The power of personal development. Spencer Jones's story.

Spencer Jones: 0:00

The Bright Side of Life means living your life to the max, which is my way of saying live your best life, live your dash. Get out there and enjoy life, chase your passions, savor it and embrace all the beauty that life has to offer you. Welcome to The Bright Side of Life, a podcast where people share their personal stories of struggles, pain and grief. But through all of that, they are still able to find the joys in life.

Melissa Bright: 0:42

Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week's episode of the bright side of life. I am your host, Melissa bright. If you have not yet subscribed to the podcast, please be sure to do so on your favorite listening platform so you never miss an episode. And if you just love, love, love the podcast so much. And you would like to support the show, you can do so by writing a review on the website, sharing your favorite episodes on social media and with friends and family. Or lastly, you can make donations by going to the donate page on the website. Whatever you choose to do, however you choose to support the podcast, I am very grateful. And also you can do all of that stuff right on the bright side of life. podcast.com and today I'm kind of on this positivity trend lately because last week I had the ambassador of joy on the show. And this week I have the prince of positivity. Today I'm talking to Spencer Jones, and he loves to help people live their lives to the max through a holistic approach. Known as the prince of positivity he shares his positive energy and spreads joy around the world. He does this by sharing tips, tricks and strategies to help others live life to the through his daily energize podcast along with the Jones and four Academy and various events. And sidenote, Spencer is also a classically trained pianist and choir director who has published three books and has been published and multiple magazines and websites. I didn't even know that. So welcome to the show, Spencer.

Spencer Jones: 2:13

Well, thank you. Thank you for that awesome, welcome. I appreciate that as well. My bio sounds really impressive. I'm shocked. But I'm just a normal person here helping people be happy, enjoy life that that's all I just get to you. And I love and help people do more of what they love. Like, what's better than that?

Melissa Bright: 2:29

I know, oh my gosh. And I love that. And I've had so many people say like, oh my God, that's quite the bio. And I'm like you did that that's yours. And some, like we were just talking about not celebrating our successes. And I'm like, those are things to celebrate for sure.

Spencer Jones: 2:46

And it's as we were talking before, and we don't celebrate those successes. And so how many times we go through our day in our life, we don't celebrate those successes. And you know, we think big things birthdays or or promotions. But heck sometimes not saying that, that thing back to a person who you being snarky back to them after they said something to you. That's a win, right? If you will, yep, we were, refuse or hold that in and don't engage. That's a win, celebrate that right? And you know, you know, balloons and have cake all the time. Sometimes that's beautiful. Even just that recognition is huge. So yeah, let's start. Let's start this podcast office. And let's celebrate our successes. Let's make this a norm for us celebrate the successes and enjoy them. savor them all.

Melissa Bright: 3:32

Oh my gosh. And I love that. And people might be thinking like, How can I sell it? Like, how can I do that? Just as easy as you can tell yourself? Oh, Melissa, you're so stupid. Why did you just say that? You sound so silly. You just made a ass out of yourself, for lack of better words. You can turn that around and be like, Wow, I held my composure. Wow, I really handled that situation. Great. So that's how you can because it's so much easier to look at the things we didn't do right or messed up on. That's how we don't do that.

Spencer Jones: 4:04

I was chatting with someone for one of my podcasts and interviewing her. And she came up with this awesome saying that right? We have our inner critic inside of us all the time. And I would love to give her credit but I can't remember name off top my head. So I apologize. I'm sorry. But so we have these two things inside of us all the time, right? We hear about inner critic, my friend Shawn Douglas calls it our inner bully and it's always beating us up, right? It's been needling us trying to make us seem small. And that's always there. And we talked about that a lot, which is great. We need to and we need to hush that inner bully. We need to quiet it down or maybe listen to it and give it a hug. Whatever it is. Yeah. And she said something profound that I never thought of until she's not I'm sharing it out every chance I get. And that is we also have something that's been with us just as long as our inner bully is our inner critic. We don't spend we don't acknowledge nearly as much and that is our inner cheerleader. How many times And do we not give ourselves that credit celebrate those successes. We don't let our cheerleader come out and do it do their thing, right? They want to go who are on dancin and get everybody to cheer. And we don't let it because that inner bully is holding it hostage or whatever. Yeah. Let's, let's change it. Let's instead, you know, learn from our inner bully, then hush it. And let's let the cheerleader have a turn.

Melissa Bright: 5:25

I love that. I love that. Thank you for sharing that.

Spencer Jones: 5:29

Or I have no idea where this podcast is going. But

Melissa Bright: 5:32

that's okay. Well, I got a direction for it, I think but that's okay. Because usually when I have a direction, it goes the opposite, which is so much better anyways. But I don't know all of your story besides just what you sent me in your bio, and what I see on Facebook so I can kind of gather some things. But I'm really, really curious to know, your highlight reel of your life per se. You are always like doing this ninja. Like you're I know you're very physical stuff like that. But have you always been the super positive person? or have there been things that have happened in life that you really had to dig your way out of or overcome or so on and so forth? To really get you to where you are now. So that's a very loaded question. Good luck with that.

Spencer Jones: 6:24

I love it. I love this question. Yes, I know the answers because it's about me. Yeah. If I don't, that'd be a little different, right?

Melissa Bright: 6:34

It's somebody else's story.

Spencer Jones: 6:35

Right. All right. So here's the story. I heard about this on the movie. Oh, gosh. Okay, so about me. Let's see, I was born that was a highlight of one's life. Maybe not my parents. I don't know. Okay. Anyway. So let's see, I was homeschooled as I grew up, and I just let life kind of happen now. I believe I was born with a positive more optimistic lifestyle and thought process mindset for many many years. But I never intentionally honed it in it was just life right i Yeah, I was happy I was positive there's good things there's bad things but man I had anger streak in me that would pop up so fast like if I got a call from a person and it's time when I could see who was calling our first time I heard their voice right or a message or whatever it is. It would be like happy go lucky Spencer to angry and pissed off in a second. And I mean that that would ruin my day. Just by that person called me that person said this to me or something do go my way. I we get angry, we get frustrated and that our that afternoon or evening or the day could be ruined. And that wasn't healthy for me or anyone else. But I didn't know any better. That was just how I dealt with life. And I got into college and just that kept going happening over and over and over again. And thankfully, as I was growing up, I learned to play the piano. classically trained pianist as you said loved performing loved being on stages love doing that and sharing the love of music with others. Well, I found myself loving teaching, and got my degree in music education middle school, so I taught middle school and high school choir for nine years. I love being in front of the students and supporting them and helping them express themselves through music. And you know, working through the motions and coming to the safe place and, and doing that. And along this journey of going through college and and becoming a teacher I gained weight. I stopped watching Rosie my metabolism shifted the age getting older, and I gained a bunch of weight. Well, I met the woman of my dreams. That's not highlight, right, we got married, which is awesome. But sadly, when we got married, I was at my heaviest weight ever. And that summer, I just felt gross. I felt disgusting. I was working at the YMCA and thankfully was working there had a free membership and cool. So let's go. I started working out three, four days a week, watch what I was eating and I lost 30 pounds. So Hurray. In one summer great, lost 30 pounds. It was awesome. I felt really good. And then went back to college to continue earning my degree. And I gained 20 more pounds over the next handful of years. It wasn't right away. But over the next handful of years I started teaching and I was just gaining weight. And all these stories come together. I promise you,

Melissa Bright: 9:23

I believe you

Spencer Jones: 9:26

covered one of my passions as an adult, which was kayak fishing. Now what happened is I was in college, or I just graduated college. It was summer and I was bored senseless. I could not find a summer job right away. It took about a month to find a summer job no matter how many things I applied to. And in any case, I was bored senseless. And so one of my friends said, Hey, come on fishing with me. So great. I'm like I used to love fishing as a kid. Let's go out. We caught a couple fish hooked. Not well. Not literally, figuratively with fish. Many times after that, but any of I love fishing. And then on the fishing trips, I saw someone get into kayak with their fishing gear and go and kayak fishing. I'm like, Oh my gosh, that's amazing. I want to do I love kayaking as a kid. Let's do that. So I started kayak fishing. Alright, great. So I'm teaching, I got my teaching job. Now I'm teaching and I'm loving my summers of kayak fishing, and I realized one summer, and it's getting harder for me to paddle where I want to go, it's harder for me to put my kayak on top of the car, I need to lose weight. I'm not feeling good the way I looked the way I felt inside outside something needed to change. Well, so then I started to do like most people do. You go to a gym or get though at home workout programs. Well, I'm kind of crazy. And my brother in law, we got bought him p90x A few years before that that crazy at home workout program. And we decided, hey, let's let's do this together, because he's never completed it. So alright, let's do it. So we did p90x, and I lost 20 pounds during that program, and fell in love with just seeing what my body could do not only losing weight, but gaining strength. And that led me to do a whole bunch of workout programs that lost 40 pounds overall since my heaviest point and feel great, feel amazing, you know, some physique competitions, whatever, half Iron Man's whatever, all the all the little things, whatever. I'm just testing myself to see how I can learn and grow and get better. Well, in this weight loss journey, here's where it all comes together and that weight loss journey. I was discovered, and as it was shared and pushed to me to do personal development, right. So when some of the programs I people were saying, Oh, do personal development, I'm like, I had zero interest in doing any of this because it's like, is it like professional development, because that was the crap out of me. Like, it doesn't apply to my me or my life. And it doesn't help my students. Like, I'm not gonna waste my time doing personal development. Right? So give it a shot. I read a book. And I tried to read a book and I hated reading at the time, and I couldn't read it and I called it quits again. So that I'm like, Nope, not gonna do it. A couple months later, people still just mentioning it very politely but mentioning it. And like, Alright, fine. I like listening to audiobooks. Let's try it that way. So I listened to an audiobook on the way to work as a half hour commute. And it was Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy, freaking love that book. Anyway, I took the first bit of advice on like, the first or second trip that I was listening to it and that half hour listening, and I took action on that first step. And oh my gosh, it opened my eyes immediately that day. I'm like, holy crap. Like, this stuff's incredible. Why are people talking about this, we're doing this more, right. And it was pretty much all in from that point. And really learning and growing for me personally, and discovering more about me, and how to work in my mindset that that then led me on this whole journey of discovering and learning more about how does mindset work? How does positivity work? How did how can you be more effective. And really, I dug into the whole positivity side of life helped me grow, to have a positive and abundant mindset to go through all those different things in my life and really fill me up and fill my my cup with joy and love and energy and positivity. So I could spread it to others. But here's the crazy thing, right? I was working on myself and I was teaching and I felt called to go elsewhere. Not to be not that not being in the classroom is great, because it's absolutely amazing. My wife's a fourth grade teacher, she's incredible at it. And I love teaching but I felt called to do something bigger. And so I then retired from classroom teaching one full time as an entrepreneur to talk on stages to help people with their positive and been minds that's why we have the academy that's why we you know, I I'm talking on stage this is why we have a chance to really help people feel confident believe in themselves energized, live their lives, Max, right, get the most out of life, live your best life, live your dash, whatever you want to call it. Well what happened is on this journey, I'm working and I'm filling my cup, I'm learning all these cool strategies and taking all these things without without taking care of the skeletons in the closet. Right? I just get married stuff, like I heard about people addressing and I'm like, I don't have anything right I'm good. I don't have it. I just kept repressing repressing repressing repressing it so much so that I convinced myself out of habit until it all came to a head and came crashing down. Right so for me, I I was known as the ego man before I was ever the prince of positivity is huge ego thinking I could do anything. And that helped lead me to discover what one of my strengths actually is. But now without the ego I don't get we can talk about that later. But in any case, I'm not I'm rambling on so I apologize.

Melissa Bright: 14:40

Don't apologize, you're fine. So

Spencer Jones: 14:43

So when from ego man and it all collapsed around me to where I felt cold, I felt tired. Suicide seemed like an option. It was it was a dark time in my life. And I realized, I haven't addressed any of these things. I don't love me for me. I could not look in the mirror. totally tell myself that I love myself. I was just struggling to think of my wife was there I have friends who are like one or two friends who were all two friends who were there to love me and support me was seeing a therapist and through all of their love and advice and help and comfort that I started, put that cup back together that broken that got shattered, and realize, okay, these are the building blocks that I need to really heal myself to process those emotions, go through those skeletons, take the lessons, forgive myself, forgive others, let that go. So that have those lessons with me as I move forward. And so I could take those lessons with me without and then release that guilt, the shame or the anxiety about the future. Let's focus on those lessons and keep those with me and keep growing. And so that really then pushed me as an my girl saying, Okay, I have the tools before and I knew them. But now I'm learning more and I'm implementing the change in my life. And that truly shifted where now it's like, Alright, let's talk positivity. Let's talk abundance, because I don't care if you have a negative limited mindset before, or a scarcity mindset, we can help you if you want to change that over and you're like, I just can't vote you can't write physical physiologically your body can't your brains used to firing on that negative pathway. It's built into your system, we can help you reprogram that. So that now you're you're almost doing surgery on yourself, right? You're reprogramming your brain to make it seem to the positives and the joy and have more of that in your life. So that's what we've been doing and growing through this whole process. And so those are lots of highlights. I was born I got married, I had this crazy breakdown, and we grew and positivity now helping more people. So Wow. 20 seconds, but I took like 10 minutes.

Melissa Bright: 16:42

That is quite okay. So we don't share similar paths. But then we kind of do because, well, I was born. Oh my gosh, we have that coming. I have not yet been married, but the breakdown, the breakdown. So many people have the breakdown before they have the breakthrough. Because usually if there's not something in life, if life is good and great, like we're usually not looking to change it like we we let's just stay we're good here like hey, we're cool. So I want to go into a little bit more on the ego thing when you said like addressing those skeletons. How did you become aware that that was hindering you? And one of the keywords being aware because you can't change a thought belief or a pattern until you become aware that this is even a thing? Did people tell you did you know it? And then finally you're like, okay, yes, maybe I do whatever? And then what what do you mean by ego? Like, how did you act? What were some of your beliefs, so on and so forth?

Spencer Jones: 17:54

Love it. Awesome, awesome questions. Um, so with ego for me, it was I'm trying to remember all the

Melissa Bright: 18:02

questions asked now. So yeah, sorry. Let's start with that. Okay, so

Spencer Jones: 18:07

ego and the ego, man. Yeah. So fun, really quick story about that is before I met my wife, we met in college, and we both attended like a two year university to start and then we went off to four years, a four year university and I took seven years just because that seems like the fun path to save. Yeah, but any case, we were at the same school and I was planted by my friends on some couches, halfway down the hallway from her and I was loud. I was obnoxious. I thought I knew it all. And she could hear me loud and clear because I was proud of them an actress and she went home and was telling her parents oh my gosh, there's this guy's this loud obnoxious ego man and just kept going so Oh, Eagle Man said this. No, no, that's Well, one day she went home and said ego man is taking me out on a date. And that was the end of that. Sorry. So anyway, so what for me in ego it looks like me well, being obnoxious thinking I knew it all thinking or that if I didn't know it, I could figure it out really quickly because I do have a talent or special skills that I can pick up things most things pretty quickly and be decent at it. And so I can do that I'm also really good at getting people to follow me and to as in like, Do what I say or get people energized over an idea a concept or something like that. Yeah, and that's been but I didn't realize that was my gift at that time. It was me thinking oh my gosh, I'm I'm freaking god, you know, or whatever. Like I knew I wasn't but like I was awesome and that I I started to have this poll in different jobs and careers and thinking I was better than I was right thinking I was better than other people. I could be little people that I could do this that what I say goes and and that ego started building the upside. Oh, yeah. Oh, I could do this or talking. Like for me ego and confidence. They're similar, but they're very different. We're still in a sense of saying, I can do this ego saying, I have no reason to believe that I can do this. But I know I can do this, you know, like, for me, oh, sure I could fundraise a million dollars. Sure, I'm sure I could. But I've never done anything near that. And I don't have anything close to that confidence is saying, all right, I know I could fundraise a million dollars given I have these certain things, right? Or I do this fundraise. 100,000. Why? Because I've seen myself have success in other areas of my life, or in this area of my life. And I could build on that. Right. I know, I have the skill set, as opposed to just talking out of my ass. Right, right. I was doing before. And so for me, what happened was, I just thought I was King shit, right? And just going to town that I was the king of egos, like, Yeah, whatever. My head was too big to fit in any rooms. And I felt it felt intimidated by other people who are successful by people who just loved and cared for other people. I'm like, This is ridiculous. What's the catch, right? Because there's always a catch. There's always I've learned something, I needed something. I did amazing things with my choirs. And I loved working with students. We did an awesome fundraisers and different things. And if I'm gonna be perfectly upfront and honest, I was I was nice about it, because we're fundraising and supporting but I wanted the recognition, right, I wanted the recognition for making that fundraiser happen to raise this amount of money, whatever it was, it was yeah, it was beneficial. But it was I was looking for the benefit for me and that self

Melissa Bright: 21:26

serving right at the same time. Yeah, exactly.

Spencer Jones: 21:30

So it happened for me is I was telling myself all these stories that I'm unstoppable and I could do all these crazy things or whatever. And sort of living that life and pushing the envelope pushing the envelope pushing it and no matter what might my ego reality came in and checked me down a couple times, you know, like someone said, No, or this didn't happen or whatever, I would brush it off and my ego would pick me back up and I would keep going. So I was just writing really really high until what what I was building up the constructs that was building up through my ego were never there and then life came in and crashed it all down right and said no, this is all fake. This is all just a big facade you put on think about think about like the armor that we build up or the walls we build up to protect ourselves that's what I was doing. I was building up all these walls and putting on all this armor to protect this Spencer inside me who was afraid who didn't know who he didn't love himself. He loved the other things and you know at the time I would have said I love myself 1,000% Because that ego but I didn't actually and so so for me it when everything came crashing down when life said Yeah, Nope, you're wrong. You're not You're not getting shit, right, you're really nothing. And at least that's how I felt. I realized oh, oh crap, like I've I've lost so many things and hurt so many people and I need to re reconstruct this and do this in a healthy way I could have let my ego do it again and we can build it up again. But I was I felt so broken that I needed to I knew that something needed to change and so that's when I started to really look at the skeletons in the closet to realize oh my gosh, I didn't I never I haven't I've never loved myself but to for many many years I didn't I was I always felt this void inside of me that I needed to fill and so I tried filling with everything yeah anything everything you could boy and I couldn't nothing was filling it nothing was was taken care of this no matter how much you know I tried making more money or I tried having you know status nothing felt that Yep, and so it came crashing down to that rock bottom where then okay there's no bottom to the pit because we're at the bottom of it so now let's let's build it up and not have that armor let's not build up those walls to degrade now I have some walls to protect me a little bit yeah for the most part I mean those are those are far and few between what you get to me it's a genuine authentic me now it's not it's not the facade it's not a mask it's me and I couldn't put into words for a long time figuring it out and and now going through that I realized oh my god I was having all this hate all this anger all this frustration built up inside me towards me that I just repressed and that I needed to let go to release it and just fill myself with first of all self love to love me for me, which was extremely hard. The saying I was saying that I said tell people like you are amazing, you're worthy and you are enough just the way you are. Because I didn't feel like I was enough. I always felt like I needed to prove myself to say oh yeah, I I can do this right? Yeah, Mom, I can take care of myself on my own right. Yeah, all these different things. But that I just kept trying to fill that void by proving myself and it wasn't doing anything until Oh crap. I need to love me myself. and build it up from there. So it it was a scary rocky adventure. And as you said, many people don't have that breakthrough until they have that breakdown. Yeah, hit that rock bottom and rock bottom is different for everyone. Right? Yeah. For the mind, and, you know, one listeners from from another person and that's beautiful. And that's okay. Yeah, I would love it. I would love and I strive to help people never hit that true rock bottom or a really dark rock bottom. But it's it's hard because as you said, we don't we don't necessarily want to change or no, we need to change. It's just Oh, this is how life is? Or oh, this is status quo. Why would I want to change make life harder right now to have a better future or to have more joy. Later on, I'm going to embrace this hardship. And I'm here to tell you and to help people embrace that hardship now, so that you can never have that that again, and really free. And it's it's really incredible.

Melissa Bright: 25:57

Yeah. There's so much stuff that like I relate to like, as soon as you said the anger thing, and I was like, oh, yeah, because for so long. Like, I guess people don't just people don't assume or maybe they do and they're like, yeah, what are you talking about? Like that women don't get angry. And like, it's just must be the guys, the guys and I'm like, no, like, anger happens. And anger happens because we're not for everybody. This is just for me, but I'm clearly being I hate to use the word triggered, but that's what it is. I'm being triggered by something that I feel either attacked or I disappointed. And a lot of mine comes from me being a little girl and knowing that I disappointed my father. So my anger usually happens when I know I've upset somebody or I disappointed them because of my dad like it has nothing to do and usually my anger is towards my boyfriend and he's like, this doesn't even have to do with me I know it doesn't but you're taking your anger out. And it's something that I had to really look at. So I say all this because however we get to this point of personal development, I never in my life would have considered myself like let's go work on myself like what the heck does that even mean? What does that even look like? Some people now when I say I've been on a healing journey might not even really like what does she mean by that? But if you if people do get a chance to do that, or if you're like how do I even know I need to heal? Or do some personal development. How did you guys even get here it's when you might feel like you don't love yourself or feel like you're worthy or feel like you're enough your relationships could most definitely be impacted. I had a very big strain on my relationship because I was just reacting to everything. I've worked hard on that one. So I hope that makes sense for like listeners of people some people might call a different I call it my healing journey because I've also healed through my grief of losing my parents. So that's intertwined with trauma and all the other stuff. So I just wanted to share that that point

Spencer Jones: 28:19

if we all are on our own healing journey, right yeah, yeah, a lot of us do it intentionally some of us don't. So it was repress it and try to ignore it and shove it off to the side yet I think we all feel it right? We all have things in our past things in our life that that bother us that do trigger us now I with you, right i i used to hate the word trigger just because of how much it's been used and honestly misconstrued but just became a buzzword. Something that I'm like, I'm not a fan of it until until I met Brian Bulger who's now become one of my really good friends. And he's I heard him speak at a men's retreat, and he used the word triggered and I'm just like, huh, like, Oh my God, but it's one of the words he says, and then he triggered you. Like, oh, why is the word trigger triggering me like this is not right. I mean, and it did to a degree and we chatted about that. And now for me, I realized no, that's that's a pretty accurate word for it, to be perfectly honest, as much as buzzword as it has become, because there are things in your life that trigger you things that that Olson that like for what I said, I get that phone call or that message I used to get angry. Yeah, that was a trigger. Right? And that was the trigger that sent it. But where did it stem from? Like,

Melissa Bright: 29:35

where did it come from? And why? Right? Why

Spencer Jones: 29:37

did this happen? Or why do I have this feeling in motion? That seems to be nothing attached to it? You're, you're getting mad at your boyfriend and going, he goes, Okay, this has to do nothing with me as soon as your past but whatever, like this, take it out of me, I guess for now, right until you can solve that, but you won't be able to recognize it until you realize, oh, this is the thing that's causing it then you could You get to leapfrog it back and figure out where it stems from. And that's, that's what Brian bogus thing is to help you first of all identify your triggers and then unlock it and heal it. And then also letting Okay, so if if your boyfriend knew that one of your triggers, he could then help avoid it, so that you wouldn't, so he wouldn't be triggering you. And he, Brian, here's a lot of different stories about that's happened in my life. But I'll tell you, from my you know, I've realized some of my triggers that I've then worked at heal that so So Katie, my wife wouldn't be triggering it or wouldn't be upsetting because there's times a tensions that I'm like, Why are we fighting? Or why am I mad or upset when nothing happened? Right or anything for her. And it's, it's learning and figuring out each other, especially if you're in a relationship, any kind of relationship, but especially romantic one, learning what each other's triggers are, so that you can help them heal, but also just help them avoid it. So you're not accidentally triggering it? And yeah, who knows? It's always a journey. We're always learning and growing.

Melissa Bright: 30:56

Yeah. Do you mind me asking if you know why you got angry? Like, just on phone calls? I mean, I I know. For me, mine usually always stems back to disappointment. If if my boyfriend's customers call, there's still a nervousness about that I'm scared that I can't give them the perfect answer that they want. And my boyfriend's had to work with me so much to be like, You got to remember what you're in control of, and what you're not. If somebody's mad that it's raining today, Melissa, they can yell at you all you want, you have no control over that. And he's really helped me that with that. So do you know why this anger would happen?

Spencer Jones: 31:36

For me, it usually stemmed from to be perfectly open and honest. Right? It's, I don't talk to my parents anymore. For for a number of reasons. One is they were very controlling and used guilt to discipline us. Yeah. And so. And I'm not saying that's right for everyone and whatever. But for me, anytime my mom called me, and she was the main one, I that's what would really flip me from getting from, like, I remember in college, Katie and I were laughing, we're just joking around, I got a call from my mom. Instant pissed off Spencer, because I felt like I was a fail, I'm assuming, right i i felt like i was a failure at that I couldn't prove myself to her that I wasn't worthy. That I wasn't good enough, all these things. So all that then built up into anger to someone who I couldn't be angry at my mom, but I can be angry at the world. Right? Then all of a sudden. So it stemmed from not feeling like I was worthy. Not was enough. Hence those affirmations that I say to myself every single year everywhere I can share them, that you are worthy, you are enough, because many times we don't allow ourselves to feel that way. And that's sort of my personal feeling that I've always needed to prove myself. So in other times when I've gotten angry, it's one I felt like I've had to lose control or not lose control that i i could not be in control. And I I had to not that I even mind like being wrong, but it's the fact that I felt like I needed to prove myself to you. When when Who are you in that? Yeah. trigger that whole thing?

Melissa Bright: 33:15

Yeah. Thank you for sharing that with me. Like, that's literally the process that at least for me, when I start feeling a negative emotion, because well, we want to feel great emotion. So when I'm starting to feel a negative emotion, I'm like, where is this coming from? Why is this happening? And it usually stems from the same like for things right? And that's okay. But like you're learning, we're both learning. And like, if my listeners are going through this process of like, how did they figure out why why they're angry, or why they're jealous or why they're whatever, to not have this judgment of yourself, just consider this a learning, you're just getting information. I know it's easy to beat yourself up. Because I used to, I was like, Why the hell did I just yell at my boyfriend? He did not deserve it. Finally, I wanted to change that. And I wanted to say like, No, he doesn't deserve that. So just be self compassion with yourself when you are learning things about yourself that you might not like, because we have to do that.

Spencer Jones: 34:18

Well, I think that's huge. And I want to really point out something that you said in there of personnel just being aware of it and going, okay, he doesn't deserve this. Let's let's work through it processes. The thing I really want to shed light on is to not judge yourself, again, going back to that whole inner bully inner cheerleader thing that we beat ourselves up and we judge ourselves so incredibly harshly, right? If we treat our friends and we treat ourselves, we probably wouldn't have any friends. Right? Because we're just so mean to ourselves, oh, you grew in this or how dare you do this or all of the different things you can imagine? Yeah. So when you decide to investigate and dig into why why am I angry? Why am I jealous? Why do I have these feelings? Emotions here, that, first of all, don't judge yourself for having them. Right. Don't judge yourself for experiencing or feeling it. It's hard not to do I get it that you're that inner bully wants to beat you up. But let that go releases. Hey, you know what, I'm just going to learn as you said to, to see what lessons I can find that the way I describe it is I think of myself as a scientist, dissecting something because as a scientist, you're usually and should be removed emotionally. So as I lead people through meditations, or as I work with clients, we guide them and help them to dissect the lessons to see where this all stems from where it all connects without the emotional attachment. And as soon as you start feeling that emotional attachment come, you step away, you literally or figuratively, you take a breath, you focus elsewhere, and then you can come back in and start working, but you always are working through not judging. And if I can shed light on one more thing that is, okay, we have negative thoughts, and I don't have negative thoughts, I'm gonna have positive thoughts. Well know that the majority of our thoughts are negative, but about 80% of our thoughts are negative, which is crazy, insane, right? Insane, and 20% are positive, okay. Don't beat yourself up for having a negative thought, right? Thoughts happen. They're your energy they happen. You can't control all of your thoughts. As much as we try to, we can't. It's how the body we're in mind works. So don't beat yourself up for having a negative thought. But lean towards those better feeling thoughts, lean towards the ones that make you feel better, though, that are more positive, the ones that lift you up or raise you up, as opposed to dwelling on the negative ones, the ones that make you angry, frustrated, I don't know how many times I can, I could spiral downward just by focusing on negative thought. And then I start thinking of the conversation we'd be having. And then I get angry at the other person, which is really myself for talking to myself, right. And it's just this whole spiral. And then I end up being angry or bothered, or something that was just a figment of my imagination of thinking, Oh, this is how this conversation would go. And just lean towards this better feeling thoughts. But again, if you do get angry, if you do have those thoughts, don't beat yourself up for him right there, your feelings, their emotions, the way I like to look at feelings and emotions. And this has taken me a while to get here. I personally believe that almost everyone can pick and choose the feelings and emotions they have in that moment. I'm not saying it's easy to do it, by all means it's not easy. But it is possible for almost every person so I think about him like either as clouds floating in the sky, or as a leaves on a stream or river. Right, let's say stream a river just makes it a little easier concept to grasp. Yes, you're floating down a river on a leaf, right? And that each leaf has a name of that emotion that's kind of floating through the sphere of work, what you're feeling well, you can pick and choose this up, I'm going to be happy. So you pick up and choose up the happy leaf and you're gonna be happy. And when you're done with that you set that back down or, or jealousy or anger, I'm gonna pick that up, and then put it back on and be like, I'm not gonna be jealous. We're just gonna, you know, we're just not gonna deal with it. I'm not gonna be anything. I'm not gonna be happy, positive or negative. I'm just gonna be I'm gonna watch that go by, and then we're good. Oh, here comes a better one. I'm going to pick up that. And so it it takes practice. Yes, awareness. Yep. But it is possible. And because I've done it for myself, and I've seen that and it's so incredible freeing when you're like, Yeah, I could be angry right now. Someone just swore me up, read our somewhat, let's make it even more realistic. someone cuts you off in traffic, right. And for me, man, I used to get so angry, I'm off and whatever, call the cops on them, whatever different things. And, and I just got me there in a rush or they're having a bad day. Like, that's good. I'm not gonna let it bother me or my mood. And I choose to not even engage with that negative emotion. Not saying I couldn't, I could, and there's nothing wrong, potentially by could. But I choose not to, because I choose that better feeling thought,

Melissa Bright: 38:50

yeah, I love that. Oh my gosh, there's so much to know about thoughts and feelings and beliefs. And I really have to like, memorize this more. I'm doing this mind your money like that. It's not even a course. It's like a 30 day challenge to get over like money beliefs that I have from growing up and not having a lot of money. And that's stemmed a lot of my money, beliefs. And like, the hierarchy of emotions, thoughts create emotions. Then emotions create, oh my gosh, it's either like behaviors and then behaviors create your beliefs or something. I don't I don't know the diagram, I can think Yeah, yeah. But then like, the biggest bolt like things that we carry around are like the bigger ones like I'm not worthy, or I'm not beautiful, or I'm not something like that because of all these collective experiences that we've had. And once we think what we have beliefs around are things that we think ourselves are true, but they might not be true. If I could sit here and be like I'm so ugly I'm so this I'm so this. That doesn't make it it makes it true to me but not to somebody else. And I'm trying to use that as an example is because so many of us are carrying around everything that we have as a belief, if you really think about it, and it's potentially a lie, or just based on like your experience, I'm going off on a tangent here.

Spencer Jones: 40:24

Well, I mean, I think you're 100% right with that, that we build. We build our beliefs, our belief systems, or whatever it is, based on the experiences we've had before, whether it's a parent or teacher or a family member of friend, society. And it's not even that they said, maybe, you know, maybe you feel that you're not beautiful, that you're not gorgeous. And well, you freaking are right. Everyone listening, you are freaking gorgeous. Yes, accept it and breathe in. And maybe they'll your parents have never told you that you're not gorgeous. And they will tell you up and down. You're always beautiful. We've never told you otherwise. But there was something in your past and not to be all therapists on your or go psychologist it but it stems a lot from your childhood generally, because that's when a lot of our emotions or our beliefs are formed that Oh, I felt like or I heard that I wasn't beautiful that that might have never been the words out of their mouth, when I heard and what I felt was I was not beautiful. So now, I guess what I'm carrying around. I'm not beautiful. Oh, so I'm starving myself or I'm really watching Oh, I put on all this makeup or whatever it is. Yeah, counteract that belief that no one ever said was true. But I just perceived this to be true. And then you have society telling you different things. Right? Of course is oh, you need this car. You need this house need to make this kind of you need this kind of makeup. You need this kind of clothes. No, you don't. You don't need it. But now, if that's makes you happy, and you enjoy doing that, by all means, go for it. Right? Like there's nothing wrong with that. But don't use it as a way to prove yourself to say oh, no, I am beautiful. Now you already are right. You already are just the way you are you are enough. Right? You are all of those things just the way you are. And it takes time. It's not a flip of the switch. It's not like oh, yeah, I decided I'm this. It takes work takes effort. Right? But but it's work and effort that is needed. That is a lot of value to it.

Melissa Bright: 42:27

Yeah. Tons and tons and tons and tons of value. Absolutely. Okay, so you said that you are an entrepreneur? Do you consider yourself a coach?

Spencer Jones: 42:40

I do. To a degree as well. Yeah. Cuz I, I mean, who's a coach, a coach is a person who helps guide other people, right and guide them and help supporting them in the best way that they can. So you know, a mentor to me. And a coach, a mentor is great too. And I have mentors in my life. And it's like mentor says, Here's how I did it. Here's the framework I followed, here you go, you can follow that. Generally, a coach is going to listen to you hear what you have to say, hear your thoughts, and then ask you the questions that help guide you in the right way not necessarily give you the answers all times. Yes. Right. Right. Maybe teach you the framework or teach you the different tools, strategies, tactics, but it's asking you those questions to help you think deeper to look at it differently. And what I've noticed, which is crazy, I heard this on a podcast and I'm like, Yeah, okay, that's kind of cool. Let's send it and then as I've gone on my journey, realize they're 100% Right? And that is, the higher level coach you get, the less answers you actually get from them. They don't tell you the specific answers, right? You do a low level coach or you know, someone who's more inexpensive generally, they're going to just they're going to tell you the answers or give you the tactics, the tools, the strategies, things like that, which are great, right? And we do Yeah, the higher level you go there they answer your questions with questions right. hits us off. Yeah, and I freaking love doing it and I love to a degree having it done to me now which is aggravating but exciting because it allows me to explore to learn and grow and so that's exciting. So do I consider myself a coach? Yeah, I mean, we I do one on ones occasionally. Although I've become I've noticed notice what makes you happy? Let me say that everyone knows what resonates with you. I thought coaching would be it right and I thought it'd be great I tried one on one coaching I still have some one on one clients and I like working with him but it's not what really brings me joy. What brings me joy as groups is working with like coaching as far as coaching goes small groups, right? You have three to five people in a group to different energy and yeah, obviously it's it's different energy that more people, but for me that that excites me that gets me really engaged and going for or doing live events and the energy is off the roof for that. That energizes me.

Melissa Bright: 44:56

Okay. Thank you for clearing clarify cuz I'm always like learning what I mean, because I do coaching too, but just an I asked tons and tons of questions, because that's what I'm always doing to myself. And so I'm like, that's what I have to do to other people. But I asked that question to get into my next question. And I don't want to say what exactly do you teach? But you do say that you have a holistic approach to whatever it is that you that you're doing. So my question is, what are some of your favorite tools, practices, modalities, whatever you want to call them, not only for your customers, but for yourself, also, that you do daily to help with your mindset.

Spencer Jones: 45:42

What I do with what and what I suggest and offer to my clients is what I do and suggest to myself to do right, so I don't really suggest anything that I haven't done or do just so we're clear on that. Yeah. At least to some degree, or what I needed at the time. And maybe I've outgrown that, right? Yep. So, okay, what do I do to help me have a positive and abundant mindset? Well, one of the first things that I would love for everyone to do this. So here are some ideas for you. And this one, I suggest doing, I tell everyone, we have a five day positivity challenge group at Facebook that I lead of, you're all welcome. It's free, join us. And this is a challenge I give every single time because it is a game changer. And it's basic. And that is track your gratitude. Every single day, write down three things you're grateful for. That's it, three things you're grateful for every day, and preferably in the morning. Because what happens is, when you write them down, don't just think like, that's great, that's better than nothing. But when you write them down, you have a stronger physical connection, and my physical and mind connection to that. So physically write them down, don't even type them in your phone or computer, write down three things you're grateful for. So now you see those gratitudes you see them, you're reading them, you're feeling them. And what's cool is in the morning, now, you're priming your brain to look for the positives in the rest of the day, your your day might go to absolute hell, right? It could it happens. But then the next day, keep looking for those positives. And what you're doing is you're priming your brain to find more and more, the longer you do this, the more positives you're going to find. Now, I challenge everyone, to not repeat the single gratitude for an entire week. Don't repeat it, because it's so easy just to get Oh, yeah. And I see this all the time. And there's nothing wrong with it. But but the people who say like, oh, I'm grateful I woke up on this side of the grass that I, I have a house that I have water, I'm like, beautiful, those are amazing. gratitudes I'm not knocking them by any means. But there's so much more to be grateful for. Think about when when you do something so repetitious, right? If you are religious, and you say a prayer, and that prayer, you just say it without thinking about it, it loses its meaning its intent. Or the same way, if I'm just I'm thankful for waking up today for food on the table and water, cool, and then nothing wrong with it. Right? Expand it. So expand it and challenge yourself to not repeat a single gratitude for an entire week. And so, you know, you go down different rabbit holes, as I'm doing this in my journal, I journal every day, which is one of the other practices, and I go, Alright, I'm grateful for I'm grateful for my notebook, right so that I've read journals, so I can do this. I'm grateful that I think oh my gosh, I'm grateful for the paper for the people who created paper for for the bindings over the pencil for the lead and the principle that I have eyes that I could see, oh, that I know how to write that I could feel alright, and also all these different gratitudes just come from this rabbit hole of oh, I'm thankful I have a journal. Right? And there's so so many more. And there's ones that are super obvious to us that we see and they're grateful every day and there's other ones that are not obvious but common like I'm thankful for the lights for the counter for the breath for the microphone for Internet right whenever that we just automatically take for granted. Let's open that up. I had a client once who we were doing this five day challenge and she could not she was a negative Nancy self proclaimed Negative Nancy before this. And she's incredible. Now this positivity now Polly positivity now. But in any case, when she started, she could not find she could she struggled to find one gratitude. One gratitude when she took this on. That's it. Second day, she found three. But it was extremely hard. It took her like 10 minutes to find three things to be grateful for. Okay, and then by day three, okay, she got another three. And that came a little faster by day five, just five days. That's why we have the five day challenge because we need about five days to really start to feel that momentum take Yeah, she said I had over 1010 new ones. And so that's what happens when you start tracking your graduates when you start looking for the positives in life. Right you It's life's algorithm. It's like social media. You get what you spend more time on if you're focused on negativity, frustrated, anger, jealousy, whatever, you're gonna get more of that in your life. You have different Focus on the positivity, the good, the gratitudes, the beautiful things, you're gonna get more of that in your life. And so she experienced that. And that's why I put this challenge in every five day positivity challenge is because you, you might start with one, two or three, and then by the end of it, you'll have more, and you'll start to see more, and you'll be grateful for even more, and you keep doing, I've been doing this for three plus years now. And it has changed my life. So much so that I don't, I mean, I might miss a day here and there, but it's rare. But I'm always looking and seeing and things to be grateful for that throughout the day. Now. I'm just I'm grateful for this. I'm grateful for this, I just stopped and I take that deep breath in. I'm thankful for all of that. So the simple practices I do, that's the biggest one. And I strongly, strongly suggest everybody listening, take on that challenge. Do it for five days, five days, just check in. How grateful are you today and how great for at the end of day five, I guarantee you'll see growth if you keep it up. Now it's not going to be like 100% Change 1% But you start it and it's the compound effect that takes time but adds up, adds up adds up adds up adds up.

Melissa Bright: 51:06

Yes, before I'm gonna I'm gonna stop you there. Just because I started doing a gratitude journal last October. And I we basically say the same things where I try to tell people don't just list your dog, your boyfriend, your spouse, your children, like we know what try to think of the little things that you take for granted every day. I don't wanna say take for granted but you just forget that they're there.

Spencer Jones: 51:32

We take for granted don't don't take it for granted. Right example. One of my go to is when I and I've done Oh, I forgot to say this. I freakin love coffee. Like I love love love coffee. So for me I go sometimes when I'm thankful and grateful. Where is that first sip of coffee, you know, when good news spreads on your tongue? And you're just like, oh my god, this is heaven. Yep. Yeah. Like, yeah, grateful for to

Melissa Bright: 51:57

Yeah, so I, I've done so much better. Like, I like doing gratitude journal, I'm better at that than just journaling been telling my life story because I don't want to write that long. So I'm like, I think I can write down and I filled a whole page each time like a little whatever page not like a full eight by 11. And it's so powerful, it starts your morning off. And now it is a habit now that I've been doing it. Like Like you said, I might skip a day or something. Usually if I if I travel, I might skip it. But then I'll jot it in my phone, I try to always bring my notebook. So I know what we're talking about. And I said this on my last podcast is like these things sound great. But you have to actually implement them to see the benefits and what we are talking about.

Spencer Jones: 52:42

If you want to see change, if you want to experience anything, if you want to grow in anything, you have to take action, we could talk it up to Wazoo you listen to podcasts as much as you want. You could read books, it doesn't matter unless you take that action. So invest in you not just financially and time listening to stuff but energy take action on those things. And really is a lot of the time it's small actions that add up. It's not usually something big, gargantuan that you do sometimes, but rarely. Usually, it's a small incremental things that take time to add up. That's why we can miss a day and not let it really affect us. Because we've already built up this reservoir this well, of positivity of energy, that oh, we can draw on and open up right back to it. Right? We're taking that compound into action.

Melissa Bright: 53:31

Yep, definitely. All right, what's your next? Oh my gosh,

Spencer Jones: 53:35

okay, I'll go faster than that one for these others. So other things I do daily for myself is journaling. Now, I know you said you struggle with that. And it's not necessarily about telling your life story. It's, it's about putting down whatever you feel is best on patient and a couple courses on journaling. And what I hear is like, well, I don't have that much to say, or no one wants to read this, or I don't like writing this long. And really journaling is whatever it is for you and whatever works best for you. And it changes over time. So for example, for me, when I started journaling, it used to be bullet points. That was it, it was just I'm feeling this way, I'm thinking this, this is it, I was like three to five bullet points. And that was it. That's how I started, I was getting my thoughts out of my brain onto there, and it was through bullet points. And then over a couple months, it's just starting to shift to be like, a paragraph where those bullet points were more just not in bullet point form, but just into kind of the same thing. Yeah. And then it grew a little bit and stayed there for a couple of years where my journaling was honestly, you know, under 10 sentences, right? Probably more like five to seven. And that was it. And I wasn't judging myself because I didn't write that and maybe it was two sentences or whatever. And then when that rock bottom moment came, and at that point I was filling up maybe you know, of the smaller journals like you're talking I feel that maybe Yeah, ah with my journaling, right, that was it. And, and then when I hit rock bottom, it was to full pages, sometimes three pages, because I was getting I was processing I was going through all the motions and thoughts and feelings, I was letting it all out on that page, not necessarily telling my life story but saying, I'm feeling this way or I'm thinking about this and this or this really sucks or whatever, just laying it all out, because your journal is yours, your diary, whatever you choose to call it, that's yours, no one else has to read it. So let it go. Just just let it out. And it doesn't matter what it looks like if it's pages or not. And so now it's generally three quarters of a page to a page generally now, and with that, so I have my whole morning routine, which is one of what I'm I'll share here shortly. But I have my my journaling. And then I do my grant, affirmations, and then I do gratitude. So I keep that and that's all fits on for me in one page, generally. So journaling, affirmations, gratitudes. And so other things I do to help me keep that happy, positive mindset. So, I do my morning routine. Here's my morning routine, I wake up, I brush my teeth, I work out at home still. And I go downstairs or outside to work out but I got my journal. So before I work out, I journal affirmations gratitudes and then they work out alright, and the workout doesn't have to be anything crazy. For me. I do 30 to 45 minutes generally every day it's either on my ninja course or something downstairs or something funny crazy. Just moving my body right for you. It could be walking it could be running it I like running and jogging and biking to and swimming and all those different things triathlon, right, so I just love getting up. But you do you whatever it is my wife, she loves walking, so she goes walks. That's so just move your body, right help your body be healthy. Your body loves to move. It's good for it. So that's one thing I do. And then I meditate. And my meditation, you don't have to do a 30 minute meditation a two hour take. When I started. I could barely focus I've I'm very like squirrel oriented like squirrel. Yeah, let's go. Yeah, no, for me. 30 seconds was daunting and extremely hard to focus. But I can do three seconds. But I couldn't do a minute or three minutes, and my inner bully would want to beat me up. And I said, nope, nope, nope, let's not beat you up. That's okay. So let's just do 30 seconds, 30 seconds after we got to about a minute, for a couple of weeks ago and up to two or three. And I stayed there for a while and it grew from there. But that allowed me to learn how to write I had to put in the work put in the actions and the steps to learn how to focus my mind. Now it's not saying I'm focused on the single thought the entire time. It's expanding my awareness to go, Oh, I could pick and choose thoughts. Oh, I could I can focus on this. Oh, I'm focused on my breath. I love and I do breath work as well. I focus on my breath and open minds thinking about Oh, what am I going to make for dinner? Oh, yep. No, come back here. Oh, breathing. Uh, why do you say that to that person? Nope. Okay, come back here. Oh, we got our meeting with Melissa. Nope, come. And so it's just that practice of bringing it back into focus? Yeah, it's some days are better than others. And that's okay. But for me, those are the couple things that I generally do to really keep me in that positive and abundant mindset. You have your journaling, affirmations? Positive so your gratitudes working out meditation, and I obviously do still read and do personal development work as well. Yeah, I love my morning routine takes me an hour. Right? Like, yep, y'all can do that.

Melissa Bright: 58:21

I love I love I mean, I'm at home. So I don't have to be at a job. But I love my morning routine. It's like my, my time. And I could make it two hours if I want if I wanted to. But I do a lot of the same stuff as you. I was doing meditation for a while. And then I stopped and I want to get back to doing that. So I love that. And like he said, it doesn't, it doesn't have to take an hour. If you are busy, then you could not getting exercise done in 15 minutes. But you could get certain things done just because you don't have time to do them all. You don't have to throw them all away, you can do

Spencer Jones: 59:02

you pick one, you do one, you build a habit of doing one. And then after you get that, then you stack on maybe another one and you could you build it up slowly over time. Or you pick and choose, I'm going to do this and I'm going to I'm going to journal and write my gratitudes. Or I'm just going to write my gratitudes. And I'm going to do it right after I brush my teeth. If you set it up at a time in your day, that's always going to be there. Right? So I'm always gonna do this right after breakfast or right before teeth or after lunch or right when you get home from work. Whatever that time is you just have a trigger, right? That goes oh, I'm going to start it now. Great, then you do that? And you don't have to do all of them. Right? I sure as heck didn't. I started with working out before I even started journaling. And then then I added in journaling. And then I added in gratitude. Oh Then I added my affirmations that I added in meditation somewhere along those lines, right. And I slowly made it work for me and yeah, if you have a job where you're traveling to and you're not working it for Come home, that's okay. Right? Make it work for you. Maybe it's five minutes, 10 minutes. But I encourage you to take at least 10 to 15. If you can just invest in you for that little bit of time. Maybe wake up a little bit earlier, but I bet there's ways you can make it work. So you don't even have to do that. There's like, Alright, I'm waking up. When I think about my gratitudes writing down. Think about it as I'm brushing my teeth and I write them down. There you go, right. And maybe you go out for a short walk if you choose to do that, or you journal. Right. All right, and it's okay. Again, you don't have to be working out. You don't have to be doing p90x or anything like that unless you want to. It could be I'm going to take a 10 minute walk or 15 minute walk or in lunch or when I get home. Cool. That's beautiful, too.

Melissa Bright: 1:00:42

Yeah. I forgot to tell you so I didn't do p90x, but I've done insanity four times.

Spencer Jones: 1:00:48

Oh, my God. I've tried and send me I cannot. I cannot do that one. That was that.

Melissa Bright: 1:00:53

I will you love it. I love it. I love it. Finally, I'm like, Okay, I've done this program. I could do it with my eyes closed. I'm tired of it. So then I went on to do other stuff. Like I love Beachbody. I've done a lot of autumn Cal Breezies. stuff. And I had Joel Freeman on my podcast. Yeah, so I love Beachbody. I still like I'm a member and do all that stuff.

Spencer Jones: 1:01:17

So I'm a member and a coach. They were actually the ones I wasn't sure which I wish I had mentioned or whatever before, but I still am a coach with Beachbody to help them and help myself and everybody else as well. But they they're the ones who really push that sounds wrong say push but encouraged will say it that way. Encourage personal development with their with. So it was awesome to see that. And that's what got me into this whole person development was because of Beachbody and their encouragement and support of taking that on. Yeah, I mean, I've I haven't had Joel on my podcast or anything, but you get the super trainers, right? But I've met almost all of them in person, handful of times just to answer their house. And I've friends who work with it. Like it's, it's cool what the universe can do. When when you're so open to it. Yeah, there's something else I was gonna say. But I don't remember. So that's okay.

Melissa Bright: 1:02:11

Maybe it'll come back to maybe it'll come back to. Okay, so talk to me about your academy. That's called Joseph Jones and for Academy? What do people get out of that? And how can they become part of it if they are interested?

Spencer Jones: 1:02:28

Well, thank you for asking. So as I mentioned, I've been on this personal growth journey myself and helping people and I'm on a mission on this movement to help over a million people increase the positivity in their life, not just here in the United States, but all around the world. And I know we're going to reach a million and we're going to push that to a billion here soon, and really grow and help people. And then Katie and I and my wife, we were talking thing, how can we help more and more people so that we can help them on their journey. I can talk from stages, like the podcast, which we're doing all of that we can have events, but that's still only going to reach a certain number of people. Well, what about if we created a unit of an online university or Academy where people can then take classes, courses, trainings, cohorts, things like that, to learn and grow themselves to help them on their personal growth journey? So let's say whether you're just starting out, or you've been a veteran, and I mean, your personal growth journey never ends, let's be honest and help you on your journey at any part of it. Well, this would be a great way to do it that can literally reach all around the world. So right all right, let's do this. So my last name is Jones we call it so we have we have fun with the Jones and for like you're craving you're wanting something. So we called it the Johnson for Academy and it's your hub for personal growth. It has not just my trainings and courses great Yeah, I know myself about positivity mindset. But personal growth covers five different areas, your mental, emotional, physical, social, spiritual, and I'm not an expert in all those things. I could dabble in some of them right? I got pulled out and I got some of your mental emotional mindset aspect of that down, right. When I could do a little bit the other stuff, but I'm not necessarily an expert. So we came together with other experts in their field and they are what we call professors in the academy so they offer trainings and courses to everyone and anyone there so you can learn about I don't know we have a meditation if you do a hairline meditation, you can do that. Oh, I want to gain more positivity awesome. Oh, I want to want to do this workout program right? With like all core no floor program we have that go on. We have holistic, healing, stuff like that going on. And oh, you mentioned holistic for me. I mean, that's my thing is eat healthy natural foods as much as you can right? Move your body. That's my holistic approach. That's what we take with JFS. We call for short jumps for academy that JFA is it's your holistic approach week. Got you covered by experts. And we're adding more and more trainings every month, we have, I think 40 trainings as of this recording up in there already from me and variety of other amazing experts. And we're adding more every single month. So we're providing you with value and then helping people because 40 is a lot that we're helping people pick and choose and narrow down, oh, I don't know what I want to need help in or I do have this idea, we can help narrow that down for you. So you have three courses that fit what you are looking for need. We have that we have includes a membership portion of it so that you can join and be part of the energizer family, that community of people to support you on your journey, right, the people you surround yourself with matters. And we'd have some other little fun goodies in there as well for people. Yeah, we'd love to have all of you check it out. Like you can check it out, go to Johnson for academy.com. But if I may be perfectly honest with you, Melissa and I have been chatting before we recorded this. And I want to put together a special offer just for all of you out people living on the bright side of life. And we'll I love to have you join us through Melissa, she'll share a link with you. And I will give you an extra training with a handful of other ones already. So now I can't remember how many of you get like eight or nine free trainings. Oh, right all for you. And it won't cost you anything, it's free, you just sign up, boom, and you are set to rock and roll. Well, that includes I'm just trying to remember everything that it has, I don't remember the one I know if there was like the five hacks to gain more positivity training, you will get that you'll get other trainings from me and other experts in there as well. So you get a you get a taste and learn and grow from all these amazing people.

Melissa Bright: 1:06:44

That's awesome. Thank you so much for that. And I will definitely drop that link. So look in the show notes for that. Perfect initely we will look. Yeah. Okay, so we covered a lot in this hour, have we left out anything that you would still like to talk about, um, I mean, we could talk about all this stuff forever and ever. But you know,

Spencer Jones: 1:07:07

it's so much fun. It's such an honor to be on here after seeing you and I just want to recognize you and the your incredible growth to see you and I've only gotten to know you over the last couple months here. Facebook and social media that is was so cool to see you grow and that I know you are sharing amazing knowledge and energy in love with your audience with the people here listening. And just thank you, thank you for spreading your light and love with the world. And it's it's such an honor to be part of that to have have more people in the world. Right. As I said, my goal is to reach over a million people. The academy is one way to do that we have other ways coming and to connect with people like us so that we can both shine our lights, and really change the world. It's incredible. So don't ever stop shining your light. And to everybody listening. You have this incredible beautiful light inside. You don't hide it, Don't hoard it. Don't let your light shine. And remember that you are worthy. You are amazing. And you are enough just the way you are.

Melissa Bright: 1:08:08

I love that you said you and thank you very much for the compliment. I greatly appreciate that. I'm bad with compliments. Sometimes I'm just like, Okay, thanks. Bye moving on. I'm like, Oh, I appreciate that. Thank you. I know my boyfriend was listening to when I had Dr. Rob Kelly. He's an addiction specialist on my podcast. And he gave me like this super sincere like your thing that you just gave me. And I was like, Okay, thank you and Brandon's like, Melissa. And I'm like, I'm not good with compliments.

Spencer Jones: 1:08:45

Work on though.

Melissa Bright: 1:08:45

I know, I know. I'm like, Oh my gosh. And I like it probably came across like they did that. They don't care at all. And that's so not what it is at all. It's just like, write my own issues. When you were talking about people like shining bright and like, let your light shine through. I literally thought of like, the sun beams like coming out of people, but like they're trying to hide them. But there's literally like, you can't hide it because they're literally coming out from everywhere. So what are you going to do? Like, they're coming out? You guys can't hide them because they're gonna show anyways. So

Spencer Jones: 1:09:21

Right? It's like a picket fence, right? You're trying to keep it all in, but they're breaking through and you see those moments when you break through it. All sudden, you get that glimpse of joy or you do something crazy that you don't normally do and it excites you and energizes you and you're like, oh my gosh, I wish I could do this more. Well, we'll start taking down that fence. eliminate those barriers, those walls and let it shine. And maybe you have to do it slowly but surely that's okay. That's okay. Let's step into it because it's so incredible and freeing and not only that, is it energizing for you? It energizes other people like if you're energized by this podcast, that's because we're shining our light just being open and honest. Share that with yourself. Right? It doesn't have to be you have to be on a podcast. You don't have to be on stages, but just you being you getting your coffee, going shopping, going, whatever going to work, shining your light, you are inspiring other people just by being you and letting your light shine. So I'm hiding it.

Melissa Bright: 1:10:12

Exactly. Exactly. All right, I have one last question for you. Perfect. And your own words, what does the bright side of life mean to you? The Bright Side

Spencer Jones: 1:10:21

of Life means living your life to the max, which is my way of saying live your best life live your dash. Get out there and enjoy life, chase your passions, savor it, and embrace all the beauty that life has to offer

Melissa Bright: 1:10:36

you. Yes, that was perfect. Thank you, Spencer, so much for coming on here. I greatly greatly appreciate it. And this was a great episode.

Spencer Jones: 1:10:46

Yay. Thank you so much for having me on. This is so much fun and just keep on shining and keep sharing. This is so awesome. So thank you so much.

Melissa Bright: 1:10:54

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of The Bright Side of Life. Spencer is amazing. And as you guys know, we were talking about the Johnson for Academy and he has an offering for you. So if you would like to check that out, be sure to check it out. It is in the show notes and you just click on that link right there. And guys, as you know, if you know anyone that needs to hear Spencer's story or be inspired by him, please please share this episode, because you never know if this is the one that puts hope back in their heart.