Does the power of positive thinking really work? Is it possible to manifest our success? What is a Vision Board? I talk with Consumers Energy’s very own Mimi Brown about these very concepts. This may change your life.
William Krieger
Hello everyone and welcome to Me You us, a wellbeing podcast. It’s another well-being Wednesday here at Consumers Energy and I’m your host Bill Krieger. Today, my guest is Amelia Mimi Brown. She is Sales Development and Performance Manager here at Consumers Energy. But she’s also a motivational speaker, a vision board guru, and an all-around positive person. But I just can’t do justice to this introduction. So, Mimi Brown, if you would introduce yourself, we’ll get the conversation started.
Mimi Brown
Oh, Bill Krieger, it’s always a pleasure to hang out with you. And thrilled to be on the podcast today. So
a little bit about me, I like long walks to the beach and trashy novels and sharing hot cocoa with that special someone. Okay, that’s probably not the introduction that you wanted. Oh, so Sales Development and Performance Manager here, Consumers, this is actually my second tour of C E. And I say tour because I worked here previously. And once a CE Employee, always a CE employee at heart proud to wear the colors. But I worked here from 2010 until 2017, in a variety of different roles started off in the Royal Oak call center, transitioned to a sales coach for a little bit, and then moved over to Performance Excellence, which is now our Lean area. And then my last, my last step before I transitioned into my own business, I worked as a learning and development consultant within learning and development. And so, I got a phone call about almost two years ago, hey Mimi what are you doing? Oh, nothing, just you know, giving some keynote speeches, writing some books, and then COVID happen. I decided, I’ve always felt like I’ve been a part of the CE family. And this opportunity came about to work in sales, which is something I’m super passionate about. And I love to do and love to help people. And I’d actually just written a book about sales. And here I am back here almost two years later.
William Krieger
So full disclosure for the audience, Mimi and I worked together back in our performance excellence days doing Kaizen events and working on our six sigma, Green Belt, yellow belt, black belt, whatever color belt it was, at the time, doing all of that stuff. You know, it is so true. So many people who have left the company come back after a few years, I even left for a short time of about a year, and I subscribe to you can take the person out of CE, but you can’t take the CE out of the person because it’s just a part of who I am. And it sounds like it’s a part of who you are, too.
Mimi Brown
Every time I see a Consumers Energy commercial, or I see a truck rolling down the street, I never felt like I was too far away from home. So, I’m just ecstatic to be back and the work I get to do is super impactful. And it directly impacts our clean energy plan. So that’s kind of neat.
William Krieger
Anyone who knows Mimi Brown knows that she’s smiling, at least all the time that I see her. You can’t see right now. But she is smiling, very positive attitude. And that’s what I want to talk about today. When we look at personal well-being and we look at all the pillars of personal well-being whether it’s professional or physical or emotional or financial. They’re all impacted a lot by our attitude towards them. And we were talking a few weeks ago about positivity, and how that really can impact, you know, what happens in our lives. Now, I will tell you, I am no Pollyanna, and I don’t look at the world through rose colored glasses. But how I react to the things I see can often dictate what the outcomes of what I’m trying to accomplish are. And I wanted to talk a little bit about this. So, what are your thoughts on positivity?
Mimi Brown
No, you’re right, we’re tracking in the same lane together. I believe what you focus on expands first and foremost, and what your attitude about things determines your altitude. And that’s actually a Zig Ziglar quote, if I get on the motivational side, but really, it’s about the way you look at the world. And one of my first kind of, like, steps into this was just as a kid and I remember my dad, I was struggling with someone at school. And he said, well, you can’t change the person, but you can change you and I go but they’re the problem. He was right, I couldn’t change that individual person. But I could change the way I looked at the situation and my reaction to it. And things started to change for me in that respect and that person, they’re who they are. But I could show up differently and I believe when we truly make a decision, and it’s got to be a choice to show up differently, the world can open and expand for you.
William Krieger
It really ties back to that quote of about how life is really 10% of what happens to you, and 90% how you react to what happens to you. Sounds like that’s what your dad was trying to say.
Mimi Brown
Oh, very much so because and you know, it’s connected, I know, you know, you and I were talking about the power of gratitude. Gratitude and positivity are linked. Because it’s really about your outlook on things. And that’s, to me, the root and the foundation of gratitude overall, is gratitude begets gratitude. So, when I find something to be grateful for, then more things for me to be grateful for, they show up.
William Krieger
And, you know, I started reading some books, and I started trying to do some changes in my life. And as I’m reading this book, I’m kind of poopooing all this stuff that I’m hearing, right, like gratitude. You know, all this stuff didn’t, for me, it didn’t make a lot of sense. But I said, I’m going to try this. Because if I’m wrong, I’ve lost nothing. And if I’m right, this could open up a whole new world for me. So, I really just started with gratitude journaling, where I would find 10 things every day that I was thankful for. And sometimes it was when I turned on the shower, there was hot water coming out of the showerhead, right? Yeah, talking about being grateful or showing gratitude. It’s in those little things that we take for granted. And I’ll be darned, probably two or three weeks into this thing. You know, I didn’t win the lottery. And I didn’t have all these things happen like that. But what did happen was, I found that I was happier. You know, I found that things didn’t bother me as much. And so, what are your thoughts on that, and really, not just talking about gratitude, but really practicing gratitude.
Mimi Brown
So, it’s interesting, Bill, that you mentioned this. So, my ex-husband, who is a great human, I remember being really frustrated with him because he kept leaving his socks in the middle of the floor. And for those of you listening who have a spouse, and they have that one little thing that drives you crazy. This was That was mine. And every time I turned around, I swore like he was just pulling socks out of his pockets and land in places just to aggravate me. And then I was having a conversation with my life coach at the time. And he said, well, Mimi, guess what, if you keep focusing on the socks, guess what you’re going to keep saying are the socks. And it wasn’t actually the socks. But if I kept focusing on the things that drove me crazy about him, then that was the only thing I was going to see. So, he gave me an assignment Bill, he said, I want you to do a two-week gratitude practice around your husband. And he said, here’s the rules. One, you can’t tell him, you just need to do it. But I want you to find one thing every day that you can appreciate about him. And then I want you to write it down and be specific. Showcase that you’re grateful. So, it could be a note that you write or a voicemail that you leave or text message. But try this for the next 14 days. And so, kind of similar to your experience, what do I have to lose, except for finding more socks. And so, I decided to start this gratitude practice. So, every day, and it will start off with very little things like thank you for taking the trash out, or I really appreciate it when you made dinner, or thank you for putting gas in my car. And every time I would do this, I would write it somewhere or leave it somewhere for him to see. And sometimes he wouldn’t find them for days, like I would slide it in his briefcase or put in his visor in his car or leave him a voicemail at work. And the craziest thing happened over the course of this 14 days. He started just doing more of the things that I was showing gratitude for. It was kind of like this, I hate to say Pavlov’s dogs, but I would show gratitude for something he just kept showing up in bigger ways. And so, if I thanked him for cooking meals, I had another hot meal that came. And it wasn’t that I was doing it out of expectation that he would do these things. But he was just genuinely happy with being acknowledged in that way. And so, at the end of the 14 days when I stopped, a few days later he said, well, well, I don’t get any notes from you anymore. What’s wrong? And then I had to kind of spill the beans that I did this gratitude practice, but it proved an important point that gratitude begets gratitude so the more things that I show gratitude for, the more things that I got to be grateful for. And it really helped our relationship and it really helped in a rough period of time where all I could see were socks in the middle of the floor.
William Krieger
Well, you know it, here’s the interesting thing. So, when I look back, I still have my gratitude journals. And I look back on them sometimes. And I, I see all of the things that have really come to fruition. And the question I have for you, is during this 14 day, when you’re practicing this gratitude for your husband, how much of it was that he changed? And how much was it that you just noticed the things that you hadn’t noticed before?
Mimi Brown
It’s definitely the latter Bill, I started paying attention more to the things that mattered, the socks weren’t really the issue. That’s where I was starting to put my attention. But when I started to focus on the things I really appreciated about him, I saw more things to appreciate. And I saw him in a new light, and I go, oh, he’s really sweet, or he’s really kind. And I started putting that energy in that attention there. And I really believe we all have like energy that we give off. And it’s like, when you meet someone, you you’re instantly attracted to them or people that you meet, you’re instantly, you know, repelled by them. It’s the same thing is when you’re putting out those positive vibes, you’ll get those positive vibes back, if you’re being mean and nasty and rude. Guess what, you probably might get the same mean and nasty and rudeness coming back your way.
William Krieger
And you can look at that from many different perspectives, right. I’m a spiritual person, so, I view it in a spiritual way. Much like what you said, what I put out into the universe is what comes back to me. But you can look at that from a secular point of view, that your attitude impacts and influences the attitude that others have towards you. So, it’s always a good idea to put that positivity out there. And then again, show gratitude for the things that are being done. You know, I had read a book one time about this couple that was struggling, and the wife took just a three by five piece of card, and she wrote on the S H M I L Y, shmily, and what it stood for was see how much I love you. And she would hide it someplace for her husband to find, and he would find it, and then he wouldn’t say anything, he would hide it someplace for her to find. And this went on for years. And it was just a really nice way to say I love you, when you’re not around or when you’re not there. And it really helped improve their relationships. So, I think that goes right hand in hand with what you’re talking about.
Mimi Brown
Absolutely. And it takes effort, any relationship that you have, whether it’s with a spouse, or it’s a coworker, or even your neighbor. It takes, you know, effort, and it’s what kind of effort are you putting in to make sure that that person knows that you appreciate them and that they matter. And that goes a long way for your overall well-being and your mental health to know that you have someone you can count on. And I often hear people say things like, well, they know I love them, or they know I care about them. When was the last time that you told them? It makes a difference.
William Krieger
It really does. And someone asked me that question one time and for years now, I don’t hang up the phone with any of my family until I’ve told them that I love them. Even if we’re angry with each other, I still tell them I love that, I do that with my kids, with the lovely Mrs. Krieger, Alexis Krieger, I do that with my parents. And it does make a difference overall in that relationship. So, I want to shift gears a little bit, we’re talking about gratitude and being thankful for the things that we have and the people that are around us, big and small, whatever those things are that we’re grateful for. But another thing that I have come to realize makes sense are vision boards. And before we get into this discussion about vision boards because I’m sure that someone at some point is going to roll their eyes and go really vision boards, right? So, I want to share this with you because this actually happened to me not to anyone else. I read a couple of books, they talked about vision boarding. And so, I put together this little vision board that I hung up on my bathroom mirror, and I was really getting into my gratitude and positivity. And it was really driving some people crazy. Because they were like, you need to just stop right? Because I’m tired of hearing about being positive. So, there were some people that didn’t really care for it. But I kept my vision board on the bathroom mirror. So, every morning when I got up and brushed my teeth, I would see my vision board. And you know, someone made a comment about it when they visited one time and it really made me angry. So, I took it down and I put it in my desk drawer, and I forgot about it. And then about a year later I opened my drawer, and I had looked at all of the things on my vision board. I’m not going to talk about everything that was on there, but there were some family things on there, there were some travel things on there, there were some things that I wanted for my career. But just as a joke, honestly, because I didn’t believe any of this was going to happen to be honest with you, I threw this classic car on there just as a ha-ha, this is never going to happen kind of thing, right. But when I practiced the vision board, I did what I was supposed to do. And I looked at that darn thing a year later. And I’m going to tell you everything that was on there happened, up to and including the classic car.
Mimi Brown
Oh, wow, I love to hear those words, gives me goosebumps.
William Krieger
So that I mean, so that really, that happened to me, this isn’t some third party, I’d be happy to show anyone who asked me, I’ll be happy to show them that vision board. And I’ll be happy to walk through everything that was on there. So that is where I come from with vision boards. Now that I’ve said all of that there are people in the audience are like, I didn’t know what a vision board is. And I think I have someone here who’s an expert that might be able to help us. So maybe talk to us about what is a vision board? And why the heck would someone do one?
Mimi Brown
So, a vision board is a pictorial representation of who do you want to be? What do you want to do? And what do you want to have? See our brain processes images 60 times faster than it does words. And we have something like 60,000 thoughts that roll through our mind. And so, if you create a pictorial representation of it, like literally, if you can see it, you can achieve it. And the beautiful part about a vision board is you can’t get it wrong, Bill. Like there’s no there’s some guidelines, I encourage people to follow in the creation of the board. But it’s really, it’s a way to set intention on the goals and aspirations that you have you want to reach. And my philosophy around vision boards is a little different than some people from this perspective. If you’ve seen things in popular culture, they’ll say you post like a picture of your car, or a house. But I encourage people to stand back and focus on who they need to be, who they need to become to get the things that they want, right. And then you’ll have the car and the house or the job. And the beautiful thing about the vision board is that it helps you get laser focused on what’s most important to you. And one of the things that I recommend for people to do is just what you did Bill, is put it in a place where you can see it every day, several times a day. Because what happens is, we actually have something called the reticular activating system in our brain, it’s a filtration system. And because we have those 60,000 thoughts floating at any given time, it helps filter what’s most important for you to focus on. And so, part of your Reticular Activating systems abilities, if I’m focusing on key images, it’s going to say those key images or the items that are on that board are really important that I’m seeing the most often. It’s like you’re starting to train your subconscious mind to pick them up. That’s why as an example, if you’ve ever decided you’re going to go get a brand-new car, and you knew you wanted that red Mercedes truck. And all of a sudden you look around and you keep seeing red Mercedes trucks is that by chance, have they always been there, they probably already have. But now you’re focused on them and they’re coming into your line of sight. So, when you create a vision board, it gives you that imagery to focus on the pictures of the goals that you have. And then it works with your brain to really help you narrow focus on opportunities to help you get the things that you want.
William Krieger
It’s very important too, you said something that I want to focus in on. And so first of all, when you talk about the brain processing, I do electronic vision boards, so I do them in PowerPoint. And they are actually if you can see my desk, I have three screens in front of me in the background, and every screen is my vision board. So, when I’m talking to you, my vision board is here and here when I’m looking at my email, my vision board is here in here. So, it is everywhere that I go. But it’s very important to understand that it’s not all about treasure and gold, right? I really like what you said that we need to focus on who we want to be and for some people that red Mercedes truck fits into there. But for some people, it’s a 1978 Chevy Chevrette because that’s all they really want. There are other things that you want your life and it’s an important distinction to make that the vision board is personal to you. It’s about the things that you think are important based on your beliefs and based on where you want to be. So, I think sometimes people get wrapped up in well, I’m going to do a vision board. It’s got to be all about, you know, money, money, money, and things. But really, it’s about who I am as a person and who I want to be and how I want to be able to treat others.
Mimi Brown
And Bill, I love that because I’ve done visual workshops for years. And one of the things I give people permission to do is to dream. But more specifically, think about how you want to show up in the world. And how does that relate to the things that you’re asking for as an example, maybe I want to focus on being a better parent, right? So, and I always encourage people, you create an affirmation, right? So, you’re affirming that action or behavior or that dream, so I am patient with my children, or I am kind of I spent a lot of time. So, when I focus in on getting clear about what that looks like, then I’m selecting pictures or images or things that relate to that. So maybe it’s me taking yoga, because I want to learn how to be a little bit more patient, or I have pictures of me and my kids on my board and we’re spending a lot of time together because that’s important to me. So, it’s not always about the gold and the glitter and all the fancy cars and things. It’s really about being clear about who you are. I’ll give you another quick example Bill. So, one of my very first vision boards I’ve ever made, was in 2012. And I was working in the Royal Oak call center at the time. And I was at a point in my career where I was ready for something new, I had got kind of bored in the role and there wasn’t another classification that was open, so, I was kind of stuck. And I was sharing this with a lot of people sharing it with my team leader at the time. And this opportunity for the sales coach role came up. And I had already identified that, had seen people doing the job and I knew that’s what I wanted. So, I put on my vision board. I remember when I became the sales coach for the Royal Oak call center, and I was putting all my energy. And what I had to figure out is who do I need to be? How do I need to show up in order to become that sales coach. I need to kick butt the job that I was doing? I was kicking butt at sales at that point, I started reading all the books. So, I started aligning myself with what the image that I had for where my life was going. Here’s the interesting thing. The job came, I apply, got an interview, and didn’t get it. And I was heartbroken. And I’m looking at that vision board like, oh, this didn’t work. And I’m like all in a tizzy about it. But one of the statements on what I always give people to say to help you in spaces like that is this or something better. And it helps reduce the resistance away because here’s the thing, that might have been the item that you had your eye on. But it could be something bigger and better out there for you. And that was just one of the first steps to get you to that bigger and better thing. Because once again, I’m focusing on who I need to be, how I need to show up. So, anyhoo, didn’t get the job, but there was an interim sales coach position because someone else had left the organization and it left a hole. So, I became an interim sales coach and then not too long after that Bill is when the performance excellence team leader position opened, and I was one of the three I think along with you that got the role, this, or something better. So even if I throw something on my board doesn’t always mean that that’s the thing, but I’m showing up in a way or curating my actions, then I get something even better than I could even dream up and I did like it was awesome being a PEX leader.
William Krieger
I really enjoyed that too. I want to kind of zoom in on something that you said and this is so important because I was actually talking with Angela Thompkins the other day about positivity and about gratitude and about, you know, thinking positively about those things you want for your life. And with the vision board sometimes you have to let go of the how, you know what I’m saying? Like you can put on there the what, forget about the how. Like you could put down what your dream job looks like, but the how might not be the dream job title that you’re thinking it is. Very similar to when you’re talking about the sales coach, you knew what you wanted to get out of that job, but maybe that wasn’t the job that was going to give you those things. Maybe it was that job in performance excellence.
Mimi Brown
Which it absolutely was and the sales coach role, because I aspired to that, was the stair step to get me there and I had no clue. And I love our chief diversity officer Angela Tompkins because she embodies this principle of gratitude. Her story is so powerful. I just interviewed her on Instagram around her experience with gratitude, and how it helped her really catapult her career. And if you want to check it out, I’m at Hey Mimi Brown on Instagram, it’s still on my stories, but her story is so powerful. But one of the tenants that I know Angela and I both believe in is the how is none of your business, it’s your job to get focusing on what you want, that’s how the vision board helps you create that, that pathway. And then you just need to be open to possibility open to things that are around, what happens for a lot of people is they do just what I did, they put something on the board, they’re super specific, and when that exact thing doesn’t come, oh, this doesn’t work, or that was done with that was silly. And then they throw the board away, or they don’t look at it, or they start focusing on something else. You have to with every part of you when you’re going after something you want if you truly believe, and you have to have that belief that it’s yours, that it’s meant for you. You have to go at it with everything that you’ve got. And oftentimes when it comes to vision boards, people will say they have faith, but their faith might be lagging a little bit. And the definition of faith is the absence of things hoped for, and not yet seen. It’s coming, it might not come in the way that I think it’s going to, but have I done the mental work, have I done the internal work of believing and doing all the work to work on me? Llike, I always tell people like as the sales coach example, if I had just sat there and put something on my board, but I didn’t act around it. I didn’t start reading sales books, I didn’t kick butt at being a salesperson in the call center. I didn’t have mentors who helped me along the way. I didn’t spend time after work developing my craft, the opportunity wouldn’t have shown up because it was just me sitting there looking at a picture hoping, hope is not a strategy. I know Garrick has said that before. Hope is not a strategy, faith is and inspired action will get you there.
William Krieger
You’re absolutely correct. When I was in combat, we used to say hope is not a course of action, right? Because you can’t hope that things are going to turn out you need to do everything you can within your power to make sure that you’re doing the things that you need to do. The other part of this too, is that I do a lot of visualization, I do meditation, and one of the things that I have learned is if there’s something that I want to achieve, I think about this time where I achieved something else and how I felt when I achieved that. And then I apply that feeling to this other achievement that I would like to do and you know, I don’t I don’t know how to explain it. It just works.
Mimi Brown
It does it is definitely connected to your emotions and how you feel about its connected to your beliefs. It’s interesting, there was a study in Psychology Today, they had a group of weightlifters. And if you’ve ever found anything around positive psychology, a lot of athletes use it as it relates to visualization. And what they did is they had a test group and they had, my statistics professor will be upset that I’m using this word, they had a test group and control group, thank you, Bill. And the control group lifted weights like they normally would a 20-pound barbell hand weights, what have you. The other group, imagined themselves doing, they would close their eyes and go through the motions as if they were physically lifting the weights. And they were not just doing it in their head. And what they found was the same synaptic connections that went off, when the people physically did it were the same for the same synaptic connections that went off when the group imagine themselves doing it.
William Krieger
Very much like what they call the placebo effect, right? When we give people a placebo, and they get better.
Mimi Brown
They believed it, they believed it would work. Right? I’m a big reader, Louise Hay has a book called you can heal your life and she talks about how she focused on affirmations. And it helped her cure herself a cervical cancer. Now, you know, depending on your belief system, I’ll you know, I’ll give you that. But the power is she felt better. They actually saw I mean, the cancer went away. She did some other things, but our minds are super powerful. And Bill in your case, when you’re able to connect to that emotion of what it felt like when you achieve something great. You are training your brain to be in that same condition state, and you know that other things are possible in that same space.
William Krieger
Yes, and it you know, we have a lot of influence over what happens to us and what happens for us. We don’t control everything and that’s another big piece of this is that you got to let go of that control. You know, I know there are things that I have to do in order to you’ll be successful. And I get that. But I don’t necessarily control everything about that success. There are mentors or people that helped me, there is my belief system, there are other powers out there in the universe that are all a part of this, it all comes together. But whatever you believe, part of that belief is that control is a fallacy, control is something we think we have when we don’t necessarily have it. It’s like, when you’re driving your car down the road on a winter evening, and everything’s going fine until you hit that black ice in the road, and you lose control of your car, you never really have control to begin with. And that black ice just helped you remember that.
Mimi Brown
Yep. Bill it’s interesting. So, every year, I set goals for myself, and I set personal goals. And I always come up with a word of the year. And my word for 2022 is flow. And flow for me is letting go of control, like just going with the current. And that is so challenging, right? Because we’re, I feel like we’re conditioned and we’re taught, like, you go, and you make it happen. But sometimes it’s just being and being in the flow that allows you and you know, that’s when you realize you’re really not in control. And a part of the visualization process, and also the vision board process, it’s actually one of the steps that I teach people is let it go the how is none of your business, because when you get stuck on how something is going to happen, you really cut off possibility of something that could be even bigger or better than you could ever imagine. One of the stories I tell as I was learning about this whole process, and my coach at the time said to me, Mimi what you focus on expands, and you have the power, really by your mind and what you focus on, to get your greatest desires. But you also have to train yourself to believe you can do it. And so, he said, I want you to do an experiment. I want you to pick something that’s really easy that you think you can have, but specific enough that when it shows up, you knew that you did the work, right, you did the visualization, you kind of set the ground for it to happen. And so, Bill, you know me well enough to know I have a weight problem. I can’t wait to eat. And so, I chose lunch. And this is actually when I was working, I was working in Royal Oak, and I was sitting in my cube back in the day. You ever work in a cube with the illusion of privacy, right?
William Krieger
There’s an illusion for you. Right?
Mimi Brown
And I work at my cube and one of my coworkers who never asked me out to lunch comes over says, Hey, Mimi, would you go out to lunch? And I’m like, Yes, cuz I’m thinking, this is what I was like this happened within like less than 12 hours. It’s incredible. So, we go to Chipotle, and we’re standing in line at Chipotle and if you had been standing next to me, you would have seen my coworker order a burrito bowl. So, he’s adding all the fixings a burrito bowl, the sour cream, and the cheese and the pico de gallo, and he gets to the register and his order comes to $8.42. He pays for his food, but he doesn’t pay for mine. And in that moment, I was like, oh, man, this is not how this is supposed to work. My lunch is supposed to be paid for. But I let it go. And I’m going to talk about the importance of letting it go in a minute. So, I ordered my burrito bowl, and my order comes to $9.42, I got extra chicken. And we’re sitting down enjoying our meal and about 20 minutes later, we get up to leave. And if you’ve been standing behind me, you have seen this glass door that we were walking out of and on the ground was this crisp Hamilton. It was a $10 bill. Did I get my lunch paid for that day? Absolutely. Did it happen in the way that I thought it was supposed to? No. And that’s the key about letting go of how something has to happen in the control. Your job is to get focusing on what you want and I believe like all the cooperative components that are working on your behalf will show up for you when you have faith in belief. And so, I believe that let’s say I hadn’t that you know my coworker didn’t pay for several other possibilities could have had my lunch paid for that day. Um, maybe I missed the $10 bill, but maybe the person behind me pays for my lunch. Or maybe I found $10 in my pocket I forgot I had or maybe I was 100th Chipotle customers that day. They said Mimi Brown you get a free entree, whatever it happens to be, but because in that moment, I just said eh and I let it go. I let go of control. I saw that that $10 bill.
William Krieger
Well first let me say you had me at pico de gallo.
Mimi Brown
You had me at Chipotle, so.
William Krieger
I’m going to need to go eat something now. No, it’s a great it’s is a great illustration of the way that we think about things happening is not necessarily the way that they have to happen. If we open our mind and expand our expectations, and we let go of having to control everything. It’s amazing what can happen out there. You know, and I hate to say this, but we are getting close to the end of the podcast, this has been so much fun. But I don’t want to leave before I ask, is there anything that you would like the audience to take away from this conversation?
Mimi Brown
Yeah, it’s interesting that one of my favorite quotes is by Marianne Williamson, and she has a book called Return to Love. And she says, our deepest fear is not that were inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us, we ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, talented, beautiful, and fabulous? Who are you not to be? The world doesn’t benefit by you playing small, you were born to manifest in the glory that’s within you. And it’s not just to me, Bill, not just to you is not just an Angela, it is an every single one of us. As we let our light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. And as we’re liberated from our fears, our presence automatically liberates others. I encourage people to fully step in who they are to dream their biggest dreams. Because when we stand in our power, we never know the example we set for other people. So, live in gratitude, have a sense of positivity, and go out and reach for what you want. Because I truly believe you can be do and have anything that you want, as long as you believe it, and you’re willing to take the action towards it.
William Krieger
Well, now I have chills and you can drop the mic. That’s, that’s just excellent discussion for our folks out in the audience. I think it’s another podcast to talk about fear of success, and how we sometimes sabotage ourselves. So, look out for a calendar invite for that one, Mimi Brown. And I wanted to say thank you so much for coming on. I know that we’re all busy. But this is such important information for all of our coworkers and all of our listeners because it’s not just the folks at Consumers that are hearing this. It’s people all over the world and in all honesty, so thank you again for participating and shedding some light on some things.
Mimi Brown
And I’m grateful for you, Bill, and thank you for inviting me.
William Krieger
Thank you to the audience for listening in today. The Me You Us podcast is proudly sponsored by Consumers Energy leaving Michigan better than we found it. Remember, you can find the Me You Us podcast on all major podcasting platforms. So be sure to go out find us and subscribe. If you or someone you know is in crisis, please contact the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. That’s 1-800-273-8255 If you are a veteran or know a Veteran who is in crisis, you can call 1-800-273-8255 and press one for the Veterans Crisis Line. And remember to tune in every Wednesday as we talk about the things that impact your personal well-being.
