Just Do It Now | Lauren Soper | The Sean Trace Show

In this episode, I sit down with Lauren Soper to unpack what really holds people back from taking action in their lives, careers, and personal growth. 

We dive into the psychology behind fear, procrastination, and the bystander effect, and why so many of us wait for the “right time” instead of making a decision in the moment. Lauren shares her journey from staying small and avoiding being seen to stepping into leadership, public speaking, and even running for local office, all while raising five kids and building a career in financial services. We talk about mindset shifts, the power of writing to clear mental noise, and how taking responsibility instead of blaming others can completely change your trajectory. I also open up about my own transitions, identity shifts, and the importance of continuing to show up even when things feel uncertain. This conversation is really about building courage in small moments, embracing discomfort, and realizing that growth doesn’t come from waiting—it comes from doing.

If you’ve been putting something off or telling yourself “later,” what’s one thing you can finally take action on today?

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I love that you brought up labels because we sometimes feel protected under our labels, right? That becomes our story. Oh no, I'm I can't wake up early. It's I just have this thing. Oh, it's never worked for me. Or, you know, the people who have these food issues, you know, there's a lot of people that don't like tomatoes. Oh, no, no, I can't eat tomatoes. It's just I get sick and it's really hard. And that becomes your armor in not taking risks, right? Like trying a tomato when you believe you don't like them, that's a risk. And when we think about the risks that we need to take as people to get bigger and make a bigger impact and reach more people and understand ourselves more, it's all about risk taking. And we need to build our mindset through finding evidence that we take risks. And so if you want to be on stage and be a TEDx speaker, I would love that one day. Well, you don't start there. You start by finding evidence of you being a risk taker. I can still remember the first time that I raised my hand in a room full of 200 people. My legs and my arms were on fire. I mean, everything was saying, don't do this. I was scared. I mean, I'm still learning how to be a public speaker, but I did it anyways. Because you have to give yourself, you have to, you have to create evidence of the person that you want to become. And you don't do it on the big stage to start. You do it on the little, in the little moments of, oh yeah, I can do these things that make me feel a little scared. I call it the find your I don't want to flag and just blow right through it. Right. There's there's, you know, you'll have a thought that comes in that says, Oh, I don't want to do this. Oh, no, no, no. I don't, or you might even hear yourself saying it. No, I don't have enough time for it. The next time that you say that or you hear that thought in your head, I challenge everybody who's listening to do the opposite action. Just do it.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Welcome everybody back to the Sean Trace Show. I'm your host, Sean Trace, and I have an awesome guest with me today. Would you like to tell people who you are and a little bit about what you do?

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Yes, thank you. Um, my name is Lauren Soper. I'm a mom of five children. Yes, five children. I know that's not something you hear all the time. I have been working in business for the last 19 years, specifically in the financial services industry. So everything from sales to negotiations to hiring to creating new services, um, strategic partnerships. It's been a lot of fun. Um, I've moved back to the town that I grew up in. I loved it here so much and am looking to make a bigger impact in this world. I'm currently running for school committee of my town, which people keep saying, how do you have time for that? And I don't think it's about having time for these things, it's about making time for things that are important to you and ways to make a bigger impact. That's certainly one way local government. Um and yeah, this is just very exciting. Thank you for including me on your podcast.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Oh, I don't know how I just had a drum noise. I was trying to turn something off, but yeah, that was a drum roll right there. I'm glad to include you, right? Right. Um I I I um was closing some tabs while you were talking there because I wanted to be able to see you more clearly, it had minimized you. And it was like, I have all these options for sounds, and so that was why the drum roll put in there. But it was aptly placed because it was awesome, you know. And I think everyone, every parent uh deserves a drum roll all the time. Like you really do, you know, people don't realize whether you have one or 15, you know, however many kids you have, the journey is still um that of a person who looks at not just the best for themselves, but the best for this little person, these little people in front of them. And also one of the things for me, and I I'm so with you. Do you know why I started all my almost all my podcasts? My my barrels and roots podcast is all about wine. I didn't necessarily start that for the same reason, but almost all my podcasts are because I wanted to leave messages for my daughter. I wanted to create content that I could put out there that she could hear. Maybe at some point in time she'll be able to listen to it and go, wow, that's what my dad believed and thought he was all about. And if she doesn't listen to it, maybe she's like, Dad's an idiot. And that's okay. I'm okay with that. But maybe I can make the world a little bit better of a place for people like her and the world around her. And if we can do that, um, you know, it's gonna be better for everyone. And so, like that, when you're talking about running for, you know, the the the position in um of local government, like I I am inspired by that because you know, oh, do you have enough time? Well, we only have this time that we have, and if I don't make a change now, like I do about I record about four episodes on my podcast a day, three to four. And people go, Why it's a lot. I'm I'm doing a four different podcasts.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

I impressed.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Yeah, trying to get five going because I have another one that I really love. And the whole point of it is because I want to reach as many people as I can. And people go, Oh, well, and anytime I hear someone saying, Well, I want to put it off, and especially because I run a company where I help people do what I'm doing. Like I help people with creative content and do podcasts and all types of media. And when they sit there and go, you know, maybe I'll do it next year. And I sit there and I'm not trying, this is not a sell, but I'm saying, are you sure? Because next year becomes the next, which becomes the next. And at the end of the day, all we have is today. So if you have a message you want to share, I would tell people, share it now. Do something now. Because this moment is all we've got, you know? We're not guaranteed anything else.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Sean, I like I want to encapsulate that and I want to broadcast that to the world because that was so well said. How often are we doing that in our lives where we say tomorrow or later, or I j the word just is a flag for me. I just don't have enough time. Well, remove the word just. And what are you really saying? I'm not willing to make the time. That's really all that stands in the way of us and doing anything we want. Because we wait for this feeling to be ready, but there's no feeling for that. It's just a decision you have to make. Are you gonna, I call it taking the plunge, right? You're on the diving board, you're at the tip of the diving board, you're dry, the water looks cold. What are you even gonna do once you jump in there? You have to make that decision when you're at the end of the diving board. Are you gonna jump in or not? And that's how we have to look at everything in front of us. Because if it's important enough for you to be thinking about, at least take the time to evaluate it and just give it a try.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

Right. Right. And I just stand like, oh, well, maybe I'm gonna have a different chapter in your life, and I'll be like, that's great, and you'll have a different message at that chapter. But for right now, like I remember my dad would always make everyone crazy because I love my dad, and he still is a person who walks with his convictions. And one of the things that we were every time that I was driving down the road, if there was someone pulled over on the side of the road, my dad would pull over. And you know, sometimes my mom would be like, Why are you pulling over? Someone else will help. And he's like, But I'm here, I am right here right now. I might not have all the answers, but I can do something. And I was always impressed by that because you know, I for many years, one of the reasons I'm still teaching. This this is my new classroom. I I think podcasts are how I've continued my teaching onward. But one of the things that I did before was I taught children in a classroom and I love it. I love teaching. I absolutely love being a teacher and I love guiding kids. Challenge was for me that financially it just wasn't what I could sustain. And so I was trying to figure out how I can make more money, but also reach more people because I want to be able to impact more people. But when you're sitting there in a classroom and there is a young person in front of you asking for help, you sit there and realize well, I could, I could, I could punt this, I could kick this down the field. You know what? And my daughter talks all the time about how her teachers do that, and it makes me furious. Her teacher, um, not so happy about my daughter's school, but it's where she's at right now. I'm looking at possibly changing her. But her teacher is always when my daughter asks a question, this is what the teacher says go home and look on Google. And I'm like, but why? But why? Your job is to be able to do something. And then, like for me, I think that everyone has the potential to do something. And that might mean uh, you know, if you are, you know, yesterday my daughter was in her piano class, and I said, Ailani, this is your moment to be a great kid, a great student, a respectful person, and learn. You know, your responsibility in this moment is to be the best version you can be. And I did the whole, you know, coach rallying speech. And she stepped up, and her teacher was like, She was great today. It made me feel good inside. Because what is it that is the point that you can shine?

SPEAKER_01 9:23

You know, I love that story. And I want to go back to something you said about your dad or your mom when when they when they said, Well, somebody else will do it, you know, and it goes back to the Google classroom or the Google suggestion to your daughter. We sometimes get stuck in that mindset of, well, someone else will pick up that trash. Someone else will raise their hand and ask the hard question. And somebody said this to me once, and I know it's a famous saying, but we have to be the change that we want to see. So if somebody's not doing it, we should just assume that somebody isn't gonna continue not to do it, and that somebody can be us.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Right. There was a very interesting story. Um, and this was very uh the story was was was really interesting because it was heavily studied by psychologists. It's kind of a heavy story, but I'm gonna share it because it is something that I think is relevant. Uh Kitty Genovisi, 1964 in Queens, New York. Um she was uh stabbed in the street uh 38 times. Uh it was horrible. No, stabbed many times, but 38 neighbors watched the event. And when later on they went and the police interviewed them, no one did anything. Uh no one did anything. Later on, people went and asked them. They interviewed all these neighbors. Some people did call the police and stuff, but it was interesting because psychologists studied this and they came up with something called the bystander effect. And the bystander effect is that people will stand by and watch something, and they think that someone else is going to do something. I remember watching a car flip over into a river once, and I studied martial arts, and I attribute that 100% to this trait of mine. My teachers taught me to act and do something. Whatever was going on, act and do something. Saw the car flip on the river, and I pull over and I see this car. I saw, you know, all these other people had pulled up. At least they pulled over, but they stood there and stared at the car upside down in the water. And I said, Is there someone inside? Like, um I don't know. And I was like, Did anyone check? Like, no. So I ran down and I was like, someone, and people still kept staring. I said, Someone get me a golf club, someone give me something. They tossed me a golf club, broke the window, reached in, pulled out a person. And there were 12 people that were standing watching. And I'm not trying to float like praise myself. I'm just saying that in moments like that, the most powerful thing that you can do is act. Because the bystand effect, it it will make all of us become complacent, you know? And yet we have the power to do something in our whole world, you know.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

Well, first of all, thank you for your service in doing what you did because you probably showed those 12 people what they can do the next time. So I'm glad that you did that. I think well, I I want to believe that you did. Also, by the way, I just started martial arts myself. Um, I'm a white belt. I am early. I'm a What were you gonna say?

SPEAKER_00 12:43

That's the best thing. The fact that you started is huge, so good for you.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Thank you. Well, my children are doing it, and I'm a big believer that if we want our children or anybody to continue to succeed in something, we need to be there encouraging and watching. And I ended up watching so intently for so many classes. The master instructor said, I want to see you out there, so I'm doing it. But I wanted to go back to something because this bystander effect, people not doing, people not being like your dad and pulling over on the side of the road for someone, someone needs help. I mean, let's talk about why people aren't doing it. Because I am a huge believer that every single one of us is doing the best we can with the resources we have available. I don't believe in blaming people, including ourselves, right? Victimization, self-blame. So then what is it? I mean, I I would love to hear what you have to say, Sean. I I mean, I think part of it is because we are we are scared people. We are scared of being seen. We are scared of making mistakes, we are scared of, oh, what if I pull over and that person is a jerk? Or what if they pull over and I don't know how to help them? And that's what keeps us from from doing these things that we know would be helpful, that deep down inside, we are good people. And so helping others is something we want to do. So what gets in the way? I'd love to hear how you think of it.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

I think it's a couple things. The first thing that I'm thinking is that um I think that there's this inconvenience factor that we get into, you know, and um you see people, and everyone wants the straight line to be what they're doing. Like, I'm gonna go here and I wanna get there and I want to get to my destination. Um, but sometimes detours can be one of the best things we can do, you know, but you have to be willing to take the detour to go down that other path and to see what it might look like, you know. And I think that what I would say to people who are worried about not getting involved or people who don't have it, let's not talk about like, I mean, I'm even if you're talking about the person that you're getting involved with is yourself, like changing your own life, you know, because that's the the the that's the best life that you can change. If you can start with yourself, then you have the wherewithal to help other people. But I think that there's also intimidation and fear. When you said that you joined that jujitsu that well, I don't know if it's jujitsu or karate or whatever taekwondo that you're doing. One of the things that people like, I'm a white belt. Hell yeah, you're a white belt. That's a great place to be, you know. I'm in the arena. Huh?

SPEAKER_01 15:22

I said I'm in the arena, the the arena, you know, Teddy Ru. Get in the arena, you know, get the blood and the sweat and the you know, all that. You're right. I'm a white belt, but I'm in the arena.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

You are in the arena, and that is the most important thing. And I think that's one of the things that stops people. I'm scared of going to the gym. Why? Well, you know, maybe there's gonna be people who judge me in the gym. And there's gonna be people that praise you too. So you just gotta find the people that can see and be where you're at.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

It's a great point, and I think you're hitting on something that we all need to be more aware of. And General Patton actually said this. I first heard it from Waldo Waldman, he's a keynote speaker, um, ex-military. He brought that up. We are always from General Patton, we are always on parade. We don't, we don't necessarily think about that. We think that we're only on parade when we pull over and help or when we decide to get in, you know, get out there with all the seven and eight-year-olds and do martial arts. Oh no, people are gonna see me. I'm gonna look foolish. Well, guess what? People are watching you. So you might as well realize that and do something about that. And I I will tell you, I'm someone who used to be the quiet girl. I did not raise my hand in school. I went to college. I don't even know that I raised my hand once in college. My first job, they wanted to promote me, and it would require me doing public speaking all the time. I quit three months later, I found another job. I was someone who was running away from being seen. And then a few years ago, I did what you said. I started to invest in myself because that's where you have to start, right? You got to put your own oxygen mask on first before you can help others. And what I discovered was I was going to be limited by the rooms that I was willing to speak in. And so while I could have great conversations with my friends and I could do great strategy work behind the scenes, if I wasn't willing to put myself out there in the boardrooms or out in the community and ask hard questions, then I would be limited. And so I had to work little by little being comfortable with being seen. But at the end of the day, we already are being seen. And if we could just realize that, I think we would all take ourselves a little more seriously.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

I love that. And you know, one of the things too, I think that being seen is so important, but it's something that scares so many. But I want to ask you a question because you went through a major transition recently. What was the hardest part for you about all of that?

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Well, it's interesting. I was working for a company for 11 years, having a lot of success, leading a lot of the biggest projects, helping expand organizations, took an organization from 100 million in revenue to a billion and a half in revenue. And I knew that I knew just by the work that I was putting myself out there that you know there could come a time when I wouldn't be needed for the next wave of the future, and I wasn't. So poof, that job is gone. All of a sudden I find myself sitting in the position that I see others and myself being scared of, right? You know, I mean, I didn't go bankrupt. Thankfully, I I was able to earn a lot of money in my career and we're we're managing just fine as I'm building something new. But what we're all scared of that. We're all scared of our reliable parts of life going away. And then it happened. And I was fine with it. Actually, it was pretty exciting. And that part is probably the hardest part, if if you can believe it, because people look at me and say, What? How are you okay? Shouldn't you be panicked? I mean, I will tell you, there are some family members who are think I'm a little, a little crazy for not being, um, for not being devastated. I had somebody say that to me. I think it's a little weird that you're not devastated. And I will tell you, what I believe has helped me is over the last few years, I've worked really hard on my mindset. I've I've really been challenging the stories that I tell myself. So these stories of, who am I without my job? Who am I without my title? Who am I without this and that? Well, that's just stories in your head. At the end of the day, I am just a person here in my body, in my clothes, with a brain that fires thoughts. That's it. And then I can do a whole lot with that. So I would say the transition wasn't devastating. Actually, it's been the most exciting period of my life these last four months. I've been working directly with clients, CEOs of businesses. I've been investing in things like Toastmasters, I've been taking courses, I've been giving back to my community. I mean, I've I've turned down job offers. I think that confidence in myself, right? Um, you know, there's uh forget somebody said, you know, as we go through life, we should really detach ourselves from outcomes. Because when we get too tied into, well, what is this, what result is this going to lead to? Is it going to be more money? Is it going to be more sex? Is it going to be more friends? Whatever it might be, when we get caught up in this need for something, we lose ourselves. And so I believe not being tied to any outcome outside of just me being better, right? Day after day, I want to be better than I was the day before. That's a really great driver. And I think people can see that in others when you don't really need something from them. I mean, look, I'm out right now asking for votes from my town. But what I really say to them is, look, I think this is a vote for you because I want to be the bridge from your voice to the decisions that get made in our town. So it's not really about me. So I would say for a transition like this, I think having a really strong mindset and a really strong belief in yourself and your purpose beyond your title, beyond your pay, I think that helps. I'm curious, you know, Sean, if you've ever been through those kinds of transitions and what approach you've taken. Has it been similar or how how do you see it?

SPEAKER_00 21:30

I'm currently pivoting. I'm currently pivoting because some things that I thought were stable are not stable. And what I lean on is a belief in myself, a belief in my ability to bounce back. I don't know what martial arts you're studying, but I got my black belt in Denzenu Jiu Jitsu, which is similar to judo. And so we did lots and lots of throws. Lots and lots of throws, lots and lots of falling on the ground. And one of the things that you learn in judo is falling on the ground is not fun. It does not feel great. It is hard, especially in wintertime when you fall on that hard mat. It is it you feel it. You know, when it's cold in there. But what I learned was this that the most important part of getting thrown on your back many, many times is standing back up. And that you always have enough energy for that next step. You know, and I I've got so many things I need to do. I'm flying on Tuesday back to the US for a business trip, and then I come back to Vietnam and I go there and I go here, and I've got so much to do. But right now, what's standing in front of me is this podcast. And I'm here having this conversation. And when this conversation's done, then I'll do my next thing. But I find that if I can break things down, it makes it more manageable, more palatable, and easier. Because I also had to shift how I identified myself. You know, I'm not a teacher, I'm not a business owner, I'm a person who has the ability to adapt. You know, if my business did not succeed the way I wanted to, and I had to go back and get a job, that's okay. That's fine. Like it doesn't need to define me. I can be beyond all of that. You know, and it's like I think that people get so caught up in the labels that when they lose that label, it's devastating for them. But the reality is you were fine before that label, you'll be fine after that label. Just be you, you know.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

I love that you brought up labels because we sometimes feel protected under our labels, right? That becomes our story. Oh no, I'm I can't wake up early. It's I just have this thing. Oh, it's never worked for me. Or, you know, the people who have these food issues, you know, there's a lot of people that don't like tomatoes. Oh, no, no, I can't eat tomatoes. It's just I get sick and it's really hard. And that becomes your armor in not taking risks, right? Like trying a tomato when you believe you don't like them, that's a risk. And when we think about the risks that we need to take as people to get bigger and make a bigger impact and reach more people and understand ourselves more, it's all about risk taking. And we need to build our mindset through finding evidence that we take risks. And so if you want to be on stage and be a TEDx speaker, I would love that one day. Well, you don't start there. You start by finding evidence of you being a risk taker. I can still remember the first time that I raised my hand in a room full of 200 people. My legs and my arms were on fire. I mean, everything was saying, don't do this. Right. I was scared. I mean, I I I'm still learning how to be a public speaker, but I did it anyways. Because you have to give yourself, you have to, you have to create evidence of the person that you want to become. And you don't do it on the big stage to start. You do it on the little, in, in the little moments of, oh yeah, I I can do these things that make me feel a little scared. I call it the find your I don't want to flag and just blow right through it. Right. There's there's, you know, you'll have a thought that comes in that says, Oh, I don't want to do this. Oh, no, no, no, I don't, or you might even hear yourself saying it. No, I don't have enough time for it. The next time that you say that or you hear that thought in your head, I challenge everybody who's listening to do the opposite action. Just do it. That's what I started doing two years ago. I remember the first time I had long hair and I went to get my hair cut. And he said, okay, what do you think I should do to the to the to the um the barber? And he said, I think we need to cut your hair short. And inside I said, Oh, I don't want to do that. And I said, Oh, okay, yeah, do it. You know, like that's where it starts when we think about being braver or being on a podcast or being on a stage or taking a new job. It starts in those little moments.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

I love it. It does start in the little moments, and it starts by looking at what's important. It's what, you know, having your values on straight, having your compass, you know, faced in the direction that's important to you. Because if you do not know where you want to be going, it's really hard to steer your ship, you know. And I think that one of the things too is like, but that's oftentimes, and I mean, people are gonna say, but what the hell if I don't know what I'm doing? And that's a challenge, you know. It's like when you don't have all the information, and I think that that's where I try to tell people it's like you don't need all the information, but you need enough to start planning your next step. And like maybe like you take three steps this way and go, Well, that's not what I want. And I try to reference dating to people. Well, what's the whole point of dating? Dating is not about finding your perfect partner. I think one of the most important things of dating is finding out what your perfect partner is not, and meeting people and talking to people about, you know, I think that that's one of the things that I told my daughter. She's like, How do I find the person I want to marry? I said, by meeting people you don't, by meeting people that are not the people you want to marry, and going, Wow, that person would make me crazy if I had to be with them every single day. And I think that's one of the things like I think we have to start looking in the negative. We might not know where we want to be going. I'm building my company, I'm doing other things, but I also know, well, what happens if this happens? What happens if this happens? I want stability. And you know, one of the things I was looking at, I'll put it out there, I'll be the first to say it. I have a company that's doing good enough right now. But I'm also looking at, I was talking to a remote job recruiter to say, hey, what would it look like for me to have another gig here that's a bit more stable while I have the creative stuff going on here? And, you know, and I it took a lot of courage for me to even talk to that person. And maybe it's not something that works out, maybe it does. But the reason I'm bringing it up is because it has everything to do with me. I don't want to take every last client because I don't want to compromise what I see and the vision for my company. It gives me a little float, but I also want stability. Now, those are things that I recognize I want. Like, now, so what do I do about that? Well, that's what I have to figure out. And I have to talk to people, I have to ask people, I have to, you know, put feelers out there. But if I do the right things and do the right steps, then the the steps and the answer will emerge in front of me. But I have to be willing to start looking at ways to move forward without having all of the information.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

I will you bring up two great points here. Um, I love what you said about the bravery it takes to even have the conversation. So even the goals that we want, even us wanting just to know what are my values, it's brave to even go down that road because you don't know what's going to come up. And when you have a conversation with another person, especially one where you're asking for something, you're setting yourself up for rejection. And I think that we we need to be cognizant of the fact of sometimes we don't do what could help us, what could help our community, our families, because we are afraid of being rejected. And there's nothing wrong with that, to be honest, because being rejected is a is a is a lonely feeling, right? We talk about how important it is belonging, you know, that that sense of belonging, especially in our schools. Well, disagreeing with someone, it literally takes you like this. It takes you farther and farther apart. Now you have to be able to figure out how to come back together and maybe find a new path. We are not skilled as a country. I'm learning the skills now myself on how to do that. How do we disagree healthily and come back together? And then I want to just one other thing you said I loved, which is you're right. How do you start to figure out what your values are, who you are, what you like? Well, figure out what you don't like because we are we are more inclined to notice um our aversions, other things that make us scared, right? Or much more inclined to notice those. So once you start removing or at least understanding what you don't like, your your your you know, your container is smaller and smaller in what you do like. I remember hearing, I read, I read this once when if you're trying to make change in your life, people start by adding more positive thought, you know, positive thinking, positive mantras. But actually, you're only gonna really grow once you reduce the negative. Because your negative is just, it's it's taken over. So reduce the negative, reduce what you don't like, and then you're left with more of what you do like. And now you can start to discover what it is or who it is you want to be and who what you want to fill your life with.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

Tonight, you asked me when we came in, you're like, we we got jumped on this call and you're like, How are you doing? I'm like, I'm okay. And I'm gonna tell people why I feel okay. It's my mother-in-law's birthday tonight, and also I have a wedding I have to go to tomorrow, and I'm just not a big fan of some of these events that there's like extra chaos. Now, tonight in the um the restaurant we went to, I was overloaded. It was a buffet here in Ho Chi Minh City, which is just mad chaos. There's a lot of people, it's very loud, and the louder it gets in the room, the louder people talk. So it creates this kind of spiraling volume elevation. And then the restaurant came out and decided that it was time to sing happy birthday to everyone, like everyone at the same time. Like all of these tables were getting in, like they went from table to table every birthday that was there, and there was a lot of birthdays, it was like 12, 15 birthdays. They started singing happy birthday, and they were singing it top of their lungs as fast as they could, and they had a music track that was playing, and they were singing ahead of the music track, so it's like happy birthday, you know, and then like the music tracks like happy birthday. It was just like so crazy, like it was so much noise, so much overstimulation. And I'm trying to find a ticket back to the USA for July so that I can go and do some work stuff, and I'm trying to find this ticket, and I'm trying to focus on different airlines and costs and this versus that's because I'm flying to Portland, but then uh tickets into Portland are more expensive than if I fly to Seattle and I take the Seattle, I can take another flight, or I can rent a car, or I can just take the train and have a beautiful scenic ride down on the train. And I'm processing all these things at the same time that all of these little noises and the stimulations going on. And it was almost impossible to do anything. And the second I walked out of the restaurant, I could breathe. We have that going on up here. When you have so much going on in your head, when you have so many noises, so much stimulation, so much when you want to do something great, remove one thing from your life. Right? What do you mean? You probably are trying to do too much right now. If you want to be successful at something, remove one thing. Well, what is it that's gonna be the thing that makes you successful? You know, that's that's up for you to find out. That's for you to figure out what's gonna make you happy. But it's much more easy to figure out what you can remove. Like if I were to look at what I can remove from my life right now. Uh first of all, some of the stuff that I'm doing with my business that's not needed. Some of the extra expenses that I had, you know, there might have been some things that I bought that were fun, but were not needed. That's something I can cut out. I mean, it's basic budgeting. Um, the area of where I focus my team and how I focus on recruiting clients. I can stop focusing on the people that are super high maintenance and low delivery and start focusing on the people that are much more maintainable and have a higher, you know, return on investment. Those are things that I can do for my business. Is it easy? No, it takes evaluation, it takes slowing down, it takes thinking and looking at things in a very open and clear way. It takes introspection, and that can often be the hardest part. You have to go deep, you know, and it it takes discipline. Uh, that's the thing I think it takes more than anything. And one of the challenges is that discipline is not always easy to do, and it's especially not easy to do when you're the only one holding yourself accountable. And so I would like to ask you this you know, how do you stay disciplined when no one is watching?

SPEAKER_01 35:06

Well, I love that question. First of all, everyone's watching. So I I remind myself of that a lot that people are watching. And what I recommend is get watched. If you're not being watched and you really want to be successful, then become watched.

SPEAKER_02 35:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

Put yourself on Instagram, put yourself on LinkedIn, put your writing out there, put your put your voice out there, record videos, do it. I mean, that for me, I started posting on LinkedIn a year ago. My growth has skyrocketed since then. And I didn't, I was not a writer or a content creator. I was learning as I went. And the more people that were following me and reaching out and saying they liked my work, that that became my discipline. Now I have accountability, I have 8,000 followers on LinkedIn. Those are my accountability buddies. Um, I will also say one other way to stay disciplined, make rules for yourself. Well, like genuinely. What for instance, um, I noticed in our town that people don't let other people in. Like I'm trying to get out on a busy street. Um one time I think it was 60 seconds. And I thought, you know, I I started to get a little angry, and then that's my flag. When I'm when I'm angry at other people, it's my flag to turn inwards and say, okay, well, am I part of this problem? Oh, guess what? I am. So then I made a rule for myself that I would let people in whenever I was driving.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

Right.

SPEAKER_01 36:43

And you just make rules for yourself. And you no one's holding me accountable to that except for me. And so when I write and I write, and here's another piece. Write it down. I am a firm believer that whatever happens in here is not, you're not holding, you're not being held accountable. Actually, I call this the deranged playground where you're on a swing and there's knives on the ground. Like just get out of your head. This is not a safe place because what it normally leads to rumination or, you know, crazy kinds of fantasies. So when I so the way that I stay disciplined is writing, making rules for myself, putting myself out there, and then writing it down. I actually use uh a red stop sign. That's from Byron Katie. Highly recommend everybody listen go out and just look her up. She does a lot of cool things like thought turnarounds, especially if you're in a thought spiral. Put the red stop sign up. As soon as you see yourself or feel yourself or can can tell that you're thinking, put it up, get out of your head, and write something down. How about you? What if what about you, Sean?

SPEAKER_00 37:49

I love the idea of rules for myself. And it is uh one of my favorite shirts, and it says, not today, Satan. It's like I love it because it's like I can often be uh my own biggest enemy. And I think so many of us that noise up here, that noise, the just the self-doubt, the procrastination, the drive towards an easy existence, an easy life, an easy time. Easy's great. Uh I would not like to have my life be ridiculously difficult all the time. But I can say that one of the things that I find from the challenges that I have faced in my life is that they have definitely made me stronger. They have made me more resilient, they have made me able to weather storms that I didn't know that I could weather. And it all came about because I just said to myself, this is something I have to do. This is something I need to do. These challenges are challenges I need to go through. I love Ryan Holiday and his books. Uh, he has adapted a lot of stoicism for modern times. And his one of my favorite books that he has is The Obstacle is the way. And in that book, he looks his core concept is how obstacles can be instruments of our greatest growth. And he goes through history and looks at these different people through history that had these challenges that you might never see, might never have known of, but that they changed and shaped that person in the trajectory, trajectory of their life. And I think that's where it's at. And I think if you keep showing up, you know, I'm doing, I would love to be as big as Mel Robbins, Joe Rogan, Stephen Bartlett, and I don't know how to get from here to there. I don't know. I literally don't. I've talked to strategists and they tell me all these things, the things that you must do, but then we do those, and it still just is a slog. And what I think is the most important thing is just to continue showing up. And I think that if you continue to show up for a certain amount of time, you will get as and you continue to iterate and get better, eventually you'll get to where you want to be. But it might not look how you want it to look in the beginning or how you think it's supposed to look, but it's going to be the way that it should look because it's what evolves as you go.

SPEAKER_01 40:17

That's right. And I I am a big fan of Mel Robbins too, and she talks about how it takes 10 years of consistently showing up. Warren Buffett says the same thing. Jeff Bezos says the same thing, right? Transformational growth happens on a 10-year cycle because if you're willing to put in the work every single day for 10 years, you're gonna you're gonna do something that most people can't do. Um, I will say that the, in my opinion, the fastest way to growth that I don't know that enough people are doing is getting and receiving feedback.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 40:52

I mean real feedback, not oh, you're doing great. Oh, I love when you said this. I mean, that's helpful and I want to hear that. But I mean the feedback that says you talk with your hands too much, or you know, you you do this thing where you don't answer the question and you you move this way, right? I mean, the stuff that's hard to hear, one, can you hear it? And two, will you do something about it? And I will tell you, it's one of those be the change that you want to see. So if you want people to give you more feedback, you have to be willing to give the feedback first. And I will tell you, we live in a society, and I've been part of it too, and I still sometimes am, where we don't want to give the hard feedback. Do you know why? Because it's scary, because you may be rejected. You might say to somebody, hey, you know, you've been doing this thing that really bothers me. I don't like it. I'd love for you to do this. And that person might say, Excuse me?

SPEAKER_02 41:50

Right.

SPEAKER_01 41:51

How dare you? And I will tell you, that's happened. I've probably said that to others myself. And so we live in this environment a lot of time. I see it in businesses all the time. I would have teams that would come to me and would give me feedback about someone else on the team. That's called coaching the ghost, right? You can't what good are we going to do together talking about somebody else? Tell me how you feel. Did that make you feel lonely? Did that make you feel incompetent? Tell me how you feel. But if you have feedback for someone else, you're gonna have to go and tell that person yourself. Because you need to grow as a person by building the courage to share something that's a little that's that's disagreeing, right? You are literally saying to someone, I disagree with you when you give them feedback. The way you do that, I don't like that. I disagree with you. You have to do that. And then that person has to learn. So if we want people to give us more feedback so we can grow, especially at this level, right? Where, Sean, we're already putting ourselves out there. Like we need people to bring us that feedback. We have to be brave enough to do that. And I will tell you, I reach out to strangers all the time on LinkedIn. I'll say, Hey, do you are you open to some feedback? Some people say no. Some people say when people say yes, I will give it to them. And you know what normally happens? They then feel comfortable giving me feedback because I was willing to put myself out there for rejection, right? I was willing to put myself, I was willing to put our friendship. I mean, even if we don't know each other, I was willing to put it on the line to help you grow and to help me grow. We have to realize that growth does not come easy. It comes with risk every single time. And we have to practice it. Again, you're not gonna be on a stage where you're not gonna be earning a million dollars if you can't even have a hard conversation with a stranger. It's just not gonna happen, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00 43:47

I love that. And you gotta show up, you know. You gotta show up, you gotta be putting yourself out there, and you gotta sit there and figure out how to be vulnerable, you know, because. You know, one of the things that I I think that a lot of us, and that was like what we were talking about with the martial arts gym. When I was uh as a martial artist, um, I'm extremely good at throwing people, you know, but I'm not great at, you know, grappling on the ground. I'm not a BJJ black belt, far from it. I am not a um, you know, an expert at striking. I love it. I I train Mui Thai three times a week with my daughter. Like, that's our thing, you know. We we do martial arts together just like you and your family are. And that was my thing too, because I was trying to find more time to work out, and finally I was like, I'm taking my daughter to the gym every day. I might as well, or three times a week, I might as well be studying at the same time. And I train with them and I was doing laps with the kids, and there was all these kids that were just dragging and blazing, and I'm like, I'm 48 and I'm running circles around you guys. Hurry it up, you know. And so I was motivating the kids were laughing about that, it was fun. But one of the things that I think is is important is that you gotta again then show up, like we said. But you you have to then be humble enough to once you show up, be willing to take feedback, be willing to say, you know, I think there's so many people that you get in there. And like my daughter once, when we were going to study, you know, we went to study muay thai, she knows I'm a black belt. She's like, Are you gonna wear your black belt in in Muay Thai? I was like, No, she's like, Why not? I said, I'm not a black belt in Muay Thai. Like, first of all, they don't have black belts, but you know, I'm not an expert at that, I'm a beginner. And she's like, Are you is that you know scary for you? And I said, No, I'm good at what I'm good at. Other people are good at what they're good at. And if if they suddenly said, Hey, how do we throw someone? I was like, Oh, now you're speaking my language. I can help you with that. But if they say, How do we do this or that? I don't know. But I can learn and I can be willing to say when I'm doing something, they go, hey, your footwork's wrong. Oh, cool. Let me adjust that, you know.

SPEAKER_01 45:54

I love that. So much of our growth, I believe, comes from our willingness to be a beginner. Every time that you are a beginner at anything, there you mean, there's a lot of humility involved in that. You are genuinely setting up yourself for rejection. I mean, starting in martial arts, taekwondo. I mean, I'm learning, you know, all these different moves, and and they're doing it and it's tight, you know, the like the water move. I mean, I'm learning it and I'm I'm big and like it just feels weird and silly, but I'll never get to that tight water move unless I'm willing to look very foolish for some period of time. I'm also starting to learn how to play piano. I don't, I never learned how to do that. I actively seek ways where I am a beginner and I can practice that feeling of looking foolish because the more confident you are in that feeling of looking foolish or being a little weird or you know, people looking at you, the more comfortable you are. Again, the bigger rooms that you can get into, the bigger conversations you can get into. I mean, I literally go to people and say to strangers, can I put a sign in your yard that has elect Lauren Soper? Strangers I've never met. You don't just do that out of nowhere. You do that because you first asked somebody for feedback, you know, years ago. And so I think I wish people, and I heard you say this earlier too, our willingness to be able to start again, right? You fall down. Well, you got to get back up. You got to do it again. And you know, if you started a habit a year ago, maybe it was I want to drink less during the week. I hear that a lot from people, right? There's a movement of people wanting to drink less alcohol. Oh, I tried that and it just it was just too hard for me. Well, guess what? You can restart that at any time. That's what life is all about. You're gonna fall off and you just gotta restart.

SPEAKER_00 47:51

Yes. I think one of the things too is that you just have to be willing to keep going and get back up, get back up, get back up. Um, I love that. Was it Chumbawamba, that song, I'm dating myself, but I get knocked down, then I get up again, you know, we're gonna keep you down. Such an annoying song, but you're sitting there, you're listening to it, you're like, Yeah, man, that's that's it. You gotta be so resilient that you're willing to bounce back up. Now, here's the secret though it's much easier to bounce back up when you have a circle and community around you that helps you back up. And when you get knocked down, they're the ones there that are lifting you at the same time. And that's the huge thing, you know, to me is like who are you surrounding yourself by? You know, and uh if you can have that, it's gonna be so helpful in the long run, you know, building out that that group of people.

SPEAKER_01 48:49

Okay, so I agree. And I will also say that it it I don't know that it's necessary. I'm gonna go back to something that you said earlier, which is we need to have confidence in ourselves because right now the life I'm living a lot of people, you know, people closest to me don't agree with it. Why are you spending time on LinkedIn? Why are you building a newsletter? Why are you why aren't you just going out and seeking W-2 employment again? So I don't, you know, I I have a lot of people that are closest to me who don't support me. And it doesn't mean that they're wrong. It it means that I need to have a strong, I need to have an even stronger sense of self. And I need to understand why do I need their acceptance? I mean, I love them, but I don't need their acceptance. I I and I really spend a lot of time. I was journaling about this this morning. Like, what am I so afraid of? I'm afraid of they're gonna talk poorly about me. Oh, they're gonna call each other up and they're gonna talk poorly about me. Okay, well, Lauren, why am I scared about people talking poorly about me? They already are. Again, people are always watching. Well, okay, I'm scared that they might all turn against me. Well, who's they all? Can I find evidence of people supporting me? One or two people. If I can find one evidence of one or two people who support me, like you're one of them, Sean, you know, that's what we need. So I I agree that I think that we don't need a huge community around us. Can you find one or two people in your life who are just, you got this. I'm I'm on your team. Because if you want to go to the next level, I am a firm believer, people are going to be getting in your way the whole way there. And I don't believe it's I don't call them haters, I don't even call them obstacles. I call them people that want to help you grow. Don't ignore them, hear them, but keep going. Don't give up, keep going.

SPEAKER_00 50:47

I'm 100% with you. And I think that one of the things that's so important, and this is something as I started growing on my path, I had to part ways with many people that could not see my potential. I remember talking about some people about business ideas I had, and some guy was like, Why would you want to do that? That's a bad idea. And I was like, that's your judgment, that's your perspective, that's your thing. That's not my truth, you know? And I think that you have to find people that can see you and your potential and not people that are gonna be happy sitting where they're at. You know what I mean? And so I think that you have to have a fundamental shift. But I want to ask you this because for someone sitting at home that wants to make one change today to really get their life back on track, what do you think that they should be doing today to make that change and getting their life in a new direction?

SPEAKER_01 51:40

That's a great question. What instantly popped into my head is they should be writing every day, every morning, because I know what's happening. I was there myself and I hear it from people all the time. I'm door knocking, I'm attending events, I'm talking to hundreds of people now. They are up here. Oh, I'm just so overwhelmed. I have so much on my to-do list. Oh, I wake up in the middle of the night and I'm so scared about this. Well, let's just call it what it is. Those are your thoughts. Those are those are neural pathways firing in your brain. So just let's get down to the root level. It's not noise, it's not you know, imposter syndrome, it's just thoughts that are wreaking havoc in our brains. If we can start writing down every single day what's on our mind and we can commit to that, we can take back control over our lives. Because sometimes those thoughts form patterns, form stories, right? I'm a quiet person. I don't wake up early, I'm not somebody who can be in the public eye. Oh, I can't run my own business. These are just stories, these are not truths. But we believe they're truths because they stay up here and nobody's questioning them.

SPEAKER_02 52:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:55

We we are responsible for questioning them. I believe in radical responsibility. That would be another thing I would recommend to people. See how often you're blaming someone in your thoughts, in your conversation, see how often you're blaming yourself. I will tell you, nothing grows out of blame. That's another story. There's only responsibility. If some for instance, for instance, if I walk downstairs and my daughter hits hits another one of my, you know, one of my children, you know what I would say? Oh, I'm sorry I wasn't there. I wish I had been there. Here, let's talk about this. Because what I do when I come in and I take responsibility is I'm telling everybody, first of all, I'm the leader. Don't worry, I have this under control. And it allows everyone else to have space to then show up with their responsibility. And so when we when we blame our friends or our family or our children or ourselves, we're just going to be stuck there. I believe it's a dead-end circle. So, two, I guess it's two things. Writing, well, the writing will lead to responsibility, in my opinion, right? Once you can see that these are just thoughts and these are just stories, you end up taking more responsibility. And I believe responsibility is a core value, especially if we want to be leaders.

SPEAKER_00 54:12

I love that. I think that you're spawned on with that because I think that, you know, you have to look at the best thing for your journey, the best thing for yourself. But it's just this constant balancing point for what is it that is the thing that's gonna most fulfill you. And I think that's the journey, the secret that you got to figure out. And maybe for you, it's helping people, maybe for you it's running for local government office, maybe for you it's, you know, going and becoming a musician. Those are all worthy goals. But you have to take the time to explore yourself and to go deep to find that. And that's what I say, you know, I one of the things I try to recommend for people is can you do the inner work? Um, can you go deep and say, hey, I don't know where I'm at right now, but I would like to um see if I can, you know, figure out these next steps of what's important for me. And maybe you learn that I really enjoy getting a massage or bodywork. Yeah, okay, great. You know, um that's a good thing. That might be what is your thing to help you feel good inside, or maybe your thing is going to um take care of you know, kids and become a teacher. Find your thing and make it your single most important thing that you can do. Find your thing. That's what I would say.

SPEAKER_01 55:48

Mm-hmm. Let me add one more idea. I'm a big believer in if you're gonna try something new, you can't give up after the first try, the second try, or the thirteen, third, you know, the third try. I'm a big believer, you have to try something 14 times before you can say that you don't like it. And normally what happens, you end up liking it because you're just doing it. So when my children say, Oh, I don't like broccoli, I say, Well, have you tried it 14 times? They haven't. And then guess what happens by the fifth or sixth time? They end up liking it. And so I think sometimes, and I hear this all the time from people, and I I do it sometimes myself. We say, Oh, yeah, no, I've tried tried that. I tried meditating. Oof, it was too hard. Yeah, I've tried the mantras, it just doesn't work for me. Really? Have you tried it 14 times? Because you have to commit to something before you can really say that you're not good at it or you don't like it. Because that sometimes is what gets in the way of us and us growing or learning some new skill, is we give up too quickly. So just the more rules that we set for ourselves, the easier. Because then the rule becomes the bad guy. We don't need to police ourselves. It's the rule. So I would say to everybody listening, whatever you're gonna try from listening to this conversation or whatever you're in the middle of trying, give it 14 real goes at it before you give up.

SPEAKER_00 57:13

I love that. Where can people go and find out more about you and the work that you do?

SPEAKER_01 57:20

Well, I have a website for right now because I'm running for school committee. So you can go to ww.laurensoper.com. I also have um an Instagram page that's public. It's Soper for Schools. Um, I have a newsletter on LinkedIn with about 1,200 um subscribers. Uh I do a lot of posting there, although I've taken just a little bit of a break with this school committee campaign. It'll be over in about 10 days. And then I will be oh, and I also have a Substack newsletter, so you can just launch. And then I've I've been on debates and I was just interviewed by our TV channel. Just look up Lauren Soper. You're gonna find out a lot about me. And if you want to contact me, uh my email address is soperfamily32 at gmail.com. I love hearing from people. I I'm I'm really trying to make myself accessible because if you're in this journey for growing, it can be a little lonely. You know, I think Sean, you described it perfectly. People are gonna look at you and say, What? That's not the version of you that I know. I need you to be the version of you that I know. It makes me feel comfortable. So reach out to me. I'm I'm right there with you.