94: Shifting the Mindset of Parenting to Prosperity for You and Your Kids with Rachel Marie Martin

YOUR HOST: Mike Domitrz is the founder of The Center for Respect where he helps educational institutions, the US Military and businesses of all sizes create a culture of respect throughout their organizations. From addressing consent to helping corporations build a workplace free from fear (reducing sexual harassment and helping employees thrive by treating them with respect every day), Domitrz engages audiences by sharing skill sets they can implement into their lives immediately. As an author, trainer, keynote speaker and coach, Mike Domitrz loves working with leaders at all levels. Learn more at http://www.CenterForRespect.com

Mike Domitrz:
Welcome to The RESPECT Podcast. I’m your host Mike Domitrz from Mikespeaks.com, where we help organizations of all sizes, educational institutions, and the US Military create a culture of respect. And respect is exactly what we discuss on this show. So let’s get started. And this week we have Rachel Marie Martin, author of The Brave Heart of Motherhood and writer at Findingjoy.net. Rachel is a single mom of seven who’s gone from poverty to entrepreneurial success. Rachel, thank you so much for joining us.

Rachel Martin:
Well, thank you for having me today.

Mike Domitrz:
Absolutely. So let’s just dive right in. You said you went from poverty to entrepreneurial success. Can you explain that to our audience?

Rachel Martin:
I would love to. So I lived what I call a masked life of suburbia where it looked like I had it together, but I was actually scraping by every single day and people were helping provide for me. And there was a moment when I realized, I shouldn’t live with the gas man coming to my door or wondering how I’m going to put food on the table. And I took responsibility for my own life, my own choices, took responsibility for raising those seven kids and started my own business, started writing online and gradually it grew and grew and to the point where I can say to you that I have changed the culture and the mindset of money and I’ve changed not only my story but my children’s story.

Mike Domitrz:
And so let’s talk about that, the mindset of money. What was the change there?

Rachel Martin:
I lived with a scarcity mindset. I know it’s a popular thing that we hear all the time, live with an abundance mindset, but there is actually truth with it. I believed that money was hard to make. I started paying attention to the thoughts and the mindsets I had about money. I remember once someone saying to me, “What do you do to keep the wolf away from the door?” And the mindset there is that there’s always something coming in to take your money. And I lived so long thinking that I couldn’t make money, that it wasn’t time to make money and I had to change it. That really what I think is … what is I’m attracted to, what attracts itself to me. And part of it was that I was not only able to make money, but that I deserved to be able to make money.

Mike Domitrz:
Well, that’s powerful. So then how did you, when people hear, “I write online,” how does that mindset shift gets you to entrepreneurial success? How does somebody make money doing that?

Rachel Martin:
Well, I’ve always been a techie person and I started writing online. I started a blog Finding Joy years and years ago. So it’s about over 10 years now. And I started writing and it started resonating. And one of the things that I did early on was I started using my writing as a way to earn money, whether it was via ads or speaking or writing an ebook. And it gradually became to this place where what I had built through my voice, through really being real and sharing my own stories was a way to change the culture of making money in my household. And that pivoted to me … people asking, “Well, how did you build this community? And how did you do that?” And when people ask you how, that’s also an opportunity to earn an income. And I went around and built a company with my partner, Dan Morris, and we started teaching and training entrepreneurs, bloggers, podcasters, how do you go from hobby to career.

Mike Domitrz:
That’s powerful. Now, you did come from a background that really instilled with you some tough, tough experiences that also led you to really understanding respect. So you had an incident called the Hey, ugly incident and I’m going to let you share that with our listeners and how that impacted you going forward until today.

Rachel Martin:
All right, well I share about this, but when I was in, I think it was sixth grade, now I only had that moment, I hadn’t experienced, I grew up in Minneapolis, the home of Target and I would always love to go there and one day my mom was like, “All right, we’re going to go here after school.” And I had one of those days where, as my sixth grade self, I felt super powerful and confident. I loved what I was wearing. My mom said, “Go ahead, go look at the cosmetics by yourself.” And, as a young adolescent it was just this moment of freedom and I honestly felt on top of the world. And I can remember the moment so clearly looking at these lip glosses and someone saying and hearing, “Hey, ugly.” And at first I looked up and I looked over my shoulder because I thought, “Well, there’s someone behind me.”

Rachel Martin:
And I looked and there was no one behind me. And then I looked up to where the voice was and it was a bunch of pre teenage, preteen boys who are laughing and they were laughing at me and it really hit me hard in those days. Because here I was on the top of the world and then all of a sudden I had this moment where these strangers, who were probably just joking around and running around Target, decided to shatter my complex of security and self. And it stuck with me for a long time. And I was working with a counselor years ago and we came back to that moment and I realized the power of words. The power of words of somebody that I would never even have give validity to myself today and how they had cloaked who I thought I was about myself.

Rachel Martin:
And it came to a place where I knew I deserve to not only change that culture in my own head, but to give myself the respect I deserved. And [inaudible 00:05:32] me it meant removing that label of Hey, ugly from a random stranger as a definer of self.

Mike Domitrz:
Well, I think that’s so powerful because most of us, and if we dive deep enough, I think everyone can think of a childhood memory of trauma. And people in the [inaudible 00:05:48] of trauma, they sometimes think, “Oh, mine wasn’t that severe compared to trauma that leads to longterm PTSD.” And they don’t realize those little traumatic moments that do stick with us can be incredibly powerful on mindset. How we view ourselves, how we view our bodies, our worth, our value to the world. And being able to look back at them and release is so important. I love what you did there in saying you didn’t make them evil. Right. You didn’t say these jerks. You said these teens who probably didn’t even realize the impact they were doing. It doesn’t make what they did okay, but it allows you to also release negative, toxic energy related to it, I would assume. Is that correct?

Rachel Martin:
Yeah, absolutely. Because when I think about it in my adult self, as a 44 year old, I would believe that those teens have no memory of that moment. They probably did this whatever, joked around and left and there’s just not this like thought process that it created a ripple. And realizing that, that I’m not dictated by my 13-year-old self, by that thought process. It shouldn’t define who I am now. It was part of that releasing of that moment. And sometimes it’s important to re-examine those beliefs that we develop as children, because they can carry over to us as adults. And then when we can look at them through the adult mind, through our who we are now, there’s just no way that I would allow somebody of that age to dictate myself now.

Rachel Martin:
Just the same way that I would never say that to my children. I would never, if someone said that to my children, I would immediately lead them to truth. And as adults, I believe we have the same responsibility to lead ourselves to truths regarding thought processes that we might’ve carried with us for years.

Mike Domitrz:
And you talk about the dots we carry with ourselves and this is one example of that, the Hey, ugly incident. When you say dots, what do you mean by that?

Rachel Martin:
It comes from Max Lucado book, where he talks about this as a culture, like a hypothetical one for kids, where they carry dots and it’s this culture where if you’re good enough, they give you a star and if you mess up, they give you dots. And the whole parable of it talks about that we, a lot of people go around carrying dots and we carry dots of shame. We carry dots of guilt. We carry dots of what if. And some of them are given to us by others and some of them are given to us by ourselves. But I have a responsibility as an adult to not allow it to stick. And I think the deeper part comes in is when we can examine our minds, what are the dots that we’re putting on ourselves? I’m failing, I’m not good enough, I’m not worthy, I’m not enough. And when we recognize, you know what? That really shouldn’t be allowed to stick on who I am and my identity, then there’s this great deal of freedom because we’re no longer bound by constraints that really don’t define worth.

Mike Domitrz:
Well. And I love that. That’s such a different look at dots. Because usually when I saw that in you, that you talk about dots, I thought the Steve Jobs version of, and I don’t know if you know that one where he spoke, I think it was at Stanford’s graduation and said, “You can look back on life and connect the dots.” And so that’s such a different viewpoint on the dots. So that’s why I love that you took us there. So I appreciate that. Thank you. And you were in Haiti and had an experience and if you could share with us about that and how that impacted?

Rachel Martin:
Well, I’m assuming you’re talking about my motorcycle experience in Haiti. And so I’ve been blessed to go to Haiti several times and I’ve discovered that in Haiti, the people that I’ve met, they’re some of the most joyous people around. And the first time I went to Haiti, I was still in this very transitional place in my life. Still coming to grips with self, still deciding, fighting fear was really what it was. But when I went to Haiti, I decided, I made a decision that I was not going to let fear define who I was on that trip. So it resulted in a lot of moments of breaking free. And there was a day, on the first day, I think I mentioned to my friend, “I’m going to ride a motorcycle.”

Rachel Martin:
And in Haiti that’s probably the last thing anybody should do. It’s very, very dangerous. There’s no rules of the road. People are always swerving in and out, but for some reason it came in my head that this is something I wanted to do. Well, when you speak something you put into motion that what you’ve spoken, which I believe is really powerful to dreams too, and goals is to speak them. I forgot about it. Close to the end of the trip, my trip leader comes back and he’s in this camp with us and all of a sudden he points and there is a motorcycle and he says, “Well, now is your time.”

Rachel Martin:
Well, I’d never ridden a motorcycle before and now I’m in Haiti riding a motorcycle and I’m in a room. I’m in this outside space actually where there’s 40 people looking at me and a motorcycle and a Haitian man named [Bebe 00:10:48] That was ready there to drive me. And I knew I had a choice in that moment. Either I jump at the opportunity or I don’t. So I went back to that I’m not going to let fear stop me. And I remember walking over to the bike and my legs willing me, but my brain was thinking, “What are you doing? You’re crazy.” But I got on it. I tried to put my arms around Bebe thinking that was the way to hold on. And I had to hold on behind actually. And it was even a little bit more scary.

Rachel Martin:
But as we pulled away from the camp, I realized that the 40 people there were never going to have that opportunity. So there was this moment of courage that was coming up and we started driving through these back hills and roads of where we were in Les Cayes, Haiti, and people started coming out of their houses and I asked Bebe what they were coming out and saying, and he said, “They’re saying, they’re afraid the American’s going to fall off.” So my fear was tested a little bit there, but we kept going and the more we rode, the freer I became till the point where he said, “Do you want to go see the sea?” And I said, “Okay, okay, Bebe baby.” I had no idea.

Rachel Martin:
So he turns left through a mango grove and we hit this beach that’s glorious. That’s something out of Pinterest or something that you’d can only imagine. Black sand. And the mountains were just like emerging from the ocean and the sun was setting and the Haitian fishermen were coming in and it was breathtakingly beautiful. And as we were driving and riding this motorcycle, I said to Bebe, “I will never forget this moment for the rest of my life.” And I knew that the only reason I got that moment was because I didn’t let fear stop me. If I had let fear stop me way back in the camp or even stop me from going to Haiti, I never would have gotten to this moment that I would share the rest of my life. In fact, it is one of probably the top five stories that I share and it’s a story I hear my children share to their friends. And it’s a lesson in, often on the other side of fear is unbelievable beauty, courage and opportunity.

Mike Domitrz:
I love it. That’s fantastic. Now you give people specific skills that they can use. And so I want to talk about that. For instance, we talked about the dots and freeing ourselves. So you have people chart their past to look for cycles of stuck. What does that mean? And how should our listeners, how do they do that? If our listeners are thinking, “Hey, what does it mean to chart my past for cycles of stuck?”

Rachel Martin:
Well, I give an example of if, I don’t know if this is just a Midwest thing, but when I grew up, my mom and dad gave this giant graduation party. And as part of it they had images of my whole childhood lining the walls of the garage. And it was this moment where all of a sudden I could see my whole life in front of me and you can see your path. And I started thinking about that as I was writing my book. Like we don’t often take a moment to reflect like that again to see the nuances. But when you reflect on your life and when you start to create a timeline, you can start to see spaces or cycles where you’re stuck, where things might repeat itself, where let’s say you want to buy a house and it always, you get to a certain point and then it stops or you want to start a new career and you get to a certain point and you stop and you look around, or health or weight or any of those things.

Rachel Martin:
And when you start to create the timeline, you can start to see what happened before, what happened after, what happened before I started and what made me stop. And you can start to see patterns within it, because the only way to break free from a circle or a cycle is to actually figure out a new trajectory, a new decision right before the time when you would normally make the decision that would keep you stuck.

Mike Domitrz:
I love it. So somebody sees that and how do they relieve themself going forward, right? So now I see the cycle, “Hey, I have this cycle of when I get here, I tend to do this.” As you and I know, I can know as a person I’m not going to do that again. But when I get in a situation, how do I free the mentality that happens, that caused me to do it in the past?

Rachel Martin:
It’s a lot of self-awareness and it’s also creating within your life, knowing that you’re going to get to that point where you’re almost like, “This is expected. This is what I was going to do.” And you create physical reminders, mental reminders of, “I’m no longer going to go that way.” If you’ve ever seen the movie The Matrix, there’s a point at the end of this movie where the main character, Neo, he lives in his computer simulated world, recognizes that it’s all a simulation and there’s these bullets flying at him and instead of feeling the threat of it, the realness of it, he simply understands this is exactly what’s going to happen. And he actually pushes them away. It’s the same with us when we change a pattern is when we get to the place where we know this is where I am.

Rachel Martin:
I think it’s a lot about releasing it, understanding that this is part of the cycle, but I no longer have to engage in it. I no longer have to give whatever momentum is going to carry me around to that power. But instead I can dare to choose a step in a different direction. And I think a lot of times we think, “Okay, I’m going to change my life in four weeks.” And we discount the power of a single step. But if every single day we can create another step, another step, another step, the farther out from that previous cycle we become.

Mike Domitrz:
Love it. And you had a friend Ed who taught you a lesson about the future. So can you share that lesson with us?

Rachel Martin:
I would love to. So Ed, he taught me about faith and seeing the future and as we, from the start of this podcast, we were talking about my finances and one time I was meeting with him and he said, “Well, hey, do you see your self stuck in your financial situation when you’re 70?” And I was like, “Absolutely not.” “How about 60?” And with confidence I said the same. Till he got to 40. Well, at that time I was 30 something and I was like, “I don’t know.” And it was that first moment of confronting what I felt about my future. And he said, “I need you.” He told me an example about Joseph from the Bible, about this time when he was stuck in the dungeons and he said he had to have this faith in a future that didn’t match his present reality. His future, that he was supposed to have faith and that he was going to be second in command.

Rachel Martin:
And he said, “Well, how did he do that?” And I realized, and he taught me, that oftentimes faith in a future means having that bit of spark, that hope that your future doesn’t need to match the present reality that you’re in. And that involves, for me and for many of us, actually daring to see ourselves in a different situation, responding a different way and clinging to that image. So for me, back then, I created an image of me when I was 40. And when I would get confronted with, let’s say the gas man coming to my door to turn something off or a bill, or not knowing what to do, I would constantly ask myself, “How would I respond as this person?” Because I could tap into those type of resources versus responding the way that I had for so many years and that future pacing, that seeing a future self, it actually can help motivate us to make better and stronger decisions in the now.

Mike Domitrz:
I love that. It’s such a simple concept and you have another concept called respect the inches. How does somebody do that?

Rachel Martin:
Well, respect the inches would be what I was talking about with the cycle, is when you break free, it’s often inches. It’s small incremental changes that add up and up and up. A lot of times we don’t give respect to the small changes, to the fact that maybe we tried to work out today or we changed one thing or we paid a bill or whatever the inch may be. We look at the end goal and we think, “Oh, I’m so far from it. Or oh, I didn’t get to it at that point. Or it seems impossible.” And we lose that power in the inch. And I always tell people that if you do something for a year, one thing, that’s 365 days of progress that you’ve made. If you want to wake up an hour earlier and you think, “I can’t do it because it’s an hour.” If you give yourself, you set your alarm one minute earlier for 60 days, you’re all of a sudden there. But you have to be willing to accept that this day I woke up 14 minutes earlier and that’s progress. And that’s that respect.

Rachel Martin:
It’s really being willing to see the behind the scenes that nobody ever really sees. People see the giant splash moment, the success. But those behind the scene moments are really the moments that lead to the giant breakthrough.

Mike Domitrz:
And you work a lot with moms and one of the things you want moms and your audience to do is respect what they can do. And you’ve referenced that a few times today. What are the small steps like we just said, what are the inches? What can I do? And What they have accomplished, what they could accomplish? And you have a quote that says your track record for surviving bad days is 100%, which I think is a beautiful, because that’s all of us, right? If we’re listening to this, that track record’s 100%. Why do you think that statement is so important?

Rachel Martin:
Because I think, not just moms, but a lot of us have the soundtrack of, “I failed, I messed up, I can’t get through.” Or when we have those bad days and we forget that we’ve gotten through all the bad days and part of that is the inches. Part of it’s seeing that when we were face to face, we were up to the wall and we didn’t know what to do. We’ve always made it through. It may not be pretty, it may be messy, it may have been with fight, but we had consistently make it through. And it’s kind of the seeing the glass half full versus the half empty part. Because when you’re in those bad days, there are some times where, even myself, you’re like, “I just don’t know how I can do this.” And if we can remind ourselves, you know what? I’ve gotten through before and I can do it again. There’s a lot of power in that in just the reassurance that the better days will come again.

Mike Domitrz:
And you have a book called The Brave Art of Motherhood. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about the book?

Rachel Martin:
Yeah, I would love to. It’s about fighting fear, finding yourself again, regaining the confidence. A lot of times moms will say, “I’m a really good mom, but I don’t know who I am anymore.” Or there’s, “When the kids are grown, I’m going to take care of this. I’m going to follow my dreams.” And I really believe in this culture of bravery and I wanted to change the culture for moms that you don’t have to wait until the kids are grown to find yourself again. And that the things that you’ve always told yourself, “I can’t really do it right now.” You can do it. And then if you’re like me and you find yourself in a situation where you’re stuck, you’re not a victim to the circumstances. There is control and power and beauty and bravery in life.

Mike Domitrz:
Yeah. And people who are empty nesters can attest to the fact the longer you wait to try to go through that exploration, the more emotionally difficult it is. If you wait till everybody’s out of the house and now you’re going like, “I’m going to explore now.” It can feel overwhelming. Like, “Where do I start?” Of if you take small steps while that, let’s say the youngest child is in high school, and each year you do a little bit more, by the time they graduate you’re like, “Oh, I’m full and running already. Like this is, it’s a freeing experience. It’s not a what do I do next?”

Rachel Martin:
Oh, absolutely. I had observed, having seven kids, I’d observed some of my kids’ friends’ mothers, whose their friends, their moms, that was their last child go through this loss of self, not knowing what to do when a child graduated, or who I am, or marriage is falling apart, or whatever it may be. And I thought if we can change the culture that we don’t wait until they’re grown. And that it’s healthy to cultivate and follow your heart, then we can make huge strides and huge differences in those years where a lot of times people say, “Well, it’s a midlife crisis.” And I just like to think of it as it’s just another season in life. It’s another time of exploration. It’s not a crisis. It’s just that evolving of self and if we can except that that’s a constant in life, then those years and those times can be easier.

Mike Domitrz:
Absolutely. So true. Rachel, thank you so much for sharing with us. I want to make sure people can find you, the website’s Findingjoy.net and on Facebook Finding Joy Blog. Thank you so much.

Rachel Martin:
Thank you.

Mike Domitrz:
Absolutely. For our listeners, you know what’s next? It is question of the week. Before I answer this week’s question of the week, I’d love to ask you a question, would you please subscribe to this podcast, The RESPECT Podcast with Mike Domitrz? By subscribing you can make a huge impact. Now you might be wondering, Mike, how does my subscribing to your podcast make a huge impact? Well, here’s how. For every person that subscribes, it raises the rankings of the show in the search engines. So for people who care about respect like yourself, when they’re doing a search for podcast, they’re more likely to find this show, thus providing an awesome opportunity for us to spread more respect around this world and all you do is hit subscribe under your podcast.

Mike Domitrz:
Plus the second benefit is by subscribing, you automatically get every episode right into your phone or whatever device you’re listening to the podcast on. It happens automatically. So subscribing also makes your life easier. Now let’s get into this week’s question of the week. Oh, and by the way, you can always ask your questions of the week by joining us on Facebook in our discussion group. It’s called The RESPECT Podcast Discussion Group. Go there on Facebook and ask whatever questions you would like me to answer and/or address in this segment of the show. And then listen to each episode to find out when your question is included.

Mike Domitrz:
This week’s question is, “Hey, Mike, we know that when you speak to companies and organizations, you stress that you are not a fan of a belief system that says you have to earn someone’s respect. Why not? Why do you think that that belief that you have to earn someone’s respect is so dangerous?” Well, the whole idea of you have to earn my respect means that I’m in control and it’s a power and a hierarchy role instead of I value you. When you ask people what it means to be respected, they say, “To be seen, to be valued, to be appreciated.” What it means to be disrespected? “To be degraded, to not be valued, to be ignored, to be invisible.”

Mike Domitrz:
So when you say you have to earn my respect, you’re implying that until you do, you are of no value. You are invisible. Why do I want to work with someone, why do I want to be with someone who’ve used me that way? That I have to do something to be a value to you, to be seen as a value as a fellow human being? And that’s why that belief system, when people say, “You have to earn my respect,” is so dangerous. Here’s how it should go. You are given respect by me because you’re a fellow human being and I give respect to all human beings.

Mike Domitrz:
Now, you can earn potentially a raise or promotion. You can earn my admiration, but I’m giving you respect as a fellow human being. Huge difference. Do you know what I would love? I would love to hear your answer to this week’s question of the week. So, would you please answer what your answer would have been if you were asked that question today on the show? All you do is go to our Facebook page. We have a special group where we have these discussions called The RESPECT Podcast Discussion Group. So The RESPECT Podcast Discussion Group and share with us what would your answer have been to this week’s question of the week and take a moment, post us a new question for future episodes. What question would you like to hear me answer on an upcoming episode? That’s all done on Facebook in our special group, which is The RESPECT Podcast Discussion Group. Can’t wait to see you there.

Mike Domitrz:
Thank you for joining us in this episode of The RESPECT Podcast, exploring work, love and life, and this episode, like every episode is brought to you by our organization, The Center for Respect, which you can find at Centerforrespect.com. And of course you can find me, your host, Mike Domitrz at Mikespeaks.com. Thank you so much for joining us.