You Can't Control Others But THIS Question Will Change Everything w/ Leah Lemberg 108

[00:00:58] Shanenn Bryant: I'm excited for my two guests today. First and most important, I have Leah Lemberg. Welcome, Leah.

[00:01:07] Leah Lemberg: Hi. Thank you so much for having me. This is great.

[00:01:09] Shanenn Bryant: And I joke about two guests because you know I love that little guy in the background, Ajax. Hi, Ajax. So glad you joined us. we've had conversation before and he's such a distraction. I'm not gonna let him distract me today.

[00:01:24] Leah Lemberg: And the audience doesn't know what we were talking about before, I was attempting to blur the background to make it a little less prominent. And no, he's going to be here.

[00:01:32] Shanenn Bryant: That's right. But he's gonna do his own thing and if he doesn't, hey, that's okay. People love dogs and animals, so we're so happy to have both of you here.

[00:01:42] Leah Lemberg: Happy to be here.

[00:01:44] Shanenn Bryant: Good. I'm excited for this conversation. Your background has at times been tumultuous. Yes?

[00:01:53] Leah Lemberg: Well said. I would agree. I would agree. 

[00:01:57] Shanenn Bryant: I think what's wonderful, I love when people are so smart and caring and wanna change themselves and the world that they do what you have done, which is take your trouble, take your pain, take everything that you went through. And then turned that to help other people. Can you give us a little of your background, so people understand, oh my gosh, what this woman has been through and the amazing things that she's doing now?

[00:02:28] Leah Lemberg: Absolutely. So, I grew up in an alcoholic home. it was not what you would necessarily perceive as an alcoholic home or your stereotypical experience with that. There was no violence. There was no scrounging together for pennies.

Both my parents were pharmacists. We had more than what we needed. We had a lot of what we wanted as well. However. my dad did suffer from addiction. My mother struggled with that immensely. You're perfect al-Anon, so to speak. My father got sober when I was in the eighth grade, and that did not immediately fix things.

In fact, that made things an awful lot worse initially. and by that point by the eighth grade, I was already consuming. Heavy opiates and by the time I was 18, was an IV drug user and needed to be shipped off and sent to treatment to go get well, and I did.

however, in that treatment center I met my first husband, not what you would say to your friends and be like, oh, this is gonna work out. Um, and it did not work out. We were together for seven years, married for a chunk of those, and not for a chunk of those.

And unfortunately, he relapsed. And it was rough. It was rough. And we divorced and thankfully, I, I. I'm very lucky to say that I've maintained my sobriety since that initial stint in rehab, 16 years ago and have 

found. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. and have remarried and have an absolutely beautiful, wonderful relationship today.

And, and my father is still sober, and we have an incredible relationship as a family unit as well. 

So, all those weird things have shifted.

[00:04:06] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah. that's amazing. First of all, that many people got sober and then two of the three of them. Stuck with it. And we, I don't know if you know where your, ex-husband is on that path today. It sounds like he had a relapse, but maybe he's still there. But it doesn't always happen on the firsttry either. 

So, there's still hope there. But that's really amazing because that takes a lot of work, it takes a lot of awareness, it takes a lot of, really looking at yourself and investigating and saying why, 

[00:04:35] Leah Lemberg: 

yeah, absolutely. and genuinely I feel. Beyond blessed to, to be sober and thankful for that and for my father's sobriety as well. You're not wrong. 

It's an incredible rarity. Most of the women that I went through long-term treatment with, 'cause I was in a program for a year, that's a whole other story for another day. Are not still sober or still alive for that matter. 

[00:04:55] Shanenn Bryant: yeah.

okay, so we definitely relate on this of growing up with, an alcoholic. and you mentioned that, your dad got sober at the age of eight, although it didn't initially change it all the way, but he stopped drinking when you were eight. And most people go, oh, okay, you were still a kid.

And how did this affect you later? We know. Zero to eight though,

[00:05:21] Leah Lemberg: Eighth grade. Eighth grade, it was that he got sober. So that was what, or how old are you at that point? 13, 14.

[00:05:29] Shanenn Bryant: right?

Yeah,

Yeah. And so, it's really all those formidable years. Where you were dealing with this person, even though there's no violence, even though, there weren't those things, which we tend to do a lot, oh my situation, it wasn't as bad as some others, right?

[00:05:44] Leah Lemberg: That's right? 

[00:05:45] Shanenn Bryant: know that they're worse, but it doesn't change the patterns that it created in you and the stories that you begin to tell yourself

[00:05:54] Leah Lemberg: That's exactly 

[00:05:55] Shanenn Bryant: up in that environment.

Right.

[00:05:56] Leah Lemberg: A hundred percent. and I can rattle off a list of what my coping mechanisms were prior to finding drugs, right? That was my ultimate fix for what I was feeling within the family unit.

but absolutely we didn't have physical abuse, emotional abuse, but there wasn't connectivity.

There wasn't, um, openness. There was a lot of secretiveness. There was a lot of, you go fix yourself. I'm going to go fix myself and we're not going to express each other's needs, wants, desires, that kind of thing.

[00:06:27] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah. What I found in, in. I'd be interested to see if you felt this way too, when you grow up with someone with addiction, especially, my mom would try to do her best and like not hide things necessarily, but this facade

 no, you know, everything's okay, or it's not that bad, or don't worry about things. And that really, while there's always that good intent, it can, then what I found was make me question. My own like, is this right or wrong? Because gosh, I would think, you know, in the past I thought this was way, and then I'm being told that it's not, and so it just, you're like, I'm constantly questioning myself

because I can't trust myself to know what's right, what's wrong.

[00:07:18] Leah Lemberg: You can't trust yourself, you can't trust those around you either. there's, I jokingly say that my sixth sense is an attuned, attuned ness to what's going on in the next room, 

right? And when I say that the joke is that I'm not actually as attuned to it as I think I am. What I'm doing is making up a lot of stories.

 I'm 

perceiving things and then therefore explaining them away for what that must mean, what they must be feeling, what they must be thinking, 

how I'm affecting that. so, there's a ton of that. And I love what you mentioned about the, as long as everything looks good on the outside because holy moly has that carried through in my adult life and is actively something that I have to be aware of and push back against.

Because that is a wildly unhelpful coping mechanism that I picked up early on.

[00:08:04] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah. let me just pretend that

I'm okay. Everything is okay. everything is normal. Nothing is a big deal. And then we also get into this where okay, now I'm not myself because I have to constantly pretend to be something different.

[00:08:21] Leah Lemberg: and it, as long as I can do that successfully, no one up. No one will be upset. Everyone else will be just fine with me. And it's a constant arranging the actors on the stage to behave a certain way so that I'm okay. yes. 

[00:08:37] Shanenn Bryant: You touched on the hyper vigilance part. You know, I, I'm attuned to what's happening in the next room and that really, I know a lot of people experience this because when you have someone who is an alcoholic, you are constantly looking for the little signs, the indicators. what's their mood like, how, what's their facial expression?

How are they talking, how are they walking, how are they behaving? All of that. And so, we got really good at being able to read a situation. But then, as you said, and I experienced this as, in a, in my adult relationships, oh I think that I can, I think that I know. But I don't know, because now I'm constantly looking through, um, specific lens,

[00:09:23] Leah Lemberg: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And that carried into the first marriage to an nth degree. we were really sick in that regard of, 

I was constantly in a frenzy of, is he okay? Is he going to be, okay? Because the relapse was the final thing, obviously, right? that's always the final thing to happen. and so, for years there was what I would call the death spiral of emotions and arguments in the whole nine yards.

And it was a constant kind of, can I keep his emotions between the lines? no, I'm not in charge of his emotions. I can't do that, but it was a constant finagling of that, which would then in turn take him off. Like it just fed the monster, right?

[00:10:02] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah, of course. Yeah, and it's really hard to be in a relationship with someone who is an addict, but we also tend to be drawn to themwhen you grow up in that type of environment.

[00:10:16] Leah Lemberg: that's right. 

[00:10:17] Shanenn Bryant: Not shocking that, that your first husband was an addict, right?

[00:10:21] Leah Lemberg: no. Not at all and ironically, I've got a couple of very good friends who also met their partner through rehabilitation, but perhaps did not go in as deeply as quickly as I did. And maybe got a little bit more, well before they decided to pursue a relationship with someone else who's not super well.

[00:10:39] Shanenn Bryant: yeah, for sure. I wanted to, let's talk, I winna go to like, how all ofthat turns into how you're helping people now. But I did wanna ask you. While we're still talking about early childhood and growing up, do you, do you remember like when you first realized, oh, my dad has a problem, or our family's different?

Do you remember that?

[00:11:06] Leah Lemberg: I do remember feeling like my family. When I say there wasn't violence, there wasn't violence towards each other, but I remember potted plants being, we were a big gardening family myself, both my parents. I can remember potted plants being chucked across the house. I can remember having to stay up and monitor someone who was too drunk or whatnot.

But the ironic thing that, the funniest part of my dad's sobriety story to me is that when he went to, when he checked himself into rehab, when he first got sober. he came out to the family and at this point, my brother, who's six years older than me, was already in college, and so it was just me, my mom, him and his mother living with us at home, and he comes and he says, I, here's what's going on and I'm gonna have to go to rehab and we don't know what this is gonna mean for my license, my future, whatever.

Right? All this stuff has, I'm shocked, Shanenn. I was not expecting it at all. This was not the parents that I would've expected that needed to go and check themselves in. 

My dad, that whole thing that you said in the beginning there of as long as appearances look good, my dad had his ish together, right?

Like from the outside, things looked good. He was a great pharmacist. He managed stores, he set up procedures for new pharmacies opening in, in, in these new, locations and 

[00:12:23] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah. 

[00:12:23] Leah Lemberg: Yeah, we had everything. We had a pretty house and new cars, and I had a horse. Like we had the things right.

[00:12:31] Shanenn Bryant: the white picket fence, scenario, and you had a horse.

[00:12:35] Leah Lemberg: absolutely.

So, when you ask like, did I know that my family was weird? Yes. And it's a joke that my husband and I have now about, like, your family is weird, you know, and it's like they are, I can fully recognize that now. but his addiction, no. Did not know until the day that he admitted it. Nope, not a clue. And it sure helped me to believe that I too could have everything I wanted and be a full-fledged addict. Right. 

[00:13:01] Shanenn Bryant: Oh yeah. That's a such a great

[00:13:04] Leah Lemberg: Oh yeah. What are you gonna tell me? I can't use drugs because what? I have a job. I'm training horses. 

[00:13:11] Shanenn Bryant: I have above a 4.0 GPA. Yeah. What do you want from me? I'm doing all the things just like dad did. Oh my gosh. Yeah. FYI, I did not say your family's weird. I said what makes them different. You said weird.

[00:13:24] Leah Lemberg: They're weird. They're in the most loving way possible. we are weirdos and that's okay.

That's okay. 

[00:13:31] Shanenn Bryant: That's great. That's great. Okay, so how did you take all of that and figure out a way to help other people because you have this really cool 12 step approach, and I'd love to explore that and talk about it.

[00:13:47] Leah Lemberg: It's funny, so I got, while I was still in my first marriage, I was. We needed to make money. I had just graduated with a master's degree. He was in a PhD program. I was supporting us both through an administrative job that was barely putting pennies together, right? And so, I got into real estate and that was a very intentional, strategic move.

I need to go sell something to make money. And I was very good at it. and quickly changed into, I was the director of sales for that team and then became a coach. And in coaching over years, I started to realize. Let me back up a second. We joke around in 12 step rooms that other people will come into the program for open meetings, and they'll say, man, I could use the 12 steps in my life this is universally applicable, right?

 I started to have these moments where I'd be coaching someone, I'd be working with someone in their business and their progress and self-reflection as a leader. All of these things that we would talk about, and I'd go, this is a 12-step problem. They just need to take a personal inventory.

The answers are the problems that they're experiencing are self-inflicted, nine times outta 10, the big problems. And so, then I started to think about, I know the 12 steps in and out, left, right center can recite 'em in my sleep at this point, and what if I took those and created a universally applicable program for business owners to reflect to.

To be vulnerable, to ask for input, to be sponsored. And instead of sponsored, we're being coached. And it works. And sometimes I tell folks that, hey, this is based in 12 step work. And sometimes they'll be like, that, that thing you told me, I've got a friend that says something similar.

And sometimes it doesn't. They don't need to know. It doesn't really matter. 'Cause it's universally applicable.

[00:15:34] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah. Yeah. We joke. So, there's a small group above us, like a support group that, that meet. And we joke and call it JA jealousy Anonymousbecause it is JA.

So instead of aa, because you're right, it is so applicable across the board in so many situations. And I think that's the big thing is knowing like we can only change ourselves.

And so how do we go about doing that and how do we hold ourselves accountable to do it? 

[00:16:04] Leah Lemberg: There's this wildly impactful question. I pulled this from a book, Jerry Colonna, wrote this book Reboot that I'm just obsessed with and have been for quite some time. he asked the question, how am I complicit in creating the conditions that I say that I don't want? And that's a really beautiful, fancy way of me using 12 Step.

Questions, In the work that I do, so often clients will say oh, this is happening. This is happening. This is happening, and it's not my fault. It's so and so's fault. It's like, well, how am I complicit in creating the conditions that I say that I don't want? Hold the mirror up. Let's do an inventory.

Let's figure out how you're showing up. It's wildly impactful.

[00:16:40] Shanenn Bryant: Such a great question to ask yourself.

[00:16:43] Leah Lemberg: Yeah.

[00:16:44] Shanenn Bryant: I hope y'all write that, wrote that down because That's amazing.

Yeah, that was a book that I was listening to while running and would constantly have to stop the book, stop running and just sit on the curb and be like, oh my gosh. I know, yeah. You struggle with that all the time. okay, I wanna, kill two birds with one stone. I wanna listen to a book while I'm running or working out or whatever. But then you're like, crap, I can't write this stuff down. Yeah, I get it. 

[00:17:07] Leah Lemberg: Yeah.

[00:17:09] Shanenn Bryant: one of the things that you talk about is feedback formulas.

I wanna hit on that because I know, especially, coaching leaders and in business, even in your personal life, getting feedback. Just blows up your growth.

[00:17:25] Leah Lemberg: yeah. The cool thing is. When I work one-on-one with someone that, that rapport, that comfortableness, that vulnerability is there where we can just say what we need to say to one another. They can say I screwed this up and I don't know what to tell the person or whatever it might be.

And I can very bluntly give them a response back in our personal worlds with our colleagues, with our, or the people we're in relationships with, even the people that we're intimate with, we may not have that same permission to just. Spit it out. So, the feedback formulas that we work through, I jokingly call one of 'em like the IF Up formula, right?

And it's a way to be able to tell someone like, this is how I'm going to say this to someone. Hey, I 

screwed up. Here's how. And it's just these little, you can call 'em scripts or conversation starters or whatever that just allow us to pluck one out when we need it to be able to apply where necessary.

[00:18:16] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Um, okay, so can you kind of talk about some of the 12 steps? Like what, wheredo we go? 

[00:18:26] Leah Lemberg: yeah. So from a traditional standpoint, what you're looking at, and I basically. I pretty closely ripped off and duplicated them. The first step is admitting that there's a problem and that I have not been able to solve it, right? So whether you're an addict or the loved one of an alcoholic or an addict or a JA member, I love that, right?

It's admitting that what I've been doing is not working and that I need to try something else, right? In essence, in short boiled down. So, from there, it's accepting the fact that there is something else that might work. The third step is then being open to the fact that I'm willing to try it. I'm really reducing this down to how I interpret these first three.

The next big one is that you're gonna take an inventory of, how have I been showing up and I ask clients to do this, how we're gonna take an inventory of how you're showing up Sometimes this looks formal, like we are going to write it down. 

We are gonna take an inventory of how you're showing up timewise, et cetera.

Sometimes it's a little bit more organic and we're working all the way through to sharing vulnerably Here's what's been going on and here's how I'm choosing to show up in the future, and I'm asking for accountability with that. 

And then it goes on from there.But it's taking literally those 12 steps and just 

fitting 'em into the business world.

[00:19:43] Shanenn Bryant: yeah. Business world, personal world.Any of that. That'swhat is so great about it, because even saying that, how am I showing up?

What are the things that you're doing? What are the habits that you have, whether it's in your relationship,whether it's at work? We all have them in one form. How many of 'em are healthy? How many of them, how many unhealthy strategies

[00:20:04] Leah Lemberg: Yeah. 

Is this moving me towards the thing that I want or is this a back to Kelowna’s quote there? Or is this just creating those conditions that I keep? Complaining about, I'm trying to pick my words 

kindly, PG lee. and so yes, if you can, first you have to be aware of how I am showing up to the world and not just the way that I want to be perceived, but how is this actually happening so that I can then change it so that I can be perceived the way I want to be perceived.

[00:20:32] Shanenn Bryant: Can you give us an idea if I'm someone who says, okay, I wanna figure like, how, how am I showing up? Can you give us an example of, or tell us how we might go about that? At work and in our personal life, like how would we do it?

[00:20:48] Leah Lemberg: My recommendation is that first and foremost, my dad and I, again, both sober, have this joke about Hansel and Gretel. The breadcrumbs in the forest. That they put those breadcrumbs out so that they could follow their path back to where they went astray. And so if we think about Hansel and Gretel as a analogy here, you gotta have a place to start from. So you gotta start your day in a place of quiet reflection. You've got to set your day up in a way where nothing is, you haven't gotten off the path yet, right? 

You didn't cut anyone off in traffic, you didn't tick anyone off at work yet you didn't tell your husband, like, why didn't you empty the dishwasher? 

[00:21:23] Shanenn Bryant: email

[00:21:24] Leah Lemberg: Exactly right. Nothing has happened yet. We gotta start from a place of neutrality, clarity, peacefulness, so that if you do get back off track, you have a place to go back to. So that's step one in my opinion. And then it's creating those little micro spaces throughout the day where you can pause and reflect of, Ooh, is that really what I wanted to say?

Or am I just shooting off at the hip again? 

[00:21:47] Shanenn Bryant: Is this really the thing I wanna confront my husband about my girlfriend, about my whatever? Is this really how I wanna ask my administrative assistant to do something or to correct? Or is there a different way that I could show up? And if you haven't created that space in your brain from the beginning of the day, is really difficult to do it when the heat is on.

Yeah. When you're stressed, when you're have the emotions going, all of

[00:22:11] Leah Lemberg: Yeah. Even to this day, I joke around, I call it seeing red, right? There are moments where someone just pisses me off. My loved one, my, my boss, my whoever, right? And there's like a flash that happens. I can see it and I can feel it, and I have a choice in that moment. Am I going to let whatever's about to come off the RIP exit or am I just gonna shut up for a second?

[00:22:36] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah. I'm so glad that you said choice too, because that's exactly where I was just gonna go. I talk so much about, as much as it feels like I don't have control over how I'm behaving or my habits or what I'm saying, what's coming outta my mouth in the heat of the moment there is that, you sometimes it's really like a slither thin time of choice. 

Sometimes you've got more time, but there's always that moment, there's a little bit of. Time where you know, I have a choice to go this direction or this direction. And many times, we're just so in the habit of going to path A, wejust, it's easy for us. We know what that looks like.

[00:23:27] Leah Lemberg: You gotta create that space, right? And if you can set that intention early in the day, I promise it makes it easier. But then it is a practice. and we can't just totally whiplash ourselves when we let the trashy version show up. I always think about too, I'm telling a friend this recently.

I'm a nineties kid. I was a big fan of Ragle Rock when I was a kid. Huge fan. Oh my 

[00:23:49] Shanenn Bryant: Down in Fraggle

[00:23:50] Leah Lemberg: There we go. So, you'll catch this reference.

the trash heap. Do you remember the trash heap?

[00:23:56] Shanenn Bryant: Yes

[00:23:57] Leah Lemberg: They would go to this big trash heap for wisdom,  and once they asked the question and the trash heap gave the answer, there were these little creatures next to the trash heap.

But that would say the trash heap has spoken. And that was like, it's done. And I always think to myself, when I make a silly decision, that's, that quote pops in my brain, the trash heap has spoken, and I get to decide, is the trash heap going to speak? 

Is Leah going to speak the person who is actually 16 years sober, who wants to have a positive relationship with her spouse, who wants to have a good environment to raise kids in the whole nine yards? Who gets to win?

[00:24:34] Shanenn Bryant: and I like that reference. I remem I'm quite a bit older than you, but I remember it being on, but because I had a kid,

[00:24:42] Leah Lemberg: There you go. Yeah.

[00:24:44] Shanenn Bryant: but, when you say it's spoken, it is very, it's a lot more permanent because now you've done it, you've said it, you've reacted like that is in the world, and you can't take that stuff back.

You can think through and oh, that was gonna be my first reaction, but

[00:25:05] Leah Lemberg: And then it becomes. 

[00:25:06] Shanenn Bryant: this other

[00:25:07] Leah Lemberg: Yeah, and then it's almost like a game, right? Can I gamify? Who gets to win? Who gets to win here? Trash, heat, or not? You'll have to look up the reference. It'll click.

[00:25:18] Shanenn Bryant: Yes. Yeah, I totally get it. Yeah. Okay. so, we've got to get, we have to have that ownership. Hey, I know this is a me thing, which we talk about a lot, and how am I showing up? What's a third and final sort of thing that we, you think, oh, we should definitely be considering this.

This should be a step that you're putting into your process.

[00:25:40] Leah Lemberg: It kind of stacks on itself. So, I'll go back to the feedback formulas. are there things that I know that when I screw up or when I feel the need that If I'm hyper, if I let that sixth sense show up and I'm suddenly got the spidey senses telling me like he's pissed off over there. he's angry about whatever, and he's, I'm thinking about personally personal life and I'm starting to create the story, then do I have a form?

Do I have a thing that I can say that's almost like a code word? hey. Trash heap is speaking over here. I need to let you know that this is what's going on in my head. Help me out here. What if this is true and what if this, am I making up? So, to be able to, one, create space early in the day.

Two, look for those micro moments throughout the day to pause before letting the tongue just run off. Then three, choosing a way to express yourself with whether it's, again, someone that you work with your spouse, with your parents, that's another triggering relationship.

to be able to pause and then say, here's what's going on, or here's, I just screwed up, or I just said something I didn't mean, and take accountability, take ownership and make amends for it.

[00:26:44] Shanenn Bryant: I'm curious what wisdom or advice that you would offer to someone who, maybe is listening to this podcast? They're struggling with addiction themselves because they came from this dysfunctional environment. They saw it, their mom or their dad was, and as we know.

[00:27:02] Leah Lemberg: Yep.

[00:27:02] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah, just is in your case from very young, I think it's 12 is the typical age someone may be growing up in that environment, starts drinking or doing drugs

[00:27:10] Leah Lemberg: Wow, that's interesting. Sta. Yeah.

[00:27:12] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah. Yeah. what, being someone who is on the other side and has the life that you have now and has been sober as long as you have, what piece of advice would you give someone who is struggling with it and knows they wanna make a change?

[00:27:28] Leah Lemberg: Hey, so my sobriety date is January 9th, 2009. So, I just celebrated 16 years here recently.

And so I was reflecting on that as one does, and was writing about that. And I was writing about, I remember, I'm getting to a point with this, I promise I was thinking about that. For four or five months, I sat in long-term treatment, basically kicking and screaming and saying, this isn't for me.

I'm not interested. I don't want this. Please just let me go. This is ridiculous, whatever. And there was one day where I was sitting on the steps outside with my counselor, same old song and dance. I don't want this. This isn't any good. I've tried this before. All this. And she looked at me and said, what if there's a third way that you haven't considered?

That's an option here. So, this is the piece of wisdom that I would encourage someone to think about is I had, I knew what using was intimately. I was an A plus user, right?

[00:28:22] Shanenn Bryant: Did that really 

[00:28:23] Leah Lemberg: really good. I give myself a 10, outta 10. I also knew abstinence pretty damn well. I knew what it was like to white knuckle it and hope that I could get through the day.

Maybe I could get through a couple of days. I knew what it was like to swear off. She was suggesting that there was a third way which was actually sobriety and that I didn't understand that there was another option that wasn't just uh, right, that there's truly a third option of freedom that I don't have to think about.

I have to go to Vegas next week for a conference. I'm not worried about it in the least. I don't worry about whether or not I'm gonna have to drink or drug, or whether it's gonna bother me or whether it's gonna consume my thoughts. I've been freed from that. And so, my encouragement, my piece of wisdom is early in sobriety, early in recovery.

I think that there's this struggle of, is it always going to be like this, right? Is this all there ever is, is this as good as it gets?

[00:29:22] Shanenn Bryant: And the answer is no. There's a third way that you haven't yet fully experienced, and if you can remain open to that, that this third way is gonna come in and I'm going to experience this freedom from this constant thought train.

[00:29:34] Leah Lemberg: It'll give you the hope to be able to keep scooting.

[00:29:37] Shanenn Bryant: So good. Well, man, January 9th, you know what's interesting is my husband has been many years himself sober. He didn't even, we've been. Together 15 years. He didn't drink when I met him, but his, anniversary is in January two and I don't, I don't think it's this New Year's thing, but I don't know, maybe like, um,

[00:29:59] Leah Lemberg: I can promise you mine was not. I can promise you I did not wake up and go, I'm gonna get sober.

[00:30:04] Shanenn Bryant: I'm gonna do that. Yeah, he didn't either,

[00:30:06] Leah Lemberg: Yeah.

[00:30:07] Shanenn Bryant: so, I think it's just happenstance, but again, kudos to you. 'Cause I know from him what a journey that is and, but I also know, one of the things he says is, uh, you know, there was this, strange promise that the things would.

Come to me and improve in my life. As the more days that pass that I stopped drinking, he said a hundred percent true. So, uh, you know, for that person that might be struggling, that's listening to this, thank you so much for giving them that wisdom. And also, if you are a leader in a business, I know it sounds funky to say these two things go together, but. It really does. Or someone who's leading a team of, how am I showing up? What decisions am I making? Am I making the choice that I want and that person that I wanna be?

[00:30:55] Leah Lemberg: Absolutely. and I know it does sound like; how do these two topics relate? But genuinely, I believe how you show up here is how you show up everywhere. And so, if you're struggling with relationship stuff like this in your personal life or in your business life, chances are it is seeping over, right?

And so, it's, if we can focus on one of those areas, chances are you're gonna be focusing on the other. And it's a positive ripple effect.

Yeah, absolutely. Oh my gosh, Leah, thank you so much for being here. And Ajax gave us no problem. In fact, he shunned us for a little bit, He found a toy there for a minute. Yeah, so I was worried. I was like, is he chewing loudly? I don't know what's going on back there, but now he's just perched so

[00:31:32] Shanenn Bryant: Now he's just he's like, look how good looking I am.

[00:31:36] Leah Lemberg: what a mess. Such a ham. 

[00:31:38] Shanenn Bryant: All right. Thanks so much. We appreciate it.

[00:31:41] Leah Lemberg: Back at you. Thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate it.

[00:31:45] Shanenn Bryant: Thank you.

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