Trish Ahjel Roberts is a self-actualization coach, yoga and meditation instructor, inspirational blogger and founder of HoneyButterflyz LLC and Black Vegan Life ™. Trish was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY and holds an MBA from Long Island University. She is the author of three self-help books: the e-book, Mind-Blowing Happiness ™ Guide to Self-Care; the self-help memoir, Thinking Outside the Chrysalis: A Black Woman’s Guide to Spreading Her Wings; and the inspirational journal, 12 Steps to Mind-Blowing Happiness: A Journal of Insights, Quotes & Questions to Juice Up Your Journey. Trish has ten years of experience studying Buddhist philosophy and over twenty years practicing yoga.
Podcast Highlights
Who is Trish Ahjel Roberts?
Trish was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She moved to Atlanta 13 years ago and worked as a financial advisor for most of that time while organizing a vegan group and studying yoga and buddhist philosophy. She decided to quit her job a year and a half ago to start her business based on her writing.
She began writing about achieving happiness and after some feedback from readers created her journal and started teaching her 12 steps in different cities to different people. She’s noticed that since the pandemic began people are getting more introspective.
Anger and Happiness
Especially with the political climate over the past year, Trish has begun helping people understand that anger is a choice and when you feel triggered, you can choose how you are going to respond.
Anger may feel right at the moment but it ultimately harms you, either from raising your blood pressure and stress levels or decreasing your immune system. You can find other ways to motivate yourself that are positive and much better for your health.
There is probably more stress in people’s lives than ever before in our lifetimes. Trish teaches people to constantly wake up with gratitude. You have to work with passion, rest daily, and wake up with gratitude because if you can wake up that way it will shape the rest of your day.
People struggle with empathy because it requires imagination, which is something that we suppress as we get older. Developing your empathy can help you stop feeling anger as you come to better understand people and where they are coming from.
If you’re feeling anger right now, the first step is to acknowledge it. Then, take a few deep breaths and try to put yourself in the position of the person angering you, and then think about what action you can take to make it something positive.
Building Your Empathy Muscles
The first step to developing anything when yourself is the desire to do something different. If you notice that you’re in a bad mood much of the time, practicing your empathy with people that you already like is a good place to start. If you find yourself in an argument with someone you love, pause and try to understand how they feel and why. Practice doing that and then expand to someone you are less fond of.
Empathy is a powerful asset, not just for the social good, but also for interpersonal relationships. Empathy is not only for the other person’s benefit, it also helps you feel better.
If you learn to live with how things show up in your life instead of constantly battling it will reduce the amount of frustration and bitterness in your life and make you much more fun to be around. This makes a big difference in your relationships with people as well.
Flow vs Hustling
You have to disconnect from the outcome. You can only do the best you can for any one project or situation. If you want to experience flow and success, you need to be able to enjoy the ride.
When you get to the place where you love what you are doing so much, while feeling competent, that’s how you reach a flow state. It’s probably not going to be your whole day, but it’s possible to find that state in smaller tasks throughout the day.
In a corporate job, look for projects that you can take on that you feel aligned with as that’s a great way to take an entrepreneurial ownership of something within the corporate environment. It can be something as small as adding a little personal flare to what you do to inject some passion into your work.
If you are in a job that you feel no passion for and it’s just for the money, make sure that you invest a few hours a week into something that you are passionate for. Think ahead and put in the time so that you can transition eventually. Sometimes you have to try a number of different things before you find the one that you are really passionate about.
What can a leader do to help bring out the passion of their people?
Helping employees add their passion to their work would be a great way to increase the retention and longevity of their team. The team will also identify that passion with the leader and feel more connected with their work.
When you have people working from a happy state instead of a frustrated state, their productivity will go up and the results will improve. 87% of American workers go home believing that their employer doesn’t care about them. Authentic compassion and empathy for your team is an incredible asset for business owners and leaders within the corporate environment.
Links:
https://mindblowinghappiness.com/
https://instagram.com/trishahjelroberts
https://twitter.com/trishahjel