Think Bigger: How the Right Mindset Unlocks a World Beyond the Corporate Confines w/ Anne O'Neil

Brett Trainor (00:01.109)
Hi, and welcome to the podcast.

Anne ONeil (00:03.622)
Oh my gosh, Rhett, thank you so much for having me here. It's an honor to be on and be able to communicate with you and for your listeners.

Brett Trainor (00:12.889)
No, it's absolutely my pleasure. And it's always great when we can get another cyclone onto the podcast to talk uh, business and we're not really talking business today. It's more, um, mindset, neuroscience. And, you know, maybe, uh, I'll share with the audience, the reason why I had actually heard you on a different podcast talking about a story, um, and correct me if I get some of the details wrong, but I think it was your freshman year of college, you were probably in high school, all American your first year.

Anne ONeil (00:17.622)
Ha ha!

Anne ONeil (00:40.494)
I'm going to go.

Brett Trainor (00:40.841)
big things planned for you. And the one story that I loved it as you, I'm gonna take a step back, it was your eighth grade year heading into freshman year, your first game against the high school team. You thought you could slide in under the radar and what do they do? They come out on a box and one with you into the first game. So welcome to high school. I thought that was important for the audience to know how really good you were and you probably still can play back then to get to the story that...

Anne ONeil (00:45.841)
Okay.

Anne ONeil (00:58.722)
Oh, that's right.

Brett Trainor (01:10.725)
Actually, if you don't mind, why don't you tell this? You're gonna tell a story better versus me stepping all over it.

Anne ONeil (01:16.302)
Oh my gosh, well, no worries. I love that. What a great introduction. And yes, for any of the other cyclones out there, what an incredible community of fans and people that love sports. So I'm sure there's one or two of you out there. And the great thing about sports, and I always say music or any kind of hobby that you're interested in, it always can translate to real life experiences. And that's what you're gonna hear about one of these stories.

And Brett just mentioned there about, yeah, being like a little eighth grader. And I was, you know, trying to sneak onto the varsity team. And yes, they ended up coming out in a box and one. So that's kind of how my high school, uh, and they were the state champions the year before. So they, they must've done their homework on me and our team. It was the very first game of our, of our entire season, but that's how my high school, um, went and we can go back and.

talk about different stories from that experience. But yeah, I was extremely dedicated and driven into basketball and the same with school. So I was a high school, three time high school All-American. I was a top five Naismith player of the year in the nation. Got to play in the McDonald's WBCA All-American game coming out of high school. And so when I was being recruited by pretty much everyone in the nation, I

narrowed my list down to five schools. And I was looking at Duke, Illinois, Purdue, Stanford, and Iowa State. And so you had five official visits back then where you could do the weekend trip and go check out the campus, check out the team and everything like that. And so I went on all five of those trips and out of those, I chose Illinois. And we had the second best recruiting class in the nation. And that also where I was also joining a...

program where they had gone to the NCAA tournament and done pretty well the year before and had no seniors coming back. So they had their entire team along with our, you know, top tier recruiting class. So we had all of the pieces of the puzzle looking really great for Illinois. And, you know, I'll save that for later, but sometimes it doesn't always work out. But at the beginning of that year, I had, I was always a jump shooter. I had

Anne ONeil (03:28.59)
about 11 years old on, you know, working on my jump shot, I would get off the ground. I loved watching Michael Jordan play for the Chicago Bulls, you know, being from Iowa, there were no pro teams. So I had to watch somebody and I loved watching him. And so I always would practice getting off the ground on my jump shot. Well, I get to Illinois and the coaching staff wants to turn me into more of a set shooter from behind the three-point line. And this was when girls basketball, women's basketball, and it's transformed a little bit now,

Brett Trainor (03:40.254)
Yeah.

Anne ONeil (03:58.118)
a lot more of the girls back then would shoot more set shots, which means you're kind of staying more on the ground with your feet. And so me going from being a jump shooter with like, you know, six, 10 inches under my feet to being on the ground. Well, you can imagine it didn't quite work out as planned. So my lower body was doing one thing and my upper body was doing another thing. And then it started to be a big mental game for me. So my body couldn't figure it out. And then my brain couldn't figure out how to shoot this three point shot into a flow.

And so that year, that freshman year, I only made four three-pointers out of the entire year. And I shot maybe like around 30 some. And that's, I think we played like 33 games. And so for a guard, you know, coming in and I was a starting guard, I was all big 10, like freshman team. To only make four three-pointers is kind of unheard of for a guard at that time. I could shoot inside the three-point line, but anytime I got outside the three-point line, and hopefully you have some hoop heads that are listening,

to this, but anytime I got outside that line, it was like, it was a complete mental block. It was like, I couldn't shoot it. So, and what I mean, I couldn't shoot, I couldn't hit the rim or the backboard, which is means, wow, like just nothing was working. And our team didn't work chemistry wise as great as we had hoped. And I decided to transfer that year after my freshman year. And the biggest thing, there's a moment in time where I remember being in like the practice gym in Champaign, Illinois.

Brett Trainor (04:57.682)
screw we do.

Anne ONeil (05:26.654)
at like the rec center and I was shooting by myself and I was trying to figure out this three point shot, but every time I shot it, it would hit off like the back of the wall and not hit the rim or the backboard or anything. And I remember it kind of bouncing out. This time I was completely frustrated and in my head, I didn't say this to anyone. I was the only one there, but I said one day I'm going to figure out this three point shot and I'm going to get to the ESPN three point shooting contest.

which is at the final four. And it's, you know, when they do the dunk contest, like the ESPN three-point shooting contest is a big deal during that final four. And so I can leave it there on the cliffhanger. Brett, if you have any questions or you want me to just keep flowing and tell the rest of the story.

Brett Trainor (06:06.429)
Yeah, no, I think it's a good place to pause because when I think back about your journey, right, just what that had to have done to your confidence, maybe it didn't damage your confidence. Maybe it did. Cause it sounds like you made up for your game in other ways. And I'm going to take us on a little bit of a sidetrack. Cause we've got a quarterback in Chicago that almost sounds like going through the same thing. I don't know if you're a pro football fan, but Justin field, he had made a comment in the season, year three of him, right, number one pick. All.

Anne ONeil (06:23.275)
Mmm.

Anne ONeil (06:33.737)
Mm-hmm.

Brett Trainor (06:34.529)
stations, franchise quarterback struggled a little bit, missing open receivers, overthinking it. He's processing in a press conference yesterday said, yeah, I just, I'm, I got to get back to just throwing it and not thinking everything. I'm just overthinking kind of through the coaches, but I don't, didn't read it that way, but almost sounds kind of like the same thing that his natural ability or what, everything that he's worked on, they're now tweaking it a little bit. Uh, I don't know if that's a story, but it sounds eerily similar.

Anne ONeil (07:01.738)
Yes. You know what, it happens to so many athletes and I think it's one of those things that, you know, fortunately, he's able to talk about it, you know, and address it because they have to do those press conferences all the time. But many athletes that you don't get to hear what's going on in the background. And, you know, just even when you're getting into a meeting, you know, for our listeners out there, or you have a conversation with someone in your family or in the community, and it doesn't go as planned.

You know how when you leave that meeting or you leave that conversation, you actually replay it over and over and over again in your head. And so you look like everything's great, but you're actually thinking about that thing that went wrong over and over again. And the idea about thinking, and we'll get into the mindset in neuroscience, is that the more you think about something, the more it escalates and grows like a snowball. And so that's why the transformation in between of...

Brett Trainor (07:36.562)
campus.

Anne ONeil (07:57.726)
what's wrong or what's not working well and moving into how can I correct this and get this into alignment is really where the bread and butter at. But man, it's so hard because you're thinking, you know, like, um, Justin was thinking about how he missed that, missed that pass, or you think about missing the shot. And it was, um, like I didn't have, my confidence was hurt quite a bit because I had practiced for so many years and it was like all of a sudden that shot was just gone because it wasn't even close to being there at all.

And then at the same time, it's like, you know, you have a liability. And most of the time when you're an athlete and just like you'd go into a meeting, a business meeting, or you're going into, I always try to, you know, create what it looks like in a family or in a community. You want to have all of your pieces in a row as you possibly can. But if you know, you have this huge liability, it's really hard to go in with that a hundred percent confidence. So yeah, it was, it was definitely.

Brett Trainor (08:28.138)
Right.

Anne ONeil (08:53.578)
a huge struggle that something that weighed on my mind at all times because not only did it affect me and how I was playing, but it affected our team because I wasn't as dynamic as I could have been pulling the defense out past that three point line. And that's the same thing with the quarterback you're talking about because if he can't hit that receiver that affects the rest of the entire offense, the running backs, the offensive line, everything that everybody's doing.

Brett Trainor (09:16.657)
And you were so young at the time. I mean, it didn't seem like if when freshman, you were that young, but then you're still, still learning. And I have a feeling that a lot of folks that go through that end up just never recovering or they dig it a bit role, right? They just never recover from that. So that's what I really liked about part two of this story. And you've got another roadblock that happened. So yeah, why don't we.

Anne ONeil (09:37.639)
Oh, yes, yeah. And I can even think of that with, yeah, I'll jump right into that. And it's something you can even think about is that you have the act of like something that's not going well. But then you also right now in the current state of affairs have social media where everybody is replaying it or they're talking about it. And so you have an extra added exposure to something that maybe didn't go right in your day. So I just want you to think about that too, of how

Brett Trainor (09:40.661)
So why don't you share with the audience.

Anne ONeil (10:05.426)
really getting mindful of the things that you're consuming, how you're thinking really helps. And I'll tell you what, um, what ended up happening there. So I transferred Iowa state. That's where I got to be a cyclone. And I'm still, um, so grateful for the opportunity to be there because the women's basketball program is one of the best in the nation. They average over 10,000 fans. Um, one of the top three compared to Yukon in Tennessee. And that's what I wanted to do. I actually wanted to play in front of people because I had practiced so much.

And to play in front of a couple hundred people, it just kind of lost the spark. So going to Iowa State, that was one of the main reasons why I wanted to be there is you're a performer. You're performing for people who took the time out of their day and weekend to be there. So I got to go there, but I had to sit out a year. That's back when you had to sit out a transfer year. And then I blew out my ACL in May of that year. So that entire next year, I was just trying to learn how to fire my quad up again and learn how to walk. And then...

know, jog a little bit. And so that sophomore year, I wasn't that great. I, you know, I was slow. I still couldn't shoot because I didn't really have a lot of time to practice that time. So, I'll fast forward to, I was getting ready for my junior year. And if you can imagine, like we just talked about with that mindset, I wasn't as great at my three point shot. But then when I was trying to take my time at the free throw line, that would seep in. And also there's a lot of movement that goes from.

your feet all the way up through your body when you're shooting that shot. And so it got into my free throw. So I was shooting like high sixties, low seventies for a guard from the free throw line. And again, that's just not quite where it needs to be at for being a great guard and in the big 12 conference. And I was missing a free throw and one of my great assistant coaches, his name's Jack Easley, very low key, but I had such reverence for him. He just walked by. He didn't stop and he didn't say anything.

negative, but he just says, you know, that's just not going to cut it. And he kept walking right by because he knew me like we were like buddies. And he knew that I knew that I didn't it wasn't going to cut it in the Big 12 Conference. So I grabbed my ball, I remember clearly where we were at also another rec center gym, I grabbed my ball and I said, that's it. And I went underneath the rim. And I shot one handed shots like you start teaching your six and seven year olds when they start playing basketball. And all I did was get my alignment.

Anne ONeil (12:25.81)
into the same form. So that's toe, knee, elbow, ball, whenever you're shooting for anyone who's practicing out there or watches the basketball game. But there is something all about alignment and we'll probably get into that a little bit more Brett, but that I got back underneath there and shot one handed. Then I took a foot back until I made so many of them like swish down. And then when I got back to the free throw line, I just took my hand off the ball and I shot it one handed again. And guess what y'all?

I ended up shooting like 89% that year and led the big 12 conference in free throw percentage. I was, you know, anytime there was a technical foul or there was an opportunity to get to the free throw line, my coach had me shoot those free throws because I had become so aligned and was able to nail that shot. And again, it was shooting one handed. Like if you see any pictures of me, the hand comes off the ball. I didn't even want that getting messed up in my shot and just shot one handed.

So that was my junior year. We had a little bit better success as a team. We made it to the WNIT that year. I was starting to get a little bit of athleticism back from the little bit I had started with, but you're trying to get every little inch you can when you're playing. And then my senior year came around and I said, okay, I did it with the free throw. Let's see if I can figure out this three point shot. So I did the exact same thing. I went underneath the rim in the off season.

and shot one handed, continued my way back to the free throw line. And then I started doing the 16, 17, 18, 19 footers, all one handed until I got behind the three and I did the exact same thing over and over again. And all I did was add a little bit of jump to it and shot one handed and man, and it felt pretty good and it looked good and it started to go in. And I was like, all right, this might work. Well, I'll fast forward through the senior year. At some point during that senior year, I started leading the nation in.

three point percentage for a couple of different weeks and did really well in the big 12 conference with leading them with three point percentage at some point. But what it really did is it, everything is always connected by the way. So one, you have the alignment of how the shot is connected, but it connected to the success of our team. Because again, I was able to expand the court with being able to shoot that big three point shot. And if you know the cyclone women's team, they shoot lots of threes, but then I got to be a part of that. So they had to guard a lot further out from the three point line.

Anne ONeil (14:44.342)
that opened up our inside game. And we really got to play a lot of great basketball that year. And we did make the NCAA tournament, which I had NCAA or bust written on my sneaker because I hadn't played an NCAA tournament yet throughout all of those years. And I was just so grateful for that opportunity. And I'll tell you what, there was one game towards the end of that senior year where the, um, senior rooms, athletic director came up to me and she goes, and you got invited to the ESPN, um, three point shooting contest. And I,

y'all can see me right now, I could tear up because I was like, Oh my God, I put that, I put that like vision out there for my future five years prior, four years prior when I was at Illinois and I was air balling, bricking shots. And I just had that thought and I knew I would figure it out, but I'd never revisited that vision that I had for the getting to that point. But when she said that I remembered it and I was like, that's what it was so grateful about that

Anne ONeil (15:42.346)
was worth it to get to the NCAA tournament and to actually have one of the seasons that I was always hoping for as an athlete. And I did get drafted to WNBA and I'm telling you it would have not been possible if I wouldn't have got that shot into alignment because they actually did draft me because of my shooting. So how about that?

Brett Trainor (16:01.149)
That's unbelievable. I love that story. And people wouldn't have known. You just, you always see it on this surface and you know, oh yeah, she really emerged her senior year. No, if you understood the entire journey. And that's what I love about this story. And people have listened to this podcast for awhile. No, I loved it. Connect the dots between right sports and business and business and life. And there's just so many lessons. And I think back, man, you're what? 17, 18, when you had that, that first setback and

Anne ONeil (16:19.261)
Mm-hmm.

Brett Trainor (16:29.757)
Now we work with folks, I mean, I can speak for myself when I was exiting corporate, right? I really didn't have a plan. I didn't know what I was gonna do. I just knew I wanted to get out. Now I work with a lot of folks that, you know, super successful in the corporate world for 20, 30 years, but yet they're fed up, they're tired, they're asking what's next, but yet don't, and I think it may even say, I don't think we've talked about this yet, don't have the confidence or fearful of.

Anne ONeil (16:36.238)
Uh huh.

Anne ONeil (16:49.582)
Mm-hmm.

Brett Trainor (16:56.617)
going out on their own because they don't think they can do it, which to me is insane. You've done all the hard work. You've got all this experience. There's people. So like I said, part of that story, there's so many different ways we can go from vision to goals. But based on that, let's start with that with folks that are thinking about, I don't think I can do this. I don't have the confidence. It comes down to the mindset. So is it fear? Is it confidence? What's your expertise? Tell us on this. It doesn't matter.

Anne ONeil (17:00.575)
Yeah

Anne ONeil (17:18.22)
I'm out.

Anne ONeil (17:22.75)
Oh, man. Yeah, it's one of my favorite things to talk about, because there's so many ways our brain is structured and wired to for survival. And so you're thinking about, well, I need that 401k, or I need the safety of I've always lived in the city, or I've always had this title, which we can get attachment to. But I really think the

things actually are always very simple. And since you guys just heard about that shot, is that some things are very simple and life is very simple and so is basketball and sports and literally anything. The thing is you just have to do it about a million times over and over and over again to train your brain. And so one of my greatest things that I do for myself with mindset and the people that I teach high performers and people that are trying to create a big future for themselves.

is there's a way to look at, oh no, or what could go wrong. And I always say, what's the greatest thing that's possible? And then I'll start writing that out. And the thing that can happen there is your brain actually starts to expand a vision of, oh, what is possible? And then you start thinking of the people that you might be able to connect with, or you start thinking of a new idea, maybe for a podcast or a video series or something that you wanna do, or maybe something you wanna go get trained in.

things start showing up when you start thinking in a way that you want to build out your future. So that's as simple as I tried to make it of what's the greatest thing that's possible for me or what's the best that can happen is one of my main tag lines of writing that down and then I guess I'll just leave it there. But you can look at it two different ways. It doesn't have to be overly complicated. But once you choose that one way to look at something, give yourself a minute and all of a sudden.

these images and things will start showing up of what you think you could possibly create.

Brett Trainor (19:22.301)
Yeah, no, I absolutely love that. Yes. And I tend to definitely be more of an optimist. You can't see it, but you know, it's a band that says stay positive. Right. So anytime I'm having a bad day, I'm like, yeah, just stay part of it, it's going to be okay. But it, but it's so interesting. You told that the story that way, because I've thought about my corporate career when I started, I was young. I'm like, why not? Why can't we do this? And.

Anne ONeil (19:32.826)
Oh, I love that. Yes.

Anne ONeil (19:37.322)
Hahaha

Brett Trainor (19:47.657)
That distribution center doesn't make sense there, but you think you know everything, but you're willing to take chance and ask why not, right? Why not? But over the course of decades, I'm not afraid to say it, in there, you just get, I don't want to say beat down, that's overly dramatic, but you're kind of rewarded for keeping staying course, right? Don't rock the boat, get incremental improvements. All of a sudden, all that enthusiasm that you had is now just fit within the corporate box. And what I discovered when I left...

Anne ONeil (19:51.008)
Mmm.

it.

Anne ONeil (20:07.124)
Mm-hmm.

Anne ONeil (20:14.908)
Yes, yes.

Brett Trainor (20:17.373)
was it was very much a one for one. All right, I was in consulting, now I'm gonna do consulting. And I thought, yeah, I'll just replace the income and that'll be perfect. But then the deeper I got into it, there was the question of why, why am I doing this? And is there more? And now I've got a whole scorecard around, the mind and fitness and what's really important to you. And I know you talk about vision boards and vision. I hadn't done that. I didn't define what was important to me. And so...

Anne ONeil (20:39.462)
I'm sorry.

Brett Trainor (20:43.209)
I think there's a lot of those folks that I talk to all the time that are still in corporate that, man, we just got into that box and it's time to get out, because to your point, what's the worst? I know, look at all the good things that can happen, which I focus on, but there's really not a ton of bad things. I tell people all the time, they think that if I'm leaving corporate, I'm walking this tight rope between two skyscrapers. Only the skyscraper is in fact 18 inches off the ground. You fall off, you get right back on, you can go back into corporate if you want and find these other things. So.

Anne ONeil (20:53.327)
Yeah.

Brett Trainor (21:12.041)
Now I'm 100% on board with you of what's possible versus, you know, what could go wrong, right? Easier said than done, but you know, so how do you coach people through that?

Anne ONeil (21:20.367)
Yeah. Well, like I mentioned at the beginning is or just right there is anything in life, you just have to keep it simple. Because once you keep it simple, then you just rehearse it over and over and over again. So if you can imagine me that lost my shot at 23, I'm shooting like a six year old over and over and over again. But guess what your brain and body.

start to follow what you teach it to do. And so that's what I do is, you know, you have your stay positive on your thing. On my whiteboard on my refrigerator, I have anything is possible. And so when something comes up, so that's what I write. And that's kind of my mantra is anything is possible. And so when something comes up where it sounds like something's not, I'm like, no, something's possible. Let's check it out, you know, for your future.

for even a Zoom meeting for that project, for your family, for your son or daughter who wants to try something out. I always just come back to that and then I start, once you say that and once you get your mind, like have that conviction on it, things start showing up differently for you and you actually feel this different kind of energy. And like you just asked Brett, one of the things that I do, like that your listeners might like is,

We can all get sucked into Instagram or Facebook or reading the news or whatever that might be, but in my photo album, so you have your iPhone, whatever, you have a bunch of different albums of your pictures, so I will put pictures in there of what I want my future to look like, maybe where I wanna live or who I want to be hanging out with or maybe an experience I want to have or maybe a time when I knew I was super joyful. Like I have one of our pictures even from Iowa State when...

one of my teammates had a last second shot and I'm like this and I'm like screaming at the top of my lungs and she's gonna she ends up tackling me but there's a moment in time in that photo and literally that's in my album to remember like what the joy looks like or what you know complete happiness looks like and so I will go through that multiple times a day when I wake up when I go to bed so I'm not reading something or thinking lack I'm thinking I am literally kind of training my brain to memorize those emotions and those.

Anne ONeil (23:41.63)
images of how I want to act in the future and who I want to be and all the things that I want to surround myself with. So that's one. You can talk about a vision board, all those things, even the things I have behind me, like John Wooden's pyramid of success. Yeah. But seeing that every day in my phone, I will continue to flip through that. So it's like flipping through that instead of just going through Instagram all the time too is really helpful.

Brett Trainor (23:54.421)
Yeah, I saw that.

Brett Trainor (24:06.273)
I think that's so, so good and such a great advice. Cause we do get sucked down. I'm not, I mean, get fall down the social media rabbit hole for sure, but I really, really try to avoid it if at all possible. And I love the idea. Cause the other thing that I started to, again, when I transitioned out, it was, all right, how do I make more money than what I was making? But then it's like, man, how do I do this with working less? I don't, I'm probably never going to retire because I have no desire to play golf seven days a week, or I just don't know what I would do.

Anne ONeil (24:14.411)
Mm-hmm.

Anne ONeil (24:33.631)
Mmm, right? Yeah.

Brett Trainor (24:35.525)
time. So how do I build something that works that I can work when I want it to work, right? And transition for the next 20 years, hopefully in that process. And so setting goals and again, goals get, I think smart goals. Yes, they're good. But I love your perspective on kind of that longer vision, shorter vision. Cause I do, I will argue and I'll tell you, you have to be driving towards something. If not, you just kind of, it's nice if you get there, great. If not, but if you've got something specific.

And again, this is hard. I'm still working through how do I get long-term goal, a couple of shorter term goals that each week, each day I'm working, making sure whatever I'm doing is focused towards those. So I love your perspective on how you do this.

Anne ONeil (25:19.99)
You know, that's, you know, there's just some of the tricks. But one of the things that I know probably you do and maybe your listeners, but, you know, I actually lost my job during COVID. I don't know if anybody, you know, if you knew that or, you know, the listeners, somebody has experienced that. And when that happened, you know, I worked for a consulting firm and I loved my position, loved my, the people I was working with, but we were, you know, people weren't paying $250,000 for consulting at that time, you know.

Brett Trainor (25:33.953)
No.

Brett Trainor (25:47.816)
Yes.

Anne ONeil (25:48.214)
Organizations weren't, it was organizational consulting. But I remember shutting my computer because this will get back onto mindset and what's possible. And I said, this might be the best thing that's happened to me. But of course you're like starting to, the very first thought is, what about my insurance? What about money? What about this? What about that? What about my title? What are people gonna think? And I did something that a lot of people maybe don't do, but I went into animal intuition and I even wrote a little Thrive Global article about that. And Brad, I can send that to you to make sure.

Brett Trainor (26:16.449)
Please.

Anne ONeil (26:16.726)
Your listeners have that in case they've ever done anything. Cause I love animals. I have even been to South Africa and trained with Martha back who is Oprah's life coach, um, out in safaris back in, I don't know about nine years ago or so, but I always have loved been like, I used to be wanting to be a whale trainer when I was really young. I know that's not okay anymore, but even you're young, sometimes you see that and you're just like enthralled by, by that. But so what I did is instead of reaching out to people as I went into anything,

that didn't have language to it. So I really got into my internal instincts. And so if I was extremely tired, I would lay like a lion and I would stay, you know, cause you're transitioning through a phase and maybe you're a little low vibe or depressed. So I would lay whenever I felt like laying. And then when I was on, so lions, that's what they do the whole time during the day. But for those two hours that they're hungry and they're ready, then I would be focused. And then I'd have laser focus on whatever I was doing.

So that's one piece to it. The other one, I had three animals. Do you want me to go through them, Brett? Okay. Cause it does work in like anything else that you're doing. And I'll get back to that as like, there's something that you can listen to instinctually that isn't necessarily a part of society or things that we've ever been trained on. But when you get quiet, which also can go into our meditation talk and mindfulness talk is when you get quiet, things start showing up when you start listening in a new way.

Brett Trainor (27:19.497)
Yeah, no, please, absolutely.

Anne ONeil (27:41.162)
And that's what I did. So that was one of the pieces to my puzzle was I would lay like a lion. The second one is I would listen with my feet, which was about elephants. I love elephants. And you know what, y'all, they have the biggest ears, right? In the animal kingdom are one of the biggest, but they actually listen with their feet through vibrations in the ground and they can listen up to six miles through vibrations in the ground. So wherever I was at, whatever I was doing, I would just listen in that moment about what I was doing. Like, was I happy?

Or like, was I feeling like it was good energy? Did it feel like that's where I wanted to be kind of thing? Or did I like what that person was talking about? Or I'm starting to listen to this neuroscience stuff. That feels really good. Let me do a little bit more of that. So listen with your feet, again, with the elephant. And then my last one was sea turtles. And so sea turtles, I live in South Florida. I live in Fort Lauderdale now. Y'all had to get out of Iowa. It was a little too cold for me.

And so I live close to the beach and this is where all the sea turtles go and I was fascinated with them and they swim, they're hatched and they have to immediately get into the water and they swim all the way to Africa. But then they come back when they're about ready to lay their eggs. So they go all the way to Africa and back. But the biggest thing that I noticed or that I found out because I do a lot of research like this is that they end up laying their eggs within a hundred feet or a hundred yards, excuse me, of where they were born, where they hatched.

And so they have an internal compass that could help them swim all the way to Africa and back, and then hatch their eggs again within that hundred yards of where they were born. So I always felt like there is an internal compass. If I start listening to that, I wouldn't try to overthink it. Again, humans created language, and whenever you think, you're thinking in language. So I would really try to get very quiet and listen to that internal compass. And all of a sudden, it can be very brief, but you'll get the answer. And so that's...

Um, one of the things that I love to do whenever something is coming up is take myself out of situations that we're normally in all these zooms or put your thing on LinkedIn or, you know, send out your resume to a thousand people. It might not have been more like something you weren't even really happy with, you know, like I really wanted to analyze where do I want to be? And, and Brett, you were talking about this, those long-term goals. Okay. Now I'll start talking a little more business since I went into animal psychology is, is when you reverse engineer.

Brett Trainor (29:57.091)
No.

Anne ONeil (30:01.414)
your goals. That's where you can start. So sometimes starting at the end of where you're at, like those sea turtles know where they're going to go no matter what. They can swim all over, but they're going to come back to that spot. Is reverse engineering like, okay, who do you want to be in 2025 and 2026? And what does it look like? Maybe write some of that out. I always think of the blank canvas portion. You have your entire create a new life. What does that look like? And for me, during that time, when I lost my job during COVID,

that's what I really took some time doing is because I didn't want to find myself in that same position in six months or working in a certain way where, you know, I just wasn't as happy. So I would write all of that out. What does it look like? What does it feel like? How do I wake up in the morning? Who are the people I'm talking to? What are the things I'm learning? And so I would reverse engineer that and it started to, it really helped me filter.

when I was really focused on sending out my resume or applying for jobs, communicating with people, I had a really clear vision of what that looked like. And so that was something that really helps me out. And I do that in all of my extra activities where I'm a basketball TV commentator. I wanted to create that. So you start figuring out like, oh, I love talking to people. I love bringing energy to the game and how do we make that happen? So...

Anytime I'll write something out, I will get my vision board going. And I'll always start from like, okay, what is, what's the best possible thing that could happen in that next year that I want to have happen, or maybe it's in the next two weeks, you can always figure that out of what that looks like.

Brett Trainor (31:37.393)
Yeah. And then the balance, right? I love, I love that piece. And, you know, I'm going to actually, I'll give you full credit, but I'm going to, I'm going to use those, the animals, because you described kind of what solo business owners are, at least the ones, you know, we've transitioned and started our own company. We don't want to build Google or Facebook, but you know, and it is that it's, you work really hard for a couple of hours a day. You're super focused, but then you've got the flexibility to lay around, recharge, spend time with family.

Anne ONeil (31:45.934)
I think.

Anne ONeil (31:53.634)
Mmm, uh-huh.

Anne ONeil (32:04.077)
Right.

Brett Trainor (32:04.681)
Listen with your feet. Yes, I've become so much better at listening and doing this podcast. Get to talk to people like you. I learned something from everybody that comes on. So after a number of years of not maybe listening as well. And then I love the sea turtles. One, that's amazing. But two, it's like, don't wander too far from what your core, what you're good at. I mean, yes, go explore. And that's what I've loved about your career. You've got feelers out. You've done a lot of different things.

Anne ONeil (32:14.248)
Mm-hmm.

I'm sorry.

Anne ONeil (32:20.846)
Ha ha ha!

Brett Trainor (32:31.589)
I'm doing a lot of different things right now, but it's all still fairly close to the core of me. So now I'm glad you told that story. I've never heard that, but I absolutely love it.

Anne ONeil (32:41.207)
Oh man, I hope you all enjoyed that. But yeah, that see like even during that time, I would catch myself like I'm researching animals like what does this mean? I love doing that. And it's a way because when you're a kid, and this was going to be one of my points for everyone here is like go back to like what you loved when you were a kid. I do that all the time. And guess what? It was animals. It was sports. It was being outside in nature. It was.

um, working with friends on something new. I loved art. I would always try the hardest like clay project. I love science. I was in like the astronomy like night group, you know, and guess what? Almost all of those are still things that I love today. And so you can start being like, Oh yeah, I did love that. It's kind of when you're free. It's when your brain is in high beta is one of when your brain waves are at some of the highest

for survival. And so when you can drop in and think into some lower brainwaves, like an alpha brainwave, you start having more creation. That's when ideas start coming in. And I know, Brett, that you're going to get this and your listeners are, hey, you know what it's like when you go on a walk or when you're working out or when you're on vacation, that you are in more of a Zen state and things start showing up. That's when people get a lot of great creative ideas or that problem you were trying to solve while you're out on your run, all of a sudden it connects.

And that's where you really want to kind of focus on is because when you were a kid, you have different brainwaves and you can start to create and connect pathways that are bigger and better instead of just staying zoned in into something that maybe isn't working, is taking that step away, going for a walk, going for a run. Oh my gosh, I have one quick thing about air. Did you watch that movie, Air, with, oh, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck?

Brett Trainor (34:28.91)
Yeah, I guess. Bye.

Anne ONeil (34:30.194)
Oh, it's about Nike. Did you see that yet? It's on Amazon prime. Yeah. And so one of my favorite moments there, y'all, if you haven't seen it's on Amazon prime, it's about how they signed Michael Jordan. Nike did back in the day in the eighties. Um, and it's just incredible. I watched it a couple of different, there's a lot of great takeaways from there. One of the things when, well, okay. Spoiler, but when Ben Affleck says yes, he goes, how'd you decide that? He goes, I went for a run. And I'm always like, that's exactly it. When you're at play.

Brett Trainor (34:32.001)
It was awesome. Yeah, it was phenomenal.

Anne ONeil (34:57.174)
when you're not so hyper focused on something, things will start showing up where you're like, oh, I do like to do that. I like that thing. I'm curious about that. Let me go research that. And that's one of those things that I try to do quite often and remember to do. Because I'm like, if I'm in play, I bet my brain will start making connections better than I can just focus on them.

Brett Trainor (35:18.345)
A hundred percent. Yeah. One of my, my favorite podcast is econ talk and I was econ major, but again, I haven't done anything with econ, but he covers so many different topics. And I love just, he will do it and thinking about how you connect the dots. So I can be on a run listening to him talking about some philosophy. I'm like, shit, that, that ties right back to what this was over here. That's what was missing. And so, yeah, I think there's, we overthink things.

Anne ONeil (35:24.443)
Oh yeah!

Anne ONeil (35:43.686)
Yes, I love that.

Brett Trainor (35:46.589)
Way too much and it is just a matter of, because even talk about your back to childhood and as you were telling us, I'm like, man, I grew up, I was actually the first person in my family went to college, right? So I didn't even know, I didn't know what business was.

Anne ONeil (35:59.25)
Oh, it's amazing. I didn't know that. That is incredible. And look at you running your own business. Look at that. Like that is incredible. Yeah.

Brett Trainor (36:04.541)
in a podcast that we didn't even know. But up until then, my thought was, I'll go to college and I'll be a game warden, right? You're out on the lakes, you can fish, you're outside all the time. And now that I've gone back to the solo path, I am outside every day, rain, shine. You're better off with the weather most of the time in Florida than here, but I make sure I'm outside once, if not twice a day just to get out. So I think you're right, it's just, it's getting back to.

Anne ONeil (36:15.447)
Oh yeah.

Anne ONeil (36:23.463)
Yes, yeah.

Brett Trainor (36:32.117)
fundamentals or foundation, I don't know how to explain it. But yeah, so anybody that's still stuck in corporate, you're not meant to be stuck in corporate. There's more to life. Think bigger, right?

Anne ONeil (36:33.624)
Mm.

Oh, yes.

Anne ONeil (36:42.61)
Hey, hey, I think bigger. And guess what? This was one of those things. I was actually living in Milwaukee. Man, there's been a lot of different stories, but hopefully one of each person that's listening and pull one out. But I was living in Milwaukee and I got the opportunity to move to Fort Lauderdale for a position. And I just was so cold in Milwaukee. It was one of those winters. I can remember it. But my dog's paws were like freezing to the ground. And I'm like, what am I doing? And I also couldn't be outside. That's not good. Um,

And I remember like really having a hard time with this decision and a waitress came by, she heard me talking to my friend and she goes, Hey, if it doesn't work out, you can always come back. And it was, I don't know if anybody ever hears that, but you can always go back. You can always make a new choice. You can always create something new. And I, and again, life gets really simple when you start looking at it in a simple way, and then you just repeat those choices.

those behaviors, those actions, your experiences that you want over and over again, and you create the life that you want, but you can keep it simple as that. And I go, yeah. And then I literally said, I'm not, I'm off like to four, like, what am I doing? So just a random story there, but yeah, I can make it very simple.

Brett Trainor (37:44.677)
Yes. Well, no, but it ties back to your earlier one about the free throw shooting. That's just not good enough. So I don't know. Are you would you call yourself an over thinker or not an over thinker in just in general?

Anne ONeil (37:58.27)
Ah, you know, the in I used to be because I felt like that's what almost everyone around me was like, or like when you're in business and something's heightened and you have to get that sale done or the projects not going well and everything gets very heightened. And that's where I in the last five years, I've, it's been probably a 10 year process with the last five years I've zoned in on it, where you know, I do I do meditation walks every single day and

meditation work is one of the biggest things I feel like anytime I can go and shoot, honestly, I'm always like, I'll let my brain figure it out because I'll just go listen to music or I'll do a meditation and it helps me Zen out. But it's because I choose every day or everything. I want to choose my thoughts at all time. I want to choose the energy I want to be. So you can get off of Zoom and it can just spiral into everything of the rest of your life. But that's really where

trained under Dr. Joe Dispenza. If any of you know him, he's been a chiropractor for 30 years and has been in the world of neuroscience studying how we can make significant changes in the brain for the last 25 years of his life. And so I went to one of his retreats about four years ago, which was all meditation and cellular research. And so after you guys heard my animal psychology, you guys probably know I love research.

But anything that I felt like I could own with cells, like as in we have 37 trillion cells in our body. And if I can say, this is the way it's gonna go, just like that three point shot, like this is how I'm gonna change it. And then all of a sudden, everything gets into line and starts listening to you when you make a choice like that. And so day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute, I am choosing my thought, I'm choosing how I want that next hour or meeting to go. And so I...

really work on not letting external things really throw off my internal game, my inner game. And so that's what I do a lot with meditation and the neuroscience work because things are always going to come up. Like things aren't always going to go as planned. You know, there's going to be hard conversations. There's going to be things that don't go well in business or project or family or community and just like they did in basketball games.

Anne ONeil (40:13.418)
And it's like, how do I say, no, this is how I want it to go. And this is the choice that I'm going to make with my thoughts and how I'm going to feel, because guess what? That meeting goes over and I don't want to carry that meeting on with me for the next six hours or two weeks or month, you know, and I'm like, no, it's just a meeting. Let me get back to my day. And I'm trying to use a business thing, but it can be, it was just a conversation. It was just, it was just bad traffic. You know, it's just a bad news day, you know, whatever it is. I don't, I really work on.

Brett Trainor (40:27.317)
Great.

Brett Trainor (40:34.466)
Anything, yeah.

Anne ONeil (40:43.062)
in inner choices of what that looks like for me.

Brett Trainor (40:46.433)
That's so good. That's one thing that I'm still lacking is I've grown in a lot of areas, the meditation piece. Thankfully, I'm not a, I don't say I'm not over thinking, but I tend not to get too stressed out about things I can't control. I think I'm just kind of wired that way. I'm thankful. I know a lot of people that just stress out about everything and I'm like, man, just relax. You know, it's one of the easier said than done. But you know, one of the taglines I like to use all the time is, you know, change is inevitable, but growth is optional, right? I mean,

Anne ONeil (40:59.903)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Anne ONeil (41:05.922)
Right.

Brett Trainor (41:13.953)
things are going to change and there's just people that are so resistant to it and you're too busy fighting it and you're not going to grow because you can't get caught up in that, right? And, um,

Anne ONeil (41:21.702)
Yes, yes. You're going to get in the tidal wave of all of those thoughts and emotions that go with something that's already changing or already went wrong or didn't go well. And it's like, no, just move out to the side, watch the wave go by and wait and get in back and when it's clear, you know, so yeah, enjoy like, okay, you know, but I, yeah, I think that's a big thing. And I'll tell you anybody who thinks about meditation, it's not just like having good thoughts or quieting your thoughts.

Brett Trainor (41:35.071)
Yes.

Brett Trainor (41:38.809)
and enjoy the sunset as it's going.

Anne ONeil (41:51.606)
the energy that you want to bring to the next moment, to the next conversation, to your next great idea. And what does that look like? And there is an inner life that you can create from a meditation or really focusing on what's behind your eyes and what's in your heart. And they call it heart-brain coherence. And what really got me a couple of years back is that once I realized that my heart

sends more signals to my brain than my brain sends to the rest of my body. I really got even more into that intuition, those moments of let me listen here to what greatness feels like. What does being unlimited look like? What does possibility look like for me? What does happiness and all those things? And then once I start listening to that and remembering that, you know, then anything's possible, really.

Brett Trainor (42:45.789)
Yeah, no, it's so good. So that's on my bucket list for Q4 is to start to experiment or get into the meditation. Somebody just literally this morning I was on a different call and they had mentioned, yeah, meditation isn't about the moment. It's about the rest of the day. I'm like, huh, super interesting. So I'm sold. I just needed to add it to the.

Anne ONeil (43:02.814)
Yeah, it's just like, yeah, it's just like training. No, I'll, I'll tell you, Brett, since, you know, you probably have a lot of athletes on here and you're an athlete. When I found walking meditation, that's where I'm at best. Guess when I'm not as great? It's just like what you're really great at. I'm not as great at the sitting ones because I want to get up and move. But once I discovered walking meditation, it's like I could zone in so well.

Brett Trainor (43:21.341)
Right.

Anne ONeil (43:26.55)
while still like being grateful for being out in the flowers or the trees or whatever it is, watered, just the nature of being out there. But man, when I'm in movement, I can feel the thoughts that I want to think, the choices I want to make, all those kinds of things. So I'll share some of those with you and we can put a link if you want to for your listeners to at least check it out. Because what made it again, what made a difference for me is all the research and science based because when things are.

Brett Trainor (43:43.497)
Yeah, that would be fantastic.

Anne ONeil (43:54.838)
I'm not great at any more of the motivational speaking or the inspiration because I'm like, that's good for that moment. I'm like, what do I do when I'm not feeling great? And when I realized I can change my cells and my thoughts and my choices just by myself alone in any moment, that's when I really got like, okay, I can do that. So I can put that in there. But again, the research and science really, really changed everything for me. Okay.

Brett Trainor (44:20.649)
Yeah, please, please do. I'll add that to the show notes as well. And I heard a, it wasn't a quote. It was a conversation. I think it was Lewis Howe and he had somebody else and I haven't had time to research to see what was.

Anne ONeil (44:23.25)
Okay, great.

Anne ONeil (44:31.254)
That might be Dr. Joe Dispenza, who I just talked to, because they're really good friends. He's been on there a lot. They're buddies. Yeah, yeah.

Brett Trainor (44:34.013)
maybe one.

Brett Trainor (44:37.609)
Okay, so what I'm about to tell you, you may already know this, but the conversation, I think Lewis asked him was, you know, is it more beneficial to have positive thoughts or to minimize or avoid the negative thoughts? And I would have leaned more positive thoughts. He's like, no, all the data in the science shows the fewer negative thoughts you have, the better off the quality of life, etc. So I'm like, whoa, that's really insane. Especially if there's data behind that. Does that surprise you?

Anne ONeil (45:00.071)
Yeah.

Anne ONeil (45:03.746)
Yes. Oh, no, I mean, because the more negative thoughts that you have, the more just think of anything like that, the more they expand, because you can have so many positive thoughts. It's just like a performance review. And I know y'all know this, or when you're back in school, and you got nine A's and one B or one C. And what do you remember is you remember the one negative and it's the same with a performance review and you got great scores besides one area.

and you're freaking out about that one area. And so that is exactly what it is. So lowering that negativity and those negative thoughts is going to be the biggest thing and then creating what's possible. Because if you have one negative thought and your brain is gonna zone in on that, because it's again, thinking about survival. But I'm not sure if that was him that was on there. He has Lewis house has amazing guests. But I do know if you guys like Lewis house, Dr. Joe DeSpenza was just on there of like the last couple of weeks.

Brett Trainor (45:49.385)
It could have been, I'll look it up.

Anne ONeil (45:57.214)
and he's been on there a lot. They're really good friends.

Brett Trainor (45:57.665)
That would have been my guess. And just to emphasize that point of remember the negative, I can remember it was third grade history class. And this is when they called it. It had to answer a question. And I can't remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, but it was on a map, and is the Nile River, which direction is the Nile River flow? And I said, down. And the class laughed, and it wasn't intentional, but to this day, I'm just.

Anne ONeil (46:08.581)
Oh!

Anne ONeil (46:19.974)
Oh my gosh. Yeah.

Anne ONeil (46:25.598)
It sounds right to me.

Brett Trainor (46:27.569)
It's bright and you know, a flu nor I mean, who knew? I mean, maybe I wasn't the best student back then, but it still horrifies me to think about that many decades ago, right? So your point on the negative sticks, it stays with you.

Anne ONeil (46:38.862)
Oh, right, those moments. Yeah, and we've all even had them in childhood. And that's where we're trying to fit in with our surroundings. We're trying to figure out the way that society goes about it. What's normal, what's not. I'm from the Midwest, totally different life than ones that I lived down here in South Florida. Different traditions, but even when you're growing up, you're trying to learn all those things. And then we kind of get a little boxed in.

to those choices that we made as we grow up. And then that's where I think right now, when you're talking to your listeners who are trying something new, it's like you're expanding beyond what you thought was literally possible in all of those choices and the teachings, the upbringings that we all had, from many different society norms. So I totally get that. But yeah, the name off mine too. So, and it's like such a vivid memory usually like that. Like you can remember everything about it.

Brett Trainor (47:23.836)
Yeah.

Brett Trainor (47:28.993)
Yes, our classroom, I remember what row I'm in. I'm like, God, I got, it's not like I think I'm just in these situations, they tend to come up, but it's fascinating. And I do wanna be respectful of your time. So is there, we could probably keep talking or at least I can keep talking to you for another hour with this, but is there anything that we didn't cover that you think would be beneficial to the audience? Are the things that we should be thinking about?

Anne ONeil (47:33.334)
Hahaha

Yes!

Ugh.

Anne ONeil (47:51.306)
Oh man, I feel like we covered quite a bit, quite a bit. I mean, if you wanted to talk about any of the giving back stuff that I've done, I went, it was just in Africa for like five weeks this summer. We can talk about that.

Brett Trainor (48:08.209)
Yeah, please do because I just had, I don't know if you read the book, The Go Giver by Bob Berg. He was on the podcast. It's really good. So I've done a lot of the things, I was doing it unintentionally, but put some intentionally. So you're probably a living spirit of what his book is. So yes, please, please do tell us and share that story.

Anne ONeil (48:13.886)
I haven't read that. I've heard of it, yeah.

Anne ONeil (48:25.262)
I'm sorry.

Anne ONeil (48:30.234)
Oh, you know, well, ever since I was a kid, you know, I grew up, my parents were, my dad was a elementary school principal, my mom was a nurse, and he always was a principal at some of the lowest income schools in the city of Cedar Rapids on purpose because he loved it, like helping anyone see something possible. And so...

When I would be in the gym shooting, all these kids would come in and they again were low income and then they also had filtered out all of the special needs kids into my dad's school. And so I would always help the kids, you know, they'd come in and shoot. And I was loved it when anybody else would even be interested in shooting or dribbling and all those kinds of things. And ever since that moment, those moments, and then I also had a, had one where Pat summit came to Pat summit was the legendary Tennessee lady Vols coach.

Brett Trainor (49:22.389)
Yeah.

Anne ONeil (49:25.462)
one of the best all time women's basketball. She came to one of my high school games and I didn't know that at the time. I was getting warming up and they're like, Pat, someone's here. There's kind of some commotion in the stands. And I'm like, oh my gosh, what's she doing here? And like, I was being recruited, but I was like, oh my gosh. So I just remember, I don't remember much about that game, but I remember the end. It was a blizzard in Iowa. There's always a blizzard since your cycle. And you know that in the winter time, especially during a big game. And we were kind of on the outskirts of town and

We had two older mentally challenged guys who would always come to all of our games and keep all the stats sit in the front row. And I would always talk to them and this game was no different. They had taken the bus out to make sure they were at this game. And they always tell me, you know, they tell me how good I did. And they'd also tell me how bad I did. Like if I missed jumpers or I turned the ball over, it was so funny. They're like, man, you had like five turnovers that game, but I always made time to talk to him, but I remember, and everybody was asking about Pat's summit, like the reporters and other people.

Brett Trainor (50:12.183)
No filter.

Anne ONeil (50:21.802)
But my parents waited and they said, we got to go. The blizzard was getting worse. It was like a couple of feet of snow. And they're like, let's give Greg and Ryan, where their names a ride back to downtown Cedar Rapids. So I get into the van, a mini van with these two older gentlemen and with my parents and they talked the whole time about their special Olympics game that was coming up that weekend. Not a moment was talked about Pat summit from my parents or even them asking me about my game, it was all about their upcoming special Olympics game. And so.

From those moments, I was always about like, I just wanna make sure that everyone has an opportunity to feel included. So that's a really big vibe of mine of an organization, a community of giving back. It's like, no, anyone can dream whatever dream that they want. I wanna make sure that that's possible for them. So of course I did go to the Special Olympics game and they were so excited, talking about the refs and the coaches, but I just remember those moments of like, yeah, we might be able to dream in.

go to the WNBA and there's a lot of great athletes that can do that, go to the NFL and all these different things. But I never want to leave anybody out because I think everyone can get their mind on a possibility and go create that. And so I just was in Africa. I was in three different countries. I traveled around with the Jordan Awara Foundation. He's an NBA guy from the Indiana Pacers. And we went to underprivileged communities and gave back, put on basketball camps.

for kids and wow, when you go over to Africa, these are countries that I probably couldn't have gone to ever by myself and the different areas that we were in. They didn't even have like the shoelaces where their shoes could tie together, you know, but they would, they were doing anything to be able to listen and basketball. And so whenever I would speak and, you know, try to show them a little bit of dribbling or shooting, their eyes were like this big and they just would soak it up so fast and their growth was exponential.

And anytime they could come up and talk to me about something and they could work on something, they absolutely wanted to do that. And I just love seeing that where they might not have been able to see that dream or learn that, learn something new about basketball that I was able to do. And that's a really huge part of my like foundation of my choices of, and my experiences of what I want to do is being able to give back no matter if it's here in the United States with different athletes or different high performers.

Anne ONeil (52:42.57)
but even all of those underprivileged people who might not be able to see how bright the sun is out there for them. So that's a really big deal to me. And I have a podcast called Get Busy Livin'. I took a little pause on that while I was traveling and doing some basketball commentating, but the whole thing of that podcast is about what inspires you to be greater than yourself. And so that's a really big one. And anybody that comes on, they talk about growth mindset. We have good vibes. The music's have a good vibe.

Brett Trainor (53:03.178)
of it.

Anne ONeil (53:10.018)
try to make good energy and then they all bring on a nonprofit or a cause that they love about giving back because I just think that's a really big deal that, you know, we all have so much and we all can give so much and sometimes when you're all are writing those things out, once you start seeing that you have socks to put on shoes to put on, you know, a car to get different places, you're like, oh, yeah, that is pretty great to be able to have all of that. So there's always opportunities to make sure that somebody else can see that light for themselves too.

Brett Trainor (53:40.221)
Yeah, that's so awesome. Yeah, just one, the impact you probably had on some of those kids that never would have had that chance to probably change, could change the trajectory of their life or what they're thinking, what's possible, right? Just by seeing it. So, and I think I heard you either writing or maybe it was on your podcast where you talked about when, whoever approached you about going on this trip and most of the time when you something like that, you have to think about it. Like, well, when is the schedule? What do I ask? And you said, no, sign me up. I'm good to go. I don't need to know anything else.

Anne ONeil (54:06.746)
Oh my gosh. Well, it's funny. I feel like we're going to be over time or this podcast going to be long for everybody listening, but hopefully you're entertained. Cause I'll tell you what, it's all going to connect. Like you brought, you say you love connecting dots. So the thing is the year before I had gone to Bali in Indonesia and did this with four to six year olds. And I gave back and they had never seen soccer balls or basketballs or hula hoops. They didn't have any of that. And they also didn't speak any English, but I brought them basketballs and I'm able to spin the ball on my finger.

And that just turns out to be like magic for people when you can do that. And especially the kids, the kids are just like, oh my gosh, and then they all wanna try it even though it hits them in the face. Well, I had done that last September or last October. And so I was out on a meditation walk. You guys will think this is great. April and I have a headphones. It's like a rehearsal of what you're doing for the next hour and I go out walking. And I literally remember the moment just because these are how things kind of show up.

Brett Trainor (54:37.725)
I can't do it.

Anne ONeil (55:01.354)
I was like, man, I really want to go back and do something like Bali this year, like the giving back trip. I was like, huh. I go, maybe, maybe the field, like the, you know, invisible field of good vibes or good things, you know, spirit, God, whatever you think. I go, maybe the field has something bigger that I might not be able to tap into. So I, I turned on my meditation. I walked out. I come back in within that hour. So I didn't think of anything besides just like enjoying the walk and being like, great. I wasn't going to

Brett Trainor (55:05.752)
like the good.

Anne ONeil (55:30.014)
Obviously think about it. I come back within that hour that I was out, I got the voicemail from my friend who I was training, a seven three guy from Nigeria who said, and I didn't know that because he texted me, he's like, did you get my voicemail? I'm like, no, because I didn't listen. I didn't even notice that I didn't have it. I was on airplane mode. And so he texts me and I was like, all right, let me listen to it. And he goes, and I have an NBA guy who wants his dad. He needs a female coach to go to Africa and put on basketball camps for kids. And I went like this. I was like,

Oh my gosh, I knew it. And I was like, that was more alignment. So I just knew, I called him back. I was like, I talked to him and I said, I'm in. And I didn't even know when, I hadn't even checked time off of work. I didn't check anything about anything. I just said, I'm supposed to go on that trip. So again, it was almost that animal intuition or I was like, this came during the moment that I said something will show up and those things show up like that. And I really, really tune in and I...

Brett Trainor (56:20.925)
Yeah.

Anne ONeil (56:28.65)
try not to overanalyze or overthink that. I'm like, I'm going to go. And guess what I did. And it was amazing. And, and there are a couple of photos, if you guys find me on LinkedIn, or maybe Instagram, Twitter, but there was a moment where I said, you know, this whole trip for a month will be worth it. If I see one kid light up like with the basketball and, and it would happen day after day, because they just like their eyes would spark and you would see the light behind your eyes. I say that a lot. And I'm like, that's when you know that they see possibility.

for their own dreams. That's really what it was all about. So, yeah, so that kind of like was the connect the dots, the meditation mindset, saying yes, you just never know what's possible out there. Listen with your feet, listen. Hey, and those are vibes in the ground. So I have like one of my things is good vibes in the field. So I'm like, there's vibrations out there. You just kind of keep finding your match of what that looks like. So that I knew immediately I was like, that was it. So those were the signs you don't wanna think twice about.

Brett Trainor (57:01.377)
That's so cool.

Brett Trainor (57:09.285)
keep those ears or listen with your feet hear the awareness coming around.

Brett Trainor (57:15.85)
Yeah.

Brett Trainor (57:27.625)
No, right? Exactly. Don't overthink it because it was meant to be and you know, it's so funny. Yeah.

Anne ONeil (57:30.11)
Yeah. Oh yeah, I would have been like, well, what hotel, you know, think about some of the things. Well, what hotel? Like, how do I get there? Will somebody pick me up? You know, think of those things. I said, I'm in and I didn't even like, didn't even worry about anything. I was like, I guess I'll bring mosquito spray. It was the only thing I thought of. So

Brett Trainor (57:45.589)
See, that's back to what we talked about in the beginning, thinking bigger, right? Just in earlier, at least my earlier career, yeah, let's go, where, what, okay, do it. And then 20 years later, you're like, ah, I don't know, what time of the year?

Anne ONeil (57:48.592)
Yeah!

Anne ONeil (57:53.67)
Yes. No, yeah, you're like, wait, is there a shower? Like, is there, you know, is there gonna be like a warm shower or anything, you know, things that you'd think about now. But like, if you remember when you're 14, 15, 16, even younger, and somebody said, Hey, you want to go do that thing? And you're like, I'm gonna go, yep, let's go. And so you go even think twice. So it's all good. I was like, I'll buy body wipes. I don't know if we'll have showers or not. So it'll be fine. I'm gonna I'm gonna sweat through 100 shirts, which I did you see some pictures of my

Brett Trainor (58:10.933)
Yeah, let's do it.

100%.

Anne ONeil (58:22.07)
hair is completely soaked. My iPhone watch or I guess I have a Fitbit. My Fitbit had like over 400 active minutes every day and I was like, I never get tired. And I trained myself like I never get tired. So you can continue to do those kinds of things, but I'm excited just chatting about it. Hopefully I'll enjoy the last extra minutes here for the podcast.

Brett Trainor (58:34.133)
That's awesome.

Brett Trainor (58:40.157)
Yeah, no, fantastic. And if you're sitting in corporate, just think of the world that's out there based on these stories. And so, and thank you so much for this. I enjoyed it. I mean, please do send me the notes for the meditation, everything else we talked about and folks I'll put it in the, uh, the show notes and, you know, we'll have to have you come back at some point, cause I know we touched the surface on a lot of things, but I do think there's a lot of power in, in the

Anne ONeil (58:47.392)
Oh, yes.

Anne ONeil (58:58.626)
Ha ha ha!

Brett Trainor (59:05.813)
the mindset and the goals. And so I think, I know we touched on a lot of things, but I think there's a deeper path that folks can shortcut to where they're going if they just are intentional about it. So anyway.

Anne ONeil (59:16.01)
Right. I love that. I'd love, and I'd love to be back. Thank you all so much even for listening and thank you so much for having me on. I really, really enjoyed our conversation.

Brett Trainor (59:23.997)
It's my pleasure and again, we'll do it again. So enjoy the rest of your day and have a great one.

Anne ONeil (59:26.546)
Okay. See you later. Okay. Bye.