From Reactor to Bold Creator: Rewire Your Self-Talk 

From Reactor to Bold Creator: Rewire Your Self-Talk 

About Ly Smith

Ly Smith helps high-achieving women shift from Reactor to bold Creator. Discover mindset tools, the C.A.N.D.Y. Method, and a powerful community that silences the inner critic and activates your Genius, Gifts, and Greatness—so you lead boldly!

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Introduction

Good, beautiful day, beautiful, beautiful souls! This is Charla Anderson, host of the Charla Anderson Show~Collector & Connector of Fascinating People (& EVERYONE is Fascinating!), especially you.

Ly Smith knew at eight years old that she wanted to be a speaker. Her journey wound through some confusion to some depression to the aha moment of really finding her purpose. She helps high-achieving women shift from the reactor to the bold creator. Can’t wait for you to listen to this incredible, beautiful spirit. 

…BUT FIRST…

We’re going to take our 22-second mini vacation. We’re going to breathe in some calm for seven seconds. Hold for four seconds and breathe out gratitude for 11 seconds. So will you join me? Let’s get some settling in here, okay? Breathe in your calm. No, let’s say, I’m changing that. Breathe in, I am calm because I am is powerful. Let’s breathe in, I am calm. Hold. Relax, release. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Ly Smith. Man, it’s been so amazing to get to know you and reconnect with you because we were both hosts on the Win Win Women platform. You were very instrumental in a lot of that journey with me back two or three years ago now, right? 

So… And our beautiful friend LeAnn Lyon, who is actually the person that got me into Win Win Women, is hosting a summit. You were speaking on it yesterday. We reconnected. And thank you, thank you, thank you for stepping in at the very last minute for a cancellation from someone who had a very big family emergency. So thank you for doing that. I’m so happy to be here with you.

Thank you, Charla. This is an amazing opportunity. And I am glad that we have this serendipitous synchronicity where I can be here with you and your amazing audience.

Awesome. Well, you know, I often will just say, well, tell us who you are in this world. And then we’ll talk about what you’re doing and where you’re headed and how we make a difference.

Yes, absolutely. Well, I am a mindset and self-talk leader. Yes. Self-talk strategist. And I am a woman who remembers who she is. And what does that mean exactly? Well, for me, it’s my journey from 10 years ago now, which just blows my mind at this moment, the further and further I get away from that. And it’s about a story moment where I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t even know at the time that I was dealing with depression. It was only in spending further time with myself that I realized I was a shell of a woman and a well-loved, close-knit family. But life was getting away from me because I was stuck in the mundane, if you will. I was a stay-at-home mom at the time. So with this never-ending cycle of dishes and laundry and cleaning the house, taking care of my husband and my kids, I forgot who I was. 

And when I took a moment to become aware of that, Charla, it was discovering, oh, I’ve been in depression for two to three years. And then this is not who I really am. So then I questioned who am I really? And it was working through that, remembering who I am, that I am the adult version of the eight-year-old inner child who loves public speaking and finding my story, finding my message, finding my expertise that I can share with the world. This is what has allowed me now to be the mindset and self-talk strategist that helping those high achieving women who feel stuck in imposter syndrome, in lack of direction, in procrastination, whatever the resistance is that is not letting them be where they think they should be in life at this moment in time. And so that’s, that’s to sum it up in a nutshell, who I am.

Well, yeah. And I heard, you know, because I did listen to you on the summit yesterday and LeAnn’s Beyond the Business Plan Summit. That’s three times a year. It’s an amazing thing that she puts on, LeAnn Lyon. You told me the moment you saw that, and I was relating so much to what you were saying, as you were just in this incredible environment. I’d love the description of that again, but you were realizing that you’re it’s just a thing to check off the box, right? It’s a thing we do. And then, but you had the depth of feeling, you didn’t really realize you weren’t feeling anything. So if I’m remembering the story correctly, so I would love for you to tell about that. Because, you know, Hawaii is a beautiful place. It

sure is. So, yes, this moment happened. It was my first time going to Hawaii. In fact, it was the entire family’s first time going to the beautiful islands of Hawaii. And we were blessed, immensely blessed with 23 days all together across four different islands. And that meant 22 incredible sunsets. And it was on that one particular sunset where we were looking out and my husband was standing in front of me. He loves photography, so he had his camera with him and the lens was sticking out like the nose of Pinocchio as he was trying to capture the light just right. And my young teenage daughter was standing next to me, cradled in my arms. And we’re looking out. And off to the other side of me was my stepson, who was grown and out of the house. But he was there with us on this holiday with his girlfriend, having a sweet moment. So I’m surrounded by family. 

We’re looking out as I put glorious colors in the sky as the golden orb was setting on that jewel sapphire horizon and the breeze was gently caressing our face. And so you can imagine this picture of paradise, right? And then here I was thinking, oh my gosh, look at all this beautiful scenery. Oh my gosh, I’m surrounded by my family. I’m thinking, This is such an incredible vacation. I am so grateful. I’m so blessed. And I was thinking and I was thinking, I was thinking as I was observing the moment. And then I came to the awareness of, wait a minute, I am only thinking. Where is the feeling? Shouldn’t I be feeling this moment? You might think, oh, I’m feeling peace or I’m feeling love or I’m feeling excitement. And there was no feeling there, Charla. And I thought, what is happening right now? And so this internal conversation with myself about this, this is not, this is not me. This is not who I really am. What is happening? And I like to say that my thoughts and followed up with I’m covered in what I call just, and if you can imagine pinching a piece of your hair and lifting up, you know, like you’re picking dust out of your hair. 

But instead of “dust,” it’s “just,” and I’m just a mom. I am just a wife. I am just a stepmom. I am just a daughter. I’m just a sister. I am just this… empty shell of a woman. Numb. There were no feelings. So what is happening right now? And in that moment of awareness, Charla, is when I said, no, this is not me. This is not who I really am. And I need to figure that out. I thought it was like a discovery, but it’s not. When I came home from that holiday, it was remembering who I am. Because I know in my teenage years, I was known as living, loving, laughing Ly, because I do take life by the fullest. I love not only myself, but other people around me, anybody who crosses my path. I love life to its fullest. And I love to laugh. But in that moment of coming home, I recognized, gosh, I’m here because I was caught up in the mundane, the never-ending cycles. I was serving everybody else, but I wasn’t filling my own cup. 

And I completely lost my identity and who I was. So I needed to come back to this remembering. And I used a word to anchor my journey because that was something new to me. And I thought, I’m going to use the word laugh. And I thought, well, if I’m going to use that to anchor me, why not find the activities that are going to support that? And I did that in three ways, Charla. I did that first by barely getting out of bed, making it to the corner of the couch, and watching reruns of Friends. Because it’s my favorite sitcom. I can watch it a thousand times over, even though I know the lines still makes me laugh. And I thought, okay, there’s a local comedy troupe who I adore. They’re putting on improv shows every weekend. It was only that first start of the year. And I thought, okay, front and center, I’m getting down. I’m going to have my laughter on. And then I was also doing some networking, trying to make connections around my local community. I knew the people who had an amazing sense of humor. 

And I thought, if I can just get in their space, maybe some of that energy will rub off on me. And then something amazing happened, Charla. After about three or so months of doing all of those things, I started laughing again. And because I was laughing, I was becoming alive again. And then there was a day, I’m not quite sure what I was doing, but there was this sensation, this feeling of warmth that came from my heart center. And I felt the warmth move from my heart and it moved up towards my ear. And I heard this little whisper and it was, now that I’m here, what do you want to do with me? And right behind that question, as I was pondering that for half a second, I heard this little skipping in my mind. And I heard this little girl laughing. And I thought, who is that? And again, what is happening right now? And it was my eight-year-old inner child coming through. 

I was eight years old when I first got introduced to public speaking. And in that experience, I had a quiver go through me and I thought, oh, my gosh, what is that feeling? How do I get more of that? And so I’ve been pursuing public speaking opportunities. I’m so active in my high school years, speaking anywhere from 500 to 2500 fellow speakers. teenagers during that time, took up public speaking when I was in college. And then I stopped because I got married and I had a family. And then here I was not doing it. And so when she came through that day, she said, remember that feeling? Remember how we love that feeling? And it’s not a, oh, I’m the center of attention feeling. It’s the feeling of fulfillment that I get from sharing my message or a message and watching the audience have an aha moment. And that to me means I’ve planted a seed of positivity. It’s up to them what they do with it. Will it grow and continue the impact? But at least I’ve done my part and watching them have that aha moment. So I’ve been, I’ve been speaking ever since I said, yes, let’s go do that. And it’s allowed me to step into my, my purpose and share my love with the world.

And you do it so well. And so beautifully, I, so many things that you have just said brought things. First of all, I got chills through a lot of that and I’m so, it’s just awesome to hear that, you know, so many people, you know, just there’s so much noise out here and it you know you we’ve got to listen to that little voice and you have to be still enough to do that long enough but something you said and i heard it yesterday too and i want to i have my own just story i was in a an incredible small group um class you know NLP or something like that with and at noon the instructor came to me and he said don’t ever say I was just a flight attendant again I’ve heard you say that a dozen times this morning I was like oh I was just a flight attendant it never occurred to me I didn’t have a degree I didn’t have all this stuff I was just a flight attendant And I shifted that. In that moment, it’s like, oh, well, I was a 34-year award-winning flight attendant. 

I carried the Olympic torch for Delta Airlines. That was my mission field. I was able to raise three plus three kids and do mission trips. And I was so… If I can get you out of an airplane in 90 seconds or less, you know, if we needed to, which never had to, thank goodness. But, you know, it was because I shifted that to because I was an award-winning 34-year flight attendant, I can do anything. I mean, it really, it was such an awakening. Because, you know, I was just a flight attendant. And he’s like, don’t ever say that again. I was like…

So true.

Yeah. And I mean, really, it’s like, oh, I just I was just a flight attendant. I just did what I did. And I just kept doing and, you know, we’re busy, busy, busy, busy, busy. So that was amazing. And I want to use something else you said. And I have I finally set this over here because I wanted to use it one of these days in an example, because. You said something about your cup needs to fill your cup up.

Okay, so I found this sweet little cup and saucer. So do you know, a lot of people these days would not know what a saucer is. Isn’t that interesting? So saucer is a little plate your cup sits on when it’s not a mug. Right. So, but what are the analogy that I love to use is, you know, you can’t, you can’t serve from an empty cup. So you pour your, you keep yourself filled up. You keep yourself. It’s not selfish. It’s self-care and you serve from the saucer. Right. And because there’s an overflow then. Exactly. And that’s I love that analogy. And I brought this cup up here to use for such a time as this. Right. So, yeah, it’s just really that little girl, that little the emptiness that you felt there.

Yeah.

We’re busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy being busy. And I’m a server. We’re busy serving. We’re doing things for everyone. And our cup gets empty, like you said. Yes. I mean, I relate that very much to that, that I didn’t have… You know, I don’t have the feels, right? The feels so much. Right. It’s all service. Yes. And it takes… I’m so grateful for that moment for you because we wouldn’t have you here. Right. And recognizing that it was depression, you know, is a big deal. And so depression… one of the best ways to do is what you did is get out of yourself and get out of thinking about what’s wrong. Yeah. 

And begin thinking about possibilities and what’s out there. So I love the word laugh. And I also love that your, your name is, by the way, we got to spell it because most people are not going to spell it this way. It’s a two letter word. L Y.  L Y. Now they’re going to know Smith, but LY Smith, Ly Smith. And, and yeah, I love that you said your friends in high school, they couldn’t shorten your name to have a nickname. So they gave you, and you mentioned it, but when you say it again, I thought it was great. Yes,

Yes, yes. So in high school, teenagers being teenagers, and when you have a long name, they tend to shorten it up and that becomes your nickname. And for me, yes, like you said, it’s spelled L-Y. It’s only two letters. How do you shorten that up? That doesn’t work. So they said, oh, we love you, Ly. We’re actually going to give you a longer name. We’re going to call you Living, Loving, Laughing Ly. And that stuck pretty much from my sophomore to my senior years. And yeah, that was definitely a fun time. And now I play with my name because some people, many, many people say lie instead of Ly. So I say it’s Ly, no lie. or think differently. And you will always remember how to say my name. And then I also say, you can also think of it as an acronym, love yourself. 

So I am love yourself Ly, because it’s so true that self-care and, and loving yourself is, does not, it, it keeps the just away, right? Because just is so limiting, just the labels in it. And it’s like, no, I, I, I am an amazing wife who, who takes care of, of my husband because I take care of me first. And then I, I love on him. And I raised, I helped to raise two incredible human beings and the things they’re doing out in the world. Now I, I couldn’t be more proud. And then taking my message out into the world because I’m pouring into myself first is so, so important. And I share those, you know, it’s what I went through first, right? that now I can reach my hand out to help others who are in the place of where I was. And it was that day where I made the decision of this is not me. And then moving forward, I don’t fully share the results of that. It’s like, yes, there came the joy, which was wonderful. 

There came my eight-year-old self reminding me of who I am. Yes, but in those first eight months, Charla, from that decision, that was the first time I became an award-winning international speaker. I became a best-selling author. I revitalized my marriage that was dying at that time. And I also restored my health. I was in my best shape and best health at that time. And so I started taking to the stages. And in that year, I thought, okay, gosh, if I could just start speaking and sharing my story. And I began manifesting that. And it’s just gotten better and better every year. But just real quick in those eight months, I was able to create that transformation for myself. And now… I take all of those life lessons and this is what I take out into the world. And I, and so this is where I came up with my reactor creator method. And I share that.

I know you want to talk about that. Cause that was, that is so impactful. And is it, so here’s your website. Do you have a website? Is it. So I

have. Yeah. Upcycle Coaching is my business. The website is under construction at this point in time. I do have an online community where I serve my women. It’s on the school platform, that’s S-K-O-O-L platform. And it’s a community platform, but the community is called G3 Mastermind. And the G3 is because I believe all of us have what I call the genius, gifts, and greatness within us. And those three Gs, they’re unique to you. So your three Gs is your unique combination, Charla. It’s going to be different from what it is for me. I liken it to a cell phone number. There are 8 billion people all around the planet 95% of us have a cell phone and we have the digits zero through nine in common. So there’s a little overlap here and there, right? And yet no two numbers are exactly alike. Thank goodness. Right? 

That’s how we connect with one another. And it’s the same thing with the G3s. And so I created this mastermind community where, and so it’s just G3MasterMind.Com. And this is where we’re at. The women come together from all over the world. We’ve got across the US, we have UK, we have South Africa. We have these amazing women who come together because they’re struggling with their self-talk. Like I had that inner conversation with myself and I get to give them this transformation for my life coaching certifications, my NLP master practitioner training. I get to put these pieces together with them so that they can move from what I call reactor to creator. And for those of you watching visually, I have a visual for you and I’ll explain it to our listeners as well. So if you’re in a safe place, not driving, but if you’re in a safe place and you can write something down, I invite you to write the word reactor. 

And this is what I’m going to show our visual audience here is reactor have Scrabble letters and the reactor. Is the woman like I was that day on the shore? You know, I was in the mundane. I was reacting to, oh, there’s the alarm clock, time to get up and get the kids ready for school. And I was reacting to the laundry and the dishes and what’s for dinner tonight and taking the kids here and going there. And then I had my own email notifications and phone calls and all of that, right? And I have my dreams and my aspirations, but while I’m trying to get those things done, I am busy putting out fire after fire after fire, whatever is popping up in my day, right? And so I am reacting and I’m feeling overwhelmed. I’m feeling stressed. I am busy trying to get it all done. And I am going to bed thinking, do I, and I’m going to bed exhausted. And then I’m thinking, do I really get to do this all over again tomorrow? 

And so I’m like the letter C in reactor where I feel like I’m stuck in the middle of all the things. And what I get to do with you inside of my G3 Mastermind community is like the letter C here. And for those of you writing it down, you can scratch it out. And it’s like taking a beat, taking a breath. It’s like Charla giving us that 22 second vacation. It’s taking a moment to step out from the middle of all those things and be present with yourself and see yourself like the letter C, pun intended, see yourself for your amazingness and your brilliance. Take off the just because you’re not just anything. You are an amazing human being and you don’t have to be winning awards and things like that, but recognize that you are an amazing human being. And the way I like to share it with you is that you do have your genius, your gifts and your greatness that make you the amazing you. And when you see yourself first, It’s like pouring into your own cup and out of that saucer, that overflow. 

Now, for those of you writing it down, write the letter C in front of the rest of the letters. You will see the transformation because now you get to be the creator. And so unlike the reactor living by circumstance and convenience and thinking life is happening to me, the creator says, oh, I’m I see what matters. I see what’s my top priority. I see what is most important. I’m going to go do that. And so when seeing yourself first, you create that transformation. You become the creator instead of the reactor. And what are you creating? You’re creating the best response in any given moment. You are creating the best version of yourself. Who is it that you really want to become? And instead of being busy, you’re being productive, actually accomplishing things. 

And you’re going to bed, maybe a little tired, but you’re going to bed fulfilled and wondering, do I really get to do this again tomorrow? And that’s where the real transformation happens. And I like to use this as a tool as well, Charla, so that if you’re having a moment where you feel that stress and you feel that overwhelm right in that moment, get present with that moment and take a deep breath, whether it’s the 22 second vacation or any type of breath work that feels right for you. 

Or I can literally push myself away from my desk and ask myself, am I being a reactor or a creator in this moment? And recognizing, getting really clear on, I want to be a creator. Okay, great. What is the best response that I can create right now? How can I show up calmer, resilient, strength? Or how can I show up in my genius, my gift, or my greatness right now? and then respond to that so it might be something where you’re working on it yourself you might be in a communication with somebody you know maybe it’s a conflict with somebody right now just say i just need to i need a quick moment here and you take a step back take that breath and maybe internally you’re asking yourself am i reacting or am i creating And you can use that as a quick 30-second, 60-second tool. And trust me, don’t just hear me out or see me here. Implement this. I challenge you to implement this and see how it works for you.

I love that. And it’s, it’s again, a little ironic to me that we were talking earlier about manifesting things like, like that very quickly, but my granddaughter four years old, you know, you know, Hey, let’s, let’s go to bed or let’s, you know, do you want to, what do you want? You know, you want to go, go potty and like, no, you know, so I am literally teaching her how, And saying, now, is that a reaction or is that a response? And I’m using the word response with her. So but this is just in the last two weeks, you know, when I’ve been with her a couple of times. 

And I’m like, let’s take it when you hear something, if you will take just a small breath, or you want to know. Let it heal, feel your body. Do you want to go eat? Or you want to, you know, whatever, whatever it is. Or do you need to go to the bathroom? What if you took a split second to listen to your body enough to respond and say, you know, I actually am hungry. Or, you know, I actually need to go potty. You know, whatever it is. But those words resonating because that’s something I’m dealing with with her now. As we speak, right? So, yeah, it’s just fun to watch all the threads weave together.

Yes, definitely, definitely. And yes, train them while they’re young. So true.

I mean, really, if we could learn that, if we learned that. One thing. And everybody would just take one just before they reacted, you know, got offended or whatever it is, you know, right now, you know, you know, nobody, everybody’s just trying to get through the world the best they can. And most of us were not trained in what you’re talking about here. So I’m so grateful you’ve created something. Do you have, so you said G3MasterMind.Com is a place to find you and your wisdom. What else is there? Yeah, so… Words, words, every word matters, right? This is something that we say every word matters. And that’s in my world. Split second transformation, change your words, change your life. 31 daily practices. So what is it you are up to now? How are you finding, how are people finding you to talk? How are you? Yes. Oh,

yeah. Well, I’m definitely on the socials. The best social media place to find me is on LinkedIn. And it’s just linkedin.com/in/G3MasterMind. I am also on Facebook and Instagram. Although on those other two socials, I mix a little bit of personal and business there. And really the best place to get to know me and what I do is my G3MasterMind. And Um, not only do we, we meet online, I do put daily posts there Monday through Friday because it follows my, my, my five part method that I’ve put together. And that’s called the candy

Method. I love that so much. You know, my book is candy bar hugs. It doesn’t make a difference. And then you’ve got the book, right? And then the, and then you have the candy method. So I think I thought, I just think that’s, I just love it. Tell us about that.

Yeah, the candy method. This again, taking a look, you know, observing my own journey. How do I how do I take the lessons out of that to then help others who may feel stuck? And so I thought, well, I down spiraled into that depression. How did that happen? And then how did I climb out of that depression into feeling alive again? Not

even knowing you were depressed, right? No, I… I think there’s a lot of walking zombie-ish kind of out here that we’re walking and functioning

depression. Yes, definitely. And, and I, I did that, like I said, for two to three years before, before I came aware of it, I was able to pinpoint like, what was the big trigger for me? And then I’m like, Oh, that’s, that’s what happened. It was in just real briefly. It was, it was a conflict with my husband, but it was something that he said to me that struck me. cord with one of my core values and we were seeing opposite sides of that and for

me and then you took that personally which is a whole yes don’t take anything personally just right just a big hint

Well, I thought about it and it was like, wait a minute, I have respect for myself, but I’m not feeling that respect for my husband. And well, one, there’s me, the human being of I’m going to stand up for myself in this area of self-respect. And then two, I am a mother setting an example for my daughter. How, how do I make that work? Because I don’t want her to end up in this relationship place where I felt I was. And then I didn’t really have anybody to discuss this. I didn’t have a support. Well, most of my friends at that time were supportive. they were in great marriages or so it seemed. I’m like, I’m not going to take my, my, my conflict here out to them. I don’t want to bring anybody down. I just, I just want to solve this. And in the evaluation of, of looking at my husband and, I’ve been married for over a decade at that point. And I’m like, I love him. And he is a good man. He is a good husband. 

He’s not perfect. Nobody is, right? And I thought, gosh, if I had to list all the great things about him, I had a very long list. If I had to list the things that drove me crazy about him, it was short. And yet in this one part was this core value. What do I do with that? And looking at, oh gosh, that… Am I really thinking this might be a possible end of relationships? non-negotiable. And I struggled with that. And it was that internal struggle that down spiraled me into the depression, but because I am at the core, loving, loving, laughing Ly, I, I am happy. I am positive. I make the best of any scenario because I was doing that. That is my, my mode operators, you know, the MO. And so I was even masking it for myself. And even looking at my pictures, because when we post on social media, we put the best versions of ourselves out there, right? When I look at my photos during that particular time, when I was in that darkest moment of the depression, I’m like, oh yeah, I see a different shade of myself. And then in the climbing out of it, And, you know, reclaiming the joy and the decisions that allowed me to create that transformation for myself in eight short months was amazing. 

So when I really sat and analyzed through that, I thought, okay, what comes through? And so this is what was downloaded to me that we need to get clear. Well, what do we get clear on? We get clear on what makes you happy. Because in the quest of remembering who I am, that was a question I asked myself, Ly, what makes you happy? And Charla if you and I go out, if we go out and talk to anybody, we come across the street, if we ask them right now, what makes you happy? Do you know? Very few people, maybe 2% would know. Because what would we hear from everybody else? Well, it’s certainly not this. And I don’t want that. They’ll tell you everything they don’t want. But they don’t really know what does make them happy. And That’s where the clarity begins. So that’s where C is for clarity. 

Clarity on, first of all, what makes you happy? What makes you come alive? What are your dreams? What is the lifestyle? What do you want your morning to look like? So you can get clear on any aspect of your life. And then the A is the affirmation. Because so much of my journey was that self-talk, right? That inner conversation that I was having with myself. And there’s so much narrative that happens there. We have 60 to 80,000 thoughts going through our mind on any given day. And if we’re not paying attention to that, 85% of those thoughts are the same thoughts we had yesterday and the day before that and the day before that. So the question is, what are the thoughts that you have on your loop today? And if you’re not happy and satisfied with your life, you might want to take a look at what those thoughts are. Because those thoughts, we said that words matter. Those words are such energy. There is a frequency to them. And life is going to respond outwardly in that same frequency. So if you’re like, there’s always a red light every time I get out on the road and drive, guess what? you’re going to keep pulling those red lights because that’s the frequency you’re matching with. 

But everywhere I go, everything is going my way. And that includes the green lights. You’ll see more green lights happening. And so I know it’s very simplistic, but thinking about, you know, and if you are saying to yourself, I am just this, I am just that, you are boxing yourself in with the just labels, right? So open it up again to your amazingness. And that’s how we talk to ourselves. And so that’s the affirmation. And then the end is necessity. Well, if I’m getting clear about what I want, what I desire out of life, And I’m here now. How do I make that happen? What are the steps that I can take? Because just wishing it isn’t going to, there is no magic lamp, right? We are the magic lamp. So we’ve got to rub ourselves and figure out what are the next steps. And we don’t have to see all 10,000 steps or 10 or anything like that. It’s the very next step. We don’t have to see the whole staircase. We just need to see the next two to three to climb it up. And then it unfolds. 

And this becomes the roadmap or the blueprint that we can follow towards that success. And then here’s the most important part, because with the C and the A and the N, we might believe I can, right? Getting clear, my affirmation, my necessity. But if you don’t do anything with that, You’re not going to make it happen. And so the D is discipline. It is the actual doing of that very next step. And then once you do it, we want to celebrate that effort. And that’s where the Y comes in. It’s celebrating you. And that effort, I really want to make this clear to everybody is it can be, I woke up and I got out of bed. And I made it to the corner of the couch because friends, that was me when I was coming out of the depression. If that is all the effort that you’re able to make on a particular day, then celebrate that. I was at him. at a speaking event just a couple of weeks ago. And she was celebrating that while she was sick and going through her depression, she was a real estate, well, she is a real estate agent. 

She still picked up the phone, even though she was depressed in bed. She didn’t even make it out of her bed. But she said, I will pick up the phone today. And that turned into a multi-million dollar deal. So good on her for that effort. You never know what’s going to happen. You can’t always see the result, but you can see the effort that you make. So the why is about celebrating yourself. And for me, that can be as simple as I clap my hands over my head, giving myself a high five. I might be, as I’m passing the bathroom, I’m going to give myself a high five in the mirror. Or I might get up and do a little happy dance and say… Good job, girl. You made it happen. And it’s just that little bit of effort. And if it’s the bigger things, then celebrate even bigger if you want to. Put yourself out on social media. I did this today because others want to celebrate you too. And so the candy method, that’s clarity, affirmation, necessity, discipline, you. And so inside my G3 Mastermind, because that aligns with Monday through Friday, I put out a piece each day for your own self-reflection. You

can

engage with the community. And then once a month, we get together for what I call a coffee connection because I am a coffee drinker. Not so much for the caffeine. I love single origin coffee and all the flavors that come through. So it’s a being present experience for me when I drink from the coffee cup. And then when I can do that in conversation with amazing women like yourself, Charla, and the women listening, then we can connect with one another and say, hey, you know, so what’s really going on for you today? And how’s that self-talk? And, you know, is it leaning more towards the creator side so that you’re empowering yourself, stepping into who you’re meant to be and taking that out into the world? Or are you feeling a little stuck in the reactor? How can we help you make that shift? And so those are some of the powerful things I get to do inside of the G3 Mastermind.

Man, you know, it sounds so intriguing. I mean, I think it sounds just inspirational, just having people, you know, people need people, right? So when you’re in depression, you tend to, like I said earlier, just, you know, focus on inward and what’s wrong, what’s wrong, what’s wrong, instead of… Just taking one step, taking care and finding something to be grateful for and something to take care of, even if it’s just feeding a stray cat here and there. You know, something that reaches outside of you is where that can start, you know, shifting the depression side of things and realizing that, you know, I, I’ve got a lot of mantras, but when I thank you, thank you, thank you. I walk around with gratitude and, and everything is always working out for me. I just lived that right. You know, that’s how you got here. I was like, I

didn’t

have a guest. And I was like, Well, I had to, I just waited because Ly was, changed her mind. She could do it, you know, so I was so perfect. But so I do, you know, we all know people that are, you know, we’re just less than our possibilities. You know, we’re so limited. bogged down in the mundane and the minutiae that it’s hard to see. So if you, and I had this recently, it’s like everybody, you know, people can’t find something to be thankful for sometimes. And I’m like, well, can’t you be thankful you have toenails? I mean, it can be something it’s, you know, like you said, just some little thing. A little shift in that thought process that, you know, yes, this is not all there is. There are unlimited possibilities in our world and we can shift our thinking towards what’s possible instead of what’s wrong. It starts to change everything.

It does.

It does. You’re very inspiring. I mean, I’m telling you. And so you’re trying to rewire, help us rewire our self-talk. Well, I’m a mindset coach too. I mean, we, you know, speak what you desire.

Right.

Not what you don’t because in God gives you the desires of your heart. And I use this in my book. It says, speak what you want. I don’t say that anymore because want is extreme lack. So I desire, which is of the father. Speak what you desire. Speak. And if you don’t know what you’re asking me, what I want, what I, you know, what I. It takes me back to, you know, I don’t know. I’m happy. Everything’s fine. That’s fine. It’s fine. But, you know, what truly lights a fire, right? That’s what you’re trying to ignite in these beautiful ladies that you’re working with.

Yes, absolutely. Yes, gratitude is so important. That’s how I start my day. When my eyes open, it’s like, oh, it’s another day I get to show up and serve. It’s like, okay, thank you. And also, because my husband has some compromised health issues, I’m like, oh, thank you. I get another day with my husband. And so it’s always delightful. And in a few months, we’re going to be celebrating 25 years of marriage. And, and, and, you know, when I, I shared a little bit of the challenge and, and that things did get better. And I just, you know, the, not the end of the story, but what’s happening now is that we, we found our friendship. We found our love for each other again, and we’re empty nesters now. And we were like teenagers in our house. We are so in love with each other again. 

It’s, it’s amazing. And we have so much laughter in our, our marriage as, as well. And it’s because I focused on, on the creator and it is so like you said, so important that we think about what it is that we desire because we get what we’re looking for. And so if you’re struggling with looking for the gratitude, it is a principle of looking around. I love this exercise of look around your room or your space where you are right now. And if I were to ask you, how many things can you see that are red? And you’re looking around, you’re looking around and you see in your mind, you’re going, oh, that’s red, that’s red, that’s red, that’s red. And if I pulled you back to the center, I said, okay, great. Now I want you to close your eyes and you close your eyes. You might still see those red things in your mind, but then I ask you, well, how many things were blue? You’re going to say, oh, I don’t know. 

Well, why don’t you know? Well, because you were focusing on what was red. And now if you look around like, oh, I see all the blue things. Yes, because that’s where you’re putting your attention to. And that’s how the gratitude works is when you can put your attention on what am I grateful for? Do you have a roof over your head? Do you have carpet under your feet? Who put the roof there? Where did that supply come from? Who architected the design of your house that you’re living in? Who put the threads together for the carpet that’s under your feet? It’s even the little things like that. And I hope that’s how I started to fix me in my marriage is, okay, instead of finding all these things that seem so easy to complain about my husband, how about I look for what did he do that actually made me go, hmm, that was nice. Or that felt good. 

Or this made my day just a little bit better. And sure, I struggled with it. But I wasn’t going to stick into the, well, I can’t find anything. Because he was not that horrible. But it did take effort on my part. Not his. It took effort on my part to look for those things. And that’s how the gratitude works too. And like Charla said, you do that again and again. And maybe tomorrow morning, if you’re really struggling with it, you find one. And then the next day you find one again. And then the next day after that, you’re like, okay, I’m going to bump it up to two. And you gradually, and then you’re training your brain to look for those things. And the more gratitude that you have, especially if you can write it down, you will instantly create your happiness by 25%. And it just gets better and better. And the more you open yourself up to that, the more it’s going to reveal itself. And you’ll feel that satisfaction. 

You’ll feel that light again. And asking yourself, what makes me come alive? What makes me come alive? And then allowing your brain to look for that. What can I find? What can I do? What can I see? What can I experience that’s going to make me come alive? And that will allow that to happen. And then real quick, Charla, I want to take a step back because I think this is an important point. You and I had this in our pre-discussion that when I entered college, I wasn’t pursuing public speaking. It wasn’t a thought in my mind, even though it was like a deep down love, but I had buried that too. I went into college as a physics major of all things, and I wanted to pursue aerospace engineering. And I was in Air Force ROTC in my college, my first two college years, because I thought, I thought my whole life plan was about becoming a test pilot for the Air Force. 

And As I was going through those first two years, I thought, oh, this is great. This is exciting. But in my second year of college, I was taking third year calculus because I’d already taken AP in high school. So I got to skip the first year. So here I was my second year in college. I was in third year calculus. And my brain… I was starting to fail the class because my brain would not wrap around the concepts. And I thought, what is happening? I can’t be doing that. This cannot be happening because this stops me in my tracks. I’ve always been good at math. Always. I understand. I first did multiplication when I was six years old. And then I picked up algebra. And my dad even taught me how to use the slide rule, if anybody remembers that, how to use the slide rule when I was like eight years old. And so I always grabbed math early. And so why was this happening now? And I thought, well, maybe I just need to get some tutors. So I grabbed some tutors. Still didn’t work. I talked to my professor. Still didn’t work. 

And I didn’t get past my third year of calculus. And if you can’t do that, you cannot go on to engineering. So this derailed that whole life plan I had set out for myself. And I thought, well, if I’m not going to do that, then what am I going to do? And my inner child did not show up at that time. But what I ended up doing was taking some paper and I just brainstormed. I had a brainstorm day where I just wrote down, what are the things that I like doing? And I said, you know what? It doesn’t matter what it is. There’s no judgment here. I’m just going to write down all the things that I really, really like doing. And I wrote it all out. I had multiple sheets of paper and I went, okay, I can’t write anymore. Okay. I looked at it and looked at it. What can I do? that I know that I will enjoy or love doing, and I can still create a life for myself. 

And when I got honest with that, it came back to public speaking. And I’m like, oh, well, now I’m going to switch into communications. And I double majored in communications and psychology. And in full transparency, I ended up dropping out of college because I did not want to go into financial debt. But I did pursue that academic’s And then went on to pursue public speaking. And then I let life get in the way with marriage and being a stay-at-home mom and all of that. And then so it was the remembering. But why did I go in as a physics major and I wanted to become a test pilot? Because that’s what I thought my dad wanted me to be. And while my mom wouldn’t need to be a doctor or a lawyer, I was like, no, I don’t want to do that. I was still pursuing what somebody else was putting on me. And that’s as bad as the just. It’s just as bad.

But it’s so, I mean, how do we know when you’re 18 years old? And we don’t know. And we think that we do want to please our parents. And we do. They know better than we do. So, you know, whatever. But what a gift. So what the thread that I’ve noticed with you is that you, you know, you’re living, living, living. Something’s going on. And all of a sudden. you learned how to self-reflect. You learned how to do the brain dump. You learned how to So those gifts, a lot of people I don’t think really have that gifting of knowing exactly what they are to pivot. It’s called, you know, this is not what I signed up for. It’s not what I had in mind. And I’m believing that you could have passed that class in a split second if… it was your desire. It was a, it was like a roadblock for you to readjust and go the direction that you’ve chosen. And so, and we, we, time’s up. 

So I want a first for you to end up, you know, how do they find you again? And, but first I want to, with your husband, I believe so many marriages can be saved or revived with what you kind of did. So you, you didn’t know at the time that the time that was, that it was a values conflict. You probably didn’t put that label on it at that moment. You just lived like with the building resentment, building resentment. you know not having and most of us don’t know how to have real communication conversation right but and and we don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings and we got the i was a flight attendant i had a bitterness inside of me and i had a split second moment of transformation from bitterness to joy but a lot of years i’m i’m the busy mom you know mission trips and All this, but I had a really deep bitterness going for my husband at the time. 

And, you know, I love the self-reflection that you found that moment at the sunset. Why am I not free? So we live in our head instead of our heart. That’s what you’re talking about. We’re living in our head. What we got to do and check this box off. Isn’t this great? Yeah. Instead of how do we feel? And if you go to towards, and I don’t mean, um, basically what makes you feel good, you’re going to go the right direction. And I, and that’s not in a, um, I, some people would take that wrong, but I believe if you go into your deep, deep, deepest core value feelings and measure that and, um, Does this make me feel better? Or does this make me feel better? You know, it’s choices. And that… can come across sounding a little selfish but that’s not what it is it is creating the life you love and you become a creator instead of that reactor and that’s the greatest analogy i just love the way that that works and that’s beautiful so last words what do you have tell them who you are where you want to you know how they find you and last words

Yes. So yes, Ly Smith, and that’s spelled L-Y. And if you’re a woman listening, sorry guys, I’ve got to exclude you because yes, this is just for the women. But yes, women, please accept this as your invitation into the G3 Mastermind. It’s a free community. And so it’s just G3, the number three, mastermind.com. And you can explore the candy method there with daily posts and reflections for yourself. And my last words for you is through all of these stories, what it really came back to is that my truth was always there. that ever since I was eight years old, if not before, you know, I was meant to be a public speaker. And I let, you know, I either created other directions or I let life happen. And maybe I got lost along the way. 

But when I came back to the heart of the truth, now I am in full alignment with who I am and who I’m meant to be. And because of the skills and the life lessons I’ve gained, I now get to help you do that too. And that’s done best inside of the G3 Mastermind. So take what you’ve learned today, implement it, do one thing with it. Don’t just hear this and let it go in one ear and out the other. Let it sit with you. Take one thing, do something with it. See how it makes your life better. Accept the invitation to the G3 Mastermind. And I look forward to seeing you on the inside.

And this was so incredibly rich and I’m really blessed that we have connected again. I mean, you know, I don’t think we really lost, but it’s been a while and you have blessed humanity with your wisdom and your, I mean, you’re, you’re still so young and you’re so vibrant and I, you know, I just, you’ve blessed humanity with the alignment. I love that, that you’ve created the heart, soul, spirit alignment. And I’m kind of a little envious because I think I have some of that work to do, even at my old age.

We’re not done yet, Charla. We’re not done yet.

I ain’t quitting. I’m telling you that. That’s right. Blessings, blessings, blessings. And thank you, Ly, again. And remember to always, always, always choose joy.

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About  Ly Smith

That inner critic isn’t a lack of ambition. It’s a lack of trust in yourself. And it shows up at the very moments you need courage most. I help high-achieving women rewire their inner self-talk from self-doubt to self-direction so they can stop shrinking and start shining with relentless confidence.

The women I work with are already accomplished by traditional measures. They’ve mastered their craft, earned the respect of peers, and reached milestones others admire. But their impact is capped by hesitation, overthinking, and the exhausting cycle of second-guessing themselves. My role? To give them the clarity, tools, and proven framework to transform doubt into direction, and fear into fuel.

Because when confident women rise, they don’t just change their own lives. They ignite movements, inspire communities, and create ripple effects of growth and abundance.

Ready to stop shrinking and start shining? Let’s connect and unlock the confidence that was always yours.

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Let’s jump on a discovery call and get to know each other. Find all things Charla at CharlaAnderson.com/links.

On The Charla Anderson Show, We discuss Mindset, How much Your WORDS matter, Princess to Queen energy, mantras, HOPE, Faith, Miracles, Overcoming, and much, much more, including learning from amazing guests.

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