166 : Stress, Learning, and the Brain with Noel Foy
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Welcome to the Mindful Fire Podcast, a show about crafting a life you love and making work optional using the tools of mindfulness, envisioning, and financial independence. I'm your host, Adam Koyo, and I'm so glad you're here. Each episode of the Mindful Fire Podcast explores these three tools through teachings, guided meditations, and inspiring interviews with people actually living them to craft a life they love.

At its core, mindful fire is about creating more awareness and choice in your life. Mindfulness helps you develop self-awareness to know yourself better and what's most important to you by practicing a kind, curious awareness. Envisioning is all about choosing to think big about your life and putting the power of your predicting brain to work to create the life you dream of.

And financial independence brings awareness and choice to your financial life, empowering you to make your vision a reality by getting your money sorted out and ultimately making work optional. And here's the best part. You don't have to wait until you reach financial independence to live out your vision. Mindful Fire is about using these tools to craft that life now on the path to financial independence and beyond.

If you're ready to start your Mindful Fire journey, go to mindfulfire.org and download my free envisioning guide. In just 10 minutes, this guide will help you craft a clear and inspiring vision for your life. Again, you can download it for free at mindfulfire.org. Let's jump into today's episode.

Noelle, welcome to the Mindful Fire podcast. I'm so glad to have you here. Very happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to this conversation. And I would love to have you start by sharing a little bit about who you are, your journey and what you're up to in the world.

Sure. First of all, I'm a mom and a grandmother, and I started my career path many, many years ago. I'm dating myself a little bit, but back when I was finishing high school and starting my career in college, there were really three tracks that were encouraged for women. One was to be a nurse.

And I didn't like shots, didn't like blood or the smell of hospitals. So I knew that one was off the table. Being a secretary was another option. And that just didn't really excite me. And then being a teacher really did excite me. And I loved learning, love sharing about learning. And I really wanted to impart that love for learning in kids. And I love kids. That was the path I took. And

And so I began as a classroom teacher for kids with language-based learning disabilities, such as dyslexia. And then I evolved into a learning specialist for many years. I seemed to gravitate towards the strugglers and the kids that were really having difficulty learning and really showing their full potential. And then I evolved into a neuroeducator and an anxiety and executive function coach, as well as an author.

So I've written a couple of books, one on anxiety, ABC worry-free, another one called, are you a bird like me? Those are children's books. And I have a third book coming out in the next couple of months on executive function, which is geared towards teachers, parents, and counselors, just quick practical applications. What can I do on Monday with this child who just seems totally disorganized or doesn't remember what he needs to bring to school?

Or is having trouble, you know, self-regulating. So it's about quick, practical solutions. Yeah, that sounds like quite the journey in evolution, just following what's interesting to you. And you said you gravitated towards the strugglers and it just kind of evolved and became more specific over time, it sounds like.

It did. And there was a personal experience that really helped me shift from being what I would call an educator to a neuro educator. One of my sons, I have four sons, and one of them had multiple concussions. So he had post-concussion syndrome. And I really wanted to learn more about the brain and how this was going to impact him with learning and his life.

So I got myself to a lot of brain conferences and what I discovered just blew me away. Even though I had this background in education and I have a degree in education, I

I didn't know so much about the brain and how stress can impact learning and hijack your executive function. So that was just, I just remember sitting there like this light bulb moment. And I said, okay, I need to make a shift because I don't know that even though I have an education background and I know a lot of other parents and teachers aren't aware of this either. And this is just to me so impactful because,

And at the same time, I was out doing a lot of observations as a consultant going into classrooms. And I noticed more and more kids with their head down on their desk or kids just spacing out a lot of acting out and freaking out in class, which I hadn't seen to that extent before. And this was happening at the time where anxiety was really on the rise as well.

And I said, okay, there's something here. These kids are in various states of stress. So what I learned was that the brain can experience stress as anxiety, frustration, anger, but boredom and lack of relevance can be stressful too. And a lot of these kids were experiencing one or several of those experiences.

Teachers might be giving instructions or teaching about the content and kids might be in those stressful states, not taking in the information. And then the teacher is thinking those kids aren't listening. They're not paying attention. Well, they are paying attention, but just not to what we want them to. So I really felt compelled to help teachers and parents know more about executive function and the impact that stress has on the brain and learning and behavior.

That's not surprisingly driven by personal experience, first and foremost. But some people might be wondering, like, why are we talking about this on a podcast about mindfulness and financial independence? And we'll get into that, certainly. But ultimately, this podcast is about living a good life. And that includes achieving the things that you want to achieve, achieving your goals,

having equanimity and peace and kind of a stress-free life as best you can. And so this, I think, is very relevant. And I think we're going to get into some very practical ways that we can all improve our executive functioning and how we navigate our lives. But maybe, Noelle, before we get into all of that, I would love to just have you define executive functioning for anyone who might not be as familiar.

So it's basically the self-directed brain functions that guide your thinking and your behavior. I focus on 12 skills. For example, it could be anything from organization to planning, prioritizing,

time management, working memory, which is your ability to remember what you need. Like if you just gave me a phone number that I need to remember 20 minutes from now, like my working memory has to keep that in a space where I could then use it later on. Or if you just gave me directions and I need to use those, I need to store that information. So some kids have trouble holding on to information in their working memory, self-regulation, keeping your emotions in check,

Effort and mindset are part of this as well as self-monitoring, like making some adjustments along the way when you need to. So to your point, Adam, to live that life you want, you really need strong executive function because a lot of the people that I work with are having trouble putting it all together or are having trouble showing what they know or are in a mindset where they're

They don't really believe in themselves and they're telling themselves a story that's not really true or their self-talk is not very productive. And all of those things can really get in the way of us living our best life and really showing what we can do. Absolutely. It's like you're just like reading off my resume.

Before we started recording, I was talking to Noelle about how we had connected back in April and how we had such an amazing conversation. And I was so excited about it. And now it's all coming back to me. And I was telling her how I regretfully forgot a lot of the content of that conversation, which is now coming back to me. But I remember feeling very seen by our conversation. I was tested for ADHD.

back last year. And I thought, I for sure have ADHD. As you're telling me this, I'm thinking my executive functioning is in a lot of ways, it's great. And in a lot of ways, it's very challenged. I was told, actually, you do not have ADHD. In fact, your scores are quite high. What you have is burnout. And the stress is impacting you

And giving you these symptoms. And now as we're recording this now, and as I told you before, Noel, I am in a moment where I'm very frazzled and have a lot of stress going on in my life. And when you're listing out those things, I'm like, that is me right now. I'd love to talk a little bit about how stress impacts our executive functioning, because I feel like I am in that right now.

And then we can hopefully talk about what I can do to help with that. It's an excellent question. And

It happens to us pretty regularly that when we do, like you used the word burnout, when we're in that cognitive overload kind of state, we're trying to do so much and we're juggling, trying to keep a lot of balls in the air. It can be too much that we're trying to bring into the brain and process. The brain will get stressed from that. But as I mentioned earlier, it could be anxiety. You might be worried about something. It could be you're frustrated. It could be that you're angry.

And like I mentioned, the boredom and the lack of relevance can do it as well. If you're like, what's the point of this? It can affect motivation. So all sorts of different things like that can hijack your executive function. So temporarily, when you're in those high states of stress, you lose access.

to your executive function. So now it might be harder to get started on the project you need to do or meet the deadline. And then all of a sudden you look at your calendar, you're like, oh my gosh, this thing's due tomorrow. Then the adrenaline starts going, the stress chemicals pump, and you probably get it done, but at what cost? You know, you might be feeling pretty frazzled or stressed. So the executive function will come back online when we pump breaks.

So if you have like some quick resets that you can do, you can actually get it back. It's just we temporarily can lose it in those high states of stress. And what can get a little confusing, like you mentioned you were tested for ADHD.

anxiety can present symptoms that look like ADHD. Cognitive overload can. You know, somebody had some brain trauma or something that could also present as ADHD. So there's different kinds of things that can present as having some difficulty with your executive function. And it doesn't always mean that you have ADHD. If it's really interfering with your life in different ways, like in school and work and relationships, it's definitely worth getting checked out.

Yeah. The good news is you can get your executive function back online. Yes. And fortunately, I know some of the skills to do that, including meditation and just, yeah, being in nature, getting just taking a break. Yeah. I'm in this moment right now where it's just like I have, like you said, all these balls in the air, all these deadlines, the stakes are high at work and all these things. And it's just like literally I woke up today being like,

I'm already done for the week. Literally haven't even left my bed. And I'm like, I am done. And then I look at my calendar and I have this amazing conversation, which I already rescheduled once and was looking forward to and love doing. But then I look at my calendar in the afternoon. I'm like thing after thing after thing after thing. And it's just like, oh, my God. And it's overwhelming. It's certainly a sign that I need to

deprioritize some things and slow down a little bit more. But it doesn't feel like I can in some ways. It doesn't feel like I can. And if it does, it's the things that I want to get rid of are the things that pay the bills. It is a challenge, right? In which balls you're going to

keep in the air and which ones maybe we're going to let drop. That's a tough decision. So you seem aware though. That's a good first step. Yeah, I am aware. I'm curious. What other like resets would you recommend when somebody's feeling that like, Oh my God, there's just so much. And there's just, yeah. What I can first share, Adam, is that when I first started practicing these kinds of practices, I,

First, I was skeptical. So if I go back like 15 years ago when I started going to the brain conferences, I was like, does this really work? And then I saw the brain images of before and after. If somebody does do, say, a reset, like it could be a five senses meditation or it could just be some slow, deep breathing for a few minutes, it's not going to totally take the stress away. It's not going to remove that trigger.

It's going to help you handle it better. So especially get that executive function back so you can get the work done more efficiently, quicker and more be more productive. Because if you're like me, when I'm in that mode, I might put it off and then I'm adding more stress to myself. So now I have seen those brain images. And the hardest part for me was to really make it a practice and become a routine and

And when I would start to notice, a big part of this for me was the noticing. I was such a frazzled, just kind of like this energizer bunny person that I didn't even notice it at first that my heart was racing or I felt a little sweaty or that I might have a little headache. I was so accustomed to the symptoms. I just pushed through them.

And once I slowed down a bit and really started to notice, I found that I was able to reset myself. And then the next step was, okay, when you notice this next time, actually stop and do it. And

Even two to three minutes of a pause made a difference. It wasn't like I had to go to another separate room. I didn't have to walk away for an hour. I could, but I could also reset myself very often in two to three minutes. And that's what I try to teach teachers as well, is when you notice a student unraveling or your students are clearly spacing out the window or their heads are down the desk, you have lost them.

And to get them back, do a quick reset because they're not taking in that information in that moment. And you're going to have to reteach that the next day. So I really find the quick resets to be powerful. You had mentioned about like a quick, slow, deep breathing. I love a five senses meditation. I might just have a picture that I look at like I love the beach. So I think about what do I see? What do I hear? So I'm kind of envisioning the five senses meditation.

Sometimes I'll actually go outside and do it.

And I do movement. Movement for me is huge. So I might dance. I might do a quick song, definitely upbeat song. If I need something to raise my energy and my mood, it's getting the dopamine up a bit. Getting that boost of dopamine really helps with the mood. So music, movement, exercise. Some of my students might play with their dog for three minutes and then come back. Something like that's going to boost your dopamine. Yeah.

And then thinking about the challenge in a new way, I find self-talk and reframing how I think about something makes a real difference in how my brain is interpreting this. Is it, is this a challenge or is this like a real life threatening emergency here? And that sends different messages to the brain and the body.

Yeah, I love that. And I'm glad you brought it back to the self-talk and the stories that we tell ourselves. I say in my in the podcast and in my coaching program, I talk about how our stories create our reality because of neuroplasticity and how our brain is predictive based on our experience.

The stories we tell ourselves is what we are ready to see in our environment. I'd love to hear you talk a little bit more about how we can use these practices and these tools to catch ourselves when we're in these negative stories and reframe them. Like you mentioned, is this a catastrophic life-threatening emergency or is this a challenge? And how can people start to cultivate the noticing muscle to actually see that and catch it when it's happening?

Because like you said, for me, I was totally unaware of it for like the first 26 years of my life before I started meditating and kind of slowing down. I was just like living it. And I like these thoughts were going through my head. I'm like, these are me, but they're really just thoughts. And so I'm curious, like, what have you found helpful in that respect? So that getting back to the noticing, it becomes normal to kind of feel that frazzled state.

Or it can be normal to talk in kind of catastrophic ways. And for example, I might say, oh, that was a disaster. That was a complete disaster. Whether it was I took a test, I walked out of a test back in high school or college. I'm like, oh, I absolutely blew it. And all of a sudden my mind is thinking you're going to flunk out of college. You're never going to get a job. Like very quickly, my mind would spiral.

to very catastrophic thoughts. And then I would repeat that story to others, you know, as I saw a friend or maybe talk to my parents later. Oh, I bombed that. It was a disaster. Catastrophic. Just the language itself is sending alarm messages to the brain.

So I had to catch myself, what language am I using? So I now will take out words like disaster, unless it really is a disaster, like there's a war zone or something that we're talking about. If it's something like me taking a test or feeling like I didn't do my best work, that's not a disaster.

So I really started to catch the language I was using and I would start to reframe that because the dramatic language makes for a better story, if I'm being honest.

It does pay a toll, though, as far as the story you're telling yourself and how your brain's going to respond. It's trying to protect you. So it thinks, oh, wow, mayday, mayday, we got a disaster here. So we got to jump into survival mode. And so you just get all those extra stress chemicals and that feeling in your body that's going to be different. And then the potential that your executive function is going to go offline.

So the language is huge. That's one concrete place you can start is just listen to the language you're using and then

The reframing in my book, ABC Worry Free, the A step is about accepting. And that's a very mindful practice that I was trying to incorporate there. Accept what's going on, how you're feeling without judgment. The B step is for the breathing and the C is about change how you think about that. So that's the reframing step. So if I'm thinking,

I can't do hard things or I can't try new things. Whatever story I might be telling myself, I might reframe that with new things and hard things are challenging for me.

And my brain's going to get stronger if I put myself out there or I need to show a little more courage with this. Or I was that kid in school who was terrified of making mistakes. If I got the wrong answer, I would only raise my hand if I was 100% sure I had the right answer. So I'd be telling myself a story that you can't make mistakes. You can't make mistakes. And so now when I make a mistake, as I make many, I reframe that to,

Okay, mistakes are valuable if I learn from them, if I make some adjustments, and it actually does make the brain stronger. I never knew that.

So that was, you know, powerful for me to be like, OK, I can turn this mistake into something great, you know, if I choose to. So little changes like that in the language make a big difference. Yeah, I love that. And I love how practical it is because we are using this language either in our head or to others, maybe both. In a lot of cases, we're doing both. One thing that has been a real challenge

valuable practice for me is asking, is this useful? When I noticed myself caught up or using language that is not useful, it's not helping me get where I want to go. It's not helping me feel good. It's doing the opposite. In a lot of cases, I can ask, is this useful? The

Current thing is like what's going on with me at work and the craziness that's going on. Like I've told that a million times to anyone who would listen and it feels good to vent about it. But like it's just making that those neural pathways more entrenched. It's making me more aware of it and.

Ultimately having downstream effects and causing me more stress because it's just reminding me of the ridiculous situation that I'm in. Not so useful. And so that's something that's been a big help to me when I remember to do it. That's a great reminder because we can get in this little rumination mode where we kind of repeat the same story over and over. And what happens there is that the brain thinks it's problem solving.

So you might continue ruminating, thinking, okay, I'm problem solving. It's really not. It's really just chewing on cud. Like if you were to see a cow just in a field chewing on cud, it's really not solving any problems. Or it's like you sitting in a rocking chair and putting the energy into going back and forth, but you're not going anywhere. So reminding myself,

When I catch myself ruminating, I really have to say, are you problem solving? And then I will switch my focus and my thinking to problem solving. So catching yourself, obviously the awareness is huge, starting to notice that you're doing this and then the awareness and then having an action step. Okay, what do I do next? And the problem solving is huge. And I work with a lot of kids with anxiety. I have an anxiety disorder. So

I didn't learn a lot of these skills till I was in my adult years.

And it's been a game changer for me. So I think teaching kids some strategies about this is really powerful. And one reason I wrote the first book was I was trying to help kids develop some skills earlier, then waiting till they get to middle school or high school, and then everybody is in panic mode. This kid's not going to school anymore. So trying to get them to develop some skills earlier and to know that some anxiety and frustration and anxiety

occasional feeling angry or feeling overwhelmed even is normal from time to time. And we can make some adjustments and we can move forward. One of the things I teach a lot of my students is that you can be a little nervous and move forward at the same time. You don't have to be feeling no anxiety in order for you to take the next step.

Another thing I thought about as you were talking was this part about validating. Validate how you feel. And a lot of times when I used to vent or even I did this to my own kids and it was not a good practice was they might be venting and I might say, oh, don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. It's all going to work out. It's fine. It's fine. And that just dismisses how the person feels.

And I have found that quick validation, like, wow, you're going through a tough time or that sounds challenging, is really powerful in validating that, showing that I've heard that person. Even if I don't agree, I've showed that I've listened and that goes a long way for that person. And then I find with my students and with my own kids and my family that when I do that, they're better able to move forward because they feel like they've been heard.

That's really powerful. And now you got me on the wanting to ask about parenting. It's a challenge. It's a challenge. And me having a mindfulness podcast and a mindfulness practice and all these things and me then losing my stuff quite often when it's 6 p.m. and we're supposed to be getting ready for the bath and the bed and all that. Like any tips for like parents in those moments where it's just like,

You've kept it together all day and, you know, it's just they're not listening because they've also kept it together all day and they are listening.

Losing it. And then you're losing it. Any tips for parents that just want to create a little bit more space in those moments? I think it's great to notice those moments and to have a little bit of a plan. For example, say it's bedtime and you have the routine in your mind of, OK,

We're going to brush our teeth. We're going to read a story. We're going to say our prayers, whatever the routine is, and off to bed you go. Or maybe you're going to throw a bath in there or something. You might have the routine in your mind, but your child might have a different routine in his or her mind. There's one little strategy I do with a lot of my students for routines, and it's called Match the Picture. And it's from a woman, Sarah Ward, who has a wonderful executive function practice. And

it helps that student or child visualize the process. So I just did this with my granddaughter when she was here recently. So we were working on her morning routine. So we took a picture of her doing all the steps. So we first talk about, okay, what might the evening routine look like? Where might you be? What might you be doing? And then

help your child, if he's old enough, kind of help you plan out the steps. What do we do first? What's next after that? And then what's our last step? And you take a picture of them doing each of the steps. And then you just put it on a piece of paper or a little sheet and you post it. And instead of you having to repeat yourself multiple times, time for bed, time to brush your teeth, you say, could you match the picture? Or have you checked your match the picture?

And what I found is the kids actually will go over to the sheet and they're like, oh, okay, I did brush my teeth, but I haven't put my pajamas on yet. And then off they go. And so it's like a way to self-monitor your routine, having the pictures. And I know you're big about visualizing and envisioning. And I thought about

How wonderful that is, how it connects to executive function, because executive function really starts with mental imagery. So you have a picture in your mind of what you need to do and you have a picture of the finished product. But for kids who have, say, challenges with executive function, they may not see the finished product. So they're not quite sure.

where to get started because they're not quite sure that the end goal that match the picture with the, with the visualization of them doing each step is one way to help them see the steps and see the end goal. So that's one thing is making sure that the kids have the steps in their mind and

One of the mistakes I made as a parent was I would repeat the same things over and over and then get frustrated. And then you feel like they're not listening. And I would then just start doing it myself. Let's say picking up their room was part of it or picking up their toys. I would just start doing it, thinking it's going to take less time if I just get it done. And that deprives the kids in the long run of building some skills. So that's a pattern I really try to teach kids.

parents is let's not deprive the kids of those skill building opportunities. It may take a little longer for them in the short run to build the skills, but in the long run, they're going to have those skills. Let's say to build that routine, it might take a little longer each night for a couple nights.

And then they're going to have it in their brain, not just your brain. Yeah, that's really interesting. And for my son, who's five, like routine and like my wife does this, like I think she just maybe she read it somewhere or she just does it. Like a lot of times at dinner, we talk about what's going to happen over the weekend. I mean, it's one thing. It's sort of like to distract him. So he eats, but also like just like so he knows what's coming and like, you

Like even when he was younger in preschool and stuff like if he didn't know if like things didn't go as he was expecting, then it was a problem.

And so for him, knowing what's coming is very helpful. And so like talking about like the routine, I think this picture thing is a great idea for him specifically, because if I show him like, oh, this is the next thing that he'll just do it like he wants to check the boxes of the list of things like it will like a whole list for vacation and he'll bring the list and I'll be like, all right, we're at Krispy Kreme check. So this is very helpful.

It's great. And the kids feel very excited and proud that they have done the list. And if you do the picture of them, that is better because they see themselves, you know, instead of just taking a stock photo of any child brushing their teeth. Yeah, definitely. And then if he forgets a step, you can say, oh, you know what? Can you go back and revisit your match the picture? I have a feeling you'll be able to take that next step on your own. So I really believe in this.

more of them, less of you thinking, gradually releasing more responsibility to the kids so they feel competent and confident in what they're doing. And when you're talking about predicting what's next,

That can be super helpful for kids, you know, especially if they have to transition because to make a transition, you have to make a mental shift first and envision, okay, if I'm going from gym class or PE to science, I need to stop PE and I need to make a mental shift. Okay, now I'm going to be sitting in a chair. I might need my goggles. I might need to bring a notebook. Like you need to make that mental shift first and start your planning first.

before you can just make that transition. So the mental imagery is a big piece of it. And I think what also drives some if-then thinking. So if I don't brush my teeth, then what might happen? You start to have a plan. And another thing that made me think as you were talking about predicting was

You might play a little game like what if so that kids do get some practice about what if we planned a beach day and we were all excited for it and we woke up and it was boring. What do we do? What are we going to do now? Because sometimes if kids have made that prediction and plan and then it doesn't come to fruition, they can have a hard time.

And of course, they'd be disappointed. That would be normal. Helping them move forward and make that shift. Okay, how could we turn this into something fun or adjust? How can we pivot in this time? So with a lot of my students, I have them just like at dinnertime, pull out a bunch of what ifs or you can call it whatever you want, the flexibility game or make up a fun title of just certain scenarios that they're

we plan to go to grandma's and she has to go to a doctor's appointment today so we can't go how to have that cognitive flexibility when the plan changes i think is really helpful for kids yeah that's super helpful because yeah that's where a lot of the challenging moments come it's like

I was expecting to do this thing like, oh, we were going to go. We were going to go to this indoor climbing play place, whatever thing. And then I woke up with a horrible headache. And so we couldn't go because I'm not going to that crazy place with a headache. But then it was like, OK, well, now he's like super upset because he wanted to go and he was expecting to go. So we can practice those ahead of time. I think that's really interesting.

Yeah. And it helps build, that's an executive function, Gil, of cognitive flexibility. And it's a great one for tangible things like that example, but also in your thinking process, just how you can have a different perspective. Mentioning earlier how I perceived mistakes. Now, you know, what I try to teach my students is how about if we think about failure, I take like the acronym FAIL,

And think about fail as your first attempts in learning. And that is a shift in your mindset of how you think about failure and how you think about learning and doing new things.

And that just is going to make you feel totally different. That's amazing. I'm writing that down. It's honestly a lot of little things that I have learned that make a big difference. And a lot of it is the language we use. And a lot of it is the modeling. You know, if I'm being completely honest, I can think back to my parenting and how I was modeling a lot of that catastrophic talk and how I was.

not modeling setting healthy boundaries. And is that really what I want for my kids? Do I want them in their life to not set healthy boundaries? Yet that's what I was modeling. So I had to really do a self check on myself and say, okay, what are you modeling?

And how can you change the picture? Because even though my kids are older now, I truly believe our kids are always watching, you know, even when they're younger and you don't think they're watching. Oh, they're always watching. They're always watching.

And listening. And listening. And listening. My two-year-old was in the car seat facing backwards in the car yesterday, and the other one was sleeping. And we were talking as if like, oh, he's sleeping, so we're good. We can say whatever we want. And then the other one repeats back something that we said. And fortunately, nothing too bad or scandalous, you know, but it's just like, oh, yeah, good reminder. He's listening, too. And he understands everything we're saying.

And back to what you were saying earlier about like the evening routine. I think it's important for us as parents to give ourselves a break too. I used to have this perfectionism kind of thinking that I really had to work on and

shift my thinking about that. So I think giving ourselves a break, if we say or do something that even in that moment we know wasn't great or later on we reflect on and we say, okay, I could have done that differently. I'd like a redo. I would suggest go back and say, I'd like a redo. And isn't that what we want from our kids too?

let's say made a mistake or they said something, you know, they let their emotions get a hold of them or take over. I think we'd appreciate it if they came back and said, okay, you know, that wasn't my best moment. I'd like a redo. Can we try that again? Or sometimes if something comes out of my kid's mouth or even mine, I would appreciate somebody saying, I'm not so sure that's the way you wanted to say that. Or I'm not so sure that was the best way to say it. I want to try that again.

Something like that. And those opportunities to turn a mistake into something productive and teaching moment without it being a lecture. Yeah, I have plenty of those moments where I could do that. And I do do that. Like, that's the thing. Like, I am grateful and proud of the awareness that I have. I might not always exercise the most control when it comes to, like, just being frustrated and just saying, again,

get in the bath or whatever, you know, like, but I can realize it. And I apologize. And I say, look, daddy was a little frustrated. He said that was a little bit not nice and I'm sorry. And I've noticed him also apologizing when he makes a mistake. I noticed that when my husband and I started sharing some of our mistakes, that our kids were much more receptive to sharing theirs as well. And that I found to be really powerful.

And just to go back for one sec to what you were saying earlier, one little tweak that I've also found to be helpful with kids is, and with teachers, so saying pay attention is one of the least effective ways to get attention. So instead of saying pay attention, I might say time to be a whole body listener.

And you don't have to say whole body. But if I'm in a classroom, I would say time to be a whole body listener. And that just is a different...

way of approaching kids paying attention because you might have to think for a moment, what is a full body listener? And instead of it just being this command that you've heard somebody say over and over. So now there might be a match the picture of what a whole body listener is. Maybe your hands are quiet or to yourself. Your eyes are looking at the person or your eyes are focused on who's speaking and just your ears are really listening. So going through your senses and

trying to match the picture of what that looks like, that's much more effective than it's building a skill too, instead of just saying, pay attention. It's kind of like a riddle almost like, you're like, oh, what does that mean? Okay, now I'm actually paying attention because I have to

intentionally do this. And it's not just, you're not just barking a command at them because I've seen how well that works. Right. Not at all. Very often we'll do the same thing, even though we're like, okay, that didn't really work, but you find yourself saying the same thing. I think also it can open up a conversation about what is a whole body? And here's what it looks like. Here's what it sounds like, you know, even little things like, and this is from, I had mentioned Sarah Ward, um,

She taught me this. She calls it title talk. So say you would like your kid, your five-year-old to set the table. Instead of saying, set the table, give that job a title, time to be a table setter. And now it makes you think, okay, what is a table setter? What does a table setter do? And maybe you have that conversation first. So they have pictures in their mind and you could even have a match the picture of the steps involved.

in setting a table, but you could transfer that to any job or any tasks and turn it into a little job title. I like it. That's cool. So, Noelle, let's shift gears now into what I call the mindful fire final four. Are you ready? Ready.

All right. So the first question is all about envisioning. I'm a huge believer in envisioning. Some people call it manifesting. I like to keep it focused on the neuroscience of how our brain works. Let's take like these bigger, like longer term visions or goals that we want to achieve. How do you think about that and where executive functioning comes into helping us

realize our big visions in our life? For me, you know, I think about, okay, what is it that I really want to do and what kind of impact do I want to have? And it just usually comes back to me about teaching. I want to teach. I want to have a positive impact.

And so how am I going to do that? And I feel that the areas of expertise that really excite me are executive function, anxiety, mindset. So then I think about, okay, how can I have an impact in those areas? So by working one-on-one with students and I work with adults too, my youngest student is six. My oldest is in her late 60s.

And I've worked at every, you know, grade through college and beyond. And many people working in the corporate world who are, say, struggling with their executive function, not feeling like they're as productive as they'd like to be. So for me, it's about the coaching, the workshops, and then the books. I think about how can I have an impact?

And those are the three ways that it just really aligns with something that I'm passionate about. It fuels my day. It doesn't feel like work to me. I do have to be very intentional about stopping work.

Because I can just keep going and that's not good either. Trying to find a balance for me is something I try to envision. I'm still a work in progress, if I'm being honest. I was saying as we started off this morning, you know, I'm a grandmother now and I really love being around my children and my husband and my grandchildren. And I want to make sure I do leave time to enjoy those moments and

still be able to contribute my work and spread more awareness because I see how this is impacting so many people's lives. If their executive function and mindset haven't been developed, and I usually call it underdeveloped executive function,

These are skills that can be built. So how can I help develop them? And how can I help you develop a mindset that is going to be productive and help you really unlock your potential? And these are skills that you're going to need in every facet of your life, whether it's school, your job, your relationships, it's really going to impact your life in so many ways. So that's what fuels me. And my, my visualization takes me to those places.

Got it. Very cool. So one of the things you mentioned a few times is we talked about executive functioning, but you also mentioned mindset. And we talk a lot about mindset here, but I would love to have you just talk about how do you think about mindset and how does it work?

play or intersect with executive functioning? Yeah. So I think about mindset is, you know, your beliefs, how you think about yourself, but also the world and your attitudes could be included in that as well. And a book that was absolutely groundbreaking for me was the book Mindset by Carol Dweck.

And if I had to pick one book, honestly, that changed my life, it's that book. And it really shifted how I think about challenges and failure and approach to things. And I realized that, so she talks about the growth and the fixed mindset and the growth mindset is really about that belief that you can continue to grow and improve and

based on your practice, your receptivity to feedback, your, you know, your work ethic and your effort. But these things really do make a difference in your improvement. And the fixed mindset really doesn't value that effort as much in the practice and the feedback. And it thinks a little bit more along the lines that, you know, what you got at birth is what you have. You know, you either get it or you don't.

And, you know, you're either smart or you're not, you're good at math or you're not, you're musical or you're not, where all of us can get better and improve if we follow those things that I just mentioned. So I realized that I was in a growth mindset as long as I was doing something that I was good at. But once it was something that I wasn't good at, so that would be math and I was just okay, science I was not great at.

I would go to freeze mode and I would just be sitting in those classes thinking, please don't call on me. Please don't call on me. I have no idea what you're talking about. I was about wanting to look good at all costs. It was learning in the classroom versus wanting to learn at all costs. And,

wasn't valuing the mistakes. So she really helped me shift my thinking. And then that really played a role in shifting my feedback to my kids. What kind of feedback was I giving them? Was everything good job? Because what does that mean? And could I shift that to

How'd you do that? Tell me how you did that. And then that gets you thinking about the process, gets you what executive function skills did you put into your plan? So that's like just one little, you know, one example, but it really had an impact on my life. And then it led me down a path to write the books. I had written a book over 30 years ago, well, 37 years ago when my first son was born and just wrote

Wrote it, put it out there thinking, oh yeah, this will get published and not valuing all the research that I needed to do about which publisher might be a good fit for this and just not valuing all the steps. And my approach was very weak. So when I was rejected from every publisher I sent it to, I just stuck it into the, my desk and didn't take it out for 30 years.

And just thought to myself, you're just not going to be a writer. You're not going to write a book. And after thinking about the mindset piece, I was like, you're going back to this. You are writing a book and you're going to put yourself out there. If it doesn't get picked up, that's okay. You can accept that. What you cannot accept though, Noelle, is that you're not trying and that you're running from a challenge that I can't accept. I changed my approach and

did all the research, got a lot of feedback. I put it out there, asked people for feedback where before I never showed it to anybody. And so I changed my approach and was just open to learning. Even if this doesn't get published, I'm open to the process of learning from this. So thankfully it worked out. You only need one publisher to say yes. And the National Center for Youth Issues picked it up.

I've been just so grateful for that book and for Carol's research because it really did make a shift in my life, not just with work, but just in my daily thinking and how I approach challenges and in my parenting and in my grandparenting. So I'm very grateful for that shift.

Amazing. Yeah. Thank you for sharing those examples. I think that I resonate quite a bit with all of that. All right. The second question is, what piece of advice would you give to someone early on their path to financial independence? My dad used to say, pay yourself first. That was his phrase. So whether I made $60, you know, at the A&P for my first job or

he would say, always save. Whether it's just you saved 10%, whatever it is, pay yourself first. So I would take that with me. And saving early on definitely helped because I was a teacher and I wasn't making a whole lot of money. And saving was very important. And I was also one that just made a lot of sacrifices, whether it was

choose not to go out for a night or you find a more less expensive way to do it and still have fun. So little things like that for me added up. And because I was a teacher, I kind of had to think about those things. So I think that little things to me can make a difference. Just starting to save early, even if it's a little bit, that compound interest starts to accrue over time if you start young. Absolutely. Great advice.

And the next question is, what piece of advice would you give to someone getting started with meditation and or mindfulness? I would say just the receptivity, the starting small. It could just be one minute. With a lot of my students, I'll just ask,

Would you be willing to do this for just one minute? And honestly, I start every single workshop, every single one-on-one coaching meeting with my group or my students with a quick one to two minute meditation or breathing practice. Cause I, I want them, I want to model it and get them to get a sense of what it feels like, but then I give it to them as a homework assignment and

And trying to find, you know, would you be willing to do this first thing in the morning or helping them to start to notice if your body's feeling a little off, you're feeling a little bit fast heartbeat or you're feeling a little agitated. Pay attention to those signs. Do a quick one to two minute. I love four, six breathing. That's my go to. But I do a lot of self-compassion breathing. A lot of my students seem to need that. They seem pretty hard on themselves.

So I think start small. And I find that one small change leads to other little small changes that eventually lead to big changes. Yep, that's exactly that's kind of the theme of the conversation, like with the executive functioning, with these practices that support well-being, like all of it is small changes lead to big impact. I love that. All right. And the last question, Noelle, is how can people connect with you online, learn more about your work and, you know,

inquire about working with you? They can certainly find me online at www.neuronoel. So it's N-E-U-R-O, NeuroNoel.com.

So they can go to my website and they can follow me on social media at NeuroNoel. And I just post tips and tricks about anxiety, executive function, mindset, a lot of practical applications, some of which we've talked about today. So yeah, I'd love to spread awareness as much as I can about these topics because I feel they're so critical for success in life and just

A lot of parents and teachers, honestly, just they don't get a lot of training in this. And I think it's really I'd love to enhance parent education and professional learning for teachers and support them better. Thank you for the work you do. I think it's more important now than ever before. I think we're given time.

Just the world in general, the political situation, the economic situation, everything is just very the wars. There's a lot going on. And so any little things that we can do to help people navigate this

Life with a little bit more ease, I think is very important. And so thank you for the work that you do, Noelle. Oh, thank you. It's my pleasure. Yeah. And setting those healthy boundaries, like when you were talking about everything going on in the world, sometimes I have to just press pause or take the news off and set a boundary.

Definitely listening to daily on the way home from dropping my son off did not help with my sense of stress. I want to envision you singing on the ride home. There you go. That'll be fun. And Noel, I know you mentioned that you have two books that you've already written and you have a third one coming out in the near future. I'd love for you to just kind of share what those are so people can go check those out. Of course, I'll put them in the show notes as well, but give you the chance to share those. All right. Oh, thank you so much for asking.

So the next book is on executive function. It's about practical real-time solutions for parents, teachers, and counselors to really foster executive function in the classroom and at home. And the title is 15-Minute Focus, and it's part of another series. And the 15-Minute Focus is about we want things to be quick, practical, things you could do in 15 minutes or less.

So it's 15 minute focus. Executive function is the topic. And the subtitle is how to build underdeveloped skills, maximize learning and unlock potential. And we talked a lot about ways you could unlock potential today.

Very good. That is a great subtitle. Great title and subtitle. So we'll link that up in the show notes, and I hope you'll go check that out. I am looking forward to reading that for myself and my family. And so thank you for the work that you do, Noelle. Oh, thank you. It's my pleasure. Thanks for joining me on today's episode of the Mindful Fire podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, I invite you to hit subscribe wherever you're listening to this.

This just lets the platforms know you're getting value from the episodes and you want to be here when I release additional content. If you're ready to start your Mindful Fire journey, go to mindfulfire.org and download my free envisioning guide. In just 10 minutes, this guide will help you craft a clear and inspiring vision for your life. Again, you can download it for free at mindfulfire.org.

Thanks again, and I'll catch you next time on the Mindful Fire Podcast.