One Word

Are you setting a New Years’ Resolution this year, or are you worried about breaking it come February?

If New Years’ Resolutions aren’t your thing, but self-improvement is, this episode is for you!

With 2022 coming to a close, it's a good time to take stock of your successes and those lessons learned and how you grew this year. Along with the start of a new year comes the temptation to make New Year’s Resolutions that are certain to fail – this is where the one word method comes in.

Learn how to set yourself up for success with choosing your one word.

In this episode, you can expect Kara and Jack to talk about:

• Why it’s important to be careful what you put out into the universe – you may just get what you ask for
• Their December self-care challenge, what they’ve learned, and why you should also do one – are you up for a challenge?
• How New Year’s Resolutions might not set you up for success and why you should use the one word method instead

Want to watch the episode instead? Click here: https://youtu.be/pyeT0kK-3Qo

Sponsor: Optimized Career Solutions at www.optimizedcareersolutions.com  If you're ready for a transformation in your career, but not sure how to take that next step, we want you to learn the strategies and gain the support every high achiever needs to feel empowered in their career. Be confident in your job search and schedule your free consultation with Kara and Jack at https://getstarted.optimizedcareersolutions.com

About Kara: Kara is the CEO of Optimized Career Solutions, an Executive Career and Leadership Coach and a Forbes Contributor. She is a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) who has spent her career as a Corporate Recruiting Leader, working closely with decision-makers. Throughout her career, Kara has personally reviewed over 300,000 resumes. Through her executive coaching programs, she has helped thousands of professionals land their dream jobs and has been responsible for negotiating over $10 million in salary increases over the last few years.

About Jack: Jack is the COO of Optimized Career Solutions, an Executive Career Coach, and comes from a life coaching, personal training, and philosophy background. As the Accountability and Mindset Coach in their coaching program, Jack is passionate about helping high achievers and leaders live impactful lives by shifting mindsets, gaining personal accountability, and achieving personal and professional wins that lead to major life transformations. As a high ticket sales closer, Jack has sold over $1M in high ticket sales in under 3 years.

Email – thedennisondownload@gmail.com

Website – https://optimizedcareersolutions.com/

Kara LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/karadennisonsphr/

Jack LinkedIn -https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackrdennison/ 

Instagram - @thedennisondownload

Tiktok - @karadennisonsphr

Transcript

having all this pain and wild things happening all at once having test

results come out of nowhere while you're trying to run a business um not being able to really take PTO try

to lead a team trying to um service clients and really put

yourself out there on social media it it really became a huge lesson of

of understanding who you are right who am I authentically how am I going to

tell my story how am I going to learn the lessons that maybe I didn't learn because frankly a lot of my medical

issues came from extended years and actually Decades of

chronic stress and burnout [Music]

welcome back to the last episode of 2022 for the Denison download can you believe

it oh man it's already gone I know I know it's been a wild year

to say the least to say the least I know I started out this is how I'm gonna

approach 2023. you ready because I started out 2022 being like it's gonna

be my year so for those who may have followed my other podcast

um or you know follow me at the beginning of 2022. I was really big into this year because my birthday is

February 2nd so 2 22. I was real big into making sure that this year was

going to be my year and by the time my birthday came around on to 2 22. it was very clearly not my year well

it was a year it was a year and uh I was living it but it was a tough year this

year so here's how I'm gonna approach 2023 I'm gonna be very quiet I am not

gonna make some ostentatious claim of it being my hair I am going to just lower my expectations that's uh that's how I'm

approaching yeah I would agree with that

um I I think I beat my chest last year and kind of made all these proclamations of you know what I was going to do and

life just you know life just throws life at you and you and you've got to figure out a way to kind of keep pushing

forward and those uh those big dreams and goals that you do have sometimes you just gotta be

able to deal with what comes and and be able to still step forward yeah you know what looking back on this year

um this episode is coming out uh the last Thursday of the Year we're recording it right before that right and

you know looking over this year and at the beginning of the year I really kind of put out to the universe I want to

grow my bro I want to be able to become a better version of myself and

man when you put things out to the universe careful and right be very careful

because I will say this year has probably been one of our most

um growth-filled years yeah yeah a lot of

lessons that came from what we asked for right we asked

for the growth we wanted it but we didn't expect it to come the way it did

did we cap um just in the Denison household in

2022 um you know we were really looking to accelerate our business scale to the

next level and then we got hit with some major medical news um for me uh at the beginning of the

year and around February March and uh it was scary we had a cancer scare

thankfully I'm okay we had a tumor scare uh scans showed that I have a tumor on

my liver um and that was really scary as uh tumors in my family have been

detrimental and luckily that is a benign tumor that I don't have to worry about

we'll just keep an eye on gallbladder issues colon issues and

things like that and it was really scary trying to figure out all four of these things coming all at once as well as

some menstrual things or whatever having all this pain and wild things happening

all at once having test results come out of nowhere while you're trying to run a business not being able to really take

PTO try to lead a team trying to service clients and really put yourself

out there on social media it it really became a huge lesson of

of understanding who you are right who am I authentically how am I going to

tell my story how am I going to learn the lessons that maybe I didn't learn because frankly a lot of my medical

issues came from extended years and actually Decades of

chronic stress and burnout um and so it was a big lesson and a big

year of growth not in the way that we anticipated when we set it out we wanted

growth in the business growth and abundance growth in our marriage growth for our clients and really it was more

internal growth for us right yeah it was it's funny how we uh to to use a

something that many of my fellow comic book friends might recognize the bat

signal right we put the bat signal up for the universe to know that we were coming that we wanted growth we we asked

for it but the problem is is the the universe then took that signal and shined it right back at us and

basically said okay this is what you want well in order to get there here's

the things you're going to need to overcome I'm going to take you to the highest highs and then I'm going to drop

you to the lowest lows to see if you can pick yourself back up can you help build

the plan to show others what they need to do and what they need to follow to be

able to uplift themselves right when we were having this conversation just the other day in the car where we were talking about this uh how

we've we've learned to play in the clouds we've learned to build those Castles in the Sky we can do it right

it's about the vibration it's about making sure that you put yourself in the right space being creative and living to

learn and you're masculine and feminine and energies but at the same time you also need to make sure that you have

a plan for when life has you at the top and then things are going to happen that

are going to drop you like a rock yeah and the conversation that we were

having right it was it was really interesting as we were going through all of this this stuff

this year you and I got really not only close to each other but we

really became aligned with um in our spiritual walk right our

spiritual um relationship with with God the universe whatever you call it right and

um it was really great and for a while there we felt like we were in complete flow right we got some really good news

about the medical stuff which was fantastic you know uh spending half a year thinking you're gonna die and then

getting the news at hey everything's gonna be okay and as long as you manage you know your lifestyle you're gonna

have a long and healthy life God willing right and that was in line the business started kind of becoming

um inflow and aligned as well and it really felt like we were on back on top

of the world again right and then in about October November things started falling apart again right we had some

changes in the business uh things were going well the economy started um the news right recession layoffs ah all this

other stuff right and so being in the business that we were it started crashing again and we didn't feel like

we were aligned anymore we sort of felt um at least in my mind I sort of felt

abandoned right like what we worked so hard we really worked to learn the lessons and now it doesn't feel like the

universe or God is on our side anymore and that was a tough lesson too and

we've been hearing from like our coaches and all the people that have been with us about this journey

oh you know stay positive just remember be aligned do your do the things right

and what was frustrating for you and I and that conversation we had in the car is

how how when you're so down so darn down in the dumps right in that

pit of despair how do you just climb out

and we don't ever want to be those coaches that lose sight of that right and or

those people or those entrepreneurs or those influencers or whatever the heck we end up being you know years down the road

because the fact of the matter is is that all of those things are great when we're aligned yes we want to talk about

how we've transformed and all of the amazing things that are happening in our world but the fact of the matter is is

it's especially for me right and I know you I won't speak for you but for all of

a lot of people myself I suffer from depression anxiety panic

a lot of mental health things and going down into that depth of despair

it's not as easy as just saying well don't be there anymore choose not to be

there just choose positive right where's the bridge

and so what we were saying is we want to be that bridge we want to

show you that there is a staircase out of a rope ladder a a rope a staircase

whatever to climb out of those depths because we've done it

we've done it not just once or twice but multiple multiple times and it's hard as hell

um each time it seems to be harder than the last but at the same time

what we don't realize is that every time something comes up you're stronger than

you were the last time yeah you have more tools than you did the last time the key is are you using those tools are

using the right combination of those tools because usually the the next test

builds upon the last right it's not the same yeah absolutely so

that's something that we've been doing right is it got dark a little bit for us

in November it got tough and we decided that we're not going to

wait until the new year to start making changes right December for us is a little bit slow

um in the business and we decided let's capitalize on this time let's figure out ways that we can use our tools that we

learned this year this year of growth of lessons of gathering our toolkit to

to work on our mindsets to help transform us and let's put into action right this

whole year has been a year of of learning those lessons of those growths and now it was it was like we were at

that test right and so it happened to be one of the darkest days was the last day

of November for us and then the first day of December we looked at each other and we said we can't we can't end the

year like this and so we ended up proposing a challenge to each other

and it sounds sillier than it is why don't you tell us

yeah so you had this idea where you

looked at me and you were like I want to try a self-care challenge

would you be up for something like that and I was like self-care challenge what

what do you mean is this kind of like the The Ice Box challenge like what what

is this like and you said well what I'd like to do is I'd like to instead of

waiting for January and doing resolutions why don't we use this month to really see if we can better ourselves

and put ourselves in back in that flow State and put get ourselves back to that

high level of the vibration scale by self-care and we haven't necessarily had

the best month so let's make sure even if next month isn't awesome let's make

ourselves feel awesome let's go into 2023 feeling the best that we can and

there isn't a better way to feel good than prioritizing self-care yeah

absolutely and it sounds silly right but I want to talk about what self-care

really is in my mind right because a lot of times when we see self-care online or

social media et cetera you know when I used to think about self-care it was like oh bubble baths and like a bonbon

or a piece of chocolate or whatever right and don't get me wrong that all of those things are great I love me a piece

of chocolate I'll do a bubble bath every once in a while more of a shower girl but whatever right

when I started this challenge that day I happened to already kind of have on my

schedule something that I was going to be doing uh that day to emotionally process some of

um with a tool some of my emotions right and uh this is a really great tool that

I had gained from actually Rebecca Simmons friend of the Pod who was on a couple weeks ago and it was called

swamping and this is um basically what you do is you create a

playlist and the playlist is for a couple of songs per emotion and the

emotions start with sadness or grief then they go up to anger or rage then they go to lust and then they go to joy

and happiness and the point on this is for you to listen to this playlist you do two to three songs for each emotion

you listen to this playlist you feel the emotions and it works your your emotional scale up the vibrational or

your emotions up the vibrational scale and you're releasing these emotions as you go up and it's truly a uh

transformative uh exercise to do it really is um in order to

to just start shifting things around and that day I felt so much better that I wanted to start looking at other tools

that I can use to help shift me away from that really dark depressive state

that I was in and what was really great about it is that I didn't want to just

rely on the same tool over and over again every single day right I wanted to get creative I wanted to do things

differently every day and the reason why is I wanted to set the habit now to

hopefully set myself up for success in the new year and what's great is I've started exercising again I used to do

stretching and a little bit of Pilates and yoga and now I'm doing that again um I started journaling again I've got

you know a journal I was doing that pretty consistently earlier in the year and I kind of fell off so I'm back to

doing that again um I've done a couple of different morning rituals things like that you and

I have gotten into a better routine in our morning ritual of cuddling and doing meditations and really connecting which

has been fantastic I've also found some ways to really set my future self up for

Success right going through our budget tracking our expensive organ expenses organizing our files

um making smoothies and batching them out it's been really really exciting and

one of the days that I wanted to share with our audience uh before we kind of

hear how it's been going for you do is about two weeks in actually about 10 days in I

said what I've noticed after 10 days of self-care and I listed all of the things that I've been noticing after just 10

days of doing this consistently and challenging myself to think of different ways I'm in a better mindset I'm less

depressed I'm less angry I'm feeling more strategic I'm feeling more hopeful I'm sleeping better I'm more productive

I'm more creative I'm thinking of ways to optimize or help future me I feel better and healthier Jack and I are more

connected and I'm feeling more aligned and in flow and that's just after 10 days of doing this and today is actually

the 20th as now double the amount of time and I still feel like that's true and it's been really exciting how's it

been going for you for me it's it's really been this re-centering that I was hoping for for

it to be because uh much like you November just made me feel off-center I

I felt like I was trying to find my way back to find that balance and uh with

the self-care of implementing so many of the tools that you mentioned but um for

myself working out journaling uh listening to certain meditations

binaural beats um TED Talks uh doing

sales training consistently and Sales reviews and really building in a lot of

different things that are just helping me feel better on the day-to-day

um I noticed that my sleep has gotten better I'm I'm sleeping through the night whereas before I would I would

wake up in in sweats um and also at the same time I'm noticing just the positive frame of mind

that I have on the day-to-day uh it I'm typically a positive person I find

myself there but I think there was a period there for a couple months where I was kind of like 50 50. and and I could

go either way and that has really shifted here 20 days into this challenge that's awesome uh so I would love to

challenge you all if you're listening to this if you're trying to figure out a challenge you know I know a lot of

people do dry January a lot of people do a lot of different things what I am considering self-care is doing

one thing a day that either takes care of me on a personal level

um to fill my cup back up or takes care of future me right does something

um to make me feel like I'm bettering myself as a person um this has been a transformative

exercise for us um and it has shifted our mindset a lot

um so I would highly recommend it um the thing that we both did today is what we're going to talk about the

second half of the show but let's take a quick break uh we'll do a little ad and we'll be right back all right

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all right welcome back so Jack our self-care thing that we did

today is sort of having to do with the new year yeah yeah this is a new thing for you

this is something I introduced you to this year yeah you introduced me to it and I tried it this year but I I and I

did it but I think I can do it better okay I think I could do it better next

year okay so we're going to talk about the one word the the one word for the

year so this came about a few years ago at least I remember coming about a few years ago in order to replace the New

Year's resolution so overwhelmingly the New Year's resolutions um tend to set people up for failure I

remember setting New Year's resolutions as a kid or when I was younger and uh for me since my birthday is February 2nd

I used to always have a grace period if I fail my New Year's resolution I would start a birthday prescription

um and give myself kind of a 33 day um trial period but it always got so

frustrating and it would always set my New Years up for failure and a great way to beat myself up if I couldn't or broke

my New Year's resolution why I really like the one word is because it really

aligns with what you and I talk about a lot um and it aligns with visualizing with

or visualization which is something that I really like and visualizing who you want to be in the new year

so um I kind of did some research and this is a three-step process so the three-step

process the first step is really envisioning the kind of person that you want to be in the new year or the type

of person if there's someone else that you admire who that person is and sort of emulating

who you want to be uh in the new year right and just a tip

for uh just a Kera Denison tip try not to Envision someone completely different

uh when I say Envision someone else that you admire that's first step too right but try envision your yourself and just

yourself slightly different or slightly the better version of yourself in the new year right

step two is to write down all the characteristics that that version of

yourself has right and this might be a really good I got stumped here right like what is that characteristic have

and I started um thinking about some characteristics of other people that I really admire that helped me write down

characteristics that's where I got into that other person part so first up envisioning the person that

you want to be in the new year the second step is really writing down the characteristics that person has

throughout the new year and then the third step is really boiling it down to one word that that person embodies in

the new year so with that being said I'll kind of read off what I did and I'll tell you

what my word is for the new year so now that you guys kind of know how our year went in 2022 what I really

envisioned was thinking back on 2022 our year was a lot of ups and downs a lot of unknowns a lot

of bumps in the road a lot of trusting and untrusting and a lot of scariness

right so for me step one the kind of person that I want to be really trust

God and Trust the universe they are in flow she trusts herself and her body is

in line is aligned rather is healthy is Happy is wealthy is abundant brings joy

to others she knows her she gives back willingly she has boundaries

um she is knowledgeable right so that's kind of the person that that she is in

the new year she's confident in herself in the universe and the decisions that

she makes the characteristics that she has is confident generous funny unassuming

powerful aligned wise um important kind and trusted

and so my one word for the new year for me is Trust

I really want to embody trust because I spent so many so much of this year feeling

unsure right not sure of myself not sure of the future not sure of the decisions that

I'm making and so I really want to operate in trust in the next year trust in myself that I'm making our decisions

trusting the universe trust in my team trust in you trust in our business trust

in our clients trust that the right clients will come so I feel that the

right or the type of person rather that I want to be Trust

so that's beautiful yeah thank you I appreciate that I did mine

differently okay that's okay it's it's they're on tell me about yours so

mine last year I you probably already know it it was discipline my my word for

last year was discipline because I decided last December that I really wanted to start working out for myself

and start taking care of my body um stuck to that he really did I I did

and it's crazy because I started it working out in the cold in January in

our garage just with minimal equipment and I started with calisthenics and core

work and lo and behold 12 months later I've stuck with it doing it anywhere between

three and five days a week every single week showing up for myself and being disciplined

um but when you talked about the one word for

next year I reflected on this past year and while I was proud of myself for

being disciplined a lot of the things that happened I don't necessarily I handled them as

best as I could and with talking about some of the things

that you you dealt with such as health and making us wonder you know are you

going to be here potentially um I've decided that next year my word

is fearless oh okay okay and the reason for that is

because I think that while it was amazing to gain the habit of discipline

I think being Fearless in all moments going forward will allow me to be the

best version of myself to rise to any moment that we might need uh in

execution moving forward because I think

for us in our relationship having not necessarily dealt with a lot of health things for either of us up until

this point at least minimal um I think that it was scary for me and

that there was a lot of fear that arose that I was not um prepared to deal with and I think that

there are elements of that fear that creep in when we're least expecting and

so I believe that me just being Fearless will allow me to be the best version of myself next year

I really like that can I challenge you always

what happens when you do experience fear next year gonna come but it's being able to act in

the fear it's not running away from it not shying away from it not not doing

the easy thing in the moment of fear showing up and doing the tough thing in

spite of right that that's the key and I

know that if I do that not only will I be in the best possible place but I know our business will be in

a great spot I know we will be in a great spot I know everything that we touch will be fine

I hate that I'm even bringing this up but could I make a suggestion for a different word for you

you can try I could try okay could I suggest courage

and here's the reason why is I don't know if it's possible to be Fearless because I think fear is going

to come no matter what it's what you do when that comes

I think you're right I think being courageous is being Fearless I think there are those

words are synonymous with one another

I was good at it maybe Fearless was the absence of fear and courage is acting

whether or not you have fear or not well we might need to pause and re-record

this podcast [Laughter]

I really do um I think it's a really really good topic

I think it's a great word too because

I'll be honest you handled this year really really well

and you do a lot of things with a lot of courage and I'm excited to

see what the next uh year brings because this year was scary as hell it really was and I'm

excited to see what next year brings when we add trust and courage or for

your listeners too right there I'm excited it's going to be a fun one yeah

awesome all right well for our listeners or our Watchers those who watch on

YouTube thank you for uh watching um I hope that you have a great great

New Year and I would love to know what your word is so if you're following us on social media we are on Instagram at

the Dennis and download we are on Facebook we have a Facebook page called the Dennis and download podcast make

sure to follow us along um leave us a five star review on Spotify iTunes wherever you watch uh or

listen rather to uh the Dennis and download podcast we would love to receive a review we read all of them it

would make us super super happy and we will be back with brand new podcast

episodes in the new year we have some incredible exciting new guests so if you

are sick of hearing my boys I know I talk a lot and you want more of Jack and some more of really incredible guests

we've got incredible incredible guests coming up some really amazing

people and their transformation stories so stay tuned make sure that you're subscribed and from our family to yours

have a great great New Years