231. How Flexibility Drives Women to Change the World

Transcript:

  Welcome to the Connected For Real podcast. I’m Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman, a marriage coach for women in business. And my mission is to bring God’s presence into your life, into your marriage and into your business. Let’s get started. And we are live. Welcome everyone to the Connected for Real podcast. I’m Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman. I’m a marriage coach for Women in Business. And today with me is Fleur, Fleur introduce yourself and then we’re gonna talk about our topic of flexibility and you. My name is Fleur Hassan Nahoum. I am a mother of four I live in Jerusalem. I am former Deputy mayor of Jerusalem. Today, I’m a special on Board for Trade and Innovation. I’m the founder of a organization called Campus Israel. I’m part of a think tank. I have my own podcast. I’m a busy mom. Yes, and I met you at, I met you a couple of times, but the latest one was at a conference and it was just so amazing and I’m really happy that you agreed to be on my podcast ’cause it was very exciting. Of course, I love podcast for women. For me, when I set on my own podcast the Quad, I wanted it to be intelligent female voices from Israel that people could hear from around the world. So I’m always been into lifting and uplifting other women around me. Yes. So flexibility. What comes up for you when we talk about flexibility and specific when it comes to you? I chose flexibility because I really believe that a very important part of resilience is flexibility and people who are flexible, people who know how to roll with the punches, people who are adaptable, which is part of flexibility, of course, adaptability. Going with the flow spontaneity that I believe makes you a much more resilient person than if you’re very unflexible structured. This is my way. It’s good for management, it’s good for leadership, it’s good for just having a healthy, happy, balanced life that you could be flexible about things. Be flexible about your opinions sometimes you can just give room, let in room for somebody else’s opinion. Flexible about logistics, flexible about topics. I truly believe that it’s a huge part of, like I said, of resilience and of also allowing yourself opportunities. I think that when you’re very inflexible, you doors don’t open so much because you’re not looking in those directions when you’re a flexible person. You are willing to listen to what God is telling you or go and walking through the door that God has opened because you’re being flexible. Oh no, that wasn’t my plan for 2025. My plan was A, B, and C. And then this opportunity opens up and if you’re still stuck with your 2023 Plan 25 plan, you’re not gonna walk through that door. You’re not gonna allow God’s opportunities to. To open that door for you because you are still sticking to the plan for 2025. So that’s what I mean by flexibility. Just allowing yourself to listen to to be attuned to where the universe, where God is taking you. I love that. Can you give us a couple of examples from your life, how you got to where you are, where you started, and where you were able to be flexible and really attuned to what God was calling you to do or doors opening? I think my whole career has been that, to be honest. I’m a lawyer by profession. I came to Israel. I didn’t really wanna be a lawyer ’cause I here, ’cause I didn’t speak Hebrew at the time and I went into nonprofit for many years. I was a senior nonprofit profession and I was executive director for an organization and then I was getting tired of it. And a friend of mine had this business of communications consulting and I went into that whole. Communications consulting. Again, I was flexible. I was like, I’m open. What’s available? And then went with this. I had a good gut. That’s another thing, another piece of advice. Listen to your gut. When you don’t listen to your gut, you make mistakes. I always try and intellectualize things and sometimes things are perfect intellectually, but there’s a niggly feeling and you dunno what it is and you kind of, you wash it away and you say no, but everything’s great. And I want to say that instinct, that little feeling is a very important, especially for women, because I think women are very attuned to that sixth sense, and we have to always be open to it. But anyway, going back to my story I was a communications consultant and I was happy. I had a very good business, and a friend of mine said, look, there’s a small political party that needs help with messaging. You’re very good at this. Why don’t you help them? And I went and I started helping them. Second session they said to me, you seem to be good at this. Would you consider running for office? I was like, I went home and I was like, would I consider running for office? My kids were smaller. I also come from a political family. My father was a politician in Gibraltar, so I know exactly what that means. So like I’m not I’m not blind to what it means. A political career is a very sacrificing thing, and so I went home, but I just. Thought to myself, Hashem, God has opened a door and it is my, especially, it’s opened the door to serve, not open the door for me to do a business deal and buy a building in Dubai. It’s opened the door to serve my city, Yerushalayim, Jerusalem, where the Jewish people created. And we became a people here 3000 years ago. And God has opened the door for me, an immigrant. To serve that city, the city, the eternal city, the city, which is not just our city, the city which everybody’s attuned to. It’s got a very strong brand, Jerusalem around the world, and there’s a responsibility that comes in Jerusalem. And all of a sudden I’m being asked to step up and serve that city. And I just, I went home, thought about it, went back. I told my husband, he’s like, do what you need to do. He’s honestly so supportive. And I came back and I said, all right, and he’ll do it. And that was. 13 years ago. Wow. 13 years ago. And then everything rolled one thing from the other. I ran, I lost, I ran, I won. I ran again. I won. We came to everybody, mayor the second time. And just always be willing to step up to the plate. Always be willing to say yes and just consider different options. I didn’t have a plan to be a politician in Israel. I always thought about it. I was always somebody who wanted to advocate for my country, but I didn’t have a clear path, and then that was illuminated when I got this opportunity. Wow. It’s so cool to be in politics, especially in Jerusalem, which is like you said, the center cool is the word. I’m not sure. Cool. Cool. Is the word. Yeah. Not cool. From the outside it’s meaningful. It’s meaningful. Yes, it’s very meaningful. Where within that did you have to be flexible in order to do your job in the best way? I think that the flexibility in politics, and I’m sure it’s not just local politics, is basically sitting with people and maybe making deals with people that you disagree with on 80% of things, and having to say, all right, I, I can give this up in order to get that, and he can give that up in order to get this. And politics is the art of the possible. Not the ideal. And so you do what you possibly can do with the resources that you have and the circumstances of the day, and that also takes a lot of flexibility. Yeah. Yeah. So let’s bring it back to ourselves and our homes and our lives and the container that we are of all these things that are us, right? We have a lot of parts of us that we hold, and within that I don’t know how you could do it without being flexible. Exactly. I think being a mother especially is flexibility in its best sense. You plan your day and then you get a call from school a kid is sick or this or that. I do think that is, that kind of shoves you into the zone of flexibility because you just have to roll with a punches, like I said. So being a woman also means that we very good at multitasking. I’m a huge multitasker. I know people say you shouldn’t. That’s just who I am. It’s just what I am. That’s the way I’m wired. I like to do a lot of things at the same time. And maybe sometimes I chastises myself and I think, oh, if only I did one thing, then I’d be really, really good at that one thing, and maybe I would’ve gotten further on that one thing. And then I think to myself, it’s just not me. I think when you get to my age, I’m 52. The most important thing about being my age and I would never go back is that I’ve just accepted myself for good or bad and the stuff that I could do better, I either try and get people to help me to make up for whatever flaws I may have. Just accepting yourself is a very big part of getting older and I. I’m in a good place with that. I know what I’m good at and I know what I’m not good at and that’s okay. I don’t have to be good at everything. You were just saying how you multitask and we’ve been made to feel bad about multitasking. There was this TED talk where he said, all of the research came out saying that stress is bad for you. So people started getting sick from stress and people started being affected badly from stress. But really, stress is great for you. People who are athletes are doing great with stress and people who are focused and working on deadlines love, stress. So it really has to do with how you think about it. So I think multitasking is a great thing. They’ve made us feel bad about it, but it’s our nature. I don’t know. I very much relate to what you’re saying. I too am all over the place with a lot of different things, and I’m happy that it’s that way. I think I would be very bored having to do the same thing and focusing on one thing very well. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I really, I would be bored, I think now, maybe after 12 years of working this way. I think that now maybe I’ve made myself a person who only could manage when doing a many things at the same time. But I always say when you want something done, give it to a busy person. We just, we’re very efficient. I’m very efficient. There are moments I waste time and I have to decompress and I have to escape and I watch a silly show or whatever it is. But I ultimately, I’m very efficient and that’s why I can get a lot of stuff done. So anyway, so that’s I think, but is women a good, I mean, I always joke that my husband. I always joke with my husband. My husband can’t parallel park and listen to the radio at the same time. I can parallel park into a Zoom at. And I love what you said about giving yourself permission to be the way you are. Yeah. And then finding ways to compensate. I think that’s what we all need to do, and especially for those who are less flexible and more focused and very rigid with their plans and know what they’re doing and have a full everything structured, they have a harder time with the flexibility. So it’s possible that for me and you. Being told to, to flex or being told to pivot won’t change us as much as somebody who really is pushed to do something completely out of their comfort zone. Yeah, no, I see it with in general, I think men. Men, I think women are much more flexible because of the multitasking thing. I think men are much less flexible. I see it with my, I have two sons and two daughters and a husband, so I see it with my husband is really. Not easily movable. I joke, I joke with the boys, they can’t walk and chew gum. And I think that makes ’em less flexible in general. But that’s why it’s good to be raised with sisters and women. I think we have a good effect in that way. And when you think about, like today when people talk about emotional intelligence and how emotional intelligence is ultimately a much pre prerequisite for management and leadership. I really do think that a lot of the qualities that people are talking about today in terms of management, people say, oh, good managers are not the people with the highest IQ there. The people with the highest eq, emotional intelligence is all about empathy, sympathy, flexibility, resilience, listening. Those are to me inherently female qualities. So when people are saying, oh, we need to bring up our emotional intelligence, you just need more women in your organization, they’ll take care of that. When the war started and it was going on and on, my aunt said they should have just sent the women. We’re too busy to be stopping life for this long. We can’t handle it. We just go and make it stop. I just, it’s even, I think more serious than that. That to me, it bothers me when I see the security cabinet or the limit the small security cabinet, whatever they call it. There’s not one mother in that room. It bothers me. I just think where’s the other perspective? I don’t think women are better than men, but I think that you need both. I think that I, we live in an imbalance world because women are not in 50% of the leadership positions. I truly believe that with all my heart, with all my soul, I’ve seen it. Decisions are better when there’s a woman in the room. Doesn’t mean the decision will be different. Maybe it’s not the what, but it might be the how. It might be how you communicate that decision. It might be how you lobby and convene other people to support that decision. Whatever it is, having a woman in the room is our net plus. And in this country, unfortunately, in politics, I had to tell you, they didn’t get the memo. It didn’t get the memo right. And we see it in reality. Yeah I totally agree. But let’s talk about that. Women are afraid to go into these leadership roles, into politics, into things that are bigger than themselves because they feel that they will have to pay a price. And that is very scary. Thinks I don’t think it’s because they feel out to pay price. Women pay heavy prices for everything. Sorry about that. It’s about not wanting to be in this snake pit, which is politics. And believe me, it’s a snake pit. And so I don’t think it’s about women paying the prices. It’s about women deciding what do I really want to spend all my day with this negative energy? And I think that’s legitimate, but. I have always been a person to encourage other women to go into politics because we’re not gonna change the world unless there’s more women in politics. It just, it’s not gonna happen. We’ve tried this, you’ve taken us this far. Let us get on with it. Now. I just don’t think anything’s gonna change unless, like I said, 50%. 50%. That’s my thing. It doesn’t have to be 70%. We don’t have to take over 50%, which is our representation. In fact, we’re 51% of the population, but I’m gonna give them one, 1% for free. Really? We’re only 51%. I always thought there was more women of 51% of the population. Very cool. Yeah. So what can you tell to, someone who’s thinking there’s something bigger than me that’s calling me. But I am so stuck. I would say this, there are good people in politics. You just have to really look and find, look for them and find them. You have to, you a mentor helps. I never had a lot of mentors, to be honest in politics, except my father, who was the best mentor anybody could have. He was very successful politician and he was a good guy, very humble, and he was very honest. So that’s a very high bar that I have. As to my ideal politician, but there are, they are. They are out there. And I will say to women, your voice is extremely important. And if you want to see change, don’t look behind you. Don’t look in front of you for the guy in the suit with the white hair. The change is you. Don’t look and see, okay, who am I? Who am I standing behind now? No stand. Everybody will stand behind you if you have something valuable to say and you have a change that you wanna make for the good. I love that. I love that. Yeah. I feel like you said everything. You know the, we should be in leadership roles. Leadership roles look different when it’s a female, so we don’t lead in the same way and we don’t do things the same way. And I think that’s it. It connects a little bit with what you said, with allowing yourself to be where you are, to be multitasker, to be lacking in some ways. But that’s the whole point, is that we hold ourselves. Up to a bar of a man. And so we’re constantly trying to run our days, like men run their days, run our months, like men run their months ’cause they’re on a different cycle and they have a different structure and their brain is wired differently. Why are we trying to fit into a square when completely not square? First of all, you’re a hundred percent correct. I don’t wanna be like a man because, I what bothers me the most are female politicians are trying to be like the men. Because we have an added value. We are not there to be one more man that could find a man. For that, I wanna be there to be a woman, to be a mother, to bring that I’m not, to bring that emotion and empathy in the room, to bring that, that’s important. People say you can’t make emotional decisions. No, you can’t make only emotional decisions, but emotion has to be there. We’re human beings. We’re not robots. These decisions are affecting people, children, a little bit of empathy, sympathy, emotion is exactly what’s needed. Enough of the robots, and so that’s what angers me. That. And, and there’s so much, so many double standards. People, I do all these hostile media interviews all the time and people say to me, Fleur, you’re so calm. How do you say so calm? And I say, because if I get excited the way sometimes men do, they’re gonna say, oh, look at her. She’s a bag of emotion. She’s hysterical. Those are the double standards that women have to put up with in politics when we scream, it doesn’t sound as. As a dynamic, charismatic and strong as a man, we scream it shrieks to them, right? So I have done the opposite. So I’ve decided to be miss Calm in these interviews. I’ve been on Piers Morgan a number of times. I’ve been on very hostile BBC interviews, very hostile. And I’m always super calm because if I get excited, even though I want to, ’cause I’m, that’s my nature half Moroccan they’ll say. No, she’s emotional. She’s hysterical. Look at this. They would never say that about her. And so I do the opposite. Now I’m cool as a cucumber, and so now I’m known for that. I’m known for like my calm with hostility in front of me. In any case, the point is that we need more women’s voices. We need more women’s brains. We need the way that we are hardwired, we are different. We should be proud of that difference. I’m a feminist. I believe in equal rights for men and women and equal opportunities for men and women. That’s all femin. Feminism means by the way, people are like, I’m not a feminist. I’m like, oh, you don’t believe in equal rights. Oh, I do. I say, what’s a feminist? We don’t shave our armpits and we hate men. That’s not a feminist. A feminist is a person, man or woman who believes in equal rights for men and not women, and equal opportunities for men and women. That’s what I am. That’s what I believe. And so as I believe that I want women to have the opportunity to lead, ’cause women do a very good job. And again, it’s the combination. I’m not saying I, I’m not a female supremacist. I am an equal person who believes that both voices have to be in that room making those key life and death decisions. Yeah, I love that because really God created it that way. In every situation there is a father and a mother, the husband and wife, they have two different opinions. Yes. They do not agree on everything, and that is why my specialty is marriage because there is something really powerful that happens when you are flexible enough to make that relationship, the key relationship that actually makes everything else thrive. So I agree with that by the way and I’m very. Privileged fruitful to, to be in a marriage like that. I always have people say, oh, what’s the secret of your success? Is that I have a great husband who is on my side, he’s on my team, he never puts a bad face when I’m, I can’t imagine. I’m out a lot. I travel a lot and he is go, I got you. And I’ll deal with the kids, yeah, it’s a privilege. It’s it’s luck. And I don’t give myself, it’s al luck. I don’t give myself so much. I got married at 25. I met my husband at 24. My father had just died, so what did I know? You know, I don’t give myself medals for having picked best guy. Go think, don’t send me a good guy. Even if it’s but I would add, but I was flexible because he was not exactly on my we were not the same religiously, he was more religious than me. Very different to me. So I guess I was flexible enough to say, yeah, I’ll marry this guy. I’ll be more observant than I planned to be. And I’m gonna go with that. And I guess that’s where flexibility, and I see that with people. Dating is so inflexible. I’m like, for God’s sake, just open your mind a little bit. Open your heart a little bit. If I had to write a CV of my perfect husband, my husband would not have been that person in CV and then he turned out to be a great husband, yeah. Yeah. We overcomplicate things. When we go into our heads we make it terrible because we think we can outthink the situation where in reality, God is calling you to just lean into your body. Like you say, it’s trust your gut. Yeah, feeling. Trust your intuition. Trust yourself. Give yourself permission to be who you are in every situation. I love that you said in leadership. You just show up with your empathy, with your sensitivity, with your emotion, and give yourself permission to say, yeah, it’s because I’m a woman and because I’m a mother and because I am showing up as I am. But that’s what is needed. That’s the irony. That’s what’s needed right now. Just think about how divided Israel has become. Do you think it would be as divided if women were running the show? If mothers were sitting around a room, you know when the Abraham Accord started, a friend of mine and I decided that if we wanted a warm peace in the region, warm peace with our neighbors, we needed to let the women do the warm peace. And I got together a group of Emirati women and Israeli women, Jewish and Muslim and Christian women when we sat around the room and we realized there’s so much more that unites us and divides us. Talk about our kids, talk about our aspirations for the future of our region. And the thing is that women just bond quicker. Women are much more open quicker. We talk more that in terms of diplomacy is a plus. That in terms of peace building, bridge building is a plus. Send us to that. Nobody’s sending me, I’m sending myself, but that’s what I’m saying. But there you go. You’re sending yourself, because you’re not waiting for permission. I’m not waiting for permission. I’m not waiting for an invitation to step up, never wait for an invitation to step up. That’s what I say. Just do it. And this country’s also very good at that because this country’s very much bottom up. There’s many countries on the world, they wait for permission from the leader, the ruler. We don’t need here, you don’t need to, like people say, better to ask for an apology than permission. Just go for it. Just do it. I love that better ask for an apology than a permission. Start taking action. And I think, don’t wait for an invitation. Don’t wait for an invitation to step up. I think that’s what God wants and it brings me, I’m thinking of King David. You had a lot to do with Jerusalem and it’s all thanks to him. King David was the first one to say, wait a minute, where does God live? If we have all these houses and we have all these places and he has this like tent. I don’t know. Something here doesn’t feel right. And he started planning the Beit Hamikdash, the first temple because of this feeling that something isn’t right, and I never thought about it that way. The prophet came to him and said, because you are the first person to figure this out. You get this blessing that you are going to be the. The, so you know the line, your line will be the line that brings the redemption at the end. So he got the kingdom, he got it forever and ever. And it was all because of the thought, I’m just gonna take action. I’m realizing something here is wrong. So he was told, you’re not gonna do it, but your son will do it. And he planned and did all of the preparation so that it can happen. But I, I really think that is what God wants. He wants us to start looking around and see what is calling us. He’s obviously the one calling us, but. It’s so much easier and in flow when you’re attuned to that calling than if you have to be kicked out of your chair towards that calling. Right. You know Those people, they’re like, I was kicked out, so I had to figure it out. And then I, was pushed into, and then I banged my head against the wall and wall something happened. Why does that have to be so difficult? It’s you don’t wanna be a passive character in your own life. You can take control. Control’s a big thing. You wanna be able to control your, your future, your destiny, your day to day. It’s important. And again, politics is not for everyone, I believe me. I’ve got friends who are beautiful doctors and researchers and and psychologists and stuff. It’s not for everyone. But there are women who have been called to leadership. They should not hesitate to do it.   Hey, before we continue the episode, I want to ask you something. Are you ready to get answers from God directly, feel more in love with your husband and more supported than ever? Run the business of your dreams without having to sacrifice any other part of your life? That is exactly what my one-on-one private coaching is for, and I want to invite you, just you and me. For a free deep dive discovery call, this is a 60 minute free call where I ask you lots of questions and we extract the three main things that are holding you back. I then put together a personalized plan for you where I create a roadmap of recommendations. With practical steps, the call is free and so valuable in itself. So go book yours today.   I found that working with you, rippled off to the core areas of my life without realizing it. So if I came for one area, actually things that mattered most to me were shifted in amazing ways. Like it really made the shift and made the turn. Things that were impossible happened, like, you know, like the baby. And, Be’ezras Hashem a more impossible things will happen and I found it tremendous that in a very understated way. So it feels like a session and, you know, and it’s expensive, but the peace of mind and the moving upwards that it did for me in a very respectful way without getting too hooked onto anything in a very healthy, very respectful way, did enormous shift to me through the meditations. It helped me get into myself where I am. Also, one of the big things is like not to go back to where you’ve already depressed, like you don’t get to go back. This is where you visualize. So this is where you are. Yes. Moving from there. And altogether, it made a huge difference in four areas of my life. So really, really, I have so much to Thank you for. Now back to the show.   So how do you get so comfortable with fear? How do you get so comfortable with, okay, it’s scary, it’s petrifying, but I’m gonna do it anyway because I know this is the right thing to do. That kind of in a way fuels me. I feel that I always say, ’cause I’ve mentor a lot of women, I always say that you have to do something out of your comfort zone every day. Is fear out of your comfort zone. Your comfort zone is not fear outta your comfort zone isn’t fear. And the only way you can grow is if you do something out of your comfort zone. Do something that’s not easy for you, whether it’s going to the gym, whether it’s, getting that meeting, whether it’s making a pitch. Whether it is asking for something, having an uncomfortable conversation with somebody at your workplace, putting yourself out there, whatever it is, you can do something that makes you feel uncomfortable every day, you’re gonna grow and you’re gonna grow fearless, yeah. What you’re saying is basically practice. Just keep facing. Oh, I’m a big, I’m a big practice person. I used to train people how to do public speaking. That was when I was a communications consultant and I used to say to everyone, could you play the piano if you were just reading the theory and you knew the music sheets, no. Your fingers have to know the chords. Your fingers have to do the practice. It’s not just that, you know the music theoretically, you have to practice. Public speaking is like that. Being a politician is like that being anything. The more you do it, the better you get, and my other thing is fake it till you’re making it. Women always have this imposter syndrome and we do. I’ve always had it as well, Cheryl Sandberg talks about, so it’s the common thing. It’s you’re gonna find out that I shouldn’t be here. We always think we’re like, and I just, I, I counterbalance that with fake it till you make it. Okay. So if I’m an imposter, I’m gonna fake it till I make it. Yeah. So that’s my kind of counterbalance to that. Yeah. I love that. ’cause really, it’s a muscle. It’s a muscle. It’s a muscle. Everything. It’s all a muscle. It’s all a muscle. So the more you do, the better you get, the more you step outta your comfort zone. It’s so funny ’cause I’ve been outta my comfort zone every day. I’ve walked into rooms where there’s only men. Okay. I walked into a room with half the men are ultraorthodox men, and they’re talking in their little niche in this circle, and it’s like a political, and I just, and it’s not comfortable. I walk straight in, I’m like, hi, and I start talking. And that first high in a room full of cliquey men, that’s uncomfortable. Once I’m there, I’m there, and the next time I’m not uncomfortable at all. That’s the type of thing. I’ve got a woman I used to train, I used to do consultancy for this woman. She used to say, Fleur, sit in a meeting. And she was like A director, should I sit in a meeting? And I convinced myself in my head why I shouldn’t speak, why she shouldn’t speak at the meeting. That’s her fear. And I said, I want you to do this exercise. Whatever you say, whatever you decide to say, even if you’re repeating something somebody already said, which is something men do all the time. By the, even if you’re doing that, even if you’re doing that. You are going to force yourself to speak twice in that meeting. And I got her into that until she broke that barrier of discomfort, of fear. Yeah. I notice how much we talk to ourselves. You were saying about the imposter syndrome and this woman who doesn’t wanna talk in the meeting, not only is she not speaking in the meeting, she’s talking herself into not speaking at the meeting. Exactly. We’re talking to ourselves all the time. Yeah. We talk to ourselves all the time, which is good in a way because we’re very self-aware. I think women are extremely self-aware. But on the other hand, we are also sometimes our own worst enemies. And I always say to women, talk to yourself like you are your own best friend. What would your best friend say? Replace the voice in your head with what your best friend would be telling you right now. After four years of therapy, I got there. I was once listening to a podcast that they spoke about a book called What to Say When You Talk to Yourself. Oh, interesting. And I thought it was such a smart name for a book because really a lot of us have been taught to. I don’t know, maybe we haven’t been taught what to say when we talk to ourselves. No, I think we have a lot of different voices, for example, and my mother passed away a few years ago and she was one of my closest people in my life. I adore her. She was a tough woman though. And her voice in my head was very critical. Very critical. Which is good because it’s made me aspire to be better and to do more because of my mother’s critical voice. But it can also be very negative. It can also be very self-destructive. So I always say I, I went to therapy to try and, soften my mother’s voice in my head or replace it, with something a bit less critical, but it is fine. It worked for me. It turned me into a tough a person. It for sure. She wouldn’t have worked for any, for many other people. She’s a very tough mom, but she was, you know, she’s my mom, so I learned how to roll with the punches. I think first of all, God is very smart in how he pairs us up with our parents because as much as we want to complain and be annoyed about certain things, we also realize how exact they were for our own journey and the things that we needed to deal with and face. It’s really great that we had to deal with them and face them early on because like you say practice. So God made it very absolutely. In my house. It was always my mother, my sister, and my father and me were the people who were similar personality wise. My father died and I felt that it was like the table was missing a leg, and I had to step it up to be that kind of mediator between my mother and my sister, and that give me an amazing mediation skills, which then I became a qualified mediator. There you go. Yeah. I. This is so beautiful. I’m feeling so inspired. I feel like anybody listening, it doesn’t matter what is calling them, right? Because we’re not being very specific about what every person has to be a certain way. No. The whole point is that we’re so unique within that uniqueness everybody gets the opportunity to be intentional and flexible. And when you take charge and you decide to go after the things that are calling you without being pushed. There you are opening yourself up to things that are just amazing and for yourself to show up as amazing. It’s, and I honestly do think that the minute you change that in your head about being open to new things, just like flexible new things happen. It’s just incredible. You know what I mean? New things happen. It’s almost there’s a. There’s a kind of a metaphysical change that happens the minute you become more available for something sometimes, and my friends call me a witch, but sometimes I just think about something I think really could do with this, and two days later presents itself to me. Now, some people say, oh, you have millions of thoughts in your head. So it was one thought, and then it happened. I don’t I want to be in tune with the heavens. I want to be in tune with God. I want to be open enough to hear God, and I want that relationship to be mutual. And when I say something like that and something then happens, I know God is talking to me. I know it. So people could call me delusional or people could call me Messianic. Whatever you want. I know what I know. I know. So I have to tell you, I have a method called the Calm method, CALM, and it’s the four steps to creating flow. Anytime you feel stuck, anytime you have to make a decision. Anytime something is really not sitting right, you do these four steps and you are transformed, and the steps are connect to yourself, ask for abundance, listen for the answer, and master a higher level of consciousness. You totally hid it on the spot because connect to yourself. You have to know what you want because that is what God put in you to want. It’s not random and it’s not selfish and it’s not wrong. It is exactly what you need to be and. You just get in touch with that. Then the next step is ask for abundance. Turn up and bring God into the conversation because it’s not my life. And then there’s God. God put you in this life and he wants a relationship. So ask, and then like you said, you start to listen. You start to hear the answers just from reality, because you’re in tune. You’re with God. God is with you. This is a conversation, not a one way monologue. It’s a dialogue. So it really is a different way of living when you tap into God. And then the best thing about that, and especially my career or anybody’s career, is that you see disappointment in a different way. Every job I didn’t get, I’ve done a, thank God, my career’s gone well, but there’s a lot of big jobs along the way that I could have taken I could have been given that I went for, that I fought for, and I didn’t happen. And once you feel that way, once you begin to think that way that you’ve just described, I don’t see them as a miss. I see them as that’s not where I was supposed to be. And I’m a hundred percent confident in that. I’m talking about very high level positions. That I didn’t get and I was upset. I’m human. You’re upset for a couple of days. And then, and now I’m less upset as I think about it. And then you think God saved me from that. God saved me from that pathway. This is the pathway I need to be. And that I’ve, I have very specific that I can’t share, but I have very specific experience. God saved me, I love that. I love that from that path that I wanted, that I thought I wanted, that, I went for that. I advocated that, I thought that, I begged, that I nah, didn’t happen. Or even worse happened and then was taken away from me. Many different things ’cause politics is, it’s Game of Thrones without the dragons anyway. But then the, but the, but then that didn’t happen. It wasn’t supposed to happen. This was supposed to happen and I’m so clear about that. It’s almost, and it’s so funny ’cause people would look at me and say, Fleur, when there was a big disappointment, why are you acting like you know something? We don’t know. Like my political strategist would say to me, you are acting like you know something you don’t know. And I said, I don’t know, but I have the confidence that if this is happening, there’s a reason. I have spiritual confidence in the fact that if this was blocked for me, there was a reason and then. A couple of months or years later, the reason illuminates itself and I’m like, God pulled me back from that precipice. Thank God. Yeah, and that’s what I call mastering a higher level of consciousness, which is the fourth step. Once you are able to lean into that and bring God into it and ask and receive and listen and be attentive and go with the punches and be flexible because God is guiding you. Then your life is on a completely different level. Yeah. Then you have mastered that higher level of consciousness where you see things that other people don’t see, or you trust things that other people can’t trust because you already know it. It’s so confident, like the confidence that you have. Yes. Is the knowing. Yes it is. And people say, oh, you’ve got this inner confidence. It’s not from anything other than that complete faith that God put me here for a reason. That whatever’s happening is happening for a reason. I’m doing my best ’cause. You can’t just sit on your laurels. You can’t just sit down, watch Netflix, and expect things to happen. I don’t believe in that type of destiny. I work very hard for everything. But if things don’t work out this way, but they work out that way, it’s because that’s the way that I’m supposed to be, but that’s the way I’m supposed to go. And I honestly wake up every morning with that feeling that, because politics is hard. Why? Why am I doing this? I think to myself, and I’m doing this because something is pushing me to do this. Something is pushing me every single day. Amazing. Amazing. What advice can you give? To the people listening. Pull it all together for us. Leave us with something really great. That’s a good one. I honestly, no pressure. No pressure. I truly believe that the way we feed our souls is by giving. My whole ethos. About life in general is give without any expectation of getting, and then things come to you. Just give. Give time to the person who needs it. Give advice to a person who needs it. Do a favor if you can. Don’t wait for an invitation to step up. Don’t wait for an invitation to do a good deed, to do a, don’t wait for an invitation. Just do it every time you can. And somehow, and with no expectation, God gives it back to you. If you put out good things come back. I truly believe that. And of course after October 7th, it was very difficult for me to keep my positivity ’cause I’m an optimist. So I’ve struggled with that over the last few years. But ultimately we have no other choice. You give, you try and change whatever it is, your street, your school board, your neighborhood, your synagogue, your church, whatever it is. You try and fix your little patch around you and you’ll see the effects of that. I love it. I love it. Thank you so much for being with us. This is, thank you so much Rebbetzin. And it’s been a real pleasure. Thank you. Thank you so much. And everyone listening, thank you for coming and don’t forget to be. Back next week for another amazing episode. Thank you Fleur, and don’t forget to be connected for real.  And that’s it! Thank you for listening to the very end. I would love if you can leave a review and subscribe to the podcast. Those are things that tell the algorithm this is a good podcast and make sure to suggest it to others. Wouldn’t it be amazing if more people became more connected for real? And now take a moment and think of someone who might benefit from this episode. Can you share it with them? I am Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman from connectedforreal. com. Thank you so much for listening and don’t forget you can be connected for real.