Welcome to the Adaptive Mindset. I'm Brett Gallant, cybersecurity thought leader and founder of Adaptive Office Solutions. Here, we don't just talk tech, we unlock the strategies, stories, and mindset shifts you need to stay secure, lead boldly, and thrive in a digital world. Let's get started. Welcome back to the Adaptive Mindset. Really happy to have with me today, Hannah Cox. Hannah is the owner and director of, what's the name of your company Execution Expert. I love that name and it's near and dear to my heart because that's, I believe in philosophy of executing and making things happen. So Hannah, welcome to the Thank you. It's my first podcast. I'm really excited. First of I just look at these as having conversations and the opportunity to help and serve people and share what's near and close to our hearts. So it's such a such a pleasure to have Hannah. I've known Hannah for a while. And for those of you that know me, know that I believe in investing myself. And Hannah has been one of my many coaches up until recently. And we still stay in contact. She's an incredible person. And I really want to I really was happy to invite you here today because you're doing some exciting things, and you had some life changes, and at the Adaptive Mindset we talk about mindset and overcoming limiting beliefs and pivoting. Perhaps Yeah. Yeah. So yes, a big life change. I was recently laid off about 30 days ago. And, um, I mean, it's one day I was doing this coaching gig. I had a lot of amazing clients building these amazing relationships and working on amazing projects with people. And then suddenly I wasn't, and you know, that could have been, the end of the road for me, for sure. Like I could have just gone and found another job. But I feel so passionate about the idea of encouraging people to be courageous and do the things that they want to do and accomplish the goals that they have, whether they're a creative person with a project or an entrepreneur or just an executive who is working their way up to their next big lifestyle change. I just, I feel so passionate about watching people succeed and being a part of that journey with them that I just, I couldn't stop. So, so I did it. I created my own business and, um, really validated myself not to toot my own horn, but like to be able to go from I went from, I lost everything to fully launched in less than 30 days. Um, and that feels pretty And that takes a special mindset to go from, from that to seeing an opportunity and executing hence the name to living it setting, setting the example by what you're doing. Um, So you were working, and life happens, and you had this incredible opportunity to seize an opportunity and embrace change. And sometimes life happens, I believe. Life happens for a reason, and sometimes, and I believe a lot of times, they're blessings in disguises. um what a wonderful opportunity because you're going to put you're starting to put your own spin on things and be able to serve and help people you know I I'm familiar with a little bit about what you're doing and I think it's so incredible it was some of the concepts you came up with as part of your coaching offering and I I think it Because I talked to a lot of busy entrepreneurs and I know, and I say this a lot during this podcast that entrepreneurs forget to put their own oxygen mask on and we have to, what's really interesting sometimes is that execution of having that focused time to work and do that. And I believe you've. developed a really interesting concept that everybody needs to listen to and really think about talking to Hannah, because I wanna get into that, because I really love the idea you shared with me before you officially launched, and now that you're here and you have it, tell our listeners about part of your offering. I think it's incredible. It Yes, so part of my offering I call the momentum builder. And I like to think of it as like a gym membership for your business. You know, you show up consistently every day, you talk about an oxygen mask, and it really is just Making sure that you're prioritizing the deep work before the busy work and even just one hour a day can make such a massive difference in Yeah, yeah. In fact, I was telling you about a courageous decision that I decided to do, and a lot of times we lie to ourselves or we say that we're busy, but sometimes all it takes to really move the needle forward is even 25 minutes of deep hard work. And so you've come up with this great concept, and you'll have to correct me if I'm wrong, but what you're doing, part of the offering, and folks, Maybe you may not be in a position to work with Hannah right now, but you really need to listen to this and write it down. If I'm right, what you're doing is you're picking something to work on and then you have a group of people come in, in a Zoom room or whatever avenue, it could be Teams, and you give them some guided direction and then you keep them in the room with you and you One hour. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it is actually part of it, too. I've created these templates that people can use to create a five day or a 10 day sprint on a project and break it down into goals that they can achieve in one hour increments. And then we do, we all join at the same time and we take a minute or two, it really just takes two minutes for everyone to say good morning, to speak their intention for the hour out loud to everyone who is there to witness it. And then we keep our cameras on and we just work because There's this, it's really powerful to have that silent accountability, just knowing that someone's with you and they're working, you're working, and together you're making this progress. At the end of the hour, we have a little mini, like, hey, celebrate, this is awesome. Good job. We'll see you tomorrow. And then, um, at the end of the week, we have a little bit of a bigger celebration for the completion of projects that happen So awesome. Awesome. I think, I know you've worked with so many entrepreneurs over the years and now, now guess what you are one. I know it's great. So what, what mindset shift do you think entrepreneurs need to have or be aware of? Just go, go wherever your heart says on that. Like, I'd love to hear what your perspective is on the mindset shift and overcoming maybe limiting I think, and this is really rooted in everything that I talk about too, I think one of the most important shifts that have to happen is courage. And it's funny because when a lot of people think about courage, we're thinking about storming the castle and fighting the dragon, you know, But courage often isn't that cinematic, right? It's just, it's sending the email, it's making the phone call. It's being willing to do something poorly and purposefully, just so that you can say that you've done it. Courage is on a micro level, just consistency. compounds, isn't that true? Yeah. And when I've talked to entrepreneurs, a lot of times we get stuck in our head. I'm worrying about perfect execution. I don't think there's any such thing as perfect execution. And sometimes what happens is we stall. You've seen entrepreneurs stall. You've And we worry about making something perfect. So you said it yourself, courage and execution. Have you seen any other ways where entrepreneurs and professionals can overcome that besides what we were just talking about? I think that, and it's silly because it sounds like all of my answers are me like plugging what I do, but it's what I know. And I think that one of the easiest ways to overcome being trigger shy and like, and doing the thing is having someone there to see it and witness it. So like, you know, being able to ship a project, hitting publish, and then like calling your business partner and being like, I did this thing, being able to say it out loud, having an accountability partner in some way is a really easy way to, to Yeah, and I don't know if you ever followed the work of Mel Robbins, The Five Second Rule? Yeah. I catch myself sometimes on, I'm an over overthinker, professional overthinker, but I've been working on that. I think sometimes all we have to do is just take bold, massive action. So if there's somebody you've been meaning to call, even for business or personal, you just pick up this magic, heavy device called the phone and go beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, and make it happen. And then just start talking. You count to five and go. And it But it's easy to talk yourself out of it if no one else knows that that was even an intention of yours to begin with. Right, because we get comfortable. And that's so exciting for you, what you're doing, because I believe from what I know about you, you genuinely I love it. It's like the greatest joy is to watch and witness people You get energy from that. And so I think the other thing that I want you to recognize right now is that someone right now is listening to you and I, to our words, and they're getting energy from what we're talking about. And for those of you that are listening, Maybe, I know you know somebody that needs to hear this message about courage and execution, like what Hannah's been talking about. Share this episode with somebody so you can help. That would be the biggest way you could repay in kindness to Hannah and myself just by sharing it because I know I genuinely want to help people, and I know Hannah does, and I started this podcast to help people with their mindset, but also help people with their identity, resetting their identity to who they were before and who they're possible of being, like even myself. Let's talk about identity for a second and mindset. What have you experienced with dealing with entrepreneurs, with I love talking about identity because a lot of times when I have this conversation for the first time with clients, I help them realize that they don't have a clear idea of what that even looks like for them. It's easy to be like, okay, well, I'm starting this business and I want to hit this revenue goal by this time. And my identity is an entrepreneur, but that's not, that's just one little part of a really big picture that a lot of people don't take the time to illustrate for themselves. A lot of this one of the first conversations I have when I Absolutely. Yeah. And since we last talked, I have Yeah, and it can be a hard conversation because it's not something that we are used to doing for ourselves, but if you can just... Accepting of Yeah, if you just sit down and say, you know what, for for one time only, I have been given the ability to snap my fingers and transport myself into the ideal life. And what, everything, what do you see here? Smell? Who are you around? Where are you located? How do you make money? What gets you out of bed? We don't think about those things because we So, and I think you're, you're connecting on something that's really, really important. Each and every single one of us have been given abilities. And if you believe in a higher power, for some of us it's from a higher power, we know and believe that, and others believe it comes from somewhere else. But that identity is not just Brett, the business person, or Hannah, the coach. It's also, hey, my other identity is Brett, the father, Brett, the scouting leader, Brett, the person who's inspiring people with my own physical transformation, Brett, the podcast host. Hannah, the execution master, the mother of two children, right? Yes. So there's so many aspects of our identity, and sometimes we just focus on the business, but there's also the other parts of our identity. that you know volunteer that that we forget and and i i'd say it's important when we're looking at the identity that future version of you that you can step in today like what you said is embrace all aspects of that and integrate it into the whole person 100 they're all connected and that's why it's so important to have that conversation You know, Brett, the friend, Brett, the father, Brett, the mentor. Your ability to be all of those people in the way that you want to show up as that person is tied to your success in business. It is tied to your lived experiences, you showing up for yourself at the gym every day. If you're not doing that, are you this version of Yeah. Yeah. It is. And I, I I've been connecting with that a lot lately and, and. I think I say this and I'm so thankful to do this podcast and have you on this episode. It's really important for entrepreneurs to really acknowledge that and accept it and have the honesty and the courage the courage to face some of the realities of sometimes where we're not showing up. There's this gentleman I know that shared this with me, and I say it all the time, who's missing out because you're not showing up? And so you embrace that identity. and you show up and then you can help and serve other people. Man, what a blessing that you're doing what you're doing because you're going to get to do the privilege to do what you do in a new way and put your spin on it. And the byproduct of that is so exciting because not only are you going to help that entrepreneur, you're helping their families, and you're helping businesses they support. It's a really interesting snowball, Have you ever had a shift where you where you had overcome a limiting belief that Okay, tell us about it. I want to hear it. Let's go. Yeah, man, limiting beliefs. Let me tell you, I, I wake up every day feeling like an imposter in my skin. Like, who am I? Who am I to show up to these amazing clients who are doing big things, making big moves in charity and making big money? Who am I to help guide them through their processes and help them become these execution machines? And the best way I can walk through that is to, one, lean on my husband and be like, hey, Kevin, tell me how great I am. But also to walk through it. If I find myself questioning if I should put out that course, questioning if my LinkedIn post sounds pretentious. I tried to take myself out of that moment and recognize and name my accomplishments, what all I have accomplished and how long I've been doing this. And the literal hundreds of entrepreneurs and creatives and executives that I have had These working relationships with and have made a difference in their lives, I read my testimonials and I you know I remind myself that. I can do this because I'm capable. I'm not just So no, you're a ninja. And I know that and I can say this and it's interesting because that imposter syndrome is real for everyone. And to hear you say that I identify with that because I have it too. But what I know, just based on working with you, the sessions we've had have been incredible, where you go deep and ask the right questions. But the other things, the check-ins that you did with me in the past, with the emails and the thoughtfulness, engaging, that's not imposter. So it's interesting that even someone seasoned like you has that. But there's a lesson, folks. We all have it, and sometimes we let that imposter drive in the driver's seat, and we have to just put them in the passenger, in the back seat, and say, no, this is Hannah. Hannah's driving, not you. So you I love this new incredible business. That's just going to flourish and serve and help people. Um, so. What would you say, like, based on your, your thoughts, your, this novel, this, I love what you're doing with the sprints. Say if someone can't do that right now, they can't engage with a coach or somebody in a lesson. What, how could they do that on themselves? Let's give them something value that they could do. Like let's set them up for success, Yeah, absolutely. And I think that. I'm actually building a lot of free resources to help people kind of guide themselves through these processes, because it is a little bit involved. And I'd be lying if I were to say that anyone could just like wake up and do the thing, they can. But if you want to really break down on how the wheels turn, it's a lot of internal work. And it's a lot of asking the right questions and being really honest with yourself. And there's also these skills that you have to practice just like any other skill of like reverse engineering, thinking backwards, breaking things down into actionable bite-sized pieces. And I think that anyone can do this for themselves. But if I had to give like two or three tips on how to do this without hiring a coach to do it with you. The number one is to find somebody, a spouse, a friend. Yes, somebody who can at least be aware of the goal or the project that you want to accomplish. Speak it out loud and have someone know that it's an intention. And then the second one is going to be brain dumping everything every little thing that could possibly be involved in a project that you want to accomplish should be written down, and you can. You can say, sit down at computer, if you want to get really, really in steps integral, but really it should be, how many times do I need to do this? How many emails? What tools do I have available to me? What people in my network can I reach out to, to help me with this? Write Yeah. Having a plan. There's, I believe really strongly in the, the concept of having something in your brain travel down your arm and through your hand and out of a pen and then travel back up into your brain through your eyes. That complete circuit is so Yeah. It's so great. And also I, Developed this free checklist called the clarity checklist to help people gain clarity on priorities and their project. You So, and I want to encourage people. I'll see. Do Oh, I'm going to encourage you, but, um, go to uh hannah's website but also if you find her on social media dm her clarity and she'll send it to you and she'll start a conversation with you you can find me on linkedin for sure yeah find her on linkedin hannah cox and the link will be in the show notes um because that would be a that's an incredible gift That's a free gift that you take action. I can tie that. I can relate to what you said about writing things down because in 2007, I was helping a client who was getting set up to watch a Brian Tracy webinar. And Brian is a huge mentor of mine. I'm inspired by him. And he said in the middle of this conversation, this webinar, he said, I want you to take three minutes, write down 10 of your goals. And I did that. I had this, I had a notepad and I, I wrote down my goals and it was in 2007 and goal number four was by April 1st, 2010, I will own my own successful it company. And I wrote down seven or about nine other goals. I was up on stage presenting in Phoenix last year. And the week before I presented, I found that book and I opened up to the page where I wrote down the goals. And I saw that, and three years later to that date, because I wrote down the goals, it happened. And sometimes we, I believe in looking at your goals every day. I look at my goals three times a day, but back at that time, I just wrote them down once and I never looked at them again. That's Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I think something happens, this connection is made in your subconscious when you take a thought and you just let it complete a full circle out of your hand, up through your eyes, and you internalize that. And I think it's Oh, yeah. And I, I, I can guarantee somebody quite a few people have taken what you just said to heart and they're going to start writing things down Hey, let me ask you this productivity hack. Do you have any Oh my gosh, so many. I was just finishing rereading a book that I actually really love. It's called Indistractable by Nir Eyal. He has this concept in his book called the 10-minute rule. And in the book, he talks about it, I do it a little bit differently, but he talks about setting a timer for 10 minutes and just working for 10 minutes. The powerful thing here is that you are making a promise to yourself to work for 10 minutes. And you need to honor that promise. One of my specialties in the clients that I've worked with are people who struggle with ADHD. It's a really big thing. A lot of people struggle with it. And I like to take that 10 minute rule when clients feel a strong sense of avoidance towards something. And I'll say, take your phone, turn on the stopwatch. It counts up, not down. Turn on that stopwatch and just work for 10 minutes. And if you keep looking at your stopwatch to see how much time has passed, that's fine. Once it hits 10 minutes, if you are still looking at it, Stop what you're doing and move on. Try again later. Honor the promise to yourself to stop doing what you were doing if you really can't get Wow, that's incredible. Everybody You know what's really incredible is that a lot of times, I'm gonna throw out fake statistics, but 80, 85% of the time, people will forget about that stopwatch about six, seven minutes in, and they'll get into this flow state and they'll work until they're done. on You start developing the rhythm and you get into that state of flow. For me, my hardest thing when I started on really getting serious about my own personal transformation was I wanted to, I knew I needed to walk a lot and get to the gym, but Hey, at first I just did the 10 minute walk around the block. And so oftentimes on the days when, isn't Some days I'll go for 20 minutes after the kids get on the bus or 15. get into the team meeting and have call after call. And then we do. I'm in this mastermind group, an incredible mastermind with other cybersecurity experts. And we go for five, six hour sprints reviewing each other's businesses. And it's so powerful. But in between that, we have 15 minute breaks. So what does Brett do? Gets out, goes around the neighborhood, gets a little walk, a little oxygen. And that's all it takes. And so that 10-minute idea of what you just said is something I'm going to You never told me you needed it. I have so many tools. And that's why, again, I have the Momentum Builder, which is more of that gym membership for your business. But I do offer like an expert, you know, executor offer that is the weekly coaching. Because I just feel like having honest, transparent conversations about your roadblocks with anybody, not just me, but having an honest conversation with somebody opens the doors to learn something new every single time. Because you never know who that person that you're talking to, you never know what tools that they have, what experiences they've lived, what things they've overcome that they can share When I look at coaching, because I've used a number of coaches, and I think of coaching as not only have I had coach for business, I've had it for fitness and other aspects. I have a French second language teacher. I consider that a coach. And a coach will help you see gaps in your thinking and challenge you. And it's just another resource. And so I think of coaching as an accelerant to get you to where you were ultimately going to get to, but a coach is like a trusted partner that you can brainstorm and, and entrepreneurs. Being on this journey can be a lonely journey and you don't know who to turn to and it's frustrating and you have challenges and you need to come home to, you know, solve, I used to say puzzles or problems, but now I say it's puzzles because everything can be solved. And so if you start having those conversations with your coach, It can be an accelerant to get to where you want to be, that 10X version of you. It helps you get there a little faster. And so I really, really embrace the power of coaching and I know how impactful it is. And folks, for those that don't have a coach in your life, I really want to encourage you to take a look at Hannah's offering and just see if it is a fit for you. But for sure, get that free offering for clarity. It's incredible. Anything else you'd like to share with the audience, Hannah? What I mean, my children, obviously. I think a lot about where I came from, low cost of living, part of the US, you know, thinking about the idea of a five figure month, that's top 1% baby here, you know, where I'm from. But we, I think about getting my kids a car, sending them off for a good education. I think about building a home. I want to have a large family and I never want my children or my grandchildren to ever struggle in a way that is I say that and I am second guessing myself because I understand that struggle builds strength, but I want my kids to appreciate a comfortable life and everything I do is for the idea of building a beautiful life for my kids and also enjoying watching That's noble. I think as parents, we all want that. I relate to that. I grew up with relying on food banks and not being able to go to the hockey. I've always wanted to play hockey. And my mother did so many incredible things and she got us into sports. But there's some things we just couldn't do. And now living the life I get to lead and what you're leading, you get to do some of these things And the struggle is what built us. And I'll never regret any of the struggles because it built me and appreciate even more what I have now. And I think that's why I genuinely want to help people. And I Yeah. I get really excited when I hear somebody define what an ideal life looks like. And then together, we just lay all of these bricks and outline the path from where they are now to where they could be. And there's this moment where that realization hits for them. And I just, I live for that feeling of like witnessing someone say, Oh, I can do this. And, and it's not going to be, I guess I would be easy, but it's realistic. I can do this. It's not just a dream. And that feels so So, yeah. And, and. Actually, you know, I'm looking here, I'm looking over to the right, and if people could see what I have over to the right of me, I have Pope Francis and the Spock, and Spock, Mr. Spock. But I have, Like everybody, like I'm respectful for everybody's wishes, but this, this message, I've had this message that's been on my wall. I've been in three different offices since I started my company and I found this in the first office. And it's this cute little picture of a boy. And this was back in May of 2010. I found this poster and I've taken it everywhere I have. And I look over it all the time. And it says, I know I'm somebody because God don't make no junk. And so the message is in that is every single one of us have special gifts, regardless of what your belief is. We all have been given gifts and, and that ability to serve. So embrace who you are and have like what you said earlier, the courage to share that gift. Like the courage, what you're doing right now, starting your business to serve people. Make a difference, make an impact. Yeah. So Oh, man. Okay. Execution is rarely strategy. It's self-trust. Courage is quiet. And accountability So courage is quiet, quiet warrior. That's what you are. But if you read her email, she's not quiet. But thank you, Hannah. It's been such a pleasure. And find Hannah on LinkedIn. And can you share your website with Awesome. Hannah, it's been such a pleasure. Thank you. I'm so thankful for you. I'm thankful I've had the opportunity to know you and thankful that we got to share this message with everyone today. Such Thanks for tuning into the Adaptive Mindset. If you found value in today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who's ready to thrive in the digital age.