The Brain Warrior Method (TM) Interview with Neal Phalora S. 2 Ep. 16

by alishagri3 | Jan 7, 2020 | Uncategorized

Today on The Dr. Ali Griffith Show, www.thedraligriffithshow.com, you will hear about the power of “receiving” and techniques to ask yourself when in the midst of “emotional constipation”. For an individual consult with Dr. Ali www.draligriffith.com

Our guest today is Neal Phalora, a speaker and mindset coach. He helps high achievers become masters of their mind so they can achieve more in their lives without giving up anything to make it happen. Neal has reinvented himself multiple times from Medical School, to Corporate, to Entrepreneur. His biggest journey was a chronic illness that left him sleeping 3-5 hours a day. Which led to discover the powerful capacity of the brain over the last 6 year. He has combined 10 years of life coaching with brain science to crush limiting behaviors and beliefs…TheBrainWarrior(TM)Method. He is devoted husband and father to four year old twins.

An Au-mazing Interview with Dr. Laura Louis

by Adriana Santiago | Nov 10, 2019 | Uncategorized

Dr. Ali:

What’s up, what’s up, what is up? Welcome to the Dr. Ali Griffith Show: Mindset, Meditation and Motivation. So we have a special guest today and it is Dr. Laura Lewis who will be here sharing a little bit more about the psychology of mindset, meditation and motivation. She’ll be giving us some of her amazing tips and strategies that she’s used to help her through the challenges that we all go through life – she’s been through some also. So today we welcome you, Dr. Louis. Welcome to the Dr. Ali Griffith Show.

Dr. Laura:

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I am so excited to be here and talk about this important topic.

Dr. Ali:

So tell us a little bit, if you were to do that quick elevator spiel, tell me who is Dr. Laura Louis?

Dr. Laura:

So I am a psychologist and couples therapist. I teach couples how to stay together when life and the outside world is trying to pull them apart through stress and all the other things that couples just have to manage. So that’s my jam. That’s what I do.

Dr. Ali:

So we have a lot of listeners out there that are trying to figure out how the heck do I balance or manage being a mom, being a dad (for my few dads that do listen), figuring out how to manage having a job or a business, I’m going to start parallel-preneurs like myself and still get their business on and popping. So how do you create that balance where you don’t feel like if, and I don’t like to call it balance anymore, I know it’s harmony because we definitely can’t put the same amount of time into one thing than we do into the other. What is it that you tell your clients when they come in feeling like they are so stressed out they don’t know what to do next?

Dr. Laura:

So I have three major tips that I would recommend and the first one really starts with mindset. And there there is something called limiting thinking patterns. And so limited thinking patterns are any thoughts that we tell ourselves that are not in alignment with the future that we want to create. So we have to be mindful of limited thinking patterns and really focus on just speaking life into what you want to happen

Dr. Ali:

I’m all about mindset and that’s what we always speak about here on the Dr. Ali Griffith Show guys. If you have not by now make sure you are subscribed, make sure you’re following, share this with a friend. Someone’s going to need to hear this today because they may be going through that moment where they don’t know what to do and it always comes back to our mindset. If we are not balanced in our mind, if we not working on how to create that Zen, that place of you know, alignment with the best sense of self, then how can we handle everything else – which is the external world? What’s number two?

Dr. Laura:

Number two is self care. So busy moms a lot of times just taking care of everybody else, taking care of the kids, taking care of their extended family, taking care of like work and business and taking care of every single thing else except for themselves. Like a lot of times I see busy moms that are like, okay, I got the kids doctor’s appointments but then you haven’t gone to the doctor, so let’s have a doctor’s appointment on the list. That’s part of self care. Another part of self care is just having fun. Like once a week I have my massage therapist comes to the house and it’s my time to just relax and just get my back like straight and down and just get my spirit right. And my husband knows that like when I’m having that weekly massage, just come off me, give me my moment. And so maybe it’s not massaging for you. Maybe it is taking a hot bath, lavender candles, having some absence all in just letting everybody know when I’m in this town don’t come to this home. And so I just think that it’s important that whatever the thing is that you do, you get clear about it. You make time forward, you do it consistently and you don’t let others, things that get in the way of you taking care of you.

Dr. Ali:

Moms, you need to hear that. You know that too. We get so caught up in making sure everything else and everyone else has set up that we completely, completely, absolutely forget ourselves. I am a huge proponent for setting that time up for that massage. I am a huge, huge advocate for taking that time out for self. That’s why we do the meditation part of the Dr. Ali Griffith show. I’d like to call them au-meditation where even amidst the storm, even through the chaos, even through the cycles and the circles of life we can find, we align ourselves and go back to our breathing and really get connected to source just by ourselves in the midst of storms. Which many people have asked me, “Dr. Ali, I don’t get how you stay so calm and balanced?” When Zachary, my son with autism, is running around then business is going this way and my first job I make my business and all these other things that are happening all at once. Because of that realignment, because of finding some time for self care and self love and self alignment so that I can then go out there and pour into others. I love your tips. So give them what is your number three, magical number three?

Dr. Laura:

Okay. Number three is to ask for help. Ask for help. Sometimes I’m black woman and sometimes we get super woman syndrome. We put out on our cape, I got it, I’m good, I’m fine, I don’t need any help. But no, ask for what you need from the people in your life and be clear about it. Like sometimes I may see that people get tired. Sometimes as women we may get tired, exhausted and we need to just ask for help. Like, I need you to watch this, I need you to come here and cook twice a week, can you fold up the clothes? And sometimes we need to release the need for it to be perfect and just say, you know, “however the clothes get folded. I don’t have to have all the corners lined up. If you could just fold them the best way, you know how and put them away. I’m good with that.” And so I want to really encourage people out there to make sure that you’re asking for what you need. Don’t just expect for the person to know you’re tired. Tell them what you need and be specific about it. Kids up in the morning -can you get them dressed in the morning? Can you make break like these specifics?

Dr. Ali:

I love it and now this is the perfect thing for couples, for those who were the husbands and the wife or the boyfriends and the girlfriends or whoever living together, the girlfriend, the girlfriend, the boyfriend, and the boyfriend’s been out to live somewhere else. So whatever works best for you, but whatever way that you need to ask for help, ask for help and be specific. Be clear. Don’t expect them to read your mind. Like Dr. Louis is saying, we don’t want them to keep saying, “well you should know what I think, or you should know what I like.” No, the heck they don’t know. I don’t know what you want or like, why don’t you just tell me so that we could make this a lot easier and save us sometimes frustration and get back to the good stuff again? I learned with my mom, who has been helping me with co-parenting and co raising Zachary. Yes, Zachary’s dad is in his life. Yes, we do have a co-parenting relationship. However, with my mom who sometimes comes in and helps out, I had to learn to ask specifically for help because she knows me. I am that person that loves to throw a cape on. My cape may be very, very big or it might be quite invisible, but there is a cape on. That’s what we do as moms. We want to handle it all. Especially as autism moms, we think no one else can understand. We think we don’t want to give anyone that’s extra burden of taking care of our kid or having to deal with the breakdowns. They don’t know how to handle it. So I used to try and do everything by myself until my mom was like, “hey, why don’t you ask me, why don’t you let me do this?” And I’m like, hmm, I forgot people actually want to help. So that was one of the you just turn around or my parenting, even in my business when I learned to just say, “hey ma, can you just hop by just making some dinner on these days? Can you make sure that you know, if you’re here that you can help Zachary with homework on some of these days so I can see some clients at this time without feeling guilty?” So that’s that.

Dr. Laura:

That is so good. I’m so glad that you spoke on that without feeling guilty because we will throw some guilt on myself in a minute. Like I’m like, I should be, I need to be doing this, that and the third when sometimes we just need to sit down and let the people around us, the poor us. I know I’m so guilty of this, of like micromanaging all of the things when I just need to let, let the people around me, like my mom, like my husband, let them just support because sometimes I do need that support and when I don’t take it, that’s when the stress and the worry starts to come up. My cousin ended his life, and he was kind of close in age to me. And so I kind of felt like responsible. I felt like I should’ve known. Like I felt like, why didn’t I check in on him more? I went through kind of a depression of like just kinda beat myself up about like I should have asked, thought I have more time and Oh, I’m gonna call him. Oh, I’m gonna. And then before I know it, I hadn’t. And so I really had to just get in therapy. Like I had to enroll myself in therapy and that really made a big difference. But I had to just kind of first acknowledge that I wasn’t okay. You know, I really had to do that.

Dr. Ali:

That’s, that’s huge. And my condolences and I salute you. This is definitely one of those shows that I am so glad we have a psychologist here that can share with us the importance of when we are going through those moments and knowing that when we’re not okay that it’s okay to seek help. It’s okay to have that person that you can talk to, that person who just may not judge. That’s just right there to listen to kid. It can be your parents, it can be a licensed therapist, it could be a coach. It could be someone who just can make it easier and help to get through. So remembering that you are not alone and that when you ask for help, it actually gets rid of that guilty feeling. So many of us who walk around with this guilt of, you know, what will others think of me? Or they can’t see the other side of me that’s weak. Let’s just admit the fact that we’re all week. We have weak moments. We are allowed to cry. We’re allowed to not look like if we got all our ish together. It’s okay. And like Dr. Louis mentioned earlier, it’s okay when things are not done perfectly. Give yourself permission to not be perfect anymore so that you can throw that cave of guilt out of the closet and just be yourself.

Dr. Laura:

And you know what else Dr. Ali? I had to really give myself grace and you know, for this season I’m not going to be able to do it all. I’m going to have to say no to something. I’m a speaker, I love to speak, but I had to turn down some speaking engagements and it felt like a scarcity mindset came up. Like, “oh my gosh, if I don’t do this then…”, but I had to just be okay with just saying I’m ready for this season. I’m just going to take care of me, refuel my tank so I don’t be on side if the road, gas empty from just trying to do everything and that, that made a big difference.

Dr. Ali:

Yeah. So she’s leaving us with that amazing tips that au-mazing little tip that being able to say no, being able to – and my mom is so funny because she was over this morning and she was telling me how they asked her to do another job and how it’s so great to have a license. She’s a social worker and she just retired but always somehow getting back into a job. And she finally said no. She said it was so tempting and she finally identified the fact that because she’s worked all of her life, she has a “busy, be busy” worker mindset and she was like, I didn’t realize that this thing is actually a mindset. So she seeing me using no as a complete statement saying, thinking that I don’t have to tell them a reason why it’s okay. Just to say no was empowering for a woman who is close to 70, to be able to say no and feel quite okay with that. And I love the tools and tips that Dr. Louis shared with us today. She’s gonna tell us now how we can continue learning more about her and how if you need her, how she can provide support for you.

Dr. Laura:

So I am a couples therapist. If any of you are like, “I need some of this in my life, like I need somebody to help walk me through how I can say no? How am I to start our practice and self care? How am I to get some of this stuff off of my list and onto somebody else’s to do list?” If you need support with that, then you can connect with me. I have a membership program and it’s called, it’s at bit.ly/afterido and basically what you get is you get a Q&A session with me every month and then you also get an expert training every month. So inside the portal is already about 10 hours worth of training on communication on intimacy cause without getting good intimacy sometimes it can make us a little bit snappy and so we talk about that. We talk about that and especially communication because communication is one of the number one reasons why relationships don’t work out. It’s not finances, though finances is high up there. It’s communication. So that’s how you guys can connect with me.

Dr. Ali:

I love it. She landed it. You know we are so in alignment because we actually have not met each other. We met through other means and I love bringing you special guests because I always feel like you’re divinely assigned and divinely sent for whoever my audience is to listen to at that right moment. I don’t get concerned with, you know, the topic or the person and if they’re this or that, I just always feel he sends the right one.

Dr. Laura:

Mmhmm. That’s so good. I just want to say to you, thank you for creating a space for us to have dialogues like this because these type of conversations there’s not a lot of spaces that they’re being had, and so you have created a lane, a space for support to exist in a way that doesn’t exist in a lot of other spaces.

Dr. Ali:

Yeah. I started realizing that nobody was talking much about the combination of mindset and motivation, and they never tapped into the whole meditation aspect of realigning back to self and how to do certain things. And that any and everyone can meditate, that it doesn’t have to be all fun about it. It can be pretty simple and done anytime within the day. So I just created what I looked for that helped me to get through my crazy and my hectic after I created, people just started to listen and it became something that was for them. So the fact that your messages are so in alignment with what we speak about with what they need to hear right now just continues to prove that we need to just keep walking and doing how we were uniquely created to serve. And then when we do that alignment occurs. So guys, thank you for watching us, listening to us. Make sure you’re following us on all means of the podcast The Dr. Ali Griffith Show. If you are reading this on on my blog you know what to do, make sure you share it with other who just may need it. Make sure you catch us for more mindset, meditation, and motivation. Remember in all that you do be au-amazing in your thoughts, words and in your actions. Peace.

This interview is a transcription of my podcast, The Dr. Ali Griffith Show. To listen to this interview and other episodes visit www.thedraligriffithshow.com.

Check out some of my other recent blog posts:

How to Get Up from a Downwards Spiral

The Power of Self Love

3 Au-mazing Tips on How to Mind Your Business

How to Get Up from a Downwards Spiral

by Adriana Santiago | Nov 3, 2019 | Uncategorized

Today I wanted to get really real with you guys and talk all about that downward spiral, that place in which sometimes we feel like if there’s no return. We all fall into that place at some point or another. While those downward spirals may not always be unavoidable, you CAN always find a way back out. So I’m sharing some of my personal stories and strategies on how I manage to get out of those dark spots in life so that you can too.

I specifically remember feeling this way when I first got the diagnosis with my son Zachary. He was diagnosed with being on the autism spectrum, and it happened around the age of 18 months to three years. I mean, within that time I, all I thought was “woe is me.” I felt the pain. I kind of reclused to myself. I wasn’t dealing much with the outside world because it felt like if my world just was going out of complete recognition. Well, it happened a few months before when his dad and I, we separated. We were like post-college sweethearts and we were together from a very, very long time. So after being married and having this child, you would think, you know, the white picket fence and the beautiful house and all the things that we imagined that then necessarily come into place.

That was the beginning of that downward spiral, that feeling of, “oh my goodness, who am I anymore?” I once thought myself as, “okay, I’m going to be this wife. I’m going to be this professional.” Like I had all these dreams in my head and being basically you ripped it out, and that began the downward spiral. Fast forward to later to our separation, that spiral continued because now I’m really questioning my value. I’m really questioning who I am as a person, and then here comes more. There’s the diagnosis. There is me seeing these signs of this beautiful baby boy that I just thought was going to be this one thing. You know the thing we have in our head of what they’re going to become? Then I was told that this was no longer.

So that began more of the spiral and what I really recall is just feeling lost, like I was a shell. I was walking around moving around in action. As a speech therapist and audiologist, I made sure he was getting what he needed. However, I was just an empty shell. I was walking around, I was smiling on the outside, but inside there was complete turmoil. Complete not knowing what my next steps were going to be, and almost complete at a space where I didn’t even like my life anymore to be honest.

The reason why I’m sharing this is because I know speaking to one of my clients this week who is in the process of going through that feeling of a downward spiral, and she turned to me and she asked me, “you know, Dr Ali, how do I get out of this?” And I just began to share with her my journey. A lot of people see what they see now, not knowing that we all have a story. We all have a journey. We all have something that we went through that we felt completely lost – like if the floor underneath us was just removed and we’re just like floating there like, “oh my God, where’s the floor?” And I said it’s is basically looking for the floor. And I helped her by helping her to understand my journey. So as I share my journey with you today, definitely let me know which ones resonated the most with you. I want to make sure this is interactive. I want to make sure you’re leaving your comments, sharing this blog with others, especially those who may walk around as a shell. We know that there’s more than meets the eye and sometimes just sharing it out with people so that they may not tell you what’s going on, but they’ll be able to say, “oh my goodness, someone out there is going through what I am going through! I feel like my life is just in a downward spiral and I’m gasping for air. I’m gasping for help.”

Tip Number 1: Recognize what your downward spiral looks like.

So the first thing I had to begin to learn was recognizing what does that downward spiral look like to me? And I began to see what signs, how it showed up. Now let me just warn you, hindsight is the best sight. So I’m coming at you from looking back into that journey to those of you who are in this journey. Now use this as an opportunity to just recognize, am I in that downward spiral? Am I in that space where I’m not sharing anything with anyone? I’m pretty much always by myself. I’m choosing to be by myself. I eat my pain. I eat or not eat because it could be the complete opposite. I just see myself emotionally eating, not even hungry or just trying to fill this void. Some people may feel the void with with extracurricular activities, whether it’s too much sex, too much smoking, too much of anything. Gambling, just looking for spaces, relationships being either being with too many people where you just don’t want to be by yourself, or the other end of the spectrum – being by yourself so much where you don’t want to be with people. For me it looked like I just withdrew to myself. I got to myself. I didn’t really want to see outside much. I would go out to work and then I would come back home and to even get to go work out or to do anything that was physically stimulating, just was not interesting to me. And I would sometimes just go in and go out, go to work, come back in and watch TV. Like that was it.

And my Zachary would engage. He would try to do things with me and I just was not even interested. I would engage a little bit with him, but since he was autistic, he’s already in his own world. So we were like two ships in the sea, like just two people, two things, two beings being with each other but not with each other. Like the connection and the communication was very, very minimal. If that’s you right now, then just identify that to me. Let me know. Let’s see how we can help you and give you some tools besides what we’re doing today. Some additional tools of how to move past this downward spiral. So the first thing like I mentioned, is identifying how does it show up in me? What does it look like? You know, what’s the physical manifestation of this downward spiral so that I can identify when I see it coming, because it’s just gonna come out of nowhere and guys, I can promise you a downward spiral comes back again. It’s not just the, it happens once and it’s done. We just have different periods of different triggers that that will reignite that downward spiral. That’s why I know everyone that’s reading here has had that moment.

Tip Number 2: Ask for help.

The second thing I began to learn was to ask for help. Once I began to recognize it, I began to tell my friends. I began to get coaching. I began to tell my mom like, “don’t leave me in here too long”. You know, it was a way of,” hey, if you see me do this, then you know, call me or come visit me or let me get myself back into my regular routine.” Making sure that I let others know not to leave me alone out here on this island basically. So hence the reason the importance of me doing this today was so that you know that you are not out there on that island. And if you do need to reach out to someone, definitely schedule a 15 minute chat with me at www.draligriffith.com/contact/ You’ll find access to my calendar and we can just talk through some of these things and help you to see what are those physical manifestations of what your downward spiral looks like. Number two, figuring out your help source, create your support squad. Some may need mental counseling, some may need spiritual counseling. Let’s just help get you clear on those next steps.

Tip Number 3: Use shifting exercises.

The last thing I like to say for me is I began to really use shifting exercises. I will always call them, you know, my shifters and a lot of the shifting exercises came from gratitude. And I’m super excited to invite you to my Mompreneurs on Fire 2.0 live event from March 28th and 29th in Brooklyn, New York. If you’re interested in learning some of these practices in person, if you’re interested in putting together your own personal development kit, it’s like what I want to call it your toolkit, then make sure you join us a go to www.mompreneursonfire.com to get your ticket and you’ll learn more about how to navigate that downward spiral when you’re a parent, when you’re still focusing on trying to maximize your own life. And for those of you out there who want to start moving towards creating profit and moving more towards using your purpose and passion towards prosperity, so all of that in a ball, we’re going to do that in person! So I look forward to you joining us.

So my first gratitude exercise is soon as I wake up, I make sure I write down or speak out loud, 10 things that I’m grateful for. That’s an immediate shift. Those are ways to help me to shift back into reality, even through the downward spiral. It helps me to realize that wait a minute, being present right now to what I am grateful for can help the process. Does it get rid of the process? Absolutely not. But if you begin to create a morning routine and you get to choose your morning with routine, some people would use prayer, some people use meditation, some may use all of the above. So think about what are you grateful for right now? I’m grateful for having this platform where I can just use my value and use my gifts of connecting and communicating and empowering to help you that are reading out there. So that’s what I’m grateful for. I’m grateful for air. I’m grateful for the ability to have the technology to do this. I’m grateful for the lessons I’ve been through, my life experiences, the good and the bad. I’m grateful to be able to be on the other side and sometimes through the actual process of what’s happening and being able to just come and share it with you so that you are not out there in that space feeling alone. So we got our shifters, we have our 10 things we’re grateful for. Some of us can use some of my on meditation tracks and go into that.

Another thing I love to use and I said it before, is visualization. There’s nothing like me imagining myself on that beach with that piña colada in my hand and just watching that water. It’s my happy place. It’s my safe space and it’s where I go to when need to shift out of things. The last, but certainly not least, is that one person in my life that always makes me smile and that’s my son, right? That’d be your main, it might be your mom, your dad, that person that as soon as they smile, it just brightens up your heart on the inside. Sometimes I’ll just visualize that we’re smiling or laughing. There’s something about the sound of laughter, you know, the full experience. Visualize a full experience where you’re smelling it, tasting it, you’re feeling it. Everything about this visualization just feels so real that it begins to shift you into gratitude and it begins to shift that spiral. Instead of going down, you start to come back up a little bit more towards the surface.

So I hope you enjoy some of what I shared today. Make sure you check out some of my other blog posts while you’re here. There’s so many different topics whether you need more mindset shifts, autism parenting advice, business strategies, and more. Leave me a comment and let me know which tip I shared resonated with you the most.

Check out some of my most recent blog posts:

Trick or Treating Tips for Autism Parents

The Power of Self Love

3 Au-mazing Tips on How to Mind Your Business

Trick or Treating Tips for Autism Parents

by Adriana Santiago | Oct 27, 2019 | Uncategorized

The Power of Self Love

by Adriana Santiago | Oct 20, 2019 | Uncategorized

3 Au-mazing Tips on How to Mind Your Business

by Adriana Santiago | Oct 14, 2019 | Uncategorized

So today I wanted to talk a little about minding your business. Mind your business actually was a topic that was brought up before for the Power House of Four with three other au-mazing ladies that we have found each other in the personal development space. We had this show where “mind your business” just came up and it was a hot topic. So I’m like, you know what, let’s revisit that and now let’s add that Dr. Ali spin on it.

The concept came from being into everyone else’s business more than you are on your own. You know, some of you who love to help, help, help others, and then when it comes to doing your own stuff you’re like, “I have no more energy. I have no more power. There’s nothing left inside of me. I’m just going to take a nap.” I’m one of those because as a servant leader, it’s so, so important for me and I actually enjoy helping others. It’s what I live, breathe and just get excited about. It’s like hearing that you need help and “how can I support you?” is always my response. I’m thinking initially that that was what I needed to do to feel better about myself. I guess I helped myself through whatever downward spiral or whatever of rabbit hole I was in. There’s nothing like helping others to make you feel better. I was actually telling a client one of that that the other night when she was asking, um, how do I feel better? I was like, “help others!”

You know, there’s something about helping those that have less, the less fortunate ones. That’s the reason I have my nonprofit Smart Fit Fam. When I’m working with families with kids with special needs or I’m working with autism, it just makes me feel more grateful. But while I’m doing that, I’m, I’m minding my business and I need you to think about that right now as you’re helping others.

Are you putting in the same amount of energy, time and money into yours as you do for others? I mean, you’ve seen me jump in a plane to go to Lisa Nichols events or Steve Harvey’s event, or my different coaches in different ways supporting them. But am I also investing that time and money into myself, into my business, into my podcast The Dr. Ali Griffith Show (subscribe!), into this Mompreneurs on Fire 2.0 live event (get tickets!). The answer is initially no, but somehow I found the way. So let me let you know a little bit about how I found the way.

Tip #1: Be clear on what you want.

First I had to learn that if I wanted something I had to be clear on exactly what it is that I want, and if I wasn’t clear to surround myself with others that were moving in the same direction. So even though it may not have looked like I was minding my business, it was actually the behind the scenes building up the infrastructure, then seeing how it’s run for when I do my own. So it actually was minding my business still. It was just a strategic manner of supporting others while learning in preparation for where I was going. Now many of us don’t see us doing that and we don’t actually see the next five years or 10 years when we’re in the actual process. One of my gifts is the ability to see beyond the immediate, and as I’m supporting others, I support myself. As I’m helping my different coaches with either a live event, now I’m doing my live event and now I have some of the basic infrastructures of the back end of doing a live event and the front end of doing a live event from helping others. So it’s a way of still moving towards your dreams, minding your business from the back end side. So look at how you can now find a way that you can support someone else. That support can be helping in the same room, get coaching and being in alignment of someone else that is five to 10 steps ahead of you so that you are still always learning the process of where you want to go.  That’s why you have to get clear on where you want to go. If you’re not clear on that, set up a time for us to talk one quick coaching session with me and we’ll get you clarity at bit.ly/chatcreate.

Tip #2: Focus less on what others are doing.

The second thing we want to do is we want to focus less on what others are doing. I like to call this putting my blinders on. A lot of us are very focused on what our friends are doing, what our peers are doing, what other moms are doing. Being a parent of a child with special needs, I had to stop looking sideways because every time I look sideways, I would realize that I am not in the same line with them. I’d probably behind! Zachary’s language development was always behind, his cognitive development is behind. I shouldn’t even say behind, it’s on his own time, right? But if I compare it to other 13 year olds, he’s not functioning at the same level as another 13 year old. He may be functioning at a 9 or 10 year old level. And by stopping myself from comparing it to others, I had to start learning to mind my own business. My business at that time was helping Zachary to be the best of him. It still is. It required me to stop looking right and stop looking left. I know some of you guys do that with me. I’m being blatantly honest, I have friends that may see the book, they may see me speaking, that means seeing all these things on the outside and being like “Ooh, I want to do that!” or “I’m not at that level so I’m just not gonna do it.” And I’m always like, “don’t look at me! You don’t know where I started from. You don’t know what I did. You don’t know what I’m still doing. Just focus on you. And if you’re looking at me, look at me in other words of how can I learn and grow? What can I borrow, use, ask for, create and then modify?”  Focus on how is it that you can take what your dream is, your vision, your passion, your parenting to your own pace and your own level with the influence of others. We don’t want to be looking sideways, because when I look sideways, it slows me down for the forward movement.

I want you to realize how that impacts your business, whether it’s your personal business, your parenting business, and or your entrepreneurship business. I can’t wait to speak more about this at Mompreneurs on Fire 2.0, which is my two day live event happening March 28-29 2020 with mompreneurs or other aspiring mompreneurs who are gathering together to ignite their passion and purpose. They ignite better parenting skills and they ignite their profit and prosperity. Like how do you use that thing that you do so well and go out there and make some money off of it? It’s a time for us to be with other people who are in the forward movement so we can learn from them, but not focus on what they’re doing more than what we are doing. It’s that time where I specifically created time for us to be in alignment with where it is that we want to be as an individual, create a strategic plan, and then go out there and get it with support and accountability. That’s what that’s all about. Head over to www.mompreneursonfire.com to reserve your spot!

Tip #3: Invest in yourself.

The last thing I had to learn on, and this kind of leads into the same thing, is learning more how to invest in myself. I’m getting on a plane, investing in coaching, investing in masterminds, investing in all of these programs that have elevated my life to such an exponential level, including the ability to just jump on podcasts with you guys, or to speak, or to be an author, or to help parents. All of that required me investing in more and that’s my whole gamut towards success. It’s how I choose to use my time, my money, and my energy and learning how to maximize that in whatever aspect I have – whether I don’t have enough time, or I don’t have enough money, or I don’t have enough energy. In my head sometimes I’m saying “enough!” and that’s what you may be thinking too – “I don’t have enough. I don’t have enough money. I don’t know where I’m gonna find the time. Girl, I’m so tired. There’s nothing else I can do. That’s time, money and energy.” By the way, we all have some. We all have the ability to find some. Like if you were to say that today’s your last day and you need to find $5,000 so that you can live for another 50 years, you would go out there and make it happen, right? If you needed to know that you had to maximize this two hours so that you can now put some time into finding out what is the cure to something your mom or your son or your family may have, you use that time to create what you need to have. You’ll make that time, right? And then if you’re tired and you’re in that gym class and you just want to give up on yourself and you’re almost on the floor, but then you realize that if I worked out 15 more minutes it would make me live 15 more years – I bet your tail would get up and give yourself 15 more minutes! It’s learning how to find the importance and the why behind the creating the time, creating the money, creating the energy so that you can maximize what it is that you can get. And as for those excuses… I’m sorry, they lack, I’m not taking it. I’m not even having you give it to me. If you come to Mompreneurs on Fire 2.0, I’m going to just let you know that ain’t gonna work. I have all the excuses, and I’ve heard all the excuses, and I’ve pretty much used all of them. So we’ll be in the same boat. Maximize it for 2020.

So these are some of the things that I had to learn along the way, and I hope throughout this process that you are writing this down, that you are leaving your messages in the comments below, that you by now you’ve sent a friend over here to read this, because sometimes we just have to learn how to mind our own damn business! For more business tips and tricks, autism parenting resources, free gifts, and more, take a look around at www.draligriffith.com.

Check out some of my other recent blog posts for more advice!

Autism and Bullying: 3 Au-mazing Tips to Protect Your Child

3 Au-mazing Tips for School Wins

3 Au-Mazing Communication Tips for a Successful School Year

Autism and Bullying: 3 Au-mazing Tips to Protect Your Child

by Adriana Santiago | Oct 7, 2019 | Uncategorized

Hi, it’s your girl Dr. Alisha Griffith, affectionately known as “Dr. Ali.” I am your autism parenting strategist and ignite coach. I help autism moms, mompreneurs, and aspiring mompreneurs, to shift through the feelings of overwhelm, frustration, and stress, and move towards making bold, brave power moves so you can ignite the results you want and live that ultimate dream life you desire.

Today I wanted to write a little bit about bullying because October is Bullying Awareness Month. I want to give 3 important tips that you must know about bullying – and I’m saying this specifically for my autism moms, my special needs moms, but my regular parents can benefit from it also because I think we all need this information. A study that Autism Speaks did shows that 60% of children are more likely to be bullied when they have special needs as compared to 25% of children without special needs. So that means that there’s an increasing chance that our au-mazing gifts are going to be bullied sometime in their life. So what are three things that you must know to help protect them?

Tip Number 1:

You have to teach your child what bullying looks like. A lot of our kids don’t know what bullying looks like, they don’t understand the concept. So, you have to demonstrate it to them, you have to be the mean guy. You have to have pretend moments or acting time when you can show them what bullying looks like – it can be someone who wants to take your lunch from you and make you feel really bad. At the beginning of last school year Zachary came to me and said a student in his class told him that he needs to bring $5 to school and give it to him. I was like “What?? What do you mean?” He said yes, one of his friends from elementary school told him that he needs to get $5 tomorrow or else! And I said, “Or else what?” And he takes his hands and shows me that he’s going to take his hand and push him or push his face against something. So I sat down and explained to him that’s bullying, and if he does that you tell him no, that you are not going to bring him $5 tomorrow, and that your mom is going to call his mom. The key of it was letting him know that this isn’t a normal situation – you’re not supposed to bring someone money, and if someone makes you feel unsafe and if you don’t there’s a consequence, that’s a form of bullying. He didn’t know that because he’s never described this behavior before. So I had to sit down with him, and show him, and give him different scenarios.

Tip Number 2:

You want to communicate with your child. You want to keep that communication open. This is the time when you have to communicate with them and make sure they feel very comfortable coming to you to talk about it. You have to create a safe space for them because a lot of our kids aren’t sure how to say anything or what to say. So you’re gonna talk about it more often, you’re gonna show them what it looks like, and create a safe space for them. For my parents with children who are nonverbal, you still want show it to them. You still want to demonstrate that that’s not okay. Look at your child, they will be showing you discomfort with school. It’s going to be something uncomfortable for them. They may protest going to school, they may cry at certain times. They are gonna show you other signs that are saying something is going on. Stay on top of it.

Tip Number 3:

You want to make sure that you create a plan with the school. Sit and talk with the teachers and let them know “hey this is a time where other kids may want them to do something, and I want you guys to take time to either talk about it in class or take time to observe what’s happening with the students in your classroom.” Be aware when people are saying things their tone of voice, the way another child responds to things. When children are being bullied you will always see the response in their face, in their change of mood, in not being happy when it comes to school and it has nothing to do with academics. So this is a time when you have to create a plan with the school so that you can have that on going communication. Check in on them, I can’t say this enough. You gotta check in, you gotta keep communication open, you gotta make sure that you are a safe place they can come to speak to about. The next thing you want to do is make sure that you’re talking to the teachers. If they have a system in place that when bullying is occurring how will they respond to it? Is it a conversation that they’ll have? Are there regulations that they have in the school? Are there consequences that are going to happen as a result of it? Create it, because it differs every place you go. I can’t tell you one thing because every school and every system has different anti-bullying rules. But they key of it all that I’m always going to come back to is: communication. It’s making sure you have a safe space, and of course teaching the children what bullying looks like and doesn’t look like, and emphasizing how it makes a person feel. No one ever wants to feel uncomfortable or like their rights are being violated. The bully doesn’t want to feel it either, so they need to understand more about it. Our schools need to speak about it more so that our children are more comfortable identifying it and knowing what the system is, and what are the things we do when it does occur.

Has your au-mazing gift ever dealt with bullying? Feel free to share your stories in the comments below. It’s good to start conversations around this topic so we can help educate others so they can start having these conversations with their children.

For more tips on autism parenting, check out some of my most recent blog posts!

3 Au-mazing Tips for School WINS!

3 Au-mazing Communication Tips for a Successful School Year

What is Your Parenting Style (Quiz)

3 Au-mazing Tips for School WINS!

by Adriana Santiago | Sep 23, 2019 | Uncategorized

Hello everyone it is Dr. Ali, Autism Parenting Strategist. I’m super duper excited because it’s the end of September, hooray, we made it! We made it past the first month of school. So for those having a really really good start, let me know down below in the comments what’s been good so far. For those of you who are still navigating it and are still getting through the changes, let me know if that’s you too!

This is Zachary’s (my son on the autism spectrum) second year of junior high school. Say what?? I can’t believe that’s actually true. Junior High has been an entirely different ball game, and last year was definitely a learning curve for us both. But I’m hoping that this school year will be even better now that we’re kind of in the swing of things and since I’ve perfected some of my strategies for making sure we have School WINS each year. Today I just wanted to share those tips and strategies out with you too so that you and your kids on the spectrum can have school WINs all year long.

Tip Number 1: Create a partnership with the school.

Try and create a partnership with the school. As a person that works with the schools and who has a child in school, I even had to have a conversation  with someone from Zachary’s school at the beginning of last year regarding him not getting all of his services during the first month, which you know he should have. So even though a part of me was upset and I wanted to go off, it is very important to establish that we are a team and we are in a partnership. In the end we all want what’s best for Zachary, and this is the language that I need you to start learning on how to use with the schools. Once they understand it’s teamwork, once they understand that you are in it together, once they understand that you’re trying to work with them, they being to try to work with you – and together you get to create something that’s going to work effectively for your child. So even though at the beginning of the conversation I wanted to go, “where is his blah blah blah??” You know, going off because I’m still parent first. I still wanted to make sure that she knew that she was being heard and I wanted her to understand that we are all on the same team. And, I think those wordings tend to bring the edge off a little. Remember it’s teamwork, collaboration. You want to know you guys all are working together as a team, not be constantly fighting.

Tip Number 2: Remember that you have choices.

You have choices, parents have choices. Your choice is whether you wanna keep your child in that school, your choice if you wanna move her to a different classroom or different school, homeschooling, for my homeschooling parents. You have the right to be open to what choices work best for your child. Not to say thats your immediate action, but just always understand that you have choices. So I think that when we know we have choices, we don’t feel like we are stuck in this place. That we’re placed here and we have no control over it, and when parents begin to feel like we don’t have control, then we lose control! If we feel like it’s just your decision and you’re not thinking about what we’re saying and not incorporating us, we begin to feel powerless. And as educators, as parents, we don’t want anyone to lose power in the scene. We understand the school’s power and their choices , but the school also has to understand our power in the choices that we have as parents.

Tip Number 3: Keep your power.

Take back your power in the situation. Keep your power. Remember that your power comes from within you and that no one has the right take away that power. So live in your power, be in your power and feel confidently strong in your power. Autism moms are some of the most powerful women I know, and I know that lies within you as well. Don’t feel that you’re powerless or have no control over what goes on at the school – you DO!

I hope these tips help you and your au-mazing child have many, many, many school WINS this year! Let me know down below in the comments if any of these resonated with you, and feel free to share any tips that you normally use to win when it comes to school. As always be au-mazing in your thoughts, your words, and your actions.

P.S. If you want to experience even more WINS as a mom, as an aspiring entrepreneur, or as an established mompreneur you’ve GOT to be present for my two day live event in Brooklyn, New York on September 28th-29th – Mompreneurs On FIRE! Give yourself permission to be bold, to be brave, to invest in YOUR dreams for once. If you need a major boost to your business and/or you’re looking to connect with other trailblazing business women and grow your tribe, this is the event for YOU. We’re down to our final few seats which are 50% OFF right now! That means you can grab your seat for just $197, and you can even bring a FRIEND with you and get both of your tickets for only $297! Head over to www.mompreneursonfire.com to get yours now or to learn more.