker and can course correct. And I know a lot through studying the mind and neuroscience that, you know, we have our analytical way of thinking, I’m an animal analytical thinker. But we can tap into our creativity, when we start to broaden our focus, and we’re not so laser focused and in the grind. And so I just want to help people be able to navigate both areas, I think they’re both important, I think it’s important to be able to when you’re excited about a project to just grind through it, and you’re enthused, and you’re, you know, excited, and you’re really laser focused on getting something done on that vision on that on that goal. But there’s another part of us that I didn’t know that I could tap into that creative part of us where when we quiet our mind when we become present, when we carve time out just to think, and ideate without necessarily a focused goal that we’re aiming for. That’s when a lot of magic can happen. A lot of creativity can emerge solutions that otherwise you wouldn’t have had access to.

george grombacher 8:52
One of my favorite quotes is from Blaise Pascal. And he said that the majority of humanity’s problems stem from the the inability to sit quietly in a room by yourself. And that’s really what we’re talking about is and to Bob Proctor’s point that just a bunch of stuff going on in your head does not equate to thinking and we really do need to be able to create the space, the time, whatever, both all of it to be able to just sit down and honor that time without any kind of an agenda. Do I need to know how do I know how to do that? If I just let myself do it?

Laura Noel 9:28
Yeah, innately you Do you know how, but it’s always good to seek out the help of like listening to podcasts like this right and getting some tips. So I would say if you are brand new to meditation, get an app I love and I’m not affiliated with this. I love the Insight Timer. There’s a free version and there’s a paid version. So there are apps out there that can teach you to meditate. Headspace is another really great one. I think For people beginning, because it’ll take you step by step, I think they might have like a 10 minute meditation, where there’s bits of silence in there. But then he’ll say, if your mind wandered off, bring it back. So get one of those apps and start there and don’t shoot for doing two hours at a time, start with five minutes. And do it every day. commit to doing that every day, it’s the repetition and the continuity, then you can expand upon it, but start small.

george grombacher 10:33
What prevents people from doing this? Is it? I’m sure it’s both? It’s the fear of, if I do jump inside my head, what am I going to find? And that’s going to just change everything, and then I’m gonna have to do all this extra work. And or I don’t recognize, or I’m not aware of how much better my life could be.

Laura Noel 10:52
Yeah, I think I was just talking with a client before this call. And we were talking about how we tend to pull this off or on the back burner. Or we’ll start to do it. And because maybe we’re not seeing the immediate effects. We’re like, kind of like if you plant seeds in the garden, and then you’re constantly going, Are they growing, and you’re digging them up, and you’re killing the seeds that you planted? It’s the same thing here with meditation, you’re planting seeds, really, you’re thinking about? How can I serve? Or what do I want? You know, how can I be more effective and less time and maybe, maybe you’re releasing that and just kind of breathing through it, but it’s working. It’s, it’s working, but it’s cumulate? Cumulative, you know, so it’s over time. So I think it’s easy to get restless, and then move into something else. But your subconscious mind is used to repetition and habit. And so if you are the type of person who’s habitually doing 8 million things, that’s what your mind wants to do. Because even even if you’re overwhelmed, you’re in your comfort zone, when you’re doing 10 million different things. So consciously, you have to find something that convinces you of the importance of creating the space for yourself. Dr. Joe Dispenza, his breaking the habit of being yourself is another great book, aside from rat race reboot, I would highly recommend it, because it’s what gave me the sciency perspective. And it just helped me want to meditate. So consciously, you know, it’s good for you. So you’ve got to learn to be the boss of your brain and not let your habits lead you.

george grombacher 12:42
So much really, really good and important stuff there, that you talked earlier about how fast things can change and happen. And you may listen or experience immediate change, and life could totally be different. And at the same time, most things do take time to germinate. And we need to nurture it and plant it and water it and sync to it, whatever the case may be. But there’s so many benefits that that we’re getting along the way. We’re teaching ourselves discipline, and we get confidence and stuff like that.

Laura Noel 13:18
Yeah, yeah. It’s, you know, when you decide to sit down and meditate for five minutes, 10 minutes, and you tell yourself and I went to went to Dr. Joe Dispenza, as a week long retreats to and it was, oh my gosh, it was so amazing. But you’re sitting still and then you have a thought, my arm itches. It’s it’s your mind playing tricks on you, to get you to kind of do what you would have habitually do. So really just training your mind? Nobody. I’m in charge this this conscious mind of mine, I’m in charge. That’s not an itch. I am not moving. And so you over time you start to train yourself. But yeah, it’s it’s pretty miraculous. What we can do when we really put our mind to it.

george grombacher 14:08
Just about anything.

Laura Noel 14:10
Yeah, even mastering your mind.

george grombacher 14:14
And that doesn’t mean that, that we need to totally change our lives. We don’t need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. You could. That’s certainly. But I think that there’s so much opportunity to make small incremental changes and improve your overall happiness, contentment, satisfaction, all of it.

Laura Noel 14:33
Yeah, you know, when I’m working with clients, and we’re talking about limiting beliefs, or old paradigms that might be holding them back, they might have these old paradigms, these old beliefs that have been passed down from generation to generation really, they’re a part of us, many of them were not aware that we have served us they got us to where we are at this point in our lives. And some of them are good. Some of them are still helping us and serving us. So again, Unlike to your point, it’s not that we’re casting aside all of these beliefs, we’re just being deliberate and consciously choosing the ones and seeing the ones that are no longer serving us based on where we want to go. So, you know, it’s also really helpful if we’re going to change our habits, that we have a vision for what we would like change, like, I had somebody that wanted to take some time management and productivity management courses. And I’m like, Ah, I don’t really coach that I can teach you some tools. But why is that even important to you? And so he wasn’t really thinking about, well, what are you going to do with all that time that you kind of capitalize on a recuperate, right? What are you going to do with it. And so we needed a vision for what he would do at that time. And then I started having him plug some of those things in to his calendar, work will fill the time and space allotted. And so what he found was, because he was prioritizing these things that were important to him, and he had a vision for that. And he was getting connected with that every day, he found more creative ways to get his work done, which helped him kind of get that time back. So you have to have a vision that you’re working with, you have to have something that you want to change. Otherwise, you don’t have a reason to change any of these paradigms or habits.

george grombacher 16:28
Right, just change it for the sake of changing, it’s probably not going to be sustainable.

Laura Noel 16:32
No, no, because your mind is always going to pull you back to home base.

george grombacher 16:38
So vision for the future, the ability to then prioritize. Because it’s good to prioritize things, but better to be moving towards some kind of a compelling vision for our future.

Laura Noel 16:56
Yeah, yeah, it’s imperative. It’s, you know, and I like to set goals no matter what I’m doing. So I have that vision for my future. But an effective way. And a time management tool, for example, is the Pomodoro technique where you set a timer for 25 minutes, and you do really focused work. But before you do that focused work in that 25 minute block, you set a goal for that 25 minutes, I’m going to do this, every time I do that, I get that work done. And then I move ahead and get more done. Because you just know exactly, there’s no distractions, you know, exactly what you’re doing, you know exactly where you’re going. And I think we can incorporate that in our meeting, you know, how many long drawn out meetings are there? Where there’s no, really, there’s not an agenda? There’s not a goal? What are we? How would we determine this meeting was successful? Like what would need to happen? I mean, I do that with coaching clients to like, what would make you walk away from this coaching session, feeling like this has been helpful for you.

george grombacher 18:03
I think that certainly points in my life and people in for us who are listening to you sort of share your story. You’re in the military for 23 years, thank you for your service, then you go get a yoga teacher training certification, and then you go and do this and this and this. Do you have apprehension? Or are you fearless? Do you have fear? Do you have anxiety? Are you unsure?

Laura Noel 18:28
You know, I definitely I use fear to let me know that I’m moving in the right direction. I was you know, it was scary to take that leap and do something that I’d done for almost 30 years really, and do something completely different in a lot of aspects. That was that was frightening. I, I get really clear on what I what the lifestyle that I want who I am in that lifestyle, and I make decisions like that person, not the person I am today. And that’s scary. Because consciously I’m like, I’m not that person. But really, if I want to get there, I need to make decisions like her. And so yeah, I let that kind of guide me and let me know that I’m I’m heading in the right path. I mean, my book took a long time to write and I know that I procrastinated at multiple stages and I’m like, Oh my gosh, my editor probably wants to shake me like because that imposter syndrome and that piece of me that was afraid to put this out there. I know that hung me up and multiple stages along the way so yes, I get scared.

george grombacher 19:41
I think that that’s a really important thing for for everyone to hear is that yeah, I’m not just easily navigating through life and it’s not just coming easy to me. I’m you’re you’re dealing with the same stuff that the that we all kind of are. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it’s the idea of in the practice of thinking about, Okay, this is not me, I’m not going to be this idealized version of me every day. But I’m working to becoming that version. But more importantly, I think about as you’re making decisions, and choosing what direction or path to go on, what would that version of me, what would they choose to do versus this current vision version of me? I think that that’s such an important thing.

Laura Noel 20:26
Yeah, we can do it moment to moment. I, you know, I was listening to Abraham Hicks, a long time ago and heard the raise segment intending. So moment by moment. Okay, that didn’t go, well. I’m on to this next thing. How do I want to show up? Who do I want to be? It could just take a couple of moments. Choose, and then be that person in that moment? How, what would it look like to embody that image doing this task? You know, if, if I want to be a bodybuilder and I’m going to a restaurant, I might ask when I’m reading the menu, how would an athlete fuel their body? Well, it’s easy then to order. So being aware, and just thinking it through, how do I want to show up when I’m ordering this meal? Or in this meeting?

george grombacher 21:20
We all get to decide? Yeah, so yeah, we do. Love it. Well, Laura, thank you so much for coming back on. It’s great to see and talk with you again. Thank you so much for writing the book. Tell us how people can connect with you. How can they engage and where can they get their copy of rat race reboot, unlock your full potential to achieve impossible goals?

Laura Noel 21:44
Yes, yeah. If you go to Laura Noel cc.com, backslash rat race reboot, you will be able to get a free chapter. So you’ll get chapter one. And we officially launch very shortly. So you’ll get all the notifications and all the goodies that come along with it. And that’s how you can get in touch with me. So I would love to have you grab your free copy of that chapter and let me know what you think.

george grombacher 22:11
Excellent. Well, if you enjoyed as much as I did shallow your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas go to Laura Noel cc.com. It’s Ellie, you are a NOEL cc.com/backslash

Laura Noel 22:26
rat race reboot. Perfect and get

george grombacher 22:29
your free chapter and keep an eye out for when the book launches, and get to work on becoming a human being versus human doing like I am. Thanks for that. Thank you. And until next time, remember, do your part by doing your best

Transcribed by https://otter.ai