EP32 | Claiming Your Purpose with Brenda Rigney

Brenda Rigney is a fellow business and leadership coach for business leaders and start-up entrepreneurs, she also has her own podcast called #3Uniques. In this episode of the Create Purpose Podcast, she talks to Zach about how she uses her 3 Uniques to help people to claim their purpose!

Learn more about Brenda:  

• Brenda's Website
• Brenda's LinkedIn
• Brenda's Instagram

Episode resources:

• Create Purpose Website 

• Join Zach’s Mastermind

• Person: Simone Grace Seol
• Person: Byron Katie
• Book: Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown
• Book: The Antiracist Business Book by Trudi Lebron

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Brenda Rigney: Your purpose is something that you just know you've always been sort of destined to do. And whether you're in that job now or in that school program, it doesn't feel that way. Like, look for it. Look for the calling. I think that like, there's gonna be evidence to say, yeah, you know what, you're on the right path and sure.

You might have some self-doubts about, you know, is this the right job? Am I in the right position? Do I have the right boss to mentor me? But there's probably gonna be indications to say you're on the right path. And then just claim it owns it.

Zach Arend: All right. Well, welcome back or welcome to the Create Purpose Podcast today. I'm sitting here with Brenda Rigney. She's a fellow coach business coach and leadership coach. She has her own podcast, three uniques and well, Brenda, let me have you go a little deeper for the audience. What is the work you get to do with your clients and in your community?

How would you describe your role that you play as a coach?

Brenda Rigney: Hi, Zach. Hi, Zach's listeners. . Thanks for having. Well, I call myself a life and leadership coach. I, I started my coaching practice. I was more business in leadership. I still am to some degree, like if someone says, how do I start up my business? I'm definitely gonna coach them in that area. But what I'm finding is that most of my clients are coming to me.

They're leaders in business they're entrepreneurs. I work almost exclusively with women, but I do coach men as well. And they're coming to me with, you know, they wanna make a shift in their life. They wanna make a change. And so it's not just, how do I start a business or how do I get from director to vice president?

It's like, I need something bigger in my overall life. So I've been expanding the conversation, expanding the coaching practicum to really involve the whole life. The concept that I work on with my clients is creating an aligned AF.

Zach Arend: Hmm, love it. You know, one always wonders, you know, how does someone like yourself get on this path? Because I've gotten to know you over the last couple months. And we've, we've talked off and on and this idea of three uniques, which is something you teach and just this aligned AF community that you're building.

It always makes me curious about the passion behind it. You know, like where does that come from? Because you're definitely, you strike me as somebody who's really on mission, creating a purpose, really living into that. Very intentional. What's important to you about doing.

Brenda Rigney: Well, when you talk about purpose, my purpose, and for everyone listening, and I'm happy to share it is to maximize human potential. And I think it was probably about 10 years ago, you know, plus, or minus a couple of years in there, but where I really landed on that. And it's not something that was foreign to me.

It wasn't like I just woke up one morning going, that's my purpose. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna claim it. And then kind of create from there. It was always something that I was always doing. And I think that's something that's really critical for people about discovering what their purpose is or their calling or their true path, or however, you wanna define.

Is, or your legacy. Sometimes people use that term is I think it's always something that's just innate in you that people just know about you, they come to you for, and now it's kind of like it's meeting up into action, right? It's getting into the tactical part now where it's like, you can actually get this mobilized before it may have been a little bit more nebulous or like just, you know, conceptual.

And, and what I mean, like specifically about it is I can go back when I think about my leadership timeline, like if I was going from zero to 52, which is how old I am today, I have clear distinct memories, episodes, experiences in my life where I was maximizing human potential. And to me that means like little things.

Like I was like, I started my career as a store manager at the gap, right. Outta university. I didn't know what I was gonna do. I had a degree in political science. My path was to go to law school. And I had to pay off some student loans. And so my roommate friend at the time was working at the gap and she said, get a job there, pay off some student loans and then figure out what you wanna do next.

And I stayed for 15 years and it was a great time working for the gap because it was all about developing people. And I was like, soon as I got into the store, I realized kind of after like my onboarding and orientation, which I thought was phenomenal, this is what I wanna do. I just wanna train. I wanna develop people.

I wanna help young people too, cuz at the time. I was 21, 23 when I got my first store. And most of the people that were working for me were like 15, 16, 18 years old. Um, you know, struggling, trying to make choices. Do I go to university? Do I go to college? Do I do this? Do I work in my dad's company? Like just making decisions about things.

And I, I loved being in that space. So it's just, you know, I think for anyone listening, I think it's. Your purpose is something that you just know you've always been sort of destined to do. And whether you're in that job now or in that school program, and it doesn't feel that way, like, look for it, look for the calling.

I think that like, there's gonna be evidence to say, yeah, you know what, you're on the right path and sure. You might have some self-doubts about, you know, is this the right job? Am I on the right position? Do I have the right boss to mentor me? But there's probably gonna be indications to say you're on the right path.

And then just claim it own.

Zach Arend: Yeah. You said something. I, it was subtle. I wrote it down though. I, I loved it. It's kind of this self-reflection and starting to see, what's kinda always been there. It's, it's your natural inclination and natural strengths and abilities, but then you said some, I might I'm paraphrasing, but these are my words being intentional about doing it on purpose. I, those that's not what you, you said exactly, but I think that's what I, that's what I heard was I hearing you correctly.

Brenda Rigney: Yeah. Well, I use just like, claim your purpose. Like it's out there. Right? It's like, you know, it's like, there's like this, like billboard in the sky. Like it's like flashing at you, you know, like those old school airplanes with those banners that just go across, like when you're at the beach or something, it's like, it's right there.

Just like, take it down and,

Zach Arend: Yeah.

Brenda Rigney: and, and then use it. And, and then, then it's like the intentional path, right. Then it's just like, okay. Instead of things, just falling into your lap. I just believe that the universe is there. I say this to my clients all the time. Once you claim your purpose, it's like, you can see now all the gems lined up, like, like before they were already, always there.

And, but because you didn't have your purpose and you weren't sort of defining it and claiming it, it was kind of hard to see some things and you kind of maybe stumbled upon it, but then it's like, when you claim your purpose, it's like, almost like all these little like Easter eggs are glowing and you can just like pick 'em up in your basket.

Zach Arend: Very cool. I got, I kind of get excited just hearing you talk cuz that that's my journey's been very similar. It was back when I was early twenties. When I first. Professional roles. I didn't know this, but I was in the role of work, developing people. You know, that wasn't my title. I was just a manager, but that's why I came to work every day.

I mean, if you really got down to it, reflecting, like that's what always lit me up. That's what, when I'd leave the most fulfilled. But yet I often question, you know, who am I, what am, what am I really here to do? Does this really matter? Is there more. That was around the time I became a, well, I didn't become a coach in that moment, but that started me on the path of really going deeper in this whole personal development journey or just this probably less development.

It's more just discovering who you are and being that and letting that be enough being unapologetic about it. But this idea of create purpose came up and I was getting into blogging. I was writing and I got on this top purpose, you know, I think for so long. I, and a lot of people, I know they're looking for it outside of them, you know, like where is wishing one day would just tap 'em on the shoulder and say, Hey, we'd like you to do this thing.

Like, oh, you know, and thank finally, but I realize it's been there all along and this idea of creation, like creating it, like it's my values. It's and I think we need to go here next, cuz I want to hear more on your kind of how you go approach this, but you use the words three uniques, you know, it's what makes me uniquely, who I am.

I just need to reveal that to the world more because I'm hiding, I'm trying to change myself for everyone around me. Never really showing up as my true self. And so then now I'm frustrated cuz I feel like an imposter and oh, why don't people? Well, it's on, I never showed them who I was. And so when I started.

Seeing that I'm like, oh my goodness. And things started. It was like the right opportunity started to attract themselves to me when I dropped the charade and just started being who I was. So I wanted to share a little bit of maybe the, the perspective I'm coming from, because that's how it lands for me.

When I hear you talk.

Brenda Rigney: I love that. And I think that there's a lot of other people on the planet, including myself. I was there too. Like just living that life is just exhausting. Right. It's just like, it's tiring. Like you're constantly like trying to go upstream, you know, the whole phrase upstream without a paddle type of thing.

And it's just, it's exhausting. So. Once, I think you get into that alignment. So what I talk about when I think about alignment is you first gotta claim your purpose and then you mentioned it it's, you know, setting your values and I'm a big believer on values and keeping them small. You don't need 10 values.

Don't need 20 values, cuz your values are there to help make decisions. Should I take door number one, dinner number two, like you gotta make it that clear. So your value should help guide your decision making and then it's setting out a vision for your life. Now see, like the whole thing too, about your purpose, your purpose is your whole life.

It is gonna last longer than you physically being on the planet. It's gonna be your legacy. So using that word, people are gonna remember you. They're gonna recall situations, experiences with you, even after you've gone. That's your purpose. It's gonna be far reaching your vision is say for the next 10 years of your life, you wanna keep it just like present right.

Something that's just on the horizon. And maybe for younger people I'll so. Pad that down to five years, right? Like, depending on sort of where they are. And if they're like, Hey, you know what? I just need to get through college. Right. And it's like, yeah, no problem. So five years is good. And then it's mobilizing the goals, getting them into action, taking massive action around our goals.

Passive action is reading, working with a mentor. Like all those things are great. They help build up your toolkit, but until you actually put like, you know, feet on the ground and you are taking massive action, your goals are not getting mobilized. . So those are some of the concepts that I talk about when I'm thinking about an aligned a F life.

And I, and I, those are sort of like the foundational pieces, but starting off, you talked about three uniques. So, you know, I have my podcast, people come in and they learn about their three uniques by taking a three uniques quiz. The whole idea behind three uniques is that we are similar to like concepts, like strength, finders.

Like we are. Equipped with strengths and through schooling through work, we're gonna get conditioned to be this well-rounded employee, this well-rounded student. We have to go through math, even though we're more artistic, we have to do sciences, even though we're more about philosophy, you know, whatever those things are, we have to be this whole rounded.

You know, individual, but at the same time we have passions, we have strengths. So the whole idea of buying three uniques is to identify what makes you unique. You first start off by looking at your skills, your talents, your abilities. So that's sort of like one bubble or bucket that you would look at. And then the next area is, you know, really looking at your values, beliefs, and passions.

And then the third is looking at your experiences past present, and soon to be future, because I know like, you know, I'm planning on going on vacation this fall to Europe, that's gonna be an experience that's gonna be in the soon to be future. So I can already start anticipating kind of what that experience is gonna be like, cuz I'm planning on that vacation.

So those three buckets or bubbles as I call them in the middle, that center sweet spot is what makes you unique. And sometimes people say to me, well, to narrow down to three, Brenda, that's hard. well, again, here's the thing is like you probably have 10 uniques. You probably have 30 uniques. Awesome. That's great.

But again, sometimes we get stuck on trying to then mobilize them and where we see, you know, congruency or alignment in our life. So I take it down to three. Three's a really great number. It's like a core number in PHA. Theorum like, there's a lot of science and Witchery and mathematics. That's rooted in the number three.

So that's a, it's kind of like a good, lucky number and it keeps it simple. So what are my three uniques? And then how do I build an aligned life? That's intentional. That's set on my values that, you know, ties into my vision. That helps me mobilize my goals and that, you know, when I wake up in the morning, it's, it's clear to me what I'm doing and who I wanna impact and how I wanna serve.

Zach Arend: So good. And I'm just thinking about my own life as you share those three bubbles. And it's, I'm curious if. Or for you two or some of the people you work with, but it's like when you look behind you and all the experiences in your life, it's, it's like you see a straight line that brought you right to where you're at.

Like, it all starts to make sense cuz every ex, so the three bubbles, if I heard you, right. Skills, talents, and abilities, your values, beliefs and passions and your experiences. As present and then kind of the desires, like what do you want to experience more of, less of, and it's that unique blend? And I just, I look, you, you had me thinking about my life and it's like, wow.

You know, I was doing sales calls when I was in my twenties and I hate, I didn't like doing it and I didn't, where am I going with this? But it taught me how to listen. It taught me how to ask deeper questions. And it's all this stuff now. I'm like, wow. I bring every part of me into being a coach, you know?

And I, I that's kind, am I getting it? Is this kind.

Brenda Rigney: Yeah. And see, that's the thing, cuz like when you're looking at the first bubble skills, talent abilities, like yeah, I may play basketball. It doesn't necessarily matter. I'm gonna go become a basketball player. So that's the key thing is that we look at all three of those bubbles and it's this sweet spot in the middle that creates our three uniques.

So you could be a really great listener from learning how to do sales calls. It does mostly mean that you wanna become a sales professional all your life. Right. Cause then that's just sort of anchoring us in one path. So it's like, we list off all our skills, all our talents, all our abilities. I play basketball.

You do rodeo, like, you know, it's just like you list them all off. And then it's like, oh, and then in combination with my values, beliefs and passions, as well as my experiences that I've had from the past current state and future. What makes me unique? What do I wanna claim? What's important to me.

Zach Arend: And yeah, and then stripping away everything that is not that

Brenda Rigney: Yeah.

Zach Arend: in, in your life and, and, and.

Brenda Rigney: Because here's the thing too, is that we may also through past jobs again, through past education schooling, we may be anchored in some type of thinking that, oh, because I I'm just gonna use you as an example, because I was in sales or you were in sales that you're always now gonna have to be in sales.

Right. And I mean, I'm sure there's like selling as far as part of your business, but it's just. in that full-time sales role. And then, you know, if that's not something that really livens you or makes you feel great about it, then it's like, you just get anchored in that. And I see too often, people, you know, it's at regret and then, you know, they'll even pass it off as like, oh, I don't have any regrets though.

Like, you know, I've lived a full life, da da. It's like, no, but there's some longing. There's some, you know, desire there. That's not being necessarily meant. And so why not look at all the things that you bring to the table? Again, your skills, talents, abilities, your passions, your values, beliefs, and your experiences.

And from that, create something, cuz there's gonna be something magical in all of that.

Zach Arend: Yeah. And I, I love that. I love that. And has me thinking a little bit about, and I'm curious what your experience is. One, this idea that the idea of regret, but then we also will, the word that comes to my mind is rationalize a little bit of why, you know, good enough, why things are the way they are.

Brenda Rigney: It is what it is.

Zach Arend: And I don't, when I see that in, in people, I, I see them tolerating so much.

That's an indication that they're tolerating a lot of things that they don't really desire. And as a coach, I, it, it's kind of, my purpose is I wanna draw them back to their own unique greatness that, that, that inner pilot light, if you will, that, that spark, that, that desire and. No longer settle or tolerate and actually pursue it.

And that like, that create purpose. That kinda like we were talking about earlier, claim your purpose and, and really mobilize it into action. So let's talk, I wanna go there, but let's put a pin in that for a moment, because I'm really curious, like this. This, I'm just kind of think putting myself in some, maybe the listener's shoes sounds great.

Like sounds wonderful, but I've got a business. I have employees, I've got pressure. I've got a boss or what, you know, there's just, all life is kind of telling you who you are supposed to be and ought to be. So you're always bumping up against that. I wanted to just ask you a little bit more of like, what does it feel like.

From your experiences working in your community when somebody's not aligned with their three uniques, what, what might be some indicators that there's an opportunity to our listeners to, to do this work?

Brenda Rigney: The number one thing I'm hearing from most people that come to me is burnout right now. And however people define burnout, physically exhausted, emotionally, mentally exhausted, just, you know, not wanting to do the work anymore, whatever the work is that they're, you know, commissioned to do their job. You know, whether they're the owner of the business or an employee within the.

But just feeling this like huge sense of burnout and sort of like drudgery, trying to go to their work. It's impacting them in their relationships at home, like in their personal life, at their health, their wealth. So that's one of the things I hear. I think just as much as people like, oh, well, Brenda, that's all well and good, but I've got responsibilities or I've got obligations.

There's also an element of self doubt. Like this is gonna require a lot of work. And I don't know if I have. One the capacity or the capability. So I think it, it also becomes a little bit of a self-confidence concern, right? Like they just don't have the self-confidence to make that change. And really self-confidence is just a belief.

We rely a lot on confidence from past experience to tell us that we can do something, but self-confidence is the belief that we have the capacity or the capability to do something differently in the future. And that takes again massive. We are only gonna train our brain to think that we are confident to take on that next challenge, that next risk, that next goal.

If we actually take action, fail, learn from that failure. And then take action again. That builds our tool bank of confidence. Right now we're relying on confidence from, I don't know, a project that you did 10 years ago, that you were successful at that your boss, you know, said good job. And you're relying on that to take on the next goal that you have.

It's expired, it's old news. Like nobody cares anymore. You need to set a new belief for yourself that you have the capacity and the capability to take on something new and different and awesome in the future. And yeah, that may mean, I don't know how to do something. So you ask for help. You get a coach, you get a mentor, you know, you take a course, you read a book like you build your capacity and your capability to take on that next.

But I think that's the difference is that people are relying on confidence from the past versus self-confidence of something they wanna do in the future. So there's burnout there's self-confidence and self-doubt like, sort of generates in that. And then I think there's also pain. People are afraid of pain, you know, they could be suffering from some type of physical, emotional, or mental pain right now.

And the idea of addressing the pain, leaning into the pain, exploring the pain, exploring the emotion behind the pain. Is a lot. And so we buffer, you know, we compensate, we justify, we rationalize, like you said, and we push it aside.

Zach Arend: It removes the pain.

Brenda Rigney: It removes the thing. Yeah. And people do that through whatever wine Doritos, whatever it is that they do to compensate for that, spending things, buying like an extra handbag, whatever those things are to make us feel good in the moment.

But we desire something bigger than.

Zach Arend: Yeah.

Brenda Rigney: and we have the capacity and the capability that separates us. We're mammals we're primates at the core, but what separates us from a bear in the mountains or a gaff in Africa is that we have desires. That's human nature. That's our human drive is that we have a desire for something bigger, something greater, and we all have.

And it's it doesn't, it doesn't discriminate against wealth, people of wealth or people of not of wealth, people of education or not education people of. Family, you know, I don't know, hallmark card family situations are not hallmark card families. It doesn't discriminate. We all have that inside of us. The light has gone out maybe a little bit, or it's a little bit dimmed, but it's like, it's leaning into that emotional pain that, that also compliments the aligned AF life.

So I talk about purpose, values, vision, and goals, and then the three things that get in the way, which is our limiting beliefs, our money blocks, and then setting clear boundaries. So that completes like my seven steps around an aligned AF life. We figure out what makes you unique, three of them. And then we apply it in this full circle of these seven steps, purpose, values, vision goals.

And then we go into those limiting beliefs. We, you know, address the emotional pain. We address the self-doubt. We address the, you know, the burnout, whatever those things are feeling for you. We look at the money blocks, cuz that's a lot of times people are like, I can't take on this leg cuz it's gonna cost too much.

I don't have the time. You know, whatever those things are. My kids, my partner, my boss, whatever those excuses are that we can't live into our aligned a F life. And then the last one is setting some boundaries because we're saying yes to some things that we really should start saying no to.

Zach Arend: Ooh, so good. There's so much to unpack there.

Brenda Rigney: I know it's like a.

Zach Arend: I love that. You just, I like, I like hearing that complete journey that complete thought you just shared because it helps paint a picture to everyone listening, including myself. Like it's really, that's a cool life when you, and it takes a hell of a lot of courage to lean into that, but is there at some point it stops becoming scary and the self doubt goes away or is it

Brenda Rigney: Yeah. Yeah. I, I totally agree with his. Yes, I do believe it. So in my align AF program, I work with clients for a year. Like I want them for a minimum of a year. Cause I believe that there is mountains and valleys in. And so it's like, if we just work together for three weeks, I just like, we'll get, we'll get somewhere, but it's gonna, it's like an elastic band.

We'll stretch it. And then it's just gonna go back. So I wanna stretch it a little bit more. So it stays in that new space. Um, so I have a client, we were just chatting yesterday and she said, you know what? It, it took me like, The first couple months I was resisting. And I was even thinking about like quitting and I'm like, yeah, I know.

She's like, because you were like going after the emotional pain stuff, you were going after the self down stuff. And I'm like, yeah, because we gotta clear that out. We gotta like take the bandaid off that you've been putting on there. The buffering, like, you know, the compensating for it. We gotta clean the wound and then we can start on the goal.

We can't start on goals. If you've got a wound there, you gotta clean it. Me put a new bandaid on or air it out a little bit, but you know, we gotta, you know, and then we can start on the goals. And so really her first couple months was like pushing, resisting, and then it was like opening up possibility, feeling the emotions.

Right. And she would, you know, in our calls, she'd be like, I'm sorry for crying. And I'm like, it's cool. Like, it's like, you gotta release. You got a lot of. Layers of like dirty bandaids on there. We gotta like take 'em all off. And now she's at a point where's like, she's been six months in she's setting goals.

She's building her website, she's doing sales pages. She's launching a program and there's like, no resistance. Sure. She has little flareups every now and then like in the sense of like, oh, Ooh, self doubt's coming back up. But now she's leaning into her emotions and saying, yeah. Okay. Why is that self doubt there?

Yeah, I know why it's there. Okay. I got it. We're good.

Zach Arend: So that's such a powerful thing. Just reflecting on what you said. Like we have desires in our hearts and our soul and, you know, there's these real desires, these things that we kind of sent, if we let ourselves we'll lean towards them, you know, they're whispering to us always, but right behind those desires is resistance comes in the form of self doubt, fear telling yourself a story that of lack of confidence.

If I were only more confident. Right. But what you're sharing is so powerful. Let's talk about this. The emotional. Component of pursuing your legacy, your purpose, and translating that into a vision setting goals and turning it into action. It's the, our emotions keep us from so much of that. Because as a leadership coach, I'll be in a conference room with multiple leaders in a room.

And it's just my style. I, I will I go there? I enter the danger. I ask the tougher questions and there are times where somebody will break down. They I'll hit an emotion and there will be tears. It isn't long until one of the leaders in the room, the one of the peers go scrambling for a tissue and they hand that tissue to that individual.

And that communicates so much. I just want the listeners to be mindful. Like when you hand someone a tissue, you're telling them to clean themselves up, you know, and I'm kind like, no, let them, let them let, let it calm. Like, we're just, we just started

Brenda Rigney: You want nose like everything, right? Like all

Zach Arend: it come because that's that that's that you said it earlier, there's, there's kind of this release.

There's this airing out of the, the wound, if you will. Sometimes that's all that's needed is just to, I don't remember where I read this, but you know, people that seem to have these emotional outbursts, they will apologize. I'm so I'm sorry. I'm I just get emotional. I'm so emotional. The truth is they're not emotional enough.

They, they bottle it up and then it just comes bursting out of them instead of staying in touch with the emotions. And I think I'm curious for what you think about this, this idea that I don't know how many total emotions there are, you know, in the psychology textbooks, but the majority of them could be labeled as negative emotions, sadness, grief, anger.

There's only like joy and happiness. There's only like a handful of pleasant ones. The rest that human beings experience. Often judged as bad negative. And so we judged the emotion and we want it to go away. Like we, we're trying to get rid of. And, and so that's where we lose resonance with who we are being and who we are in the moment.

And so we, we like unplug ourselves from that desire and, and everything. Those emotions are trying to tell us. So I just kind of went down a road, but I'm curious like, cuz I know you run, you bump up against this and you really help individuals navigate the emotional component of fulfilling on their dreams.

What have you found to be true and most helpful in these situations?

Brenda Rigney: Well, I think the most important thing is there's this a clear connection between our emotions and our. right. So I think that's the other thing too, is that like, when we, we use the example of crying before, there's a physical reaction to the emotion that we're experiencing. And sometimes that physical reaction, again, could show up as physical pain, right?

We get a cramping in our stomach. We get attention in the back of our neck. You know, maybe we had a Twitch in our eye or we get, you know, hard, hard to breathe, like shortness of breath and the natural inclination, our brain, when it experiences pain is to. You know, go into some type of defensive mode around it, right?

We, we don't like pain physically, you know, we don't wanna hurt our bodies. Right. And, and so again, understanding where those triggers are in our body is also a good indication to say, you know what? I I'm understanding. I'm learning about my emotions. I'm learning that when I experience loneliness, this is where it shows up in my body.

When I'm experiencing frustration, this is where it shows up or how it shows. When I'm experiencing anger or hatred, this is where it shows up. And what I've been able to learn for myself is recognizing those triggers, those body sensations, that tightening or quickening, depending on how you experience it or heat.

Sometimes it's like, you know, my hands get hot, or I feel like the heatless in my chest. I know some of my clients will go red in the face. You know, it manifests differently in everyone's body, but tuning into them earlier. So it's like, I know when I'm experiencing some type of tension, that's always related back to some emotion.

It starts at the base of my neck. It'll start in my jaw and then go to the back base of my neck. I grind my teeth at night. So if I wake up in the morning, my jaw is tight. There's some, there's a thought that I haven't processed yet that I need to process. It's not about a situation it's not about, oh, Zach said something to piss me off or something like that.

It's not that that's like. That's an occurrence. That's an issue. It's the thought that I have about what Zach said. And so like, my mind has shut off the thought my mind has like buffered or tuned off the situation, cuz it's painful to recall that conversation with Zach. I mean just using you as an

Zach Arend: No, you're good.

Brenda Rigney: for the listeners, it's

Zach Arend: perfect example.

Brenda Rigney: no problem.

There there's been no past conversation, no baggage, but it's just, you know, it's like my brain has said, you know what? This is too painful for me to deal with. So I'm gonna shut it off and we're going. Have a glass of wine after work, or, you know, go out with girlfriends or whatever, I'm gonna just tune it out for right now.

But my body it's still resonating in my body. And I wake up in the morning and my jaw's, you know, tight because I've been grinding my teeth. That's a signal for me to say, there's a thought that I haven't processed yet. And I will just spend some time. I find for myself, it's getting out into nature. I live close to the water I'm in Western Canada.

And so for me, it's like getting out into the woods or getting into like on a forest trail with my dog or going down to the beach and then like maybe just sitting sometimes I'll take a journal with me. Sometimes I'll listen to music, but it's just like, what's the thought that I haven't processed yet.

What happened in the last week? So I either tune into my body and see where there's a, you know, a tension that's coming up. And where could that tension be coming from? It's always gonna be coming from a thought. we tend to take it back to a situation it's like, oh, the reason why I have this pain is because of Zach.

It's like, no, it's the thought that I have about the conversation that I had with Zach. And so I understand the thoughts that I have, cuz I can, I can't change Zach and I can't go back to the past conversation, but I can change my thoughts that I have about Zach or thoughts about myself and how I showed up in that conversation.

And so that's where I can start taking out massive. So once I recognize the feelings that have in my body, that's showing up, I can go back to the thought that generate those feelings and then I can take massive action around creating new thoughts.

Zach Arend: Yeah, action towards getting your needs met in a, like, I, I like to think of it as that. And I'm curious if this, if I'm thinking about it correctly, but actually slowing down, which is what I heard you just say is get back in touch with whats. These emotions are. And where are they coming from? What are the stories I'm telling myself?

That's even leading me to feel this way.

Brenda Rigney: Yeah, we tell our.

Zach Arend: Yeah.

Brenda Rigney: Grain is just, Ugh, like it's an amazing equipment piece of equipment for us, but it, it logs all these stories. So again, going back to the conversation with Zach, something triggered in something in me, it made me frustrated, but it's really about a story that links back to, I don't know a conversation I had with my dad, like 18 years ago.

And how he made me feel in that conversation and I'm just building it all together. And my brain is saying, yeah, oh, it's like that situation. So the way Zach talked to you is exactly the way your dad talked to you. So now you're just gonna lump it all into this one big story. Right. And this trilogy, that's just now like, it's like star wars, like times 10, you know?

And it's just, you know, so our brain is like this magnificent machine, but it also can be a detriment to us creating more love, abundance, joy fulfillment in our life because we're tuning ourselves out. We're like, Nope, I don't wanna deal with Zach. So I'm just gonna like avoid it. I can avoid that pain.

I'm gonna buffer, um, Versus let's get in. Let's figure out where the pain's coming from, feel it in your body. Spend some time thinking about your thoughts and then take an action to change your thoughts.

Zach Arend: Yeah. And question your thoughts coming back to what you're like, what evidence do I have that that is actually true. And what's leading me to believe that, and that, that opens up a whole new world of possibilities. Like, whoa, maybe, maybe I'm just having a bad day. it has nothing to do with you, right.

Brenda Rigney: Yeah, there's some great work with Byron Katie.

Zach Arend: It's so I can't believe you said that I was going,

Brenda Rigney: Soon as you said true. Right? Like, is it true? Like, she'll just ask the question, like, what's the thought that you have and like, is it true? How do you know it to be true?

Zach Arend: Uhhuh.

Brenda Rigney: And if you know the thought wasn't there, like, what would you be doing instead?

Right. Like, I like, I'm paraphrasing her questions there, but she has like forming questions and it's like, it's such a beautiful question, cuz it's like, if you didn't have that thought, like if you know the thought's not true and if you didn't have it, what would you be doing instead?

Zach Arend: Yes.

Brenda Rigney: And I love that.

Zach Arend: I love Byron Katie it's so

Brenda Rigney: Do you wanna be stressing and like, you know, thinking about Zach 24 7 and the bad conversation's like, no, I actually wanna have a better relationship with Zach.

I wanna build a business with, you know, whatever I was like into that.

Zach Arend: Yeah, so good. I wanna shift not really shift cuz you ended like once you kind of learned a process and stay in it, you can get to your a point where you can take massive action. And so that kind of brings us to the, the, towards the end of the framework you you've been teaching us. I think just kind of getting, getting into your aligned self.

Which translates into action aligned action, all the, you know, and so you said something towards the beginning of our conversation around passive versus massive action.

Brenda Rigney: Yeah,

Zach Arend: And I, there was a moment where I'm like, I I'm familiar with passive action, but share the difference for us just for a moment. Like, what's the difference between passive and massive action.

And what's important to us about distinguishing between the two.

Brenda Rigney: sure. Yeah. I'll actually like break it into three, so there's no action. Passive action. And then massive action. So no action is just not doing anything like we're living in doubt, fear, blame, worry, you know, judgment. And we're just not doing anything we're like completely immobilized life is just passing us by it's like on default.

um, passive action is we're getting into some sort of action, like, and I would classify that as like the intellectual approach we're reading, we're listening to podcasts, we're going to conferences commenting on. Someone's like, you know, post on LinkedIn, which is great. And our brain is telling us that we're taking action, but it's from the stance.

Like we're watching life play out and we're taking this intellectual we're pontificating. We're reflecting. We're maybe. We, we could be brainstorming, which is great. Got our flip charts out and we're, you know, we're with our colored markers and we're coming up with all these ideas. But if they're just ideas on flip chart and they're not actually getting on the court and getting played out, it's passive action.

Massive action is we're creating, we're generating, we're failing, you know, we're learning we're in that growth mindset. Carol Dweck growth mindset. Right? So it's like passive action is we could be learning, but we could stay fixed because we're not applying anything. We're not taking it.

Zach Arend: I think I have a great example of passive action. Years, years ago, I started working with a coach and that's kind of what opened my eyes. Like I didn't even realize this was a profession and I was preparing for. Direction in my life. And I was reading all these books and I was always talking about it. I read this and I'm learning about this.

And he asked me this powerful question. He said, I remember it. He's like, when will you know that, you know, enough kind of this idea of like, in other words, he's saying, when you gonna just get to work, you know, when are you gonna take all this passive action and turn it into actually just putting something into the world?

Brenda Rigney: Yeah, like you're, you're staying in that student mode

Zach Arend: Yeah.

Brenda Rigney: and now you need to turn into, so I have a coach that talks about you're either in student. or when you're taking massive action, you get into scientist mode where you're actually experimenting and you're trying things out, or you're in artist mode when you're creating, or you're a monk mode where you're like introspective, but then you're taking action afterwards, right?

Like you're generating still from that. So like there's number of hats that you can play when you're in massive. but I think the key thing is like, you gotta see the shift, like you'll know, right? Like, am I in the stands? So there's a concept from landmark education. Like you're either on the, in the stands watching life, pass you by, or you're on the court playing life, you know, dribbling the ball, passing the ball, shooting the ball, whatever.

But you know, when you're in the stands, you're actually not living your life. You're commenting on what's going on in the game, but that's it, you're a commenter.

Zach Arend: Yeah. Or you're on the sidelines stretching and getting ready to get ready to get ready without ever. Yeah. I, I love, I love that. I love your archetype. She just shared the. To, I don't know if you've used those before. They're really good. You said the student, the monk, the, I love.

Brenda Rigney: I can't claim those. Those are my, one of my coaches, Simin, Simone soul. She talks about. So there's the student, which is really passive action and it's okay to be a student. Like it's like, yeah, I'm gonna like set a timer. I'm gonna be a student. For a day, I'm gonna listen to a bunch of podcasts and Monday I'm gonna take action.

And yeah, the three architectures that she talks about as far as taking massive action would be the scientist, cuz the scientist is always experimenting, drawing hypothesis, you know, learning, failing, whatever, mixing the mixing, mixing the potions and, and, but always in action, right. Or the artist paint, pallets, different colors, swatches, canvas, different mediums, all that sort of stuff.

But. um, you never say you never see like an artist saying I'm an artist, but they have no artwork. Right? It's like, no, they're applying their craft all the time. And then the monk who is introspective, always searching for sort of like reasoning, et cetera, but then applying it, right. Like from a spiritual standpoint.

So both are like, cuz I think the thing is like sometimes when I talk about massive action, I don't want people to think that you're on 24 7 either. Like you do need some time, like you do need the resting and the restoration. So sometimes it's good to play the monk part, but the monk still wakes up the next morning.

They're still fastidious. They're still like, I don't know, pruning the garden and, you know, mopping the floors and whatever they're doing. Right. You know, sharing the sheep. So they're still doing something the next day, but they also take that time to reflect.

Zach Arend: Yeah, I can, I can imagine extremes, you know, that if you're always in student mode, you never put anything new. You're always consuming, not creating, but if you're always in massive action. You're probably ineffective at some point because you there's this idea of slowing down to speed up. Like let's maybe go intro, go internal for a moment introspective.

And you know, cuz I've I know people and I grew up was in work, the workplace where people, it was just like, we couldn't even finish the, the leadership development workshop we were in and they wanted to end it early so we could get started. And it's like, let's complete on this. And we will begin as soon as this is done, you know, and be present, you know,

Brenda Rigney: And here's how I talk about it with my clients that are like, you know, business leaders, entrepreneurs. It's like, you're not always launching. Right. It's like, you're gonna launch something, you know, a new offer, a new promotion on something, but it's not like you're launching like every single week, unless you're like Creighton barrel or J crew or something like that.

But it's like, you know, for most people that are in some type of like the folks that I mostly work with online, solar printers, it's like, you're not launching all the time. So it's like, yeah, like maybe it's like, yeah, you're doing a couple webinars. And then next week it's like more, you're gonna focus on your social media posts, you know, but it's like, you're always taking.

Action. Right. And it's always in this massive, like aligned effort towards your, your goals. Um, you know, and again, sometimes you need to be the student, so be the student, but I would say set your timer.

Zach Arend: Yeah, that was my trick is I, I would give myself enough time. Okay. You have an hour or you have your weekend. You can noodle on all kinds of interesting ideas, but on Monday you're gonna start. Putting your fingers to the keyboard and writing something or, you know, putting something out there. So good. So I'm just reflecting on our entire conversation.

There's so much we covered and if I'm listening, I might be sitting here, like, that's all great. But right now I just kind of feel like I am running on a hamster wheel. Exhausted. I am tired. I'm feeling the burnout. What's like my first step. Like, what is the first step? Like if, if you were to give our listeners one takeaway to. Get started on this journey. What would it be?

Brenda Rigney: Oh, I would always say, and this has been like the biggest, like learning for myself personally in all of this journey is just, you know, cuz part of like the end work and the first step, it all comes back to, this is connecting with your body. getting into nature, focusing on your breath, you know, focusing on your sleep.

Cause here's the thing is like, if you want to make some changes, right? Like even if we talk about the concept, like setting clear boundaries, I may, I may need to start saying no to some things. and if I haven't been saying no already, my brain is gonna go through a tailspin. So, you know, focus in on your nervous system, like getting connected to your breath, like getting into nature, breathing fresh air, calming yourself down, like knowing how to calm, you know, your nervous system down.

Because as you take on these new goals and this new way of aligning to your life, your brain is going to resist. Right. It's gonna tell you it's wrong. And let's just go back to what we always know because it's familiar and it's comfortable. Even the burnout is familiar and comfortable, even though we don't like the burnout, it's familiar, it's comfortable.

And our brain is just like, well, we you've just always worked in burnout. So like, why do you wanna create this alignment in your life? Like that seems really hokey. So you need to be able to tune into your nervous system when it starts, you know, when your brain starts pushing back on.

Zach Arend: So good. So good. Well, I just have a. Quick hit questions. And this one's kind of a selfish question, cuz I love to read. I love to learn. So maybe I do spend too much time in the student archetype, but it's just who I am. I love it. It's so I always like to ask my guest, you know, what's a book or a podcast or what's some, I'll just ask, I wanna ask you more specific.

What is a book that you're really into right now and, and why?

Brenda Rigney: Well, actually I'm reading one book right now. It's called the anti-racist business book by Trudy LeBron. And that's really good. She's awesome. Her book is doing really well right now, so I highly recommend it for people. And then I'm also reading Brene Brown's Atlas of the.

Zach Arend: Oh,

Brenda Rigney: and that's a great book because it's just, it's totally aligned to like what we've just been talking about today.

Like she just goes through and she discerns through all the different types of emotions. Right. We're experiencing love, but we're also experiencing like fatigue. How do we navigate through that?

Zach Arend: my wife and I just, not a long ago, we haven't finished it yet, but she has a special on HBO, I think. Have you heard of it? I don't know if you've seen it. We, I haven't finished it, but I think it's the same content of the book. And it's a really powerful series. I think there's five 50 minute episodes. I love Renee brown.

I think she's amazing. I have not read that book though. I'm gonna add that one to my list as well as the other one by.

Brenda Rigney: basically chronologically goes through kind of like every emotion. Right. So when you were talking earlier, like, oh, I'm sure in psychology, there's like, you. And, and there are tools that like label all the different types of motions. She goes through that.

Zach Arend: Wow, very cool. Very cool. Well, last question. What are, what are you building? You know, what is what, so kind of bringing it down to your purpose, your vision goals. What are you building towards this year?

Brenda Rigney: Well, I mean, one of the big things is just continuing to strengthen the community that I've been establishing with the women that are inside align AF so I've been building out like more tools. I call it the vault, like there's the aligned AF vault. So people can, that are inside of a. Can just have all the videos, the recordings, everything sort of at their fingertips.

And then there's an extension of it. We've got a retreat going on this fall in person on a local Gulf island called Galliano island. It's this really amazing island and lots of great memories there for myself and my co-host, that's gonna be doing it with me and yeah, that's gonna be really exciting. So, and just kind of like, I think, you know, when I see, I think of different business concepts, like everyone's sort of going after this product and this product, I just wanna continue to like enrich the aligned AF.

Model framework and community that I've been starting to establish and just continue to like entrench in that. Yeah, that's my, that's my focus. And going away, I'm going to year up this fall with my partner, and I'm really excited about that trip and, and we're gonna visit three amazing cities and 10 days and yeah, and spending time with my girls,

Zach Arend: Sounds sounds fabulous. How can people learn more about what you're up?

Brenda Rigney: they can check out screenings.com and when they go to three e.com, they can take part in my. and learn more about what makes me unique.

Zach Arend: Cool. I have to ask. I swear. I heard some seagulls or some birds chirping in the, in the background. Do you have your windows open and are, and are you, are you by the water?

Brenda Rigney: I'm not close to the water. I'm like about a 50 minute drive from the water. But the interesting fact about seagulls, cuz my partner's a Marine biologist, seagulls. Don't actually always live by the water. So we actually, yeah, there's like a flock or I don't know, little Haven where they kind of hang out.

But yeah, there's some like maybe a block, a block away from me. So I always see them.

Zach Arend: Well, I hope we don't edit 'em out because they, they weren't very loud, by the way, it was just very subtle and I'm like, oh yeah, I just felt myself kind of calm down. I just loved it. So thank you for adding that to the, the episode.

Brenda Rigney: Do my best.

Zach Arend: Brenda, thanks for, for joining me. I love this conversation and I hope I don't hope I, I know those that are listening.

Got a lot out of this, so thank you. Thank you for sharing your unique bills, your gifts with, with my audience. So I really appreciate it. And thanks for coming on the show.

Brenda Rigney: Thank you Zach. Thanks everyone for listening to and yeah. Be well.

Zach Arend: Hopefully you really enjoyed this podcast episode and my hope is you. Really inspirational. And also most importantly, I hope you took away some practical things that you can start to do and apply in your own life. So finally, I have one small favor to ask of you before you go, wherever you get your podcasts, whether that's apple music or Spotify.

If you enjoyed this episode, leave us a review. Love to hear your thoughts. Come find us on social media, share it on social media. It just really helps us get the word out, helps us grow our audience. So please do that. Thanks to my team, Ashley Bolden, who handles all the admin and Chris Skipper who handles all the music and editing of this podcast for more information.

Great purpose podcast. You can go to www.createpurpose.net, and you can also follow me on Instagram at @zach.arend. Please drop me a comment, reach out, drop me a DM. I'd love to hear from you and love to hear what you're taking away from these conversations. What would you like to hear more of? Do you have any guests that you would love to see?

Come on the show. And I'm always looking for great people to talk to people with great stories that can inspire you. And so if you know of anybody, send them my way, love to hear from. I'm your host, Zach Aaron, and I'll see you in the next episode of the Create Purpose Podcast. Bye for now.