So here's the thing about
making a bet on yourself.
The second you commit to it, the
universe immediately starts testing
you to see if you're really serious.
Welcome back to the bet.
Every journey starts with
a choice and mine is a bet.
For one year, I'm gambling
on energy over strategy.
No more forcing and no pushing.
Just the courage to show up.
And see what happens when
reality becomes my playground.
This isn't a podcast.
It's a real time experiment
in the lab of my life.
Welcome to the bet.
Today I want to share the framework
that has allowed me to win every
bet I've ever made on myself.
Before you think of being
cocky, let me be clear.
I've made five major bets in my
life and all five worked and they
worked because of this specific
framework I'm about to teach you.
The first time I used it, I didn't
really know what I was doing.
My 19 month old son had received a
devastating diagnosis, multiple ones.
Actually, the doctors were
preparing us for the worst.
I was in a very dark place.
My mom asked me one question
that changed everything.
She said, how is your fear going
to help him or this situation?
So I made a three year bet with myself.
I asked myself, what can I do
each day for the next three years
in exchange for a lifetime of
mental peace with this situation?
Three years of commitment to a process
in exchange for a lifetime of knowing
that no matter what the outcome
is, I could rest with the knowledge
that I had committed to the process.
I treated every day with the same
urgency as if my house was on fire,
because that is what it felt like.
I focused on process only.
Working with mapping his beautiful
little brain every single day.
That's a powerful story for another
day and one I've never told publicly,
but I will tell you this today.
He's a Princeton graduate with
the highest honors, and he is
starting the second year of his PhD.
My second bet was during my
divorce, another dark time.
I made a bet to rebuild my entire life and
career from scratch while raising my son.
And sometimes you just realize
you have outgrown where you are.
Not because anything's wrong, but because
you are meant for something different.
I had no idea what my future was going
to bring, but I focused on the process,
get the degrees, build the foundation,
discover what I was capable of on my own.
The outcome took care of itself, including
meeting my now husband, Mike, the summer
before my last year of grad school when I
thought he'd just be my summer of fun guy.
That's what happens when you trust your
instincts about what's next, even when
letting go of the familiar feels unsafe.
The third time was the weight loss.
I touched on that in the first episode.
Here's the thing.
For some reason this one
felt harder than the others.
Maybe because I had struggled
with weight my entire adult life.
This felt absolutely impossible, harder
than navigating my son's diagnosis,
harder than rebuilding my life after
divorce, because this was the one
thing I'd never been able to conquer.
Let me tell you the real story of that.
Third bet summer of 2019.
Bora Bora, what was supposed
to be a bucket list?
Dream vacation.
We'd saved up all our
hotel miles, our air miles.
We went all out for this.
Once in a lifetime trip, we're in
this fancy over the water bungalow
with a private pool killer view.
Nothing but Horizon Vintage
champagne for my birthday week.
Everything was perfect on
paper, but I was miserable.
I remember sitting there, tears
just streaming down my face.
I was 48 years old carrying about
50 extra pounds, and for the first
time in my life, nothing I tried
would work to lose the weight.
My whole life.
I'd have this cycle, gain weight, lose
weight, gain it back, but I'd always
been able to drop it when I needed to.
Not anymore.
I turned to my husband and said,
I cannot keep feeling like this.
I cannot keep going like this.
At that point, I was 194 pounds.
I'm five foot eight, and I looked
up the healthy weight range.
It was 1 36 to 1 64.
I remember I was fixated on just
getting to 1 64, the top of that range.
That became my entire focus.
So I went into what I
call domination mode.
I hired coaches, cut
calories, tracked every macro.
Just absolute force and willpower.
And you know what?
I got to 1 64, but when I hit
that number, instead of feeling
magnificent, I felt exhausted.
I was proud for sure, but I was also
full of doubt about how I was ever
going to be able to sustain this.
I knew I couldn't keep beating
myself into submission day after
day for the rest of my life.
That's when everything shifted.
I realized I had two options.
Give up again, or find a
way to make this feel easy.
And I mean, actually easy,
not fake, Instagram easy.
And that's when I tapped into
something that changed everything.
So there's this psychological
phenomenon called the Hawthorne Effect.
Back in the 1920s, researchers
at a factory near Chicago.
Were trying to figure out if
better lighting would make
workers more productive.
Here's what they found.
It didn't matter how they adjusted, the
lighting productivity went up either way.
You know why?
Because the workers knew they were
being watched by the researchers.
Just being observed
changed their behavior.
So I thought, what if I could hack
my own brain using this principle?
What if I lived as if I had a
camera crew following me around,
documenting everything for
a reality show for one year?
I committed to living in my
imagination like I was being filmed.
Every workout became a training montage.
Every meal choice became a
scene that either moved the
plot forward or held it back.
Every setback became character
development with a face in the mirror.
Story to the camera
about what I was facing.
But here's the crucial part.
I did not commit to losing weight.
I only committed to the process
of living as if I was being filmed
for one year, September 13th.
That was the date I locked in my calendar.
That was the date I would open
the package, so to speak, and see
what gift the year had brought me.
And the result was crazy.
I didn't just hit my ultimate dream
body fantasy goal weight, I ended up
blowing right past that and kept going.
, The weight I thought would be an absolute
miracle to reach was actually more than
what my process decided to deliver to me.
In fact, the last 10 pounds that are
supposedly the hardest, they flew off
because I stopped fighting and started
playing a completely different game.
So let's take a minute and break down the
actual framework, the five components that
make these types of bets actually work.
First, the container.
You need a clear container for your bet.
I love one year.
Can't be someday.
It can't be until I
reach my goal one year.
Do you always need a year?
Not necessarily.
In my stand program, for instance,
we spend six weeks rewiring
a single thought pattern.
That's a really great initiation
and a way to build momentum.
But for true transformation,
you need a year.
A year, captures all the seasons, the
holidays, the summers, the new beginnings
of spring, the introspection of winter.
The inevitable challenges that
are gonna pop up along the way.
You need to see how your new identity
handles every season of life.
And a year is short enough
to feel achievable, but long
enough that you can't fake it.
, You can white knuckle
through anything for a month.
You can force yourself for three months,
but a year is going to require you.
To actually become different.
It's going to require you to be different.
Next, the observer effect, you need to
create a mechanism for being watched.
For me, it was the imaginary
camera crew for my memo bet.
It was publicly committing to
a full year of 104 episodes.
And now with this podcast, the
camera crew isn't imaginary anymore.
It's you.
The observer doesn't have to be real,
but the observation does because when
we feel seen, we show up differently.
We're able to access reserves
we didn't even know existed.
The stories that feel like
defeat become plot twists.
Nobody likes a movie that has no conflict.
That's not real.
The dark moments are when we
cheer the most for our heroes.
Third, process over outcome.
This is where most people
fail before they even begin.
My commitment wasn't to lose 50 pounds.
It was to live as if I was
being filmed every day.
Did I show up and do my process
as if cameras were rolling?
Yes or no?
That's the only measure
of success with Memo.
My commitment wasn't to build
a successful private podcast.
It was to record two episodes a week.
Did I record them?
Yes or no?
With this current bet?
My commitment isn't to build a
multimillion dollar, business's to
show up twice a week and document
what happens when I trust energy
over strategy process, not outcome.
Fourth, the secret power there is
immense power in doing things in
secret, especially at first when you
keep your bet quiet initially, you're
not dissipating all that amazing
energy of ignition by talking about it.
Instead of letting that energy
leak out into your conversations,
you're keeping it close.
Like a precious seed, you're
building pressure, creating momentum.
I didn't tell anybody about my
reality show concept for months.
I didn't announce memo until
I had multiple episodes in
the bank and this podcast.
Nobody knew about it until now.
Kept it totally under wraps when things
look like they're not working, and
there will be times when nothing seems
to be happening, that's when the secret
power becomes your greatest asset.
You are not performing for
anyone else's timeline,
you're not giving yourself a false
sense of achievement by telling
people about something you've done.
That hasn't actually happened yet.
And finally, our fifth component
is evidence collection.
Document everything.
Not for anyone else, but just for
you because your brain will lie.
It will tell you nothing's
changing, things aren't working.
This isn't going to happen for you
because X, Y, and Z, so you should quit.
During my transformation, I tracked
everything, weight measurements,
but also energy levels, confidence,
how I showed up in meetings.
The only thing I gave any weight to
pun intended, was my attitude and
my adherence to the daily process.
If I stuck to the process, I did not
pay attention to what the scale said.
Their results eventually took
care of themselves in a way
I could have never predicted.
This is the kind of evidence
that will keep you going when
your brain wants to quit.
Now, here's something to
understand about this podcast.
I'm structuring it like this for a reason.
The Tuesday episodes are going to
follow a different framework, the IUA
framework or interrupt, upgrade, activate.
Every Tuesday I'll be interrupting
some default pattern that's been
running in my mental programming
about building a business.
The idea is to catch that old
survival script in action.
Then I will upgrade it, install a new
code, rewire the pattern, and finally
I will activate it, which basically
means take some kind of action to
integrate it into my daily process.
That is what cognitive engineering
looks like in action, and you'll watch
it happen each week in real time as
I navigate this year long experiment.
Then on Friday we will
have a mini memo drop.
These are gonna be short.
Think of them as your quick brain
software updates, five to 10 minutes to
interrupt a specific pattern and give
you something you can use immediately.
So let me ask you this.
What would change if you gave yourself
one year, not necessarily to achieve
some outcome, but to commit to a process
to live as if you're being watched
by the future version of yourself
who already has everything you want.
what if you decided to play
a completely different game?
Here's what I know for sure.
One year from now.
Your future self is either going
to be kissing your ass for starting
today, or they're going to be actively
creating regret, chaos, and some kind
of pressure in your life as a way
to get you to finally take action.
The camera is already rolling.
The only question is, are you
going to show up for your scene?
Next episode, I'm going to share
what's already happening with this
experiment, the tests, the resistance,
second guessing myself, the plot
twists, and I'll show you exactly
how I'm using the Interrupt upgrade.
Activate framework that doesn't
really roll up the tongue
does it to navigate at all.
Until then, remember,
nothing about you is broken.
There's nothing to fix.
You just need to upgrade
your operating system.
Go bet on yourself.