The Positive Pants Podcast Fran Excell: Success Mindset Mentor For Business Owners.

Show note links:
Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app
Freebies:
Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success’ meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success
Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary’ type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101
Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster
Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram 
Ways to work with me:
Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app
Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp
For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com
Products:
Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude 
Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook 
Contact:
Make sure you’re following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways!
Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways!
For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/
What Is Mental Fitness
 
What is mental fitness?
 
I was listening to a podcast with Simon Sinek recently where he was talking about preferring the term ‘mental fitness’ to ‘mental health’ or ‘mental illness’.
 
And I’m SO in agreement.
 
So much work still needs to be done and so much still needs to change when it comes to the stigma attached to working on yourself and struggling for any period of time emotionally or mentally.
 
The idea that there’s something ‘wrong’ with you or fundamentally flawed or broken for experiencing things that are simply part of the human experience.
 
For having a bad day. A bad week. A bad month.
 
Struggling when something is going on in your life where it would ABSOULUTELY make sense for you to struggle, feel pain or challenging emotions.
 
Having what people may call ‘negative’ emotions.
 
Judging ourselves for experiencing anxiety, which at it’s core is our human alarm system and trying to alert us that something needs attention.
 
Managing reactivity and triggers.
 
Not being totally happy with where you’re at.
 
There’s nothing ‘wrong’ with you. 
 
We simply haven’t been taught how to handle being a human a lot of the time.
 
This is why I'm so passionate about helping people shift the way they think about things.
 
Fundamentally shifting the lens that you look at life and yourself through.
 
Understanding why you the things that you do, or feel what you feel WITHOUT the judgement.
 
It’s the judgement piled on top of the emotions that makes everything feel so much worse.
 
The focus on concerns over being judged by other people, as if you need to hide something.
 
That it’s ‘bad’ or YOU’RE ‘bad’ if you experience it.
 
We’re taught it’s not ok to not be ok. 
 
But also, let’s be honest, the judgement from yourself is usually way worse.
 
So, we work on our health and fitness when we realise it’s important in having a happy, long life right?
 
We might be more conscious of what we eat, move our bodies, and exercise. 
 
Hopefully in a sustainable way that’s something we can easily incorporate into our day to day lives and we can create sustainable habits.
 
Not all or nothing. 
 
Not beating ourselves into submission from the perspective of not being enough.
 
But either way, we’re praised for healthy choices, even when sometimes it’s to the detriment of other things.
 
We’re complimented for weight loss, even if it’s come through disordered eating.
 
We’re seen as ‘better’ in some way because we’re looking after ourselves.
 
So why doesn’t the same thing apply to our mental h

Show note links:
Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app
Freebies:
Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success’ meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success
Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary’ type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101
Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster
Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram 
Ways to work with me:
Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app
Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp
For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com
Products:
Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude 
Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook 
Contact:
Make sure you’re following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways!
Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways!
For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/
Reframing uncertainty
 
Uncertainty is not something we love as humans.
 
Often the fear of it will keep us in situations that aren’t good for us simply because that fear of uncertainty and what could happen is so strong.
 
But what if we could reframe it?
 
What if we could totally change the way we view uncertainty and not have all the answers?
 
Would that change your behaviour and your decisions?
 
As humans we’re wired to seek certainty and repeat familiar patterns because that’s safe.
 
When we can get on board with the idea of being comfortable being uncomfortable, the whole world opens up.
 
I’m so thankful I have wired myself for this over the years, especially with my personal situation having a huge amount of uncertainty at the moment.
 
That’s not to say it doesn’t affect me, of course it does, you can’t expect it not to. 
 
BUT it means I can begin to talk myself round pretty quickly.
 
The more you practice reframing the things that are uncertain, the easier it is to handle because you’re utilising good old neuroplasticity to literally rewire your brain and nervous system to tolerate it.
 
As per usual this is where all the glorious tools for emotional and nervous system regulation come into effect.
 
It’s also where understanding that we are not our thoughts, but the observer of our thoughts is hugely important. 
 
The more you can catch your thoughts spiraling to the negative, the more you can talk back. Rationalise with them. Be curious about them and question them instead of blindly accepting them as fact.
 
This is a skill that you can absolutely learn.
 
Neuroplasticity at work again. Hooray!
 
This is very much how I trained myself to stop being Eeyore on a bad day, catastrophising and expecting the worst to being someone who even when the negative thought pops up can automatically go ‘hang on, is that true? What else is also true?’
 
It’s a very magical skill let me tell you!
 
So even in the midst of the most uncertainty I've ever experienced I've still managed to create some.
 
How could that change things for you?
 
To find certainty in the uncertainty?
 
The main way I do this is in the way I question myself.
 
Where CAN you create some certainty?
 
What do you have control over?
 
When can you think of a time that things were uncertain and it led to amazing things coming into your life?
 
I’ve been speaking to a lot of you over on Instagram really struggling with a lack of certainty. 
 
Most of you have been business owners but lots of people in corporate roles too.
 
What does that tell you?
 
Uncertainty is something we need to learn to li

Show note links:
Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app
Freebies:
Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success’ meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success
Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary’ type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101
Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster
Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram 
Ways to work with me:
Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app
Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp
For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com
Products:
Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude 
Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook 
Contact:
Make sure you’re following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways!
Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways!
For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/
What Is Happiness?
 
What is happiness?  
 
Oof, big question!
 
What is this big thing that so many of us spend our lives trying to find?
 
Do you actually know specifically?
 
How will you know when you have it?
 
What happiness looks and feels like will vary from one person to another, yet we all feel like we’re chasing the same thing.
 
It can feel pretty elusive and hard to nail down.
 
I could ask 500 of you what happiness meant to you and end up with 500 different answers!
 
It’s another part of our collective human experience that we may have never even thought to question or dig into.
 
Like so many things. We walk around on auto pilot making assumptions based on our own maps of the world and think that everyone else thinks the same as us, or should think the same as us.
 
But sometimes even that part isn’t clear. What do we REALLY think?
 
This is why I love digging into our own psyches. It’s SO fascinating when you really look into the things we believe, think and feel. It’s so subjective and can often be changed simply by daring to look a little closer and pick apart our unconscious programming and natural learned protection mechanisms.
 
It’s also entirely likely that me asking you this question today, and in 10 years time, and 10 years ago, would have completely different answers.
 
And yet we can feel like we’re chasing this elusive happiness without realising we might already have it.
 
It comes down to perspective again. You might have something big going on that isn’t ideal, but could you still be happy underneath it all?
 
Can you have that not ideal thing going on and not judge it or transpose it over to all other areas of your life and still be able to say you’re happy?
 
To some people happiness might be joy, elation, laughter. 
 
To some it might look and feel like peace and contentment.
 
To some people it might be love and connection.
 
To some people it might look like passion and purpose.
 
To some it might be high levels of self esteem and pride.
 
To some it might look and feel simply like acceptance.
 
So what is it?
 
Is happiness something that it’s realistic to expect to feel all the time?
 
Is happiness a fleeting feeling or a more general state?
 
Is it a passive or active state?  Meaning, do you have a responsibility in it or is it just something that happens to you?
 
I often love doing a little deep dive into what certain emotions and feelings really look like for me.  Without society's opinions and the opinions of other people. 
 
Really allowing myself to dig in and essentially create a map of that emotion according to me.
 
I ofte

Show note links:
Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app
Freebies:
Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success’ meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success
Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary’ type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101
Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster
Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram 
Ways to work with me:
Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app
Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp
For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com
Products:
Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude 
Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook 
Contact:
Make sure you’re following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways!
Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways!
For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/
How To Be Authentic, Even When You Feel You Can’t Be
 
Authenticity has been a core value of mine since I understood what values even were. Until it became a buzzword for people who quite often weren’t actually authentic at all and it all felt a bit cringe ha.
 
Authenticity will also have a different meaning to each individual person too.
 
It might mean trustworthiness. 
 
It might mean honesty. 
 
It might mean saying what you think without concern. 
 
It might simply mean the opposite of fake to you. (I hugely struggle with fakery which is probably one of the reasons it’s so important to me.)
 
It might encapsulate all those things.
 
Often in the workplace people are told to be their authentic selves but that can get confusing if it’s delivered without clarification.
 
It can feel like, ‘be yourself but…on our terms.’
 
In online businesses people are always told ‘be authentic’ you’ll attract more people. And it’s true, but it’s also nuanced. 
 
There will be times when you feel like you can’t give all of yourself because there are personal things going on that need to or should remain personal.
 
So what does authenticity look like when you can’t share everything. Maybe there’s ill health in the family, a situation that involves someone else. Legal issues. Your own health battles. There are so many reasons that you might feel like you can’t or don’t want to share what’s going on for you.
 
Also, should you ever feel like you have to share everything in order to be authentic?
 
I can’t tell you the answer to that but I encourage you to reflect on it.
 
For me authenticity is the ability to truly be oneself. 
 
To be able to live authentically to me means not feeling like you have to hide anything and accepting all parts of you. Including loving the parts of yourself that are harder to love, because we all have those. And also knowing you don’t HAVE to share everything with everyone if that’s what’s authentic to you in that moment. It’s the self awareness to know where you’re at and what you need.
 
I spent a lot of time in my youth feeling like I couldn’t be myself.  Like if I was truly myself then people wouldn’t like me.
 
I felt like I didn’t fit.
 
So I people pleased a lot, in terms of more often than not going along with what other people wanted and not speaking up for myself and what was important for me.
 
I let go of things I was interested in and loved doing because I thought it made me ‘different’ or ‘weird’.
 
I was absolutely, fully, completely uncomfortable in my own skin which made authenticity feel almost impossible because it was t

Show note links:
Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app
Freebies:
Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success’ meditation: https://bit.ly/stressedtosuccess 
Book in a free discovery call: https://calendly.com/franexcell/20min
Ways to work with me:
For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com
Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app
Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp
Products:
Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude 
Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook 
Contact:
Make sure you’re following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways!
Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways!
For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/
How To Build Resilience In Uncertain Times
 
Resilience is the ability to recover quickly from difficulties. 
 
How quickly you’re able to bounce back from adversity.
 
Bouncebackability if you will.
 
And in more ‘sciencey’ terms it’s psychological flexibility.
 
I like to refer to it as your ability and capacity to cope with what life inevitably throws at you.
 
However, it’s not just bouncing back to where you were but in my opinion springing forward into your next stage of growth where you feel even more strong and unshakable to deal with what life throws at you.
 
Adaptability through times that feel like you’re playing a very consistent game of whack-a-mole. 
 
As soon as one issue is resolved, another one pops up unexpectedly. 
 
Resilience is that feeling of being unshakable.  Less panic and implode, more deep breaths and ‘I can do this’.
 
Basically, the more resilient you can learn to be, the easier every facet of life becomes.
 
Who doesn’t want a bit of that?!
 
Resilience to me is the calm amidst the storm.
 
It doesn’t mean the storm disappears.  It just means you can navigate those choppy waters a lot more steadily and don’t let the fact there’s some choppy waters take over every other area of your life.
 
It’s a learned skill and a muscle to flex and grow and when you put the time in and understand that it WILL grow and WILL develop it makes it that much easier.
 
The growth that happens through the adversity itself is hugely powerful. Post traumatic growth for the win.
 
As I’ve talked about before, I always find it a huge comfort knowing that positive growth comes from being in the weeds of a situation that from the outside does not look or feel great.
 
It’s something I hold on to throughout.
 
That feeling of, ‘I wonder who I get to be on the other side of this.’ And, ‘I wonder what this could lead to for me in the future.’
 
But…You don’t HAVE to be in the thick of things to be able to build your resilience though.
 
Much of it comes down to learning to look at the truth of the situation. 
 
Making sure you’re questioning your perspective and assumptions with curiosity.  Making sure you’re really dealing in reality and not unconscious programming. 
 
The ability to reframe and change the narrative to be about the potential positive lessons and growth you can experience rather than the pain or inconvenience facing you in the moment.
 
We all make mistakes at the end of the day and we all go through hardships.
 
Using the right tools and techniques is also very helpful in cultivating resilience, even when you aren’t in the weeds.  
 
Breathwork is incredible for this.  Specifically for me as a qualified Heartmath coach, Heartmath is my favourite technique and it’s so simple. 
 
We call it heart focused breathing and also a balancing breath.
 
It works specifically with your nerv

Show note links:
Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app
Freebies:
Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success’ meditation: https://bit.ly/stressedtosuccess 
Book in a free discovery call: https://calendly.com/franexcell/20min
Ways to work with me:
For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com
Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app
Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp
Products:
Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude 
Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook 
Contact:
Make sure you’re following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways!
Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways!
For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/
Staying Strong Through The Stages Of Grief
 
In the late 60s Elizabeth Kubler-Ross developed the 5 stages of grief in her book ‘On death and dying’ specifically about people facing terminal illness. It was quickly adapted to grief in general.
 
Just before I dig in I’m putting a trigger warning out for you, I'm not actually going to be talking about death but if you’re in the midst of going through anything traumatic yourself right now please do go easy on yourself and maybe come back to this episode when you feel more ready.
 
I wanted to do this episode because since the pandemic I feel a LOT of people have been grieving a LOT of different things.
 
We can’t deny that life has changed immeasurably. Whether that’s for better or worse.
 
I’m having so many conversations with people at the moment who are dealing with what feels like grief and it’s worth acknowledging because so many of us have faced losses of some kind over the last few years alone.
 
The thing with grief is it’s really not just reserved for death.
 
Grief is a natural response to a loss of any kind. 
 
Grief can hit us in so many other circumstances and having been through my own deep grief recently I believe it’s helpful to understand the stages of grief and that healing is not linear. 
 
As you’ll likely know by now, I believe that understanding ourselves and what to expect when it comes to how we tick as humans is incredibly comforting in times of stress or pain and can alleviate a lot of the added negative thoughts and beliefs that we can pile on top of it.
 
The last thing anyone needs when they’re in a grief process is to be nasty to themselves in their own heads or to beat themselves up for having incredibly natural feelings that do need to be processed one way or another.
 
Some of the very common grief processes that we might go through and perhaps not identify it as grief is at the end of a relationship.  
 
The end of a friendship can bring up deep grief too.
 
Coming to terms with limiting illnesses and grieving the way we thought our lives were.
 
Even the loss of a job or letting go of a business.
 
Identity loss can hit us hard too and there are so many ways that can happen. Whether it’s down to our appearance, a breakup, pregnancy, infertility, retirement or something else. 
 
We attach so much to our identity and when that fundamentally shifts for some reason if we’re not supported or equipped to handle it it can have a profound effect.
 
There are SO many more things we might grieve too, but we might not allow ourselves to recognise it that way.
 
There should be no judgement around what you ‘can’ or ‘can’t’ grieve.
 
It’s a process and every person is different.
 
For me the reason this episode felt important is because I’m seeing so many people struggle at the moment and when we can normalise our internal processes and understand that we aren’t