Not sure if you follow us on Snapchat or other social media (Snapchat is the funnest… follow us there: themmsisters) but for the past 2 weeks we’ve been traveling the United States and having a freaking blast of a time.
Last week we spent with The Dan Norris (aka Emma’s boyfriend), driving (in a Tesla) from L.A to San Fran. And holey sh1t it was fun. We will chat more about that on our podcast next week.
Because right now, right this moment we’re at The Miracle Morning Mastery event here in Chicago.
To be completely honest we came to this event with no expectations. Actually… to be even more honest… we came to this event with LOW expectations. And we really don’t do that often… like ever.
BUT the event didn’t have an agenda or a schedule so we really had no idea what we were in for. We are ‘events need schedules’ kinda people. So we were like WTF have we done… can we just go straight to NYC? Uh… glad we didn’t!
We bought our tickets on a really GOOD gut feeling that we SHOULD be here. Actually, Hal told us we should come when we interviewed him on #MerryBiz so either he is a great salesman (which he is), or we got a really good gut feeling to be here (which we did… which we followed).
ANYWAY… enough of the story because you guys need the takeaways. Safe to say our minds have been BLOWN! Limits have been shattered and there have been many. Many. MANY breakthroughs. We’re talking emotional, physical, spiritual and business breakthroughs.
And the overall message: never EVER put off personal development. EVER.
Are you ready? Heck yeah you are! Let’s DO THIS.
Because we like lists… here’s our AHA! Moments from each speaker… in a list.
JON BERGHOFF
We’ve done guided visualisations before but nothing like we experienced with Jon. He took us through 2 different sessions. The first one we went back to past scenes in our lives, good and bad, and harnessed the strengths (the super powers) each of those scenes provided us with. We then did a future focussed session which helped us see exactly what we wanted our futures to look like. After each session we would write for about 7 minutes. Pretty much anything that came out of our brains made it onto the paper.
And then came the super uncomfortable bit. We had to all pair up with complete strangers and announce our deepest (darkest and lightest) thoughts to them. Talk about vulnerability.
There were lots of tears!
Going back to the past scenes allowed us to realise some stuff we were still holding onto emotionally. This stuff was holding us back from becoming the people we want to be. Being aware of this, means that we can now work on letting it go. Saying see ya later. Thanks, you served us but not anymore.
The future one was fun! It was like how big can you dream? Now you see it. Now go do it. Now go be it. It was a real big reminder to us both that what we focus on grows. That we can create everything we’ve ever wanted for ourselves and the world, all it takes is action.
You know this stuff works right? People rave about it. We knew this already but we didn’t PRACTICE it. So it’s our new goal to practice visualisation every single day. You should too (if you want to).
JULIANNA RAYE
Julianna is a mindfulness expert and she is real good at it.
A couple things to note that will help you with your mindfulness practice:
- Understanding mindfulness won’t help you, you must create a mindfulness practice. But understanding mindfulness allows you to create a great practice.
- An easy way to start with mindfulness is to notice the things you see, hear and feel… and then label them accordingly. Liiiiike, if you sit in nature, notice all the sounds around you and say to yourself (or out loud) hear.
- Meditation optimises your mind (quick, let’s all do it! Seriously!).
- When dealing with difficult emotions, mindfulness will help you become aware of what they feel like earlier… so you can manage them and then they won’t manifest into anything bigger.
- Sprinkle your day with meditation, it will keep your creativity and engagement alive.
- That we should all practice mindfulness. Duh.
BETSY CROUCH AND ZOE GALVEZ
These ladies are hilarious. They’re from ImprovHQ and they’re all about the fact that life is just one big improvisation. Like… every day hasn’t happened before… EVER. AHA! Right? Hehe! They work with people to help them think quick on their feet and to gain confidence for living. It was really action-orientated so we didn’t take that many notes because we were too busy playing around.
BUT one thing that really stuck out to us was when they asked us ‘what is your hero quality?’ We LOVE this. What is the 1 thing that you’re like… hell yeah! I am REALLY REALLY good at that! Could be that you’re super enthusiastic, you’re an action taker, you’re empathetic, you’re a good dancer! Whatever it might be. Take ownership of that and be your own super hero.
JEFF SOOEY
We’re not even really sure what to say about Jeff’s session. It’s like he reached into our brains and hearts and made everything connect better and made everything make sense. He is some kind of alien magic human being. We kind of feel that all of the takeaways could be pretty little inspirational quotes on Pinterest. Maybe we should do the dot point thing again…
- The list of things you’re working on (you know the one: build business, get fit, eat healthy, self care more, play with kids etc.) need to become rituals. They need to be consistently and frequently practiced in your life.
- To achieve whatever you want… just DO what you haven’t been doing. Serious AHA! Moment.
- The first way to change your mindset is to move your body in a different way. Exercise = pure gold. Find an exercise you LOVE to do.
- Shift your beliefs and change your world.
- It’s not just our thoughts and the words we use. It’s how we say it and the way we hold ourselves/body language when we say or think things. So like… if we said “I’m going to exercise every day.” In this weird very un-merry dreading tone we probably wouldn’t be telling our brain that we want to exercise. BUT if we said it like “I’m going to exercise every day!” Yay! In an upbeat, super excited, can’t wait to exercise way… then our brain would probably believe us and we’d be more likely to create that exercise ritual.
- Without honesty, no level of transformation is possible.
- It’s not fear that holds us back… it’s the feeling of certainty and comfort. Read that one again.
BROTHA JAMES
Ok this guy is so super cool. He gave us his CD which we are SO super grateful for! Thanks Brotha James! He puts affirmations into music! Which makes affirmations way more fun and way more easy if you ask us! We love affirmations. And now… we really love Brotha James! Yay!
Do you love singing and wanna get into affirmations/a gratitude practice? Then maybe try singing them! Check out the clip below and listen to AT LEAST 1 minute 15 seconds. Soooo much fun!
https://youtu.be/UzcOnv8TXrY
ANDREA RIGGS
Every morning we’ve started off with a dance class from this awesome energy ball. Seriously… girl has got moves! Dancing like total crazy merries made us realise how FUN it is to just get up, dance and shake it all off. A perfect way to start the morning we’d say!
When was the last time you danced? We used to have dance breaks ALL the time… where did they go? We’re bringing them back!
THERESA LAURICO
Theresa is making the Miracle Morning documentary so she’s been interviewing all these AMAZING people. She’s also the epic founder of SociaLIGHT an event that we HAVE to get to soon, which brings together entrepreneurs who also care about the world. The biggest takeaway from Theresa was this one question that we should all ask ourselves: is what I do every day… worth my life? Boom.
HAL ELROD
Hal is epic (full STOP!). He’s the author of The Miracle Morning and we think you should listen to our podcast interview with him! It’s maybe one of the best episodes on #MerryBiz EVER! LISTEN HERE!
All this is 2 DAYS?! We still have 1 more day to go! Holey smokes!
The most important thing we’ve realised is that we need to keep up our self development practice. That we can understand how to be mindful, how to meditate, why we should do affirmations, why we need to be honest and vulnerable… but if we don’t PRACTICE it, if we don’t DO… then nothing will change. We won’t feel the benefit.
SO we’re making a pledge to YOU and maybe you can make a pledge to us. To focus on self development, to make it part of our everyday rituals so that we can become the best versions of ourselves possible.
Hal has a great quote that he shares often and it’s from Jim Rohn, he says:
“Your level of success will seldom exceed your level of personal development.”
Ain’t that the truth! Ok when we say personal you say development! PERSONAL…
Always merrymaking,
Emma + Carla
p.s if you want a really great event to attend soon… then check out Starters and Makers (our event in co-lab with Dan Norris!).
Images by Rialba Photograph