Breaking Free from the Past – Dr. Elizabeth Pritchard on Mindset, Leadership, and Resilience

Brad Minus: And we're back with another episode of Life-Changing Challengers and I am really excited because I have Dr. Elizabeth Pritchard. She's a researcher. She's a speaker. And right now she is the co founder and director of the Women Authentic Leadership Training Institute.

Hey, Elizabeth, how are you today? 

Elizabeth Pritchard: Hi, Brad. Fantastic. Thank you so much for having me here. 

Brad Minus: Oh, I'm really excited to talk to you. And as you can probably hear, Elizabeth has a beautiful accent and she's talking to us from Melbourne, Australia, whereas it is currently Sunday morning and I am talking to you all on Saturday night.

So basically we're looking into the future. So exactly, exactly. You're, you're walking into a dimension of sight and sound anyway, just kidding, a little twilight reference for y'all. So let's ask Elizabeth our favorite question, Elizabeth, can you tell us a little bit about your childhood? You know, like where you grew up, what was the compliment of your family?

And what was it like to be Elizabeth as a kid? 

Elizabeth Pritchard: Yes, well I grew up in New Zealand, so I grew up in a little tiny, tiny place in Taranaki in New Zealand. My parents, my dad was a shear milker, so we were on a farm and I had eight brothers and sisters and I was the youngest. And then when I was like three and a half, mom and dad decided to move to the city, which was New Plymouth and in the middle of the North Island of New Zealand.

They moved to the city so that we would have more opportunities at schooling and high schooling and work, that type of thing. So my. My experience of being Elizabeth as a child was somewhat the annoying little sister, somewhat the, the, just be quiet and just go and do your thing and don't interrupt the grownups who are doing really important things.

And so part of the story that I took on as a child was that. I needed to just get on with things. I needed to be quiet. I wasn't allowed to have a voice because there was many other voices in the household. And so that was the story that I took from a child. It's not right or wrong, good or bad.

It's the way that I took on that meaning as a child, that I didn't have a voice. I couldn't stand up for myself. I had all these ideas, I had all these dreams and aspirations as a child, and yet I thought I wasn't allowed to do those. So that led to lots of things in my life that have been seen as some challenges along the way.

Brad Minus: I can't even imagine having eight brothers and sisters. I'm astounded at that. But I am curious as that you grew up in New Zealand versus, you know, most of the people that listen to this as are Americans. Did you have like regular, like family dinners? 

Elizabeth Pritchard: Oh, we always ate together always at dinner time.

Brad Minus: I love that because it's something that's not right now in this environment. Unfortunately, we don't see that in my work, most of the gurus and stuff with our people that are talking about relationships and child rearing and everything are saying that, you know, that's very important for them to have that.

So it's nice to know that, Hey, this is something that's kind of uniform across the world. For me, I'm an only child and dinner was every night, me and my mother and my father. And, you know, there was no if and buts about it, you know, you were going to be there.

You were, you know, it was dinner table. You know, mom cooked, I cleaned, dad drank beer, and that was it. 

Elizabeth Pritchard: Absolutely. 

Brad Minus: Did you have one of your siblings that you were able to kind of, you know, talk to and tell them some of these grandiose ideas that you had?

Elizabeth Pritchard: Sort of, I had one brother who I felt the closest to. I felt that he respected me and treated me as a person rather than just the annoying little sister. And I remember growing up, he was already at university and in a totally different place in New Zealand, at the top of New Zealand, actually.

And I would get to spend some holiday time with him. So I'd go and stay in his flat with him and his flatmates. And we'd have special things and he'd treat me like a grown up when I was like 12 or 13. And so he was one of the ones that I felt that I was the closest to throughout my life.

Unfortunately he passed away and he died in 2010. And so I haven't got that in the last decade or more. It was a big loss because he and I were just wherever we were. We just sort of, we had this connection in a different way. I have two sisters. We interact quite often and it's sort of different.

I'm creating relationships with different siblings in different ways growing up. And it's not. Necessarily a super close family where we all get together all the time we spread throughout the world. I have actually got a brother and his wife and family in the US, so they lived in Boston for about three decades and now I believe they're in St.

Louis and so, yeah, so we sort of spread a little bit throughout New Zealand, Australia and the US and so we connect in different ways and different times, but I think the relationships are important. What you create along the way and, and they, this has been some tensions along the way with different relationships and whatever those stories are.

I've learned now in the last decade, 15, 20 years that it's like, it's my story and I get to choose. My response and it's nothing that person has done to me or not done to me or given to me or not given to me. I've learned that I can live my life, that I can step through all those stories and those things that I was holding on to.

A lot of the gurus now talk about teetering and clinging, like Michael Singer. And it's like, we cling on to these things. We cling on to these stories and they often dictate our lives going forward. I've been able to break that. I've been able to recognize that I don't need to hold onto that.

Doesn't matter what they have done or haven't done. I can shift through that, and that's what the last decade or so of life changing challenges has been for me, because I'm like, I don't want to stay like that for the rest of my life. I don't want to keep holding onto that suffering. And so I've come through and recognized how I can let that go.

Brad Minus: That's fantastic. And that's a message that is probably the best message you'll probably get out right now because there's so many people right now that are just clinging to victimhood. And it's, it's quite, it's aggravating, it's, it's sad, and especially that they cling to that, just like you said, instead of moving forward, moving into the future and, you know, making yourself better for the future, rather than moving forward.

You know, letting the past dictate your destiny. So, and we're gonna get more into that, but I am still curious about your childhood a little bit. So, what about, were you in any sports? Were you in any extracurriculars growing up? Did you, you know, chess club or, were you a track star or anything like that?

Elizabeth Pritchard: I went more into music and musical arts. I love music. I love creating music. Our family was very musical. You could put us all in a room and we can sing in like seven part harmony. And there'll be some instruments played along the way as well. At my mom and my dad's funeral, for example, we sing, beautiful, beautiful hymns at their funerals.

Brad Minus: Oh, 

Elizabeth Pritchard: this is lovely. We don't often get to do that as a family all together, but we can do that. I love music as part of my soul. I don't often get to create music nowadays just because of what I'm doing. But I always. Interact with music and, love it coming in and expanding who I am on a daily basis depending on the mood where I'm at, put something on to raise my mood.

This is another tiny tweak, which is amazing, is that whenever I'm feeling a bit low or down or blue, the quickest way to change that state. Is to change your physiology. To do that, I put on one of my favorite songs, like this girl is on fire or something like that. 

Brad Minus: Were you one of the siblings that played an instrument?

Elizabeth Pritchard: Yes. I play several instruments. Actually. I sort of specialized in the clarinet, went through school and play the clarinet. 

Brad Minus: First chair all the way through high school. And you know, and then marching band. I played the saxophone. 

Elizabeth Pritchard: Oh, right. Cool, cool, cool. Yeah, I did all the exams and things like that.

And then I left school and went to university and sort of didn't really take it with me. I can play piano, I play piano in bands and things like that as well. I play piano at church and in different types of bands and things. And I can play the guitar a little bit and flute a little bit and the saxophone a little bit.

But I don't sort of actively do that now. But I love music. I absolutely love it. 

Brad Minus: Yeah, no, I am, I'm constantly, I'm one of the biggest questions. So, I'm an endurance coach, so I coach people to endur, like marathons and Ironman triathlons and crazy stuff, right? Ultra marathons, a hundred mile road races and stuff like that.

Everybody's always asking me, you know, Hey, I get up in the morning and I just don't wanna go work out and blah, blah, blah. And I'm the first one to say, the first thing you do when you get up and if you feel like you, just don't wanna do it. Put on your favorite song, stand up, go to wherever your phone is, whatever, and blast your favorite song and you will be fine and you will be fine.

Force yourself to do that. 

Elizabeth Pritchard: Move, move your body to it. 

Brad Minus: And you will be fine. I have a, I don't, I don't listen. It's not music. Actually, there's a, there's a YouTube, video. That's, called the rising and, it's, it's, it's a poem overlaid by music and underlayed by music and, and that like when I, when I know that I'm not getting up to, to get outside and get my workout on, I all I have to do is throw that in and the minute I start listening to it, I'm just like, I'm ready to go.

So I get that, that those changes are, are, are fantastic. You didn't take in, in music. What did you, what did you study in college? 

Elizabeth Pritchard: I'm actually an occupational therapist by trade, so I did an occupational therapy degree and then have specialized in working in Neuro rehab with people who have had stroke or car accident, brain injury type things.

I did that for about 20, 25 years, and then I moved into education and research and then more into our business, what we're doing now. 

Brad Minus: Wow. That neuro rehab, that just sounds amazing. I can't imagine the gratitude that your patients must have felt with you working on them and the sense of accomplishment that you must've had.

You know, during that time in your life, because it's, I mean, I know all of it is, and especially now I get, I get what you're doing now, but just the idea that you're helping people with stroke and things, can you, Oh my God, that's amazing. Yeah, is that what your doctorate is in?

Elizabeth Pritchard: It's in public health, so it's, doctorate of philosophy. So it's in public health. So I sort of moved into prevention, promotion, public health. Let's sort of solve the problem before people get so sick. And so I first looked at falls prevention. So how can we prevent people having falls and then injuries from the falls?

And then moved into why do some people respond differently to the same diagnosis and have different outcomes following hospitalization. So it was like, it was coming more into my expertise and interest area of what's happening up here. So what's happening up in your head? What are you telling yourself?

What are you creating? What are those coping strategies that you have? What is that ability to shift through adversity that you are able to create for yourself? What can you learn? All of those types of things, because we can have two people, very similar experiences, very similar diagnoses, and yet one will fly when they go home and the other will.

Still 12 months later, being really disabled, literally disabled, impaired, unable to engage in everyday life very much. And so it was, I was fascinated to sort of work out why this is. And it all comes down to mindset. Absolutely. I mean, it's like one of the things that I. Teach and trainers is all about that grit and that mental toughness of who we be.

And like you were saying before, Brad, it was like, get out of bed. Don't feel like doing something. I love getting out of bed and, I do meditation first and then I, and then I do something active and I've discovered I love boxing and doing workouts. I was like, really? Three or four decades. It was like, Oh, don't show me anything sporty.

I'm not a sporty person, but there was just a story and it was just a BS story. And so to actually grow and develop my mental toughness as well, last year, for eight months, I did ice baths. And so it was like, even if I don't feel like it, even if it's minus two or three outside, we don't get minus 10 or 20 like they do in the US, minus two or three outside.

And it's like, I've committed to this, I get up. I go down, I get in the ice bath and, it's like, when I say go, go, I go. And developing that mental toughness a decade ago, two decades ago, I didn't realize I had that in me.

I didn't realize I could take control of my life and myself and my moods and my attitudes and my responses and my actions in such a powerful way. And now it's like, if I say go, I just get up and go. Don't care if I feel sore or got a headache or didn't sleep well or feel grumpy 

it was like, when I say go, go and developing that, that grit and that toughness for the last decade or so that, that is just absolutely life changing for me and we can learn that. 

Brad Minus: That is, that's definitely something I want to touch on, but we're going to hang on there because I think you're sounding like the New Zealand, David Goggins right now.

Elizabeth Pritchard: Know David Goggins? 

Brad Minus: Okay. 

Elizabeth Pritchard: I like David Goggins. We actually use this book in one of our programs. 40%. 

Brad Minus: I'm a gigantic fan of David Goggins. I've read and listened to his books. And, you know, whenever he's getting into an interview or something, I try to get on there, but anyway, you've talked about getting past adversity and changing the story and that, and you have a couple of stories yourself I'd like to touch into.

So I've got three different things that you've kind of went, you've four different things that you kind of went through. It states that you kind of went through a bullying phase. Was that in high school or was that, hopefully it wasn't your family that was bullying you, but, 

Elizabeth Pritchard: No, in the workplace.

So I've experienced a couple of episodes of yeah, not very nice treatment from the manager in a couple of roles and it was really tough to go through because it was like. I ended up totally second guessing myself going, Oh, maybe I am wrong. Maybe I'm doing this all wrong and I don't know what to do here.

And just that total erosion of my own self belief was huge. The first time it happened, I was in New Zealand in a role in New Zealand. Going through that time, it was hideous, it was horrible, it was, as you would expect, I wasn't really eating, I wasn't really sleeping, I didn't know how I could do my job on a daily basis, I didn't want to be there, I was trying to find my allies, I had allies and they were still, the person was actually bullying them as well, and just closing our whole department down basically from being allowed to speak right through to some really nasty stuff.

So in the end, the greatest thing that I think that I stepped into, give a little bit of context to this, this was like two or three years, after I had, gone through a divorce of 22 year marriage, and so I was sort of reasonably fragile anyway, and then going through this in the workplace with a new manager.

It was like, oh, crap. Everything was just really hard and tough and big and I have two daughters and one of them wasn't actually talking to me because I, it was, it was like, it was one who broke the family up and it was just the hugest. Toughest, darkest time that I have sort of come through in a way, there's many tough times, but that's one of them and I think often these things come in a culmination of things.

It was like this and this and this. And a few years before that, I had, hit rock bottom and, totally hit burnout. For three months, I was totally unable to even get out of bed by myself. I needed assistance to shower and dress and eat. So there was whole three months of my life, which was just a wee bit of a blur.

It was just full of medication and treatment and being unable to do anything. And it was really tough. It was. The culmination of all these things over about four, five, six years and the breakthrough for me because I recognized it was like I can either stay in all of this shit I can either stay in this repeat message of I'm not good enough.

I don't know what to do Nobody's here to support me. I can either stay in that message or I can choose to go through that And one of the greatest decisions I made at that time was to leave that workplace, to actually actively leave the workplace. And within that, I began to gain my power back because nobody can give me my own power.

I have to step into my power. And so I decided that I would step into my power and move through that 

Brad Minus: that's a great message. And I know there is nothing worse. Part of it, you know, bullying, I can imagine, you know, you've got to see this person every single day. And so it's like, when you come home, all you're thinking about is, Oh, my God, when's the next time I have to go to work?

And what am I going to feel like in this? It feels like you're closing in on your chest. Your chest starts to close in and you're just like, Oh, my God, you know, so every time you think about it, it's kind of like if you're in a job, you know, you're doing the best you possibly can, but you kind of see like the company is moving into a different, space.

You kind of know somewhere down the line, they might have told you and you have no idea where you are going to be in the company over the next few months. And all you're doing is going home, going, okay, I hope I don't walk in tomorrow and they handing my walking papers.

What am I going to do? Am I going to, where am I going to do for, for money? What am I going to do for insurance? What am I going to do for that? And you just go home every night thinking, okay, well, when is that going to happen? Instead of what you said is going into your power and saying, okay, Well, if it's going to happen, and let me just take it.

Let me just. Take power now and find something else while I am still, receiving money and living. So, I totally get what you're saying about stepping into your power. I totally know what you mean by, getting your own power back.

Elizabeth Pritchard: Important just to do that. 

Brad Minus: So you went through, a little bit of a sexual abuse issue as well. 

Elizabeth Pritchard: Just a little bit. Okay. Yes. 

Brad Minus: Oh, I'm sure it was. I wasn't trying to belittle it. 

Elizabeth Pritchard: No, no, no. I was trying to segue Elizabeth.

Brad Minus: I was trying to segue, 

Elizabeth Pritchard: it was like, let's just segue into that one. Yeah. So, yes, when I was about eight years old, I was sexually abused by someone who. Was in the power sort of dynamic of being like a surrogate grandfather. And so this obliterated so many things on so many levels.

My trust, my belief in myself, I held onto that, episode for many years before I even talked about it. Cause it was like, I felt this whole thing of shame and it was my fault. And again, part of those things of, I'm just a little girl. Nobody wants to hear me. I don't have a voice. Nobody will believe me.

All of that stuff, which is so common for people of abuse when they're little children. And We know that it is never, ever the child's fault, ever. It is the person in that, that sort of seniority, more nurturing, caring role that has perpetrated this. And so, recognizing that has been an absolute journey for me.

And I, I shared this with someone when I was 14 and they never said anything back. I did it in a letter I was writing to them and they never said anything back. And it was like, oh, okay, that shows, goes to show. I can't say, talk anything about this. And, and so I just buried it. And again, I was, I was clinging onto the hurt of it.

The suffering of I was suffering in the suffering, so to speak that yes, it happened to me and I have come to learn to be able to let go of my response to that. Doesn't mean that I've let that person off the hook necessarily. It's nothing to do with that person. It's about me and my response and my life.

It's that whole thing of stepping into my truth, stepping into my power. Because if I keep holding on to that victimhood, like you said before, Brad, if I keep holding on to that story and that label that I'm a victim of child abuse, then that colors everything that I do, I think, and I be. And so I don't want that to cover and to color everything.

It's something that happened in my life. It's some adversity that I've been through, like many, many other things in my life that I've been through. And everybody who's listening would have been through as well. And none of it is better than or worse than somebody else. You've been through things that have tested you.

I've been through things that have tested me. And I get to choose. Right here, right now, I get to choose if I stay in that label, stay in that story of a victim or I get to choose to say that something that happened in my life, even though the event was pretty big and catastrophic at the time, to me it's a little thing in my life. I've lived for x number of years and I have had so many experiences. I'm not going to let that one experience color all of it. And it took me over four decades to realize that and to step into that truth and that power.

Brad Minus: That is the best story, the best way I've ever heard anyone talk about it. And I think that's amazing that you were able to. You know, not drop it. It's still a learning experience, but that you're able to step away from the victimhood, step out of it and say, that's, you know what? That was then. This is now.

I'm a totally different person and I'm strong. I'm stronger for it. And I, that's, that's amazing. Absolutely a crime and absolutely not your fault and absolutely horrible to think about it.

It's downright evil to me. For an eight year old to have to go through that. But there's people that take that on all the way into, you know, into the day that they finally leave the earth. And the fact that you know that you can disassociate yourself from that story, it's a story of your life and it's done and that's it.

And move on, take your power back and move forward. I have a number of my, my fellow military. That, you know, go through PTSD from being in, in the war, in Iraq and Afghanistan and different combat operations. And I'd been around that as well. There were a couple of different, I'm going to prey on some of your neuro techniques here because I'm going to ask you about it.

But there was an experimental, like, I don't want to call it pre PTSD, PTSD. It was kind of like a way to avoid it. And it involved very little, medication. I think the only thing that we were given was Xanax. And that was just to kind of calm us down or help us sleep. And that was it.

And it was very small. And a lot of times they told us to snap it in half if you didn't really need it, you know what I mean? So you're talking about 0. 25 milligrams of Xanax. That was all we were given. And it literally was just to calm down or to, you know, help us sleep.

But what they made us do was tell the story hundreds of times. I would say that I probably either talked about it or wrote about it probably a thousand times. And that's exactly what happened though. It just became a story. It was just a story. It was like a comic book now in my head of something that I might have that I've gone through and a numerous of and almost everybody that went through it had a positive reaction to it. And, you know, we had this, and then we had another control group, which was, people that went through the more, traditional treatment. Traditional, there you go.

Traditional treatment where you sat down with a professional and chatted about it and, you know, sometimes you had drugs and sense, you know, in, in our words. By far, it was much better to go through it that way. But what they did turn out was that for the people that it wasn't successful for that there is some sort of background, something in their background.

That that would either make them, you know what, I'm going to use your vocabulary, something that made them hold on to the story instead of let it go, no matter how many times they talked about it or try to talk about it, because a lot of times it was like pulling teeth, you know, people didn't want to talk about it, you know, like, no, I don't get that.

Right. You don't want to relive it every time. But what do you, what do you take from that? And that's the only thing I'm going to give you. And I know that's very, very small, you know, for me, it's awesome. It's 

Elizabeth Pritchard: awesome. 

Brad Minus: Does that, 

Elizabeth Pritchard: one of the things Yeah, one of the things that's really important to do that because we work with people who have had all different sorts of things that happen in their life, sometimes they put the label on it as trauma.

Sometimes they just put the label on it as an experience or a situation or something that they're dealing with. And so our language, you see, their language and language is so important of what we choose. And also our focus. Where focus goes, energy flows. So if we're constantly looking back, and I'm turning back on purpose, if we're constantly looking back to that thing that happened, and constantly revisiting it, reliving it, yes, we are constantly holding on and clinging to our response to it.

We, we in Walt Institute talk about revisiting it, not reliving it, because you can revisit it for the purpose of learning, I love, I love sharing this with our people that we, that we coach and train with. It's like the infinity symbol. So in the middle of where the cross section is, is the present.

This is where you want to be. You want to be present and that means feeling the floor underneath my feet. It means feeling the little bit of air that's coming on my face, feeling the warmth from the, from the lights in front of me, feeling the clothing on my body. I'm feeling I'm being present. I can hear my voice.

I can hear the computer whirring just beside me. And within that, I'm being present. And then if we go to the right hand side there, we're going to the future. It looks like I'm going to the left. I'll go the other way in the camera, but when we go over to the right hand side, we're visiting the future and we don't want to stay in the future because if we stay there, we go, Oh, my gosh, this might happen.

And what if this happens and oh, then this will play out and this happened last time. So this is what's going to happen next. And oh, my goodness, it's so stressful. And so if we stay in the future, we stay in stress and anxiety, but we can visit the future, of course, to look at our targets and where we're going and where we're shooting and where we're aiming and where we're heading off to, what we're choosing to create in our lives. And then we come back to present.

And then if we go the other way, which is the left hand side, which is represents the past on the left, even though you're seeing it on the right, we go to the left hand side. We revisit the past for learning and we keep flowing back to the present. 

This was tough. They did this to me. They did that to me. And then this happened and that happened. And this was so difficult and traumatic. And if we stay there, we get stuck. And it's a matter of recognizing that we can revisit it. 

It's huge and traumatic and difficult and I got through it and what did I learn from that? And then you recognize what your learnings are and celebrate your learnings and be present in those learnings and keep those things going forward. That's how you come through the tough stuff. That's how you come through the adversity.

That's how you come through those massive times in your life where it was like, I don't know where to go from here. Come into the middle and be present first. That's why I do meditation now. I never used to do meditation. I used to think it was for them, not me. I was like, I'm too busy and I'm too stressed to do meditation.

And I recognized and I learned that the stress was actually killing me. It was killing me from within. It was killing my energy, my vibe, my passion, and also I was beginning to exhibit sort of diagnoses and things that were stress related, and it was like, I'm not having this going forward.

I'm going to shift this. I'm going to break this. And so that's what I've been doing. Little things are life changing. We call them tiny tweaks that make a huge difference. And if you do one tiny tweak today, it might be that you practice being present. You can practice being present by looking at something and just looking at all the intricate details of it.

It's great even if you just pick a leaf off a tree and just look at that leaf. And just look at all the things that are on that leaf and all the little bits and the veins and the colorings and things like that. And you are being present. You are beginning to train your body to come down from that fight or flight process and that stress response into being present.

So that side of things is fantastic and writing it out, getting it out of here so that you can release it is hugely valuable as well.

Brad Minus: Yeah, I can't even tell you enough about that because I felt the same way. I, I was always like, Oh no, meditation's woo woo. It's just woo woo stuff. And the more I delve into it, the more that I've talked to people like yourself and telling how life changing it was to start a meditation practice. To me, what it sounds like is that's how you're able to release some of those stories.

Like you said, you know, there is a great Ted talk about. And I don't remember what the guy's name was, but he talked about being present and of course, I remember it because he was an ultra marathoner and he was like a first time ultra marathoner and, you know, he started, where my people start, you know, we go out for a run.

We put on our headphones and we'll listen to a podcast or music or whatever. And he says that he made the most progress when he dropped that and just stayed present, listened to his footfall, felt what was his body doing? Each step, he literally recounted everything in each step that he made.

And you know, you talk about. Hundreds of thousands of steps, yes, yes. So, and, and I've tried that and it does, it's very, it's calming. You know, and I used to say that, you know, that was my meditation was running and that was where I found more of it when I wasn't listening to a podcast or music and still, there are still times when I put my headphones on and I escape, into something else, but a lot of the times is that I'm out there without anything because, well, one thing is, is that when you're at least in triathlon, You're not allowed it, most road races, even trail races, you can put on headphones and you could do the race with headphones.

But in, in triathlon, you can't, you know, so some, you've got to practice without it. Anyway, I found that it, I can get more done. I feel more. I learned more lessons about, What's going on with my body when I'm not and, yeah, so I, I give you 

Elizabeth Pritchard: The active meditation and mindfulness we call it active mindfulness is fantastic because often when we're going into companies and working with leaders, we don't jump straight into meditation unless they like doing it.

And it's like, you can walk around the room. With that active mindfulness for five minutes, and you're just practicing being present. You're practicing exactly that. What is my foot doing? What is my body doing? What is my breath doing? What am I feeling? What am I recognizing?

How do my arms move as I walk around the room? You can do active mindfulness by cleaning your teeth. For two minutes, while that little brush is going, you're actively mindful. You're present. Remember, it's just about being present. That's what active mindfulness is. That's what meditation is.

You can meditatively cut up a carrot. You can bring it into anything in your life. And that's the beauty of it. Because you're taking all that buzzing in the past and buzzing in the future. You're coming back to here and now. And I didn't know how to do that. I needed to learn how to do that.

And I just started with five minutes a day, just five minutes a day. That was it. If you haven't got five minutes for yourself in a day, then, you know, life needs changing, create it, make it happen, prioritize it. And yes, it's a practice. So I practice it. And sometimes I wouldn't do it. I was like, Oh, I didn't do it today.

Okay. I'm going to do it right now. Or I didn't do it yesterday. So I'm doing it today. Now I'm recommitting today. So it's coming back to me and going, Oh, whoops, I forgot to do that. Okay, cool.

I'm doing it now. It's like, again, coming back to that mental toughness and grit. I said it I was committing to this. I'm coming back to it now.

Brad Minus: So looking back, let me ask you about that grit. What is the toughest thing that you think you've ever had to accomplish? I don't want to talk about coming out of adversity yet because I want to talk about that later. But as far as, an objective, a goal that really tested your grit, how'd you do it?

And what was it? 

Elizabeth Pritchard: The toughest thing. 

Brad Minus: Okay,

I'll give you the adversity back. 

Elizabeth Pritchard: Cycling 70k's at night in the pouring rain, raising money for a charity, for teenage suicide. 70k's in the rain It was 12 degrees Celsius. I'm not sure what that is in Fahrenheit, but it was cold. It was summer and the rain was sideways and we were drenched in the first 5, 10 minutes.

Now, to me, I'd never cycled anything more than 25, 30 Ks. Well, I did a little bit of training before then, so I was starting to cycle up to 40 Ks. At that moment, I had never cycled ever. I love mountain biking and I love cycling now, but at that time it was something I've never done.

So 70Ks for me was like huge. I'm not sure how many miles that is. And to me, that was big and huge. And then I had two things that I hated. Wind and rain and cold, three things. And also it was at night because they closed off different streets in the city. So we actually started at midnight and cycled through the night.

So there wasn't much traffic. It was amazing. And to me, it was like all of that stuff that was happening it was like, Oh, I can't do this. I've never done it before. I don't know if I can do it. And, and those, I mean, those are facts. I don't know if I can do it. I haven't done it before.

I don't know what to expect. All of those are facts. But they'll also just be stories in my mind that hold me back. And it's like, okay, I want to do this. And so what was my reason for doing it? My reason for doing it was to prove to myself that I could do something that was totally out of my comfort zone.

And I was like, I'm just going to do it. And I also have this amazing partner who's just so sporty and was an elite athlete and so it was like I might have to up my game here.

And so it was a little bit of a saving place as well, which is awesome. But I wanted to do it for me as well, not just for her. I've done this, I've achieved this. And since then I've walked a half marathon and I've done crazy, crazy mofo things like ice challenges for eight months.

It was like, why do I want to get in an ice bath? I don't like cold. I don't like being up at 6am in the morning in the cold, in the dark, in the middle of winter and jumping into an ice bath. This is crazy. And I did it because I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it, that I could grow my grit, Most of what we do in coaching and training with leaders is like step out of your comfort zone.

That's where the growth happens. And so I get to, I don't have to, and I don't need to, but I get to, I choose to develop that for myself as well, because otherwise I'm not doing what I, what I preach. I'm just saying do this, but I'm staying in my little old comfort zone. So I did that. I've done those types of things in my life, which to me took a lot of grit because they're not my natural thing.

It's not my natural thing to do something sporty or, or energetic or muscly, or it's not my natural thing. Now it is, I love doing it. Except I broke my elbow in December, so I haven't been back to boxing yet, but it's coming. 

Brad Minus: Hey, you know what? And that for me, see, that's my biggest message to people. I'm like, you got certain goals you want to hit, find something that you love, find some of the hardest challenges you can, where sometimes, where those goals that you want to hit are just a, just a milestone in that journey.

So, and I told this, I told this story a million times on the podcast, but basically I had a friend that, you know, I helped coach and she was 250 some odd pounds. She was five one. And she had some trauma in her past, and that's the reason why she blew up to that. 

One day, she's sitting around her house, she turns on the television, and she ended up getting to the World Championship Ironman in Kona. Which is the cream of the crop. And she looked at it, and she goes, man, I'd like to try that. Well, she did some research, found out that there's other Ironman triathlons.

All over the world, and there was one right in her backyard here in Florida, instead of going, okay, well, I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing. I'm going to try to diet. I'm going to try to go to the gym and work no, instead she goes, no, that's not my goal.

My goal is to get to the start line and then get to the finish line. It wasn't lose weight, but she done all that on the way. I mean, she had to learn how to fuel her body for these long workouts. She had to learn how to fuel the workouts. She had to, learn how, what muscles she needed to strengthen, in order to, be a success.

Do you know that she got on the start line at 120 pounds? Size small and size like extra small wetsuit, you know, and she killed it. She did like 11, like 11, 25, 11 hours and 25 minutes, which is unheard of for a first timer. 

Elizabeth Pritchard: She's 12 and a half. 

Brad Minus: That is you. That is my message.

That's the message that I want to get out into the world is to do those stuff. That's hard. And you'll find that you want to get to that goal faster because it's just a spot on the way to reach for something really hard and really tough. It obviously it's going to help you. If you're passionate about it, you know, if it's a goal that you're excited about, you know, and go up to that stuff and it has to be out of your comfort zone, just like you said.

Elizabeth Pritchard: There has to be a reason. So it can't just be because I'm going to look good or whatever. And there has to be the reason behind that. What is the reason you're doing it? Cause that reason, that purpose, Tony Robbins talks about purpose. And we talk about purpose. Many people, Joe Shetty talks about purpose. If you don't have that purpose, then why are you doing it? Because if you just go, I have to do this to get there, then you haven't got that emotional juice that's going to get you up at 5 a. m. to go training. We just came back, Christine and I just came back from New Zealand with the Ironman Champs.

And so we had, we had, we were supporting somebody from Florida, actually. Who's, who's done something like 34 Ironmans and 40 over 40 half Ironmans and she was coming over to New Zealand so we went over there and we'll just come back for a month over there and met up with her and supported her through the Ironman champs and.

It's incredible. It's like all of these people, all different shapes and sizes and, and ages and intellects and roles in life and all the rest of it. It was like, big and awesome. And here they are, they've done this. And, and I asked a few of them because we sort of ended up meeting quite a few other people as well through here.

And it was like, so what is so important for this? It was like, I wanted to do this because I wanted to prove to my children, you know, when you stick at something, you can achieve whatever you want. I wanted people to recognize and see that I follow through and I do what I say I'm gonna do.

I wanted to do this because I thought I could never do it. I wanted to do this because I had a cancer diagnosis five years ago, and everybody thought that I was a goner and I'm proving to everybody that I can do this. And they had this wall of why, which was just freaking beautiful. And all of the wives, some of it was about the person themselves.

Someone was about their family. Someone was about their role. Someone was about their brain space. Someone was just the automation of what The persona is and it was like all of these wise on the wall and this comes back to everything you do in life The reason I went through my masters was I had very long blonde hair And everybody used to call me a dumb blonde all throughout my schooling age.

And so I thought, oh, I'm going to teach you and show you I'm not dumb. I'm going to do my master's. I did my master's. And then later in life, I thought I want to do my PhD for me. I want to do it because I want to show my. How much I love learning and and so I recognize that I want to show my daughters that I can just go through and I will achieve it no matter how tough, how hard, how difficult it will may be.

And so I bring all these things and bring these learnings to anything in my life. It can be something intellectual, job wise, relationship wise, sporting wise, music wise, whatever it is. These, these principles work. In your life, if you choose to do them. 

Brad Minus: And that's the, that's it.

That's the word. The word is choice. You know, I always talk to people about, you know, they, you know, people on like the paleo diet or keto diet or anything like that. And I always tell them, I'm like, listen, and this is a much, much smaller version of what you're talking about. But that choice, is, you know, when people say, oh, well, we can't, you know, we.

We can't go to this restaurant because you can't have this. And I'm like, no, I says, you need to immediately you need to correct them and you say, no, it's not that I can't. I can put that in my mouth just like I can put anything in my mouth. I can, I can digest it just like anybody else can digest it. I just choose not to.

And that's the thing is you got it. That is a huge vocabulary word. That's a powerful, powerful piece of language that people need to have. Hey, you know what? Oh, well, we can't go out tonight. We can't go clubbing tonight because you have to train in the morning.

No, no, no, no, no. I don't have to train in the morning. I'm choosing to train in the morning and I'm choosing not to go out tonight so that I can be successful at that training session. But you know what next month we will and I will move my workout out because I'm going to choose to go out that night and have a great time so I can be with you because I'm going to choose things like that.

Yeah. And I think that tiny 

Elizabeth Pritchard: twigs. Yeah. Yeah. We talk about supercharging your language. So it's not I need to I have to it's I get to because it's a privilege. My brother, and I learned this from the moment my brother died in 2010. It was like, he doesn't get to do anything. He doesn't get to wake up in the morning feeling tired, not sleeping well, feeling energetic, feeling excited, feeling whatever.

He doesn't get to anymore. And so I determined from that moment on, every morning I wake up, I'm alive. And I celebrate that. Many people don't get that opportunity. Either through choice or through other things that have happened in their lives, through accidents or illness or whatever. And it was like, I get to do this.

And it was like, that was life changing for me. Because it's like, I'm not going to sit around here letting life and external things dictate me and dictate what I do and who I am. Who am I today? My life has changed because I chose it. My life has changed because I work at it.

My life has changed because I love it. My life has changed because I step into my truth. And only I can do that. Just like every single one of you who are listening. Only you can do that. And you get to step into your truth. Every single day. 

Brad Minus: Exactly. You know what? I can't even, I can't say anything more powerful than what Elizabeth just said.

Can you tell us about, how you started it? What was the idea for it the Walt Institute, the Women's Authentic Leadership, Training Institute, that's it.

Elizabeth Pritchard: Yeah. So what was the idea? I have learned so much in what I've come through, and I recognize that, oh my gosh, I can actually help other people to step into their own truth, to recognize that they are enough, they don't have to do anything to be the most amazing person that they are.

And so many people that I was working with in different areas of my life. I was sort of coaching people all the way through for the last three decades, really, in different ways. Some of them were my team members that I was their team leader, and then moving through to other people.

And I was sort of becoming, a coach and trainer nationally in the world of occupational therapy. And then, as I moved over to Australia to do my PhD and extend other things over here in the last decade or so, I stepped into that whole thing of, I didn't want to be a coach to start with because it was like, I don't like coaches, it's a bit of a wink to him.

I don't want to be a coach and everybody thinks, oh, you need a coach. It was like, yeah, to me, that was about sort of doing sports stuff. And it was like. I'm not a sporty person. Why do I need a coach? Why would I want to be a coach? And then it was like, actually, what I do. It's not a mentor.

I can mentor people and I've done that in all different fields as well and help them to create the specific things by telling them, you know, do this, do this, blah, blah, blah, because I've been there before. But coaching is different. Coaching is about tapping into the person, where they're at, tapping into that person and showing them.

How they can get the best out of themselves, how they can be their authentic selves, how they can be unapologetically them without arrogance, without ego, without all the BS that people often put alongside people who are authentic. It's the, not the BS stuff. It's stepping into their truth. And the journey of the creation of Walt Institute, it started with being heroic development because we wanted to develop heroes, heroes of their own lives.

And then that sort of, you know, we were talking with some mentors, and then we were Authentic Leadership Training Institute. It was like, oh, that's a mouthful, terrible. The wine and cheese one night with our business mentors, and, when Paul was just doodling, and sort of partway through our wine and cheese, he goes, what about Walt?

And I was like, what about Walt? And he goes, well. You're women and you do authentic leadership training. And so what about Walt? Because then people say, Oh, have you had Walton, you know, to you, to your organization, they can increase your productivity, they can increase the diversity and the interactions and the connectiveness and the trust within your teams, because the people who develop high performing teams.

So what about getting Walton? Oh, okay. Oh, that sounds quite good. And then it stands for Women Authentic Leadership Training Institute. And so that's how the actual company came about. And Christine, my co founder, she has expertise, as I said, she's a past elite athlete, and she brings in all of her expertise, with sports psychology.

She does sports psychology with individuals and teams And so she brings in that side of things, and I bring in my health and education. We both have a whole lot of experience, in neuropsych. And, she has traditional psychology as well as neuropsychology and positive psychology and sports psychology.

So we bring all that together and we look at the psychology of leadership. And it's like, it's not. Just the traditional processes and systems, because that works to some degree, but humanity is more evolved in 2025. We're more evolved. We want more. We want to know the why. We want to know why do I show up every day and do this job from 8 till 5, whatever it is.

Or why do I work from home in isolation? Or why do I have this hybrid thing that happens with my work? Why do I show up? Why? I want some sort of meaning in my life beyond myself, not just to get a pay packet these days. Most people, not all, most people. And so humanity's developed and so authentic leadership practice has developed for that as well.

It's like every single person in your team, you need to know what their why is. Why are they, why are they showing up? And they're all different. They're all different. And that's how you can inspire and influence your teams to go bigger and better. And so, our company does that. And we just see the most amazing results of people coming in going, I'm doing this because that's what I was taught in the change management course.

It's like, okay, cool. That's awesome. We don't do that. We come over here and it's like, what are you doing? What are the beliefs that you have around leading? Do you believe that you have something to say? Do you believe that you're in a hierarchy and you can't talk to them because they're the big boss manager and they might not blah, blah, blah.

And so we look at supercharging language. We look at what is your mindset. We look at identifying those times you've come through adversity and transfer that into every area of your life, particularly in your workplace. But it's everywhere of your life, so then you are showing it. As your authentic self in work, in sport, in the community, at home, everywhere, you're your authentic self, one person, one thing, you're not a different thing in each area, and we just dial up and dial down your innate strength.

Brad Minus: Ah. That's fantastic. And we need more of people like you out there. We would love to have you out here. I know you probably do. You still have, but you probably have probably quite a few American corporate customers, right? 

Elizabeth Pritchard: Yes, we do. We connect with people around the world. We've got people in our programs from Amsterdam and.

The UK and New Zealand and all different places. So yeah, that's the beauty about being able to do online programs. Cause we do a six week online program that we can do anywhere in the world. So we usually do them early in the morning. So it matches the U S as well as most places in Australasia. And also we can get some UK people on as well.

Brad Minus: That's incredible. So. All this information that she's provided as far as when I wouldn't say all the information, but the way that you can kind of contact Elizabeth and check out some of her resources and her programs is over at Walt Institute dot com. It's actually a beautifully put together website.

Right there at the front, she's, you know, authentic leadership, sports psychology. She's got a bunch of free resources. Personalized coaching. Corporate and training assessment, inner circle program. And she's got all this great stuff out there. So you need to go take a listen at that and go watch that waltinstitute.

com and remember that Walt is the women's authentic leadership training Institute, the waltinstitute. com. Elizabeth. so much for sharing some amazing information about, not having to hold on to the stories of the past about, making sure that you look forward, visit.

Your future visit your past, but you don't stay there. We talked about meditation. Plunging into ice and different, goals and things that you can try to elevate yourself to hit that elevation and continue on increasing your destiny, increasing your life to where you want it to be.

Tons and tons of information in this episode. So don't think that you only got to listen to it once. Listen to it a few times. If you are watching this on YouTube, please go ahead and hit the subscribe button and the like button or. Dislike if you want and hit the notification bell. So you always know when we have another episode that's dropping, if you're listening on Apple or Spotify, please go ahead and leave us review.

I don't even care if it's a good review, because if you leave us any kind of feedback whatsoever, good or bad, it's only a way for me to evolve the podcast and bring you more and more information, so, definitely do that. But again, Elizabeth, thank you so much.

I really appreciate it. So for Dr. Elizabeth Pritchard and myself, thank you for listening and we'll see you in the next one. 

Elizabeth Pritchard: Bye.