Late to Your Life? You Need Less Friction | Clutterbug Podcast #321

We all have something in our lives that we want, that we wish we could change, but it all starts with this one step. Hey, Clutterbugs, welcome back to the Clutterbug podcast. Today is going to be such an amazing podcast. It's full of energy and learning because we are interviewing the incredible Amy Landino. Amy is a YouTuber just like me, and she started with business coaching, believe it or not, finding entrepreneurs or people who really wanted to be an entrepreneur and helping them achieve their dreams. What she found was everyone was really struggling with motivation. They were struggling to find success, and she reverse engineered this. She walked all of this back, this big roadblock of I can't achieve my dream. I can't make the change I want. She walked that back till it's beginning to the real issue that was the first domino in the whole effect. What she found was it's all about your morning. It's all about good morning, good life. That's actually the name of her book. If you're wondering why I would even want to make a podcast about morning and morning routines, when you know I'm not a morning person, I'm an anti-morning person, I'm a stay up all night playing video games kind of person, it's because you don't have to be a morning person for this to work. This is the most beautiful part. You don't have to change yourself. You just need to make this small little adjustment. Before we jump into this podcast, just like always, you are not allowed to just sit and watch or sit and listen. Seriously, please don't because you deserve better. You deserve to be so proud of yourself at the end of this. It's all about momentum. You showed up to learn. Let's also double duty it and get stuff done. I want you to feel unstoppable at the end of this podcast because I promise you're going to feel inspired, but let's get the ball rolling. Because we're talking about your morning, why not start in the bedroom? I would love you to first of all make your bed because that's an easy win that will set the tone for your entire day. Then look around at your bedroom. How is it making you feel? Are you stressed about the pile of papers? That's what you're dealing with. Are there clothes everywhere? Hang them up, put them away as quickly as possible. Maybe we're vacuuming the bedroom. I want at the end of this podcast for you to be like, holy freaking crap balls, my bedroom looks like an amazing oasis and you can make it happen. No matter what you're starting with, I promise you it will be better. Get up, get started. You deserve it. Hello, Amy. Welcome back to the Clutterbug podcast. Cass, I can't tell you how excited I am to be back. We had an epic conversation. Last time I was here, if I do say so myself, I just think that a lot of people resonated with it. So thank you for having me back. It's a total pleasure. I'm thrilled because I need you. Here's why. Our last conversation, you hyped. I was so hyped. I was like, I'm going to have the best morning and evening routine. This is good. I can't wait to hear the update right now. Update is I fell hard off the wagon back into laying in bed playing Fortnite and my Cheetos too late and then being late every morning. Motivation for me is fleeting. I need your fire again because I am almost 50, Amy. Listen, sleep matters the mostest of all is what I'm noticing in my old age. Also, non-negotiable routines is what got me here. How do I hack my sleep slash morning slash evening the same way? And you're the guru. This is your thing. Oh my gosh. You just like, I don't even know where to start and I know exactly where to start. I love that you just talked about the fact that you had non-negotiable routines to get you here. Now let me ask you this. Why did you do those things? Why did you implement those routines? What made you excited to do that? Oh, that's such a good question. I think I wasn't. Is excited the word? No. It was necessary because I was drowning in my home and the only way I would be consistent is if I made it a hard rule. And it had to be easy and not too overwhelming, but it had to be like, I had to put on my big girl pants and be like, you are the grown up here and like, you bad. Doesn't matter if you're tired or what. This is like a literal non-negotiable. It was a hard line. It was a boundary. Was this my first boundary? I think it's my first boundary. But I think that we're still getting there. You're scratching the surface. You didn't just want to find the adult in the room, which by the way, is my favorite analogy right now, now that I'm a parent. I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm still a kid and we're all just looking for the adult in the room and I'm the adult in the room. That's crazy. So that's not what your motivation was. You were like, I'm not going to live like this anymore. You wanted to feel differently. So there was an ultimate goal and that is how this all began, right? You were like, I want to feel free and flowy and clean and organized and like I have my life together in my house, if nowhere else than at least in my house. And that's what you want. So we don't start implementing routines because that sounds like fun. It doesn't sound like fun. It's the non-negotiable standard for a greater vision. So let me ask you this. Does it excite you to get more sleep? No, Amy. It doesn't. Otherwise you would be sleeping more. So like we have to be honest with ourselves. You get to make the rules and you get to follow them. But the rules don't matter if you don't know why you're doing them in the first place. Just listening to Amy tell you to get more sleep is not exactly compelling. Like why do you want to wake up earlier? Why do you want better sleep? Why do you love and simultaneously hate playing Fortnite and eating Cheetos in bed at night? Like that's the real question. So if you're going to get more sleep, what would it all be for? I mean, I definitely feel like a bag of butt all day long. So that's, I'd like to like not feel exactly and there was a bag of butt that you felt like in your house at one point in time. Yes, but I feel like I feel like I'm cluttering up my brain and my life because it's not, it's not organized. It isn't streamlined. I don't have habits. That's the thing. I don't have like habits that just carry me through. Sometimes I follow through, but there's zero consistency. And I'm struggling with this. I'm going to be honest. I'm struggling with this because at the time I'm like, I just want to do the fun thing now. But that was the same as me. Like, I don't want to do my dishes because that's boring. I'm honestly hearing like again with like you get to make the rules. Here's where this falls apart is when you wake up every day and you're like, Oh, I remember what the rules are. I know what the things are that I got to do. I'll just do them. But we then find ourselves in a situation of like, but how am I feeling? How do I feel about that? And we renegotiate the deal. Now you can renegotiate any deal you want, but I don't want you to renegotiate the deal on the decisions that you're making for yourself. So the question is, it's not just about collecting habits. Like what decisions are you done making? I want you to make daily decisions on fun stuff. The things in between the lines, but what decisions are you done making? And so I'll give you an example. I can't believe the last time I was on this show, how much has changed? I mean, the kids are still there, but the things have happened. Like at the time I was not going to the gym first thing in the morning. I was vehemently against it. I found my way into becoming a bit of a worker outer, but not life changing yet. And now I go to the gym at 4am. Like map that for me. I don't even know that's weird. That's plain weird. And I don't emphasize that anybody do that for 4am. 4am is like my bedtime. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. But like here's why that's happened. It's a decision I made once and I'm done making it because of all the things that I want to do and that I have to do. That's now become a non-negotiable standard to the point where it's very hard to go. It's very hard to go. But I am a mean person if I didn't. I am genuinely so disappointed and rude and my energy level is off and everything if I didn't do it. And I am a completely different person when I do and when I come home and the house is waking up. I have a great privilege that I have my partner, my husband lives with me. So like I can leave the house of that. So single parents can't do that. I can leave my kids sleeping and go to the gym. I come home. They're all waking up and I'm like good morning. I'm like so excited because I've already gone to the gym. I stopped at Duncan, got a little coffee. I did a little on the laptop real quick and I'm like ready and raring to go for somebody who's super introverted and not good at peopeling. That is exactly what I have to do to reverse engineer success and be nice and an exciting mom when you wake up out of bed and not like a mean old mom, right? That's the decision I made but you have to make the decision once. I need to make that decision. I love, I feel like, I feel like you're like this fierceness. Like, it's like this, this is the boundary I've made and this is the decision I've made and I'm sticking freaking with it. I love that and I want this so hard. What if you're not so, I wonder if you're an upholder, Gretchen Rubin, long story. The point is not, I've been to Gretchen Rubin's house. I've got her picture over there. I have gone back and forth on the upholder because I was like am I a questioner? Am I an upholder? Like we can go down that road. You want to go down that road? I'll go down that road. I just went to Gretchen Rubin's house last week and she is a hero of mine like from the beginning. So to be in her presence like physical presence, just unbelievable. It could be a club of people who came to Gretchen's house because this feels like a small club. It could be a small, how privileged are we? Because she is like a thought leader. She is a thought. Isn't she though? She, but from like, but I feel like she's so much like you in the sense that it all just started from finding something simple with her and the happiness project and for you with it's like the same thing, the happiness within my house and just it's so cool and that she nerded out on it so hard to become where she is. Like I adore her. I adore her too. I got to ask, how did you become a morning expert? This seems very niche. Yeah, it is. It's pretty niche. It was an accident. It was just like a complete, I had no idea what I was signing up for. Like I think I told you a little bit in my history last time where it was like, I just found out how to make videos and then I found out it was a social media marketing trade and then people were like, but how are you making videos? And it just continued to go in that direction until people were like, I don't have time to follow your advice, Amy. I was like, what? You watch my videos and you're not, you're not going to do any of this. Like look how life changing it is. So I just started really going down that hole of like, why do people not have time? And as I started to dig that up, it was like, okay, well, when do you start having time? When you wake up? How do you start the day on your terms? As soon as I made a video about morning routines and it went crazy, I just listened to what the audience says they want. I never got into this to be a morning routine guru. I just was trying to help people. That's it. I really was just like, no, no, no, but how do we keep doing this? How do I actually see you get results for yourself? And a lot of people just didn't have that agency in the morning. They felt like they defaulted into some kind of either an employee mode or whatever life, a parenting mode. And I just wanted them to know that they could turn it into whatever they wanted to, even if it was just one little detail at a time. I love this. You, you literally reverse engineered success. You were like, I want you to have success followers. And they were like, I'm struggling and you walked it back. Like, why are you struggling? Like, how do we get to the root? I mean, you must experience this cast. It's like, it's very easy for someone to think it's just about sitting down and talking on a video. It's not. That's just one side of the conversation. You have to listen to what the audience is saying. You have to hear that criticism. You have to hear what's working for them, because that's what makes it a real conversation so that it can evolve and you can grow together. And I really think that's why your community is so beautiful cast. Like so many of them reached out to me in my last episode and I was just blown away, but you've changed their life. And that trust comes from being open enough to hear what's really happening and evolve the conversation. You're so right. When I think about the four organizing styles, it came from it started with like, why doesn't this work for me instead of trying to force myself to do something? I stepped back and was like, where's the stumbling block here? And then working with clients, I was like, well, why isn't it sticking? Why can't it work for you? And that's where it was like, oh, well, your visual and your detailed or your not. And that kind of, and you've done the same thing, but like, for on a life, like, you're like, why isn't it let's zoom out? Oh, it starts with the morning and a good night. Oh my gosh, so good. I am I want to get it figured out. And because this is how we learn not doing everything the hard way, we look to you and the someone who hasn't figured out and we borrow a little bit of that. So my listeners, oh my gosh, I love the way you put that just borrow it. You don't have to become the fullest version of it if you borrow a little bit of it. Because this is about who you are not becoming someone else. So let's borrow from you. My listeners and I maybe we are not a 4am gym type person. Maybe you are if you're listening and you're that do that. But I do want a little bit of that fierce warrior when it comes to my morning, because I had that fierce warrior when it came to my house. That's what got me out of pure slobbification was like, I deserve better and I will not settle for less. And I want to bring that to a morning routine. But like an itty bitty baby way that doesn't feel hard. So let's start with one. If you had to be or maybe more, because I know you have kind of like a three step and sometimes you do a five step and you have like these non negotiables is wake up early. The thing. Like are you like, let's dip your toe in the water. Would you suggest like wake up a half an hour earlier and be fierce about it? What do you what do you got? What do you give it to me? It's so hard for me to say yes to that because I am a wake up early person, but I'm also like, that is not the hard and fast. Like I just told you everything that I do is to make me better at like literally peopeling. Like I started getting a lot of what I wanted. I got a husband. I got some kids. And there they are. They're there every day. And I'm like, still got what I want. Wow. But like before that, I was really introverted. I had a hard time connecting in relationships. Like it's really not natural to me to be like bells on. So I'm waking up early in a sense to ground myself. And I need a little bit more of that than other people. I think a lot of people would be served by how do you at least wake up and not have to think other people's thoughts first to the point of healthy, okay, because sometimes your own thoughts are not that great either. Most of us will either hear our kids screaming for us or grab Instagram and start like scrolling whatever we need to think. I'm not even saying don't be on your phone, but like I just did a morning routine review of Cindy Crawford. And her mindfulness moment was to turn on the Bible podcast or the Bible app or something. So her way of I'm going to wake up with my own thoughts and ideas. I'm at least going to choose intentionally what I absorb is to listen to that while she does some like skincare and dry brushing and stuff. Right. So that's how she's doing. I think everyone would be served to just be like, I'm going to choose what I absorb for the first few minutes of the day. Does that mean waking up early? I don't know. Like what does it you may not even have to if you live alone? Like you may not have to wake up early. You could wake up in your own time and be able to control that environment. It has to do with what's right for you. The amount of time my three step formula, which I've shared here before, but I'll just real quick movement, mindfulness, mastery, do something to move your body, do something to feed the mind intentionally and do something to master a skill. You could do that in a very short period of time. If you had to, you could do it. And it would give you that agency that you have the ability to control a little bit in your life. And most of us are just looking for more control. And we're not going to get the kind of control we want at the level we want. But if we could prove we get a little bit, we can prove we can move mountains. So it's not about waking up early. It's just saying, I get to make the rules, but I also get to follow them. And I'm not going to make the rules and then prove they're not rules by not following through. This is so okay. Listen, here's the commitment I'm making to you right now. What I realized this morning is, first of all, I'm late for work every single morning. Every morning, I'm the last person to show up to the office. The office is in my house. I have employees, okay, that come to my house. They let themselves in, they start their workday every day. I'm like, I'm going to be there first. And I'm going to greet them. And I'm every day I'm 15 minutes late to my own house. So I mean, I can't even blame blame traffic. But I'm thinking about this morning, do you know what I did? I let other people control my morning because the first thing I did was grab my phone. And I checked my email. And then I read the news. And then I went down a rabbit hole. So I can say I don't have enough time. But the reality is, I did wake up a half an hour earlier than I needed to. And I spent 45 minutes on my phone. I'm going to move my phone. That's my commitment to you. I'm going to move it across the room. This might be a lot for people who are like, Cass, your team comes to your house, girl, like I got to go to work. But like, let me ask you this, what were you 15 minutes late to? My day. I was 15 minutes late. I set the tone for my day as rushed as feeling like a failure before I even started it. I was late to my own life. That's what I was late to. But what's really interesting to me is that you've done a lot of things right in your business that allow you to you have some leverage, right? Okay, so as the owner, we take on a lot of risk. And I know this is going a little businessy, but you take on a lot of risk. And part of that risk is that you get to take some things off your plate because you have some really incredible people in their zone of genius handling things for you. So in a way, I think you want to show up to be a great leader. And maybe you define a great leader as somebody who shows up on time. But you're also showing up to a team who's got your back. And you know that. You feel so nice. Listen, I'm not saying all conditions are perfect all the time, blah, blah, blah. But like, truly, you are late for, you weren't late to this call. Like you're not, there's, you have support. Now, we have to be honest about this because so many people I know want to start a business, they want to have a team, they want to be able to do whatever they want, whenever they want. It's crazy when it actually happens. Cass, you have a little bit of that. And it's a special place to be. So when you buy back time like that, you need to find a new way to use the time you get. And a little bit of navigating that might be the reason you don't show up at a certain time. You're right. I think if I would have spent this morning doing something that fulfilled me, like, I don't know, reading a book that lit me up or planning or doing something that where I felt good about myself, I would have showed up differently. But I wasted my morning and then I was rushed. And how can I set up myself for success, even if it doesn't mean I'm here right when everybody else shows up, but that when I do show up, I'm in a place of like, I feel in control of my life, because that's what a rushed morning makes me feel. It feels, it makes me feel very like out of control and hectic and chaotic. Yeah. And then I mean, let me ask you this chaotic decisions. I want to know what mastery means to you. So I'm going to, I want, like we did this last time, I want everybody to know this, just come to my Instagram and message me, Cass, I'm going to send you my shine master list. And so you can get an idea of what are good things I could do for movement? What are good things I can do for mindfulness? And what are good things I can do for mastery? I want to unpack mastery with you. Like, what does it mean for you to continue to master and build your skills? I don't even know if like, I, it's specifically something I'm craving to master. I want to master my mind. I want to be able to follow through with what I say. I want to be able to trust that if I set my alarm for 730 and tell myself the night before, I'm going to work out for 15 minutes that I'm going to actually do that. And I'm not there. Like, because I think I'm not there because we talked about this last time too, I'm not setting myself up for success the night before. I'm not making it so stupidly easy to do this. I have friction all morning. I have friction in the way of my phone. I have friction in, like, I forget what I'm even supposed to do in the morning again, because I'm groggy and tired. And there's no visual cues and visual reminders and systems in place. Like, I want to feel differently about myself. That I think is the something I want to master is I want to be in control. So this is so good. I love this so much. When was the last time you read a self help book? We talked about this last time we're both self help book lovers. Oh, it's been a hot second. Let me talk about that then. So a little bit of overlap here, something you can do for both mindfulness and mastery. Pick the book that you need to be reading right now. Listen, I'm going to let y'all know that we talked about Good Morning, Good Life. Last time it's coming back and expanded. I am so excited because I get to talk about some challenges that I didn't have the first time I wrote. By the way, first time it came out 2019. How different was everybody's life in 2019? Pretty much everybody. That's an example of something where you're saying I'm refining the skill of mastering myself. So I need other people to just kind of hold my hand on that right now. And a great way to do that is read a book, listen to an audio book, do something, meditate, like choose your adventure. This is why I let everyone choose their adventure for their morning routine. You choose what would be best suited to you for your goal. And a lot of times we completely fill up our lives to the brim to the point where you are like, no, I'm playing court night and eating Cheetos and that's because I deserve it. I'm tired. You're at capacity because you didn't actually do anything that made you feel like you're on track with where you're going. The magic word you said, friction. We as ambitious, highly productive women, and we are like, even if we feel like we're failing, it's because our bar is ridiculously high is we agree to a certain amount of friction. We agree to it so much we master more friction than we actually need to. You have so much friction and so many decisions that have already been made, but you keep remaking them that you don't find your flow in the day. You let everything be up for discussion. And that's what we're trying to put a stop to the things that have been decided we follow through the things that are coming. We know other decisions are coming, emergencies, dumpster fires, whatever. We're going to have to deal with it. So let's not deal with it on the things we know are happening every single day. This is so good, Amy. And I love that you touched on the self help because this is what we talked about earlier about borrowing. I want to master my morning. I have good morning, good life, but you have a new extended copy. Congratulations. Thank you. It was so weird. Very serendipitously. It came out on my first born's fourth birthday, which I was like, I didn't pick the date. That's the crazy thing came out on April 7th. It's everywhere. I've never been able to say this before wherever you like to buy books. So if you see it at Barnes & Noble, please buy it. Oh my God. That's such a big deal. Cass, you will figure this out later. Like it is such a big deal to be in a real bookstore. So anyway, I'm just, it's, it's been a total dream and my audience that loved it when it first came out is supporting it just as hard now. And I just feel so lucky. I loved it. Honestly, this is one of those things I think everybody needs because it changes the way you think about your day. It changes the way you think about how you're starting, how you're finishing the tone, and you make it easy. So I'm back on the wagon. I'm back on the good morning, good life wagon. So many people are like, I'm going to do this and I want to do it with a friend. So we actually made it where anyone who orders two copies of the book and for it, well, while supplies last, by the way, this is crazy, we're giving away two paper planners, not including shipping, but the good morning, good life planner that I know we talked about last time, which really helps you with that reverse engineering of your evening routine. Now people are buying copies of the book and they're gifting a book and a planner for their friends so they can do it with them. Oh, this is so good. Okay, I'm doing this and I'm going to have the, the, the right by my bed. Are you going to have an audio version too? Because you know what I used to do was when I got ready in the morning, which by the way, I have to say, I took my makeup and stuff out of the bathroom and I put it in this like little desk with a makeup and it feels like my moment when I'm getting ready. I take a little extra time and I used to listen to self help books. And so it was like a double duty, you know, I was feeling like in control by doing and why did I stop doing that? That's a simple thing that we can do. What a great example of, of just like pairing a couple of things like the thing you know, you have to do something in our business. We have to do a lot of his hair and makeup. So like, what can you do at the same time? Now, if you have somebody that's coming to your house to do the glam for you, you can, you know, do some stuff on your phone. But if you actually do your own hair and makeup, like most of us, then you'll listen to an audio book and you feel like you're multitasking because you're like, yeah, I could be listening to, I could be thinking the same thoughts. I could be in the same habit loop. I could be feeling behind because my to-do list is still stacking up. But instead, I'm intentionally choosing thoughts from someone I trust that I can listen to while I do this thing. It's a great pairing. It's very smart. Okay. So my listeners, if you were in the same boat as me and you want to master your morning, because not for any other reason, but other than you want to start the day feeling good, we can do this. We can, instead of reaching for our phone, we can reach for Amy's book and we can take a few minutes and just borrow from her, right? We can learn, we can feel inspired, we can borrow and then like no more pressure. Like let's just start there. Or if you're an audio lover too, maybe we can do both. Maybe we can while we're doing a little rushing around because we're totally going to be late for work or whatever it is, we can borrow while listening while we do that. I think this is such a, I'm all about the shitty shortcut. I'm writing a book called Do It Shitty. But I do think this is like such a shitty dip your toe in the morning water that I need. This is what I need. And if the book is right there as the visual cue and the phone is not, I have no friction. So good. I love this. Give yourself the shittiest challenge. Like I'm going to read one line of this book, not a page, a little more than a word, just a line. Just try that. Try to stop yourself. You'll first of all, the book's great. You're going to keep going. But like you will keep going because you know you're capable of more than that. And you're like, no, I'm just going to read one book. I need this. I need this. But these are the things we have to prove to ourselves. And that can only happen through your own action and your own decision making. So good. And I'm, I know I've read your book before and I got excited and I tried and I failed. And I think this is something that we have to talk about too, whether it is organization or a morning routine, or you're going to work out or mindfulness, just because you've attempted it and the motivation has slipped away, doesn't mean this is impossible for you. I think the key is we just keep showing up again. And screwing up does not, it's not all or nothing. You know, and I got to keep reminding myself of that. It's like, just because I haven't up until now doesn't mean that fierce morning warrior isn't inside me. I just got to lure her out. Yes. And here's the other thing I think people forget all the time. I mean, just like as a quick recap, 2019, I was basically a newlywed for two years and wrote this book. I then, you know, had some business challenges. We had, we had a global pandemic. I couldn't have kids. Then I had kids, I have two kids, like, these are all things that have happened that some things are so big that they create a season and we go through seasons. And we forget that seasons bring things, but the seasons pass. And you can remember that the things the season brought don't always have to stay. But if they do stay, what does that mean? And stop making it more of an issue of something that stops you so much as it's the wisdom you picked up on the way. So I guess I just want somebody to think about that right now. If they've had a challenging year, they've had a challenging five years. What is a season that you went through that feels like it's the issue? What was brought by that? And that it stayed and maybe some of it unnecessarily that you could decide right now, like that doesn't have to be the case. And something as simple as, I'm going to read one line of a book differently in the morning, could start to reshape this new season. Yeah. Oh, so good, Amy, because I always think I have to invent myself and be a totally different person. Like every day, I'm like, I have to change everything about this thing that I don't like. But maybe I just make a small subtle tiny tiptoe shift that then is the catalyst for long term bigger lasting change. I like this. I'm feeling real inspired again. So I'm preordering your book. Congratulations again. I know I think you self published it the first time you're like, yes, this is like big girl publisher now, right? This is like, I'm like, I'm a full on woo woo girl now because I put Hey House on my vision board after a really hard year. Actually, at the beginning of 2024, and I think that's the year I spoke with you. And before I knew it, I had an email in my inbox from Hey House asking me if they could be a part of Good Morning, Good Life and republish it. I was like, why? So now like literally my two and four year old were doing vision boards at the beginning of this. I was like, you guys, we got to do this all the time. It's really good. It's really cool when you guys take the action. If you're waiting for a publisher to call you, do it yourself first. You have no idea what's coming for you. Just take the smallest step, even if it's something that cast taught you like that one drawer, clean out that one drawer, like when you start to see how your actions create space, it just it just completely changes your mind. Yes. And it doesn't have to be perfect action. Let's just go there. We don't have to have a perfect plan. We just have to take a little tiny, teeny step and vision boards are also, I don't want to say it out loud. I'm sometimes embarrassed, okay, because I don't want to be like people like, oh, she thinks things are magical. I know, but like, but like, wait a minute, is this shit magical? Do you know what's crazy? It's not because we're all just really bad at asking for what we want. And that forces you to articulate it, whether you just wrote it down, or you cut it out of a magazine, or you found it on Pinterest, like, you have to face the fact that it's very easy to hate what you don't like. It's much harder to love what you still want for yourself and actually be able to say it. I think that's the magic behind it is just like, we never actually say, I want that thing. Because it feels petty or it feels too small. And it's like, no. Or sometimes it feels like we're not worthy or we don't deserve it. Like that was my thing. Not only did I not want to ask for things, I really didn't think it was in the realm of possibility for me because I'm like, that's just, I don't, that's so amazing. And I'm just over here. And what, when I was just brave enough to say this feels embarrassing, and this feels like kind of vain, but I'm going to put some big crazy things on a paper. And then they started happening. I know we're going down a rabbit hole a vision board, but I think it all goes together, doesn't it? It's like, what if we allowed ourselves to believe in the possibility that we could be a morning person, or we could at least be somebody who is, you know, in control of our lives and doing things every day that make us proud and not all at once, but in these little micro steps. I hope everybody puts something so big on their vision board. And it's not to become a morning person. I hope it's so big. I hope it is so big. It's ridiculously crazy. And that if anyone in your life saw it, they would laugh at you. I hope it's that big because that is what will make you a morning person. Oh, you'll just be up. You'll be like, this is just how it goes. Oh, Amy, I'm getting emotional. That was so good. We did it guys. We got cast emotional. It doesn't, I'm feeling a lot of, this is so good. I got little goosebumps. You're right. Man, what's going to get you out of bed as excitement for your life and the possibilities and like the what if this could actually happen? Man, Amy, your wisdom, it's gross. I love our chats. I love it. I'm just so impressed. Okay, my friends, I'm going to put in the show notes below where you can pre-order Amy's book, Take Advantage, right away before out of the free planners that go with it. So once they pre-order, they're going to go to probably a form, I'm assuming, where they put in their receipt. Everything's at GoodMorningGoodLife.com. Yeah, wherever you like to shop, you just shop where you'd like to shop. I know a lot of people are like, I mean, I'll take the bonus planner, but I'd rather just have a physical and an audible copy for myself. You can do that. Don't care. Get two copies of the book, however you like the format, and you just redeem it at GoodMorningGoodLife.com to redeem the planners. Thank you so much again. You're just so inspiring. Cass, you're inspiring. I am so touched and honored to be on this show time and again, and just thank you so much for having me on to continue talking about morning madness and morning routines. It's a lot of fun. It is. That conversation lit me up for so many different reasons. First of all, I was actually, and I am so inspired to no longer let other people control my morning. I wake up in the morning and I start scrolling the internet and I read the news and it's very doomy and I start getting angry and I'm feeling like, eh, crap about myself. Why am I letting other people control how I feel in the morning? I need to take back control and be very intentional. That is one thing that I took from this that I was like, yes. But I think even more importantly, something that Amy said that maybe she didn't even mean for it to be so impactful was you don't have to force yourself to get up in the morning when you've got something you're really excited about. And I have an amazing life and I love my job and I love so many things, but I don't have a current like sparky passion. I'm working on the book and it's great. I don't love it. Don't get me wrong, but it isn't like lighting a fire under me, which is why I'm avoiding the morning by playing video games all night or, you know what I'm saying? Surfing the web because the morning doesn't feel exciting. It feels like drudgery. So this is what I took away from that. Like how can I zoom out and reframe my morning to be that spark? Yes, I'm going to move the phone, but I'm also going to take another look at my vision board and I'm also going to say like, who says I can't start my morning with Fortnite? You know? Who says I can't start my morning with something fun that makes me want to spring out of bed? And this, I think for me, was the biggest takeaway. We make the rules. We're the boss. We're in charge. And maybe you're like, yeah, but I got to be at work at nine, same girl, same or seven or whatever. But can we get up 20 minutes earlier to do that thing that lights us up that makes us want to spring out of bed? Because we, at the end of the day, make all the rules. I hope you are feeling so freaking motivated and inspired. I feel like I am going to put this podcast on repeat and listen to it when I'm just not feeling it anymore to remind me of what really matters and getting enough sleep matters because I'm never going to show up as my best when I'm exhausted and I'm sleep deprived. And I'm never going to show up my best if I've let other people kind of get in my thoughts in the morning in a negative way. I control my mornings and I control my life. And so do you. Okay, my friends, feeling pumped? Cool. Cool. Cool. So I made a promise in the, in the beginning that there is going to be one thing that's going to change everything. And what that one thing is, what I believe it is, is finding that's something that's going to excite you, whether it's excite you in your entire life or excite you in the morning, you can even fake it, okay? You can even fake it. But what is that one thing that is going to make you want to spring out of bed? That is what's going to change everything. You know, it's helpful for me anytime I want to make a change? Examples. So here's an example. You're like, I want to not be late for work. What if you get to leave a little bit early and stop at McDonald's and get yourself something amazing like a bacon egg McMuffin every morning? Like that for me, we thought of that would make me want to get up a little earlier because I'm like, oh yeah, I'm going to stop at Starbucks. And if you're like, Cass, I don't want to eat that kind of crap. Is it like, what if you sit outside with your coffee and like, watch the sunrise? Does that excite you? What about playing with your dog in the morning, playing video games? What if you could work on your puzzle? What if you could spend 10 minutes and work on your puzzle or anything else that feels like, why do we save the good stuff for nighttime? Why? This is some programming bullcrap. We don't have to listen to anymore. We don't have to wait till the end of our day to do something fun. We can do something fun. First thing, that's the reframe we need. Now it's time for Talk to Cass. And first up is William. Hi, Cass. My name is William. I'm from Minneapolis, Minnesota. And I wanted to say thank you so much because truly after finding your content at the beginning of last summer, you've changed my life in so many different ways. You know, I found you because I was researching like ADHD cleaning hacks on YouTube and I stumbled across your video about, you know, life hacks for those with ADHD. And I wanted to say thank you for feeling comfortable in the ADHD community enough to post videos regarding the diagnosis and how to clean because I've been looking for content like yours for years. And I guess I just hadn't been searching the right terms, but or, you know, you've been popping more than ever. So regardless of what it was, truly after finding your content, one, I stopped shaming myself so much. You know, I was diagnosed from an early age around 10. And no one ever educated me on what adult ADHD looks like, right? So for me, like when I was diagnosed and then put on medication, I started matching up to where everybody else was. And no one ever mentioned it again or talked about it, you know, and so the like negative attention I received for not being able to keep a clean or tidy home or just, you know, my disorganization, all of that kind of being seen more visually and understood by others became really, really, you know, just shameful for me in my 20s. And I'm just so grateful I found your content because I feel like I've made peace with so much of the shame that I've applied to myself and others have applied to me. One, two, I've connected it with my learning disability, which has not given me a free pass. It's just helped educate me in, you know, all the ways I can actually keep a tidy home through a lens of, you know, having ADHD and those who've done it before me. So one, thank you for helping carve the path for those of us, you know, to find the how to's and kind of the lookbook, if you will, on how to do things right. And also, I have a little food for thought. So you've been talking a lot about how everything that we own is work, right? And I couldn't agree more. I just, after having an entire summer and fall of decluttering my belongings, ended up deciding to move back to the Midwest. So I'm in Minneapolis now. And I couldn't say anything greater about being able to part ways with all my belongings. Not only was I able to start fresh completely, and, you know, really be able to take a lot of inventory on the new things that I purchased. But in addition to that, I've realized how much a factor our identity plays in with our belongings and the potential negative feedback loops that our belongings can have in our lives, you know, what story are your belongings telling you about yourself? And if all of it was removed, do you think that you could become more capable? Because truly, I feel like now, I truly feel like a more capable, fully realized person. And I feel like I'm so many of my struggles were so attached to the things that I had because they were just visual cues and constant reminders of who I'd been, not where I'm going. And I want to thank you. Okay, Cass, bye. Dang, William, that's some wisdom. You're just like, I don't know, you sound young, but yes, wow, you're right. I feel like I want to do a whole podcast on that now and dig deep into like the stories that our stuff is telling us and how it could be holding us back. And my brain's just going a mile a minute thinking about all these different solutions. But so thank you for that. I also want to thank you for bringing up the ADHD thing. Lately, my husband and my kids, everyone's been teasing me like ADHD is your whole personality now. It's all you talk about and everything's like ADHD, ADHD. And I think if you don't have it, or if you are like, it's hard to understand, I carry it with me all day, every day, except I used to carry it as shame or I didn't even know what it was I was carrying. I just knew like life was harder. Now I have a label to put to that struggle. And it is so empowering because it brings forgiveness. And it brings at using this as a crutch. I'm like, man, this is like, and I still am able to do all this awesome things. And I'm able to reframe where I am having a struggle and understand why and use the tools that I'm learning from the ADHD community to make things easier. My life is so much better since my diagnosis. And yeah, I'm shouting it from the rooftops, maybe a little too much, because it matters. And it's something that none of us should be ashamed of. And I think there's so many undiagnosed people out there who still need to hear this message. Okay, there, I'm off my ADHD soapbox, I promise. Now we have a question from a ladybug from Germany. Hi, Cass. This is a ladybug fan of yours from Germany. I wanted to share a success story with you. My lovely mom has had a real breakthrough recently. For decades, she accumulated a lot of things in her home and always struggled with letting things go. The attic and the basement were completely full. And because she's a bit of a perfectionist and likes to do things properly, the big decluttering project was postponed for many years. But now she decided on her own to finally face it. One day I told her about your channel, and she is now a total fan. There's actually a good chance she will hear this message right now on your podcast. So, hi, mom, I'm so proud of you. With your help, Cass, she has already accomplished so much. The house is almost unrecognizable. The entire basement is usable again. She's open-minded about new organizing systems. She's thinking in new ways, and it's getting easier for her to let go even of sentimental items. We are all incredibly proud of her. She also has a big new motivation. Since she's becoming a grandmother this year, I think that really inspires her to create space for this new chapter. But one big project is still ahead of us, her studio. My mom was an artist for many decades and worked with acrylic painting. Today she mainly uses the room as an office for her main job, but she still holds on tightly to her once very expensive art supplies. It's clearly a matter of identity clutter. The space is full of who she used to be, which makes it especially hard to let go. She asked me to help her transform this room into the perfect office for who she is now. She's a typical bee, very visual and detail-oriented, and we want to use that in the redesign with clear zones and organized but visible storage. I was thinking of a big shelving wall or something. So my question for you, Cass, what's your best advice for when we tackle this project as mother and daughter? What will likely be the hardest part and how would you recommend we approach it? Thank you so much and sending love from Germany. Bye. Bye. Okay, so this is so exciting. You, okay, the advice that I'm going to give is bonkers and everybody else plug your ears. Okay, I don't want anyone else to listen. La, la, la. Listen, your mom has built her decluttering muscles strong. Your mom is like at a place where I think she's ready to do something that I always say never, never, never to do. I would love to see you guys empty this room. Take it all out, put it in another room. I would never say to do this to anyone ever, but listen, this is an exception. Pick a paint color, that like, ooh, light your mom up, paint the walls, and then we build from the ground up, because this is a new her and a new space. And seeing it as a blank slate is going to help her, because right now, it's like, all you're looking at is all the identity in the past. And to start fresh, we literally had sometimes have to start fresh. So you're going to zone, you're like going to get a bookshelf, it's going to go here, where is the work surface going to go? Where's the desk? Move that back in, get the foundation and the architecture first, and then shop the stuff. Have your mom pick her favorite things first and move that in. Favorite things, move it in. When the space is full, anything left that wasn't her favorite can go, because she can see the results. She doesn't have to start like with the hope of what it's going to look like. She is starting with like this fresh, beautiful, inspiring space, which is going to make all the leftover identity clutter easier to let go. This will make another room messy in the meantime. And I know this, which is why I would never recommend it for a beginner. But for someone who has as strong of decluttering muscles as your mom does, this could be just, ah, this could be so much fun. You're doing a makeover just like a clutterbug makeover in your own space. But it's also a way of just reframing this new phase of her life, literally starting from scratch. And last we have Cindy with a Do It Shitty. Hi, Cass. My name is Cindy and I'm from the US. I just realized yesterday that I do something shitty and I wanted to share it with you and your audience because I think it might be helpful. So, you know, when you get to the end of your shampoo bottle or any kind of soap container that you have just a little bit at the end and it's sometimes you're wrestling to try to get the rest of it out. What I do is put a little bit of water in there and then use it to clean my bathroom. So I pour it in my toilet and use the toilet brush and swish it around. And then on my counters, I pour a little bit and just soap it all up. So it works really well with like a dial or something that's antibacterial, but also I do it with shampoo. So I just thought I'd share that tip, you know, to get any kind of grind off. It doesn't necessarily do an antibacterial cleaning for you, but you might at least get the, you know, the daily grime off your counters. So I also wanted to say thank you so much to you and your podcast because I've been listening now for a few years and I have listened to all of your episodes and you have been super helpful to me, especially because I am going blind. So I have about 5% of my vision left and I'm very sensitive to visual clutter. So I did not realize what an effect that had on me until I found your show. So as I've learned from you to declutter and I'm totally a ladybug, it's helped me immensely be more comfortable in my own home with the little vision that I have. So thank you, thank you so much. I just really appreciate you and your show and all the tips that you share. Okay, take care. Bye-bye. Cindy, first of all, I'm so glad that you're finding this helpful for you. And also, I kind of love your do it shitty. At first, I was like, when you said you added water to it, I was like, yeah, doesn't everybody do that? Well, I'd like the shampoo. But here's the thing, you know, many times I've gone to clean out the shower of the bottles and my husband has said, wait, there's like a little bit left in there. He doesn't want to waste. And I know a lot of people who are listening, that's their stumbling block. But if I was like, oh, I'm just going to fill it with water and use it to clean the toilet right now instead of waiting till the next time I shower to use it up in the moment when I'm in the decluttering mojo, we can still use that product to also clean the bathroom. Stop it, Cindy. That's genius. Stealing that, that was excellent. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening today. I hope, oh, I hope you're just feeling all the feels that I'm feeling and motivated. And more importantly, I hope your bedroom is so much better than when you first turned on this podcast. I hope you're feeling proud of yourself. I hope it is the relaxing, beautiful oasis that you deserve. And even if it isn't done, appreciate and celebrate the progress that you made today. Because tomorrow is a new day and you can work on it again. And before you know it, it's going to be like five star hotel up in there. Thank you guys so much. And I'll see you next time.