Ep68 Kevin Monroe - The Hope Science Framework: Why Your Best Breakthroughs Happen When You Stop Waiting

Kevin Monroe  0:00  
What are the things right now that I see, taste, touch, hear or feel? It's like, oh, wow, that's one way to bring gratitude into the present.

Suzanne Taylor-King  0:09  
Yeah, I love that so much. Hey, hey, welcome to a podcast where dreams meet determination and success is just around the corner. I'm your host, Suzanne Taylor King, and I'm here to help you unlock the full potential of your business and your life. Welcome to unlock your way with SDK, let's unlock your path to success together. Good morning. Good morning everyone. Suzanne Taylor King, here for another Friday live edition of unlock your way with STK. And I am really excited about this conversation with Kevin Monroe. He is a hope catalyst, slight fire starter, I would argue, and an incredible gratitude guide. Kevin, welcome to this long overdue conversation.

Kevin Monroe  1:13  
Oh, Suzanne, thank you for inviting me and all of you who are joining us, whether you're joining us live or whether you're catching a replay of this sometime later, I want to say thank you for allowing us to be part of your day to day.

Suzanne Taylor-King  1:29  
Oh, I love that, and I your positivity. Let's start there. Your your positivity is utterly contagious, and what I love about that so much in this world of social media and negative things happening, you truly show up everywhere I've ever been with you or watching you with this unwavering positivity, where does that come from?

Kevin Monroe  2:08  
Oh, okay. First off, I gotta tell you something. Susan, when you saving you know it. I just I'm humbled, and I'm honored that I feel that I show up that way. Oh, but like a friend of mine said, we don't realize the color we emit. Yeah, somebody will say when you walked in the room, gosh, the room just got bright orange. Well, everything you see is bright orange, so you don't realize the room just got orange. But that's how we are in one day, an executive was speaking at a conference for my son's company, and he met her at the end, and it was Cheryl Bachelder, who was the CEO of Popeye's Louisiana kitchen, and I met her years ago and became friends. And he said, Oh, I'm Josh Monroe, you know my dad, Kevin. And she said, your dad is the most positive person. I'm what an amazing thing for someone to say about you to someone. Where does it come from? So I'm just gonna, I think it comes one from deep seated faith, you know, and this belief in greater purpose, higher power, that there's something else at play, bigger than in the world, and I can just kind of trust that Things are going to ultimately work together for good.

Suzanne Taylor-King  3:43  
I, I love that, and I I think I want to, I want to go deeper in into being positive. And because I really feel as though, when you show up with positive intention thoughts, whether it's about yourself or other people, I really feel as though it changes how the world sees you, and People told me about you so people talk about you in rooms you're not in because of that positivity. And I, I feel as though that's something, that it's contagious, right? What? What is required? Wow, like that?

Kevin Monroe  4:41  
That's a great question. Now I want to back up to another story, Suzanne, and it's one I include on my LinkedIn profile, and this was years ago now, but I remember showing up at o'clock in the morning for a 730 meeting where I'm going to facilitate a board retreat and I'm meeting the. The CEO of the organization. We drive up at the same time, and she was obviously not a morning person. I mean, it was just real apparent. And I am a morning person. I've always been a morning person, and we'll talk about that in a moment. But I got out and she goes, so how are you? I said, I'm great. And she goes, I have a feeling you always are. Sam, my response, I remember it so vividly. I said, Well, we get to choose. Why not? Yeah, right. And so I want to go back to that when you ask that it is a choice. It's a choice of how we choose to show up in the world. And when you ask, and if I start thinking about, well, what does it take for me to show up this way? You know, I think it would be easy to say, Oh, it's just my sunny disposition. But it's, it's not just a sunny disposition, yeah, in that scale of introvert, extrovert, ambivert, I don't know where I'm at. Y'all I'm probably ambivert, but when? When you because I love being around people, but when you recognize the real source of when you think about introversion or extroversion, it's where do you get your energy? Right? Do you get your energy from being around people? Which I do get a lot of energy from being around people, but I recognize this. I have to have my alone time in the morning, yes, so that my cup is full, so that when I'm around people, there's something to share and give. And so I wake up most every day between 435 15 without an alarm clock, and then I spend my first hour, sometimes 7590 minutes, and I do my best for several of the first 30 or 40 of us, not to pick up my phone, right, but to really be doing those things. And I like to think of them as more as rhythms than a routine, because I don't always do everything in the same way, but there's certain things I do every morning, and that is part of what allows me to then face the world, believing everything's going to be okay, it's going to be a good Take. And in the last couple of weeks, Susan, so part of this is keeping a gratitude journal. And I remember, oh, gosh, this. This was a week ago Monday. I remember that morning when I was journaling, and at the moment I'm looking, I mean, I I knew what was coming in the day ahead, and there wasn't anything particularly extraordinary on the calendar, but I had this sense something amazing is going to happen today. There's just going to be and I'm like, okay, that Well, that's an interesting thought to have, right? Without knowing, well, I'm joining Suzanne on on this live today, and that's going to be amazing, right? It was none of that. It's just like I just had this sense. And 30 minutes later, I see an event show up on my calendar, and when I saw it, I thought, well, that was supposed to be tomorrow, and the person had to reschedule, and it was our first time talking, and oh my gosh, she'd be an amazing guest for your podcast. Dr Mina Julia pally, she's a joyologist. She's also an a pediatric dermatologist. Okay? And we were, we were set to have this meeting on Tuesday. Something changed with her schedule, and all of a sudden, that meeting is on Monday, and when I show up at that meeting, this was a, you know, I love it when you have and I think you'll get this right away. We had a 90 minute, 60 minute meeting, yeah,

Suzanne Taylor-King  9:19  
that will not happen. Yeah,

Kevin Monroe  9:20  
was scheduled for 60, it ran 90. It could have gone 180 but we both had another commitment. It's like, oh my gosh. And it seemed like it was 15 minutes that it was since in that morning, it was like, broke gratitude for it in advance. So let's pack, unpack something here in a moment. So you you watching this? And Suzy, pretty sure you know this, that gratitude can exist in three dimensions of time, past, present or future. Yeah, right. And I realized years ago that this was on my gratitude journey. I remember when I realized. Eyes, that all of my gratitude was past tense, that when I was journaling, what I was journaling was either if I'm beginning, beginning today, I'm looking back at what were the good things that happened yesterday, or if at the end of the day, what are the good things that happened today? And then I started pressing myself, I'm like, Well, gosh, what? What if I just look and go, Well, what are the good things happening now? Whatever this now, oh, I'm enjoying a cup of coffee or a cup of tea, or I'm enjoying the quiet. Or this is one that hit me in the last week. And every once in all this hits me, but uh, and I posted about it, and somebody's like, oh my gosh, thanks for posting that, because it helped me think about this. But all of a sudden I was thinking, I hear birds singing, and then that, oh, oh, I I hear birds. I have I can hear. And then that takes into my senses. Well, what other senses do I have? Right? I can taste the coffee I'm drinking. I can smell I can smell things in my house. I can feel that morning was a warmer morning. The ceiling fan was blowing. I could feel cool air on my legs as I'm sitting in the reclined. And I just went through a sensory expansion. It kind of examination. And I thought about, what are the things right now that I see, taste, touch, hear or feel? It's like, oh, wow, that's one way to bring gratitude into the present. Yeah,

Suzanne Taylor-King  11:34  
I love that so much. And I think one of the things I have a client who does these amazing vision boards, and it made me kind of reinvent how I was doing the vision board. And when I think about things for the future that I'm already grateful for, it actually pulls you towards that positive future, right? I love sensory experience. I send voicemails to clients, a lot voice notes, and one of my mentees yesterday said that in the background of my voice note, he heard birds. I was out on my porch having my morning coffee, and I thought of something to send him, and he said the message was great, but he said I immediately knew where you were, what you were doing, and the fact that you were present in that nature moment sending me a message, he felt like he got some sensory benefit From the environment I was actually in when I was sending that message. Well, of course, that went right in the gratitude journal The next morning, like, Oh, I'm thankful I have that ability to affect other people like that, because I'm doing the things I'm supposed to be doing for myself, and I that you honor time in the morning for yourself as well.

Kevin Monroe  13:27  
Susan, when you say that, I mean, I had somebody send me one of those. Last week, I had dropped I love voice messages, right? And I've started using a Marco Polo and sending video messages, and one of the things, but let me go back to the voice message before I get distracted here, somebody said the same thing to me. They go, Oh, I hear birds singing, and right, it adds this dimension. And all of a sudden they're just transported. And this person lives in, you know, the LA area of California, and I'm not sure how, how often she hears birds singing. So hearing birds singing, what was just this added dimension? Now, just mentioning Marco Polo. So here's something I've had happen a lot lately using Marco Polo more, is I'm on my morning walk, and that's when I do a lot of messages. Sometimes it's a fun time, and I always have to tell people, pardon the heavy breathing. You know, I just walked up or something. But I look down at my phone to send a Marco Polo and what do I see? I see the clouds above. I didn't remember to look up yet today, and so I'm looking down. And there are times I go, Oh, pardon me, I'll be right back. And I stop and I look up. And we need to get a link if you've not seen their brother. David has this amazing five minute something, TED talk called a grateful day meditation. Okay, one minute 20 in it, he says, stop and look up. We don't spend enough time looking up. It's so this is something I've done. And hey, you watch. If you watch this, I'm going to invite you to do this wherever you're watching. The next time you get a chance, go outside, look up, take a picture of the sky and post it in the feed. We do this a lot. I do this on LinkedIn, so I did it this week. Hey, stop and look up, y'all. And I can look out the window right now, through the blinds, and I see a little blue. I see a lot of clouds. There's a psych street that I've been walking on more recently than I've had in a while, and every day I've stopped and taken a picture at the same spot. And this a couple of days, there had been this beautiful sun breaking over the horizon and the trees, and today it was foggy. And the moment I saw the fog, a memory came back. Go in a foggy time of life, it hit me. It's like, gosh, when I encounter fog, I want to reframe that with this little phrase, focus on gratitude. So right if life is foggy for you right now you're trying to make a decision, you're not real sure what to do. Hey, what if you pause right now and you go, Okay, I don't know what to do about this. But think back to other times when you've had a tough decision and you didn't know what to do, but you had the ability to make a decision and think, How did things turn out, then help with that decision. What have things right? Focus on gratitude. Don't focus on the fog. Don't Don't go, Gosh, I don't know what to do. Focus on gosh, you know, I've been here before, and I found my way through and here's what happened, or here's who helped, and Suzanne, you know, I got to tell you when I was looking and listening to some of the previous episodes of unblock your way and thinking about what we are here to talk about today, I gotta tell you, gratitude. Gratitude is absolutely essential to

Suzanne Taylor-King  17:28  
your life. Yeah, yeah. I, I think that you know positivity. I have a degree in positive psychology and remember, how about something else? In a moment on day three of working on that education, that certification, we were learning about resilience. And there's 30 people in my class, and I felt myself getting emotional as the teacher was describing resilience and what that looks like, you know, as a woman, as an entrepreneur, as a human and I thought to myself, Oh my gosh, that is describing how I've been able to navigate so many different things in my life. Where did that come from, and it and it provoked a whole conversation within me, on Well, how did I end up that way? How did I end up resilient by nature? You know, was it nature or nurture? A combination of the two? And I really feel like that resilience, being able to bounce back better. It's the definition of, I think, gratitude for things that have happened that are negative, and I would love your take on negative life experiences. You can't do it right away. Sometimes it takes years to process, or whatever, but finding the gold and the gratitude in those negative events, tell us your take on that,

Kevin Monroe  19:39  
okay, okay, but first, as you were saying that, a memory comes back and permission to use his name. I've had the privilege of working, doing some work with AWS, Amazon Web Services, and an amazing leader there is, and he's a big fitness guy. I. Used to run marathons, and we were in a session a year before last, and all of a sudden the topic, and I was there talking about gratitude, and all of a sudden the topic of resilience came up. And all of a sudden, JC just says, Oh, I have a thought. And he shares this, that gratitude is to resilience what exercise is to fitness? Ooh, yeah,

Suzanne Taylor-King  20:27  
I love, love that. I mean, everybody that knows me knows my fitness and my health coaching background, and the sole reason I found positive psychology was my love of stoic philosophy and that fitness, nutrition, having a better in shape body. So much is up here of that journey. I love, love that equation.

Kevin Monroe  20:59  
So gratitude is one of those daily practices that leads us to have resilience and be resilient, right? And so when I think about what are some of the misconceptions people have about gratitude, let's unpack one of these that's tied to your question here, because one of these is that for me to be grateful, everything in my life has to be good. Oh no, if you're waiting for everything in your life to be good, to be grateful, you may never be grateful, right? And then one of the Another misconception is that just because you're having a bad day, that doesn't mean there wasn't something good that happened in a bad day. Yeah, so this is one of the things if you're if you're having a bad day, now stop and just go, Okay, what's one good thing that I can find to be grateful for in the midst of this bad day, in the midst of every oh gosh, you know, there was a stranger that was kind to me a few minutes ago, whether they opened the door, whether they smiled at me for no reason at all, whether they did a Pay it forward and bought me a cup of coffee at the coffee shop, right? Or I saw them do a kindness for somebody else, yeah, if they stuck, what is what is there something to be grateful for? Or if we go outside and you, if you're really struggling, I encourage people to get outside, immerse yourself in nature, go find the birds singing, hear or feel wind blowing. Look at the trees. Look at look at this cloud formation. Look at the sun right. Find some good thing, because even on a bad day, there is some good thing to discover and to find. And when we find those good things, it helps it makes it easier to get past the bad thing, get through the bad thing and find something good. Now, the other thing that cracks me up Suzanne is for people that think because I am positive, because I do advocate gratitude that I don't have problems in my life.

Suzanne Taylor-King  23:25  
Not true, not true. I i have so many times given talks where I tell the story of my mom passing away because it started my coaching career, and when I first started telling that story, it was definitely more emotional, like I would feel the emotion of it, my throat tightening, and it was difficult story to Tell, but as I found the true gifts in that whole experience. She passed away on the phone with me. So it was, it was very difficult, but I was able to analyze or think about that day in my life as a whole, I was a dental hygienist at the time. Last couple patients canceled. I had a new puppy at home, so I left work early. I called my mom to wish her a happy birthday at 4pm instead of the normal 7pm and the universe lined up to make that phone call happen when it did, and I got to have that final conversation with my mom. So just being in that space of I think. Telling the story numerous times helped me find the synergies in what what had to have happened that day, to have her line up. And I'm so grateful now that it happened like it did, that I could be there for her in that moment, that I could handle that situation like I did, and I think it's been instrumental in in building resilience, because when negative things happen, and I would love to hear your take on this, when negative things happen, they're going to happen. I mean, almost on a daily basis, something is going to happen to frustrate you, anger you, unmotivate you. And I think the key is that bouncing back like, oh, that person just didn't pay their invoice for three months, and I didn't notice it. Instead of being angry all day, you let that improve your behavior.

Kevin Monroe  26:15  
Yeah, so wait, but your mother passed away on her birthday. Yes. Oh my, wow. I mean, that's that's let that soak in, right? Yeah, pretty amazing. But yes. And as you said earlier, when you're talking about difficult things, it does take time and to say, Wow, now all of a sudden I can see all of those things that line that allowed me to have that final conversation with mom rather than not having that conversation with mom. And you know, we can find gratitude for those things. You know, gosh, I remember the first time I was fired from a job, and I wasn't technically fired, but I wasn't given much of an opportunity. And in that moment, Suzanne, I thought it was the end of a road, right? Yeah. But then with perspective, I could see that it wasn't the end, it was a bend in the road, but in that moment, those things just sing like it's all or nothing but perspective. And so this is when you were saying that I believe Gratitude is the ultimate perspective shifting tool we have. Okay? So I do these things. I host these things on a monthly basis, called a gratitude encounter, and that that came out of being invited early in the gratitude journey when I started. Okay, so where it's 2025 so it was six years ago when we started hosting any kind of events. We started in July of 20 and we hosted a an email based gratitude encounter, okay, blew up. I thought I'd host one or two that blew up, and I ended up hosting 22 sessions of that that attracted over 2800 people from 73 countries of the world. It's just like, how does that even happen? I still can't explain it, except for the magic, you know, connections, relationships and people being extravagantly generous with their connections. But then I was invited to do to to do a webinar for someone for their leadership cohort. And I'm like, Ooh, I don't know, a webinar on on gratitude just doesn't seem the right thing for me, right? Talking head 45 minutes. And she said, Well, what will you do? I said, Oh no, let me think about it. And a few days later, I came up with this idea of hosting a gratitude encounter, a time for people to explore, express and experience gratitude. So I now host those on a monthly basis, and all of that, because when I host those, there are a few things I say, setting it up. And one of those, I quote Anas Nin, who says, we don't see the world as it is. We see it as we are, right? And then that equally famous quote, when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. And so it's, it is how we when we choose to find things to be grateful for, okay? And I want to back up when we activate the noticing function of our brain, okay? Right now we host these things that are called cultivating hope, a 21 day transformative journey, and it begins in the morning. We share. Share a daily inspiration, and then there's an intention, and part of that intention activates people, and then they know that in in the app on the platform, we're going to invite them to share bright spots they notice in the so what does that do that activates my brain as I'm going through the day to what to look for bright spots. Yeah,

Suzanne Taylor-King  30:24  
it's kind you've you've activated the reticular activating system that way, right? So I'm going to say something right now for our listeners. Lime Green Car. I guarantee if you go out on the road today, you're going to see, you're going to see a lime green car, because I put it in your brain that you're going to see a lime green car. So I love the tangible aspects of what you're explaining. You can say, Keep a gratitude journal, but you're actually giving that tangible thing for people to do in that 21 day journey. So let's, let's talk about that a little bit. Share a bright spot. Set in

Kevin Monroe  31:17  
spots. We're going to invite you to share free bright spot, right? Okay, so now I noticed this, and there was a lady, Alyssa, that was in one of our journeys, and she had she called this out. I'm like, Oh, this is even better, because now she's activated that in the morning, and as she's going through the day, she's noticing, right? The reticular activating system, which also savoring moments? Oh, yeah, is, is this moment going to be one of the top three that I write about today that creates this savoring function in outbreak? So you just don't experience it and forget about it. It goes on a replay track in your brain. It like

Suzanne Taylor-King  32:09  
I love that aspect of savoring I remember that's very big in positive psychology and stoic philosophy, and I was in charge of my class of putting savoring bags together, and this is such a great idea to put a little lunch bag together. And here are the things that I put in it. I put a Hershey's Kiss. I put a rubber band. I put a couple sour treats, like these lemon things, so you get the chocolate, you get the lemon the rubber band. I also put something very soft and fuzzy, like, like, almost like rabbits fur, you know, for you to feel, and it was all these different, you know, taste, smell, touch and to go through the bag and allow each one of those things to spark a memory or a positive thought, it was such a great activity to have a piece of chocolate that was everybody's favorite. And remember, when's the last time that you had a piece of chocolate. What was your favorite time of having a piece of chocolate? What was your first time of having a piece of chocolate, and what was the last time you had chocolate before this date? So now you're thinking about best, last, favorite, first and oh, the richness of that experience for each one of the things in the bag was just so, so rewarding to do.

Kevin Monroe  34:19  
So a couple I want to pull a thread that you mentioned. So I didn't know this about your positive psychology background in studies, STK, but that means that you are quite familiar with another word that's one of my favorite that has to enter this equation when we're talking about this flourish. Yeah, right. So in as I was thinking about this S, T, K, I thought about another famous female with three initials, E, K, R and. In. Elizabeth Kubler Ross, okay. And Elizabeth Kubler Ross, one of my favorite quotations that we've been using lately, hope and gratitude are the two sturdy pillars upon which a well lived life flourishing must rest.

Suzanne Taylor-King  35:20  
I love it. I love it. And I think flourishing to me is, you know, I use a stoic philosophy term, eudaimonia.

Kevin Monroe  35:30  
Oh, I'm so clever talking about eudaimonia. And I call

Suzanne Taylor-King  35:34  
myself a eudaimonologist. And I, I remember when I wanted to introduce that into my branding. And my dear, dear friend, talented branding partner, photographer Carolina Luna, said to me, you cannot do that. Nobody knows what it is. And I said, Yes, exactly. It's going to provoke curiosity and questions and massive amounts of conversation about what the heck Eudaimonia is, and that will give me an opportunity to say that human flourishing is the goal of business. You want to flourish as a human I'm going to I'm getting super excited now. I'm so passionate about, you know, people living as the best version of themselves. And if you're going to do that through entrepreneurship, you you better darn well experience, gratitude, hope, hope, another one of my favorite words, because of it actually being about the future.

Kevin Monroe  36:56  
So Suzanne, wow, yeah, I just didn't know what looked up. I didn't know what that would open. I love you. Damon, so four and a half years ago in this gratitude journey, and I remember is January 2021, I started collecting data on hope at every one of our gratitude events, because I knew hope grows in gratitude, yeah. But we started training, we started documenting it, and in the course of an hour with a gratitude encounter, hope usually grows 22 to 25% Yeah. I was with the group of coaches from California in early part of June, and this group, okay, so when we measure hope, we at the start of an event, we ask people to reflect back on the preceding seven days. What's your level of hope over the last seven days? What's your level of hope now in this moment, because when people have chosen to attend an event that's called a gratitude encounter, they come into a room, they may see people. They know they're greeted by smiling faces. There's a welcome environment that almost always the in the moment number is higher than the preceding week, right? Because something's happened Well, with this group of ICF coaches from California, the in the moment, number was lower. It's because of what was going on in California at that moment. A lot of political that's when the political dropped, but it's highest and and I just said, Wow, this is really interesting. And I said, I'm not going to make this political, but I'm just going to make an assumption, and you can nod, raise your hand. I'm guessing it's the political situation that has your in the moment, hope number being low. Yeah, okay. I said, well, let's just keep this in mind and we'll see what happens. So we do this gratitude encounter, and at the end, we check back in and we say, Now, 48 minutes later, right after we've done this, explore, express experience gratitude. What's your level of hope? Suzanne, that group had the highest level of boost we had ever seen. The Hope boosted 42% in an hour looks like now hope grows in gratitude. So we, you know, we always say that in every session I host, we talk about hope grows in gratitude, and we take these measurements, we celebrate it. But as 2025, started to unfold, and I quickly say it began to unravel for millions of people around the world is starting in early February, I felt a nudge. I felt the nudge that we should talk less about gratitude and more about hope, that hope be our focus, that people were feeling so much despair, there was so much. Spot and see so much discouragement. So we started focusing on hope, and then I wrote an email about this. And you know, you and I both know we think we publish something. So of course, everybody saw that. Well, they don't

Suzanne Taylor-King  40:16  
know 1% 1% of your list and 1% of your followers see it and like, absorb it. So you got to repeat yourself all the time.

Kevin Monroe  40:27  
I have the guy call me and says, Kevin, gratitude. I said, our work is hope focused, gratitude fueled. We're just making the focus on hope, but when you get behind these things, we're talking about gratitude, because if hope grows in gratitude, but people have lost hope, and people need hope, and then I stumble on something like e k, r, Elizabeth Kubler Ross, that says hope and gratitude are the two sturdy pillars of eudo Ania, eudaimonia, right of a life well lived, and so that's what we're helping people. And then this last month, I met another new friend. About six, eight weeks ago, we've been connected on LinkedIn for a long time, Diana lumdong, yo, and about three weeks ago we did a session on a mid year reset, and it was tapping into hope, I mean, to yeah, hope and courage. Live the life you want to live in the second half of 2025 so this month, our cultivating hope has been cultivating hope and courage, because now I see that these three make a perfectly, yeah, good core, right? You got to have gratitude. You got to have hope, you got to have courage. So yesterday, in our daily inspiration, here was the the inspiration came from Robert Emmons, who is the preeminent researcher on gratitude in the world. He said gratitude opens the door to hope. It's impossible to be truly grateful and completely hopeless at the exact same time.

Suzanne Taylor-King  42:15  
Oh, totally agree. Totally agree. And when

Kevin Monroe  42:19  
I thought about that, and then thought about this with courage. Gratitude opens the door, but courage is what propels you to step through it

Suzanne Taylor-King  42:29  
and take action, one of one of our one of our listeners, Chris, she said that hope is difficult for her, that it because she's realized it isn't enough. It needs action to make the wanted change happen. And I agree with that, right. We can't just have gratitude and just have hope for a better future. We have to take action towards that future, which one of my other favorite words is prospection, to really have the ability to look forward with hope so in your darkest

Kevin Monroe  43:18  
Science real quickly, yeah, and who knows there was hope science? I mean, there was a thing now. And I know you know this because you've studied positive psychology. CR Snyder was studying hope in the 1980s and started writing about it in 1990 1991 I think, was the first published paper on hope theory. And CR Schneider documents three tenets of Hope science, hope theory, and I've been bold and brave enough to add a fourth to it, and it's based on what Chris said. So hope theory, it's goal directed behavior. You have to have a goal that there's something you're moving towards. Now, as much as I love Jim Collins, I depart with Jim Collins right here and go, okay, it when times are really tough. This goal may not necessarily need to be a big, hairy, audacious goal, right? This doesn't need to be a moon shot goal. It needs to be something to help people get through the day and get through the week as a team, right? We've got a goal that we're going to accomplish this this week now that feeds to a larger goal, but it's goal directed behavior. Second tenet is there's pathways thinking that there's more in one way to get from here to there, and this builds in beautifully with stoic philosophy, right? That the obstacle is the way it's like, so the way is blocked. You just go, Well, okay, look, gotta go find another goal. No, we find another pathway to get from here to there. The third part is agency, thinking that something you and I do matters, right? We have the ability to navigate the pathway. Yes. Well, I add to that what Chris just mentioned, the fourth thing. The fourth thing is an affinity for action, because unless or until you take action, it really doesn't matter that you have agency agents is technically irrelevant until you take action, right? So to move hope from this passive thing that why hope? Things are going to be better. I hope. Look, there's something you can do, there's an action you can take. So you have a goal, you see a pathway. You know that something you do can can move you in the direction of that goal. And you take a step and Suzanne, as we were developing this mid year reset. You know, it came more clear to me because I used to say and then I realized how paralyzing this one word was for people, what's the next right step for you to take? Oh, wow, the next right step. So now I have to think about all of the steps that I could take. Then I have to catalog them, and then I start assessing them. He had a soul. He learned. I've got to think of the guy's name. If not, I'll send it to you. But I learned of the a, b, z, approach, okay, A, B C, A, B, C, okay, because some of us, his name's Sean, something but a, b, c, you know, a, where, where am I now? Z, where do I want to be? So if you take the ABC, then we you know, the next step, the next step, the next step, and we list out the 24 steps to get from A to Z, and we thoroughly detailed the plan. And if you're an overthinker like some of us might be, you can perfect the plan indefinitely and never take an action. ABC simply says A is where I'm at. Z is where I want to be. B is a next step. It doesn't even have to be the right next step, right? You don't have to overthink just what's an action you can take today. So ramp plan spending today, trying to decide what is the right action to take. Just take an action. What is the action you can take now that moves you from where you are, and it you hope it moves you in the direction of your dream, but at least it moves you. Because I remember 3035, years ago, I heard it was a pastor from the UK, say it's so much easier to steer a moving car, right? It's hard to steer a parked car, so get moving your your GPS will re navigate for you if you're moving in the wrong direction, but it needs just being there waiting for the complete plan before you leave home, you'll still be sitting in your garage,

Suzanne Taylor-King  48:06  
agreed, and one of my dear friends, Tom gay, said something a couple weeks ago that momentum is created in the habits you do every day. And I really, that really stopped me for a minute to think, you know, gratitude, hope, goals, even are daily practices for at least for me and for the entrepreneurs I work with right and when I think about even parenting, my parenting is better when I am in that place of hope, gratitude, prospection, For a positive day, first thing in the morning, planning my day, but also being okay with the plan not going as planned. And I think what you're saying for somebody to actually reap the benefits of gratitude, of hope. Of all, everything we talked about today, you actually have to put it into action. And Gordon said, hope is a verb. You know? It's something you do on that regular basis. And then it with practice. Do you feel as though it's who you become because of

Kevin Monroe  49:43  
that. Okay, so I gotta, I gotta pack, unpack. One thing though about momentum, yeah, the word moment, it's in momentum. Yeah, right. I mean, be in the moment momentum has. Happens from taking action this moment and in the next moment and then the next moment, right? So, being aware, thinking about moments, not missing moments. Yeah. So yeah, you know, Suzanne, I did not set out to become the gratitude guy, right? I mean, when I go back, what led me into gratitude truly was seeking to escape a scarcity mindset that I had just kind of born into, yeah, and I I had met someone, it well, I discovered these two loops long before I met the author of the loops. But gratitude is the gateway to abundance, is what I discovered, right? And as we practice gratitude, day after day after day, moment after month, we become grateful people. Yes, right? We we become grateful people. It's not you don't wait to become a grateful person to start practicing gratitude, yeah, are practicing gratitude. And as you are practicing gratitude, you become more and more grateful. And when I started calling me the gratitude guy, I thought, you know, I've been called a lot worse in my life. And if that what's put on the tombstone, here lies one grateful fellow. Well, that's okay with

Suzanne Taylor-King  51:20  
me? Yeah,

Kevin Monroe  51:21  
I love it but, but it's just it's being grateful, finding things, choosing to grateful in this moment and in the next. So I want to go back one other thing you said, the people, the people that listen to this podcast, the people that apply these principles to your life, to your business, if you're leading teams to the teams you lead right? You you want to flourish. You want to see those people flourish. And one of the things I realized is when people feel seen, heard, valued and appreciated, they with people don't feel seen, heard, valued and appreciated, they flounder. And if they don't feel it, trust me, they're not giving you their best, and they're probably already looking for their next job, they've checked out. So what does that mean? As leaders of people, we have a responsibility to make sure the people we're leading feel it, yes, feel saying heard, valued and appreciated, that we are expressing that gratitude and appreciation. So I know we're running close on time, but as we've talked about this, right, the momentum thing brought this back to mind. What if we become moment makers? Right? You see, you see the moment when somebody does something amazing and you're like, Wow, you could write that off and go, Well, they're always like that. No, they did something amazing. See the moment? Yeah. Well, what you seize that moment to tell them, wow, I saw what you did that was amazing. Here's the impact of that. And then Suzanne, what if we take it a step further and we seal the moment, and you write them a note, or you you send them a message, or you leave them a voice message, whatever it is, somehow you express the gratitude you have for them to them. And so what this whole idea of momentum, see the moment, seize the moment, seal the moment, and it will make a difference for the people around us, whether they are your children, yeah, partner, your business partners, your customers, your clients, your employees, your mentees, whoever that is, right? If, if we are making sure they feel, and feel is such an operative word, it's not that they know, you know. Well, of course they know I you know. They get paid every two weeks or no, they need to feel sing her and appreciate and when I like, yeah, it's making a difference.

Suzanne Taylor-King  54:14  
It is, and it's the perfect call to action for the end of our conversation, which we're going to have many more conversations. But I want to challenge everyone. For those that know me know I love, to challenge people into action and drop in the comments of this video some appreciation for someone else who has made a positive difference in your life, in your week, in your day, and tag them in the comments of this video, number one to tell them. You're grateful for them, or you appreciate something about them, but also to increase the momentum of this positive message that you carry. Kevin, thank you so much.

Kevin Monroe  55:15  
Okay, I gotta say something before we go. Then I've gotta thank people, because I think that it was Chris Michelle who first told me about Suzanne Taylor King, and then Mike O'Neill, who I know is a dear friend of yours and a mentors. And Mike just kept saying so much, and I'm like, Oh my gosh, to find out STK is so I'm shouting out two people that pointed me to you over the last years, and I'm grateful for them paving the way for this conversation.

Suzanne Taylor-King  55:53  
Well, I love that also, because, you know, I feel as though the people that you pour into and Gordon just said this, allow the overflow, overflow to land on those around us. Don't pour and allowing my abundance to, you know, overflow to the people in my community, in my group, coaching program, even guests that come on this podcast, I love that. I mean, that's part of the mission. That's part of you know, bringing sharing your voice with my people and having them hear more about you. That's one of my zones of genius, so why not have that overflow to other people? Plus it's really fun.

Kevin Monroe  56:53  
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh my gosh, you're welcome. Hey.

Suzanne Taylor-King  57:00  
Well, I want everyone to check out your cultivating hope 21 day journey at let's grow hope.com. Thanks for the easy URL, and give Kevin a follow here on LinkedIn and all the other platforms, and get your dose of hope, Kevin. Thank you for joining me here today.

Kevin Monroe  57:22  
Thank you, Susan, and thank you for being with us for this hour.

Suzanne Taylor-King  57:27  
Yes, yes, yes. Thank you. Everyone. Have a great day. Have a Happy Friday and a great weekend. Everyone for tuning in to another empowering episode of unlock your way. I hope you found today's discussion inspiring and you're ready to take your business and personal growth to that next level. If you're feeling as fired up as I am and eager to unlock that full potential, I'm here to help you on your journey and provide that personalized guidance tailored to your unique goals and challenges, simply book a one on one coaching call with me, and we'll dive deep into your business aspirations and see how we could co create a road map for your success, and whether you're striving to scale an enterprise or just getting started, I'm here to support you Every step of the way to schedule your coaching call, simply visit the website at unlock your way with stk.com click on the book a call button, and we'll turn your dreams into that reality. Subscribe and review on your favorite podcast platform and on YouTube, plus, you can join over 800 entrepreneurs in the IDEA Lab Facebook group. Let's make success as an entrepreneur happen together. Until next time I'm SDK, keep dreaming big. Stay focused, and most of all, have fun while you're doing it.

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