The Catherine Plano Podcast

Catherine Plano
  • 4.8 (19)
  • Self-Improvement
  • Updated Weekly

Your ultimate resource for expanding your mind and accessing more of your brain, while experiencing unparalleled ‘aha’ moments with guaranteed radical shifts to your learning and growth. Catherine’s goal is to help you become the very best version of yourself - to live an extraordinary life by reaching your fullest potential, with self-coaching strategies to boost your confidence, make better decisions, create new habits, kickstart your motivation, get extraordinary results and build lasting change for a meaningful life that you will absolutely love! Get inspired and energised with your weekly dose of new ideas and insights.

  1. Your Story Is Creating the Life You Keep Trying to Fix with Steffani LeFevour

    5d ago

    Your Story Is Creating the Life You Keep Trying to Fix with Steffani LeFevour

    It Has Been Decided: How Steffani LeFevour Rewrote Her Story and Manifested a Dream Book Deal Steffani LeFevour has built a life and a career around happiness, but she is the first to tell you she did not start there. She grew up without her father, an alcoholic who left the family, and she was only eleven when her eighteen-year-old sister died in a car accident. For years she assumed everyone carried that kind of weight, and for a long stretch she handled it the only way she had ever seen modelled: drinking, partying, and quietly sabotaging her own life. What makes her story land is her honesty about how slow the turn really was. There was no single lightning bolt. There was Oprah on the television every day, a Wayne Dyer book, and Marianne Williamson’s A Return to Love, which introduced her to a word nobody had ever taught her: forgiveness. As a young woman she carried a rock from a wild party down to a river, poured all her fear and trauma into it, read a Maya Angelou poem, and threw it into the water. She is quick to puncture the fantasy that this fixed everything. It did not. She sabotaged her life for another decade, because the old path, as she puts it, is so worn and so comfortable that we keep returning to it. The shift came from a question she kept asking. The beliefs she had carried since childhood sounded like this: I’m broken, I’m unlovable, nothing good can happen for me. Then a door opened. What if all of it was happening for her? What if there were gifts in it, and she could consciously create from there? Human eyes versus soul eyes Steffani, now the founder of the Soul Happy Movement, teaches her clients to ask two questions of any situation: what do my human eyes see, and what does my soul see. Her human eyes might see a struggling child or a difficult marriage. Her soul sees something whole, chosen, and exactly where it is meant to be. She is careful, though, not to let this slide into spiritual bypassing. Radical acceptance has to sit alongside real boundaries, and she reframes boundaries beautifully. They are not about controlling someone else. They are about governing your own behaviour. The episode’s most memorable test case is wonderfully ordinary. At her daughter’s fifteenth birthday party, older boys turned up and threw eggs into the back garden. Steffani chose to love every second of it. Her line lands like a thesis for the whole conversation: it is not the world’s job not to trigger her, it is her job not to be triggered. Nothing, she says, has meaning until we give it meaning. The practical architecture From there she lays out the tools. There is the STAR formula, where State, Thoughts and Actions create your Reality, with the crucial twist that most of us try to change our actions while ignoring the state we prime ourselves into each morning. There is her debt to Byron Katie’s questioning of limiting beliefs, which she still practises thirty years in and describes as weeding the garden and watering the seeds of worthiness. And there is the achievement list she gives the teen athletes she coaches, a file of evidence to return to after a bad game. It all builds towards the story that gives the episode its emotional peak. After a decision statement in late 2025, an early call with Hay House, and an eight-week wait that ended in a no, Steffani felt relief rather than disappointment, trusting something more aligned was coming. She kept identifying as the author she wanted to be, declined contracts that felt close but not quite right, and through a chance lunch was reconnected to a new Hay House editor. By then her platform had exploded, and within a week the contract was hers. She calls it identity-first manifesting, framed around focusing on the end result, asking for guidance rather than the thing itself, taking inspired action, and being genuinely okay no matter what. She closes with three golden nuggets: you get to decide how your life will be and then make it that way; your state, thoughts and actions are one hundred per cent in your control; and we shape our stories, and our stories shape our lives. Watch the full conversation on YouTube. Find Out More About Steffani LeFevour Website: https://coachwithsteff.com Instagram: @coachwithsteff YouTube: @coachwithsteff

    51 min
  2. The NFL Star Who Walked Away and Became an Astrologer (What Your Chart Reveals) with Ricky Williams

    Jun 2

    The NFL Star Who Walked Away and Became an Astrologer (What Your Chart Reveals) with Ricky Williams

    What happens when you reach the summit of everything you were told to want, only to find the view strangely empty? For Ricky Williams, that moment arrived in an NFL locker room, at the height of a career most people spend their lives chasing. He had the fame, the success, the money. And sitting there one ordinary day, a single question surfaced that he could not shake: is this really it? In this thoughtful and disarmingly honest conversation, Heisman Trophy winner and former professional footballer Ricky Williams joins Catherine to trace the journey that began the moment he walked away from the game. Two months after that question landed, he retired and started travelling the world, with no plan beyond a quiet certainty that there had to be more. What he found was not another title, but a calling. Today he is a professional astrologer, teacher and healer, and co-founder of Lila Labs. This episode is for anyone who has ever achieved what they were sure would make them happy and felt something still missing. For anyone who has run faster, worked harder and climbed higher, only to sense a gap between how their life looks on the outside and how it feels on the inside. A Map, Not a Prophecy Ricky is quick to dismantle the idea that astrology is about predicting the future. For him it is something far more practical: a GPS, a navigation system for the moments when we feel lost and cannot work out where we are going. A birth chart, he explains, is not a script that dictates what will happen on a given date. It is closer to epigenetics, a map of potentials that lie dormant until our environment brings them to life. His approach is refreshingly human. He does not call what he does readings; he calls them conversations. He begins not with the chart but with what the person in front of him is actually saying, then holds up a mirror so they can see themselves a little more clearly. The chart, in his words, is a growth document. We never outgrow it, because it describes a trajectory rather than a fixed identity. Made Of, Made For Much of the conversation explores the quiet ache so many high achievers know well: looking successful while feeling disconnected within. Ricky suggests the first step to closing that gap is simple honesty, admitting that something feels off. From there, the chart can reveal which parts of us are struggling to find expression. His most useful idea may be the strongest planet. Rather than fixating on sun signs, he looks first at the planet carrying the most weight in a chart, because it points to what we have to offer the world. For Ricky, that planet is the moon. Once he recognised that his gift was his sensitivity, his caring and his nurturing, he says his life became immeasurably easier. As he puts it, what we are made of has a great deal to do with what we are made for. The Questions That Open Doors Ricky shares two deceptively simple questions he returns to as daily tools. The first is, what else is possible that I have not yet considered? The second is, how does it get any better than this? Both work the same way, by quietening the part of us that braces for the worst and activating curiosity instead. Curiosity, he notes, tunes us into possibilities we would otherwise walk straight past, whether life is going well or falling apart. Key Takeaway Ricky does not believe people are broken. He believes we are all in a developmental process, which means there is always a developmental way forward. Self-knowledge, in his view, is the foundation of that growth. The more clearly we can see what we are made of, the easier it becomes to find ourselves, and once we find ourselves, it becomes far easier to be ourselves. Watch the full conversation on YouTube. Find Out More About Ricky Williams Website: https://www.lilaverse.app Lila app: available on the App Store and Google Play Instagram: @williams YouTube: @lilaastrology

    49 min
  3. The Manifestation Block Nobody Talks About (And Why Doing More Won't Fix It) with Emma Mumford

    May 26

    The Manifestation Block Nobody Talks About (And Why Doing More Won't Fix It) with Emma Mumford

    What if doing more is the very thing that has been holding you back? What if the desires you have been chasing for years are not waiting on the universe but on you? What if true manifestation is not about attracting something new, but about becoming safe enough to receive what your heart already knows is yours? In this deeply honest conversation, the UK’s leading manifestation expert, four-time bestselling author, and host of the number one spirituality podcast on iTunes, Emma Mumford, sits down with Catherine to unpack what manifestation actually is once you strip away the vision boards, the affirmations, and the relentless inner pressure to manifest harder. Ten years ago, Emma was navigating PTSD, depression, debt, and a relationship breakdown that left her at rock bottom. The pivotal moment came at her flat window, where she whispered three words, “God help me,” and the next day a video she stumbled upon opened a path that has since helped hundreds of thousands of people transform their lives. This episode is for anyone who has done the reading, made the vision board, journaled the affirmations, and still feels stuck. For anyone whose nervous system flinches at the very thing they say they want. For anyone exhausted by the spiritual hustle of trying to vibrate their way into a life that already belongs to them. Practices Are Not the Point Emma names something most manifestation teachers will not. There are two groups of people who never get what they say they want. The first group dabbles. They make one vision board, watch The Secret once, then wonder six months later where their dream life is. The second group, the one Emma calls the ninety per cent manifesters, are doing everything. Reading every book, doing every meditation, building every vision board, and still wondering where their life is. The problem, she explains, is not that they are not doing enough. Practices alone do not make your desires inevitable. They are supporters. They help tune your frequency. But they are not the engine. The engine is you. Your identity, your beliefs, your embodiment, your sense of what is safe to receive. The Mantra in the Anxiety Spiral Three years ago, Emma was sitting in a two-week mortgage waiting game, needing to manifest an additional eighty thousand pounds of borrowing approval to buy her first home. The bank had said one wrong move and the house was gone. Every morning she woke into the same anxious spiral. Then a mantra arrived without warning. The money always comes. The money is always met. If this house is meant to be ours, it will be. Her whole body relaxed. Two weeks later her mortgage advisor called and said in ten years she had never seen an approval come through without a single question asked. Emma did not get the house by chasing. She got it by trusting that the money always finds its way. The Magnet Lives in the Body This is where Emma’s teaching breaks from the manifestation mainstream. Your nervous system, she says, is your inner magnet. Not your thoughts. Not your affirmations. Your body. The same primal system that once kept your ancestors safe from predators now reads your dream life as a threat. If your nervous system has stored love as unsafe, money as unsafe, visibility as unsafe, it will keep your desires at a survivable distance no matter how many vision boards you make. Emma’s deepest unlock came not from doing more but from regulating her body until it could hold what she had been asking for. The magnet has always lived in the body. We just keep trying to manifest from the mind. Key Takeaway Your desires are not random. They are planted in your heart for a reason. The version of you that already has the relationship, the home, the abundance is not stressing, not fixating, not forcing. She is relaxed. She trusts. She has already received. The path to her does not run through more practices. It runs through softer permission, deeper trust, and a nervous system that finally believes you are safe to have what your soul has been quietly asking for all along. As Emma puts it, it is already yours. Watch the full conversation on YouTube. Find Out More About Emma Mumford Website: https://www.emmamumford.co.uk Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamemmamumford/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iamemmamumford YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Emmamumford

    55 min
  4. The Hardest Thing Isn't Chasing the Fire. It's Sitting Inside It with Mariana Atencio

    May 12

    The Hardest Thing Isn't Chasing the Fire. It's Sitting Inside It with Mariana Atencio

    What if confidence has been the wrong goal all along? What if the armour you have spent years building to survive the world is the very thing standing between you and the life you were meant to live? What if the most radical act available to you right now is simply giving yourself permission to be? In this deeply honest and wide-ranging conversation, award-winning journalist, author, and global speaker Mariana Atencio opens up about the inner work behind the public courage. Having spent fifteen years parachuting into some of the world’s most high-stakes environments, covering earthquakes in Haiti, student protests in Hong Kong, and interviewing world leaders including Pope Francis and the King of Spain, Mariana built a career most people only dream of. And yet the thing she found hardest of all was learning to sit still. This episode is for anyone who has ever felt exhausted by the weight of proving themselves, worn different personas for different rooms, or quietly wondered why no amount of external achievement ever quite feels like enough. The Currency That Is Really Real When Catherine asks Mariana about the common advice that women simply need more confidence, her answer is immediate and disarming. Confidence, she says, is not the goal. In a world that is increasingly manufactured, fake, and unreal because of AI, social media algorithms, and the relentless pressure to compare, the only currency that remains genuinely real is self-trust. Not the performative kind. The quiet, instinctive kind that allows you to know who you are, why you do what you do, and when something simply does not feel right. Mariana believes that developing and deepening this trust will become one of the most critical skills any woman can build as we move further into the AI age. The 15-Year-Old Letter One of the most moving moments in this conversation centres on a letter. Written in Caracas at the age of fifteen as part of a time capsule exercise, the letter eventually found its way back to Mariana during the pandemic. Reading her own words after so many years stopped her in her tracks. The girl in that letter already knew what mattered. She wanted people to feel something from the work she did. Not the network, not the title, not the following. Just the feeling. In reconnecting with that fifteen-year-old, Mariana found not a regression but a homecoming. The journey, she believes, is always toward our authentic self and who we were born to be. It is simply a process of shedding the layers we accumulated along the way for survival, for validation, for protection. The Hardest Thing Isn’t Chasing the Fire Here is the paradox at the heart of this episode. The woman who covered category five hurricanes, chased cartels across Mexico, and reported from war zones says the hardest thing she has ever faced is sitting still with herself. Harder than chasing the storms. Harder than jumping off planes. The real work, she says, is inner work. It is sitting with yourself, looking in the mirror, questioning the stories you tell yourself, and asking whether there is any possibility at all that those stories are not true. She offers a practical framework drawn from her TEDx talk: identify your non-negotiable pillars. For Mariana, they are passion, potential, connection, and freedom. Every new relationship, project, or opportunity must pass through that filter. When it does not, the answer is no. Not from arrogance, but from alignment. Key Takeaway The only person who can give you permission to be yourself is you. Not the conference emcee, not the approval of people who contribute nothing to your life, not the external validation of titles and platforms that could vanish tomorrow. As Mariana puts it, we are the ones holding ourselves back from our highest potential. The more we shed what was never truly ours to carry, the easier it becomes to do the extraordinary things we were actually meant to do. Watch the full conversation on YouTube. Find Out More About Mariana Atencio Substack — Permission to Be: https://marianaatencio.substack.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marianaatencio/ Website: https://www.marianaatencio.com/

    49 min
  5. She Was Losing Her Mum, So She Learned to Speak to Her Soul with Stephanie Banks

    May 5

    She Was Losing Her Mum, So She Learned to Speak to Her Soul with Stephanie Banks

    What if the person you love most was still right in front of you, but you could no longer reach them? What if the words you had spent your entire career mastering suddenly became useless with the one person who mattered most? What if the only way to stay connected was to abandon everything you thought you knew about communication and listen in a way no one had ever taught you? In this deeply moving episode, intuitive channel and former speech-language pathologist Stephanie Banks shares how her mother’s early-onset dementia led her to discover a form of communication that transcends language entirely. From her clinical training to channelling souls, Gaia, and spirit guides, Stephanie traces a journey that reshaped her understanding of connection, consciousness, and what it truly means to listen. This is for anyone who has ever felt the limits of words, who senses there is more to connection than conversation, or who wonders whether the imagination they were taught to dismiss might be the most trustworthy thing they possess. The Moment Words Were No Longer Enough Stephanie’s mother developed dementia in her 40s. As a speech-language pathologist, Stephanie assumed she would be equipped to manage the communication breakdown. She was wrong. Their connection was fraying, frustration was building, and no clinical framework could bridge the gap. Then a close friend, a gifted channel, offered to connect with her mother on a soul level. What came through was astonishing. Her mother’s soul explained that when she appeared distant or far away, she was not confused or lost. She was visiting with others, having her own experiences beyond the physical. Being pulled back into everyday conversation was actually jarring for her. That single revelation transformed their relationship and set Stephanie on a path she never expected. Your Imagination Is Not the Problem. It Is the Doorway. Perhaps the most confronting moment in this conversation comes when Stephanie dismantles one of our most deeply held cultural beliefs: that imagination is not real. She argues the opposite. Everything ever created, every object on your shelf, every book, every piece of music, first came through someone’s imagination before it existed in the physical world. Yet we have been conditioned to treat the imagined as invalid. Stephanie explains that intuition and imagination are not obstacles to truth. They are the only way she is able to receive channelled communication. When she teaches others to channel and they hit a wall of self-doubt, she offers a simple reframe: “If I were to make this up, from highest love, this is what it would sound like.” That workaround bypasses the inner critic and opens a space where connection becomes possible. What Gaia Is Asking of Humanity Right Now Stephanie’s relationship with Mother Earth forms one of the most stirring threads in this episode. She describes Gaia as a living, breathing being who is eager for humanity to remember that we are part of an intricate and delicate web of life. The message coming through is consistent: we are not here to dominate. We are here to notice, to fall into awe, and to protect what we love. When Catherine asks Stephanie to rate humanity’s awareness on a scale of one to ten, the answer lands around five. But behind the doom and gloom of mainstream media, Stephanie reveals, there are groups and organisations devoted to regenerating life, protecting nature, and serving something far greater than themselves. We simply do not see them. Key Takeaway Connection has never been limited to words. The soul communicates through feeling, through imagination, through the body’s own resonance. Whether you place your hands over your heart and practise the HeartMath Institute’s Quick Coherence Technique, step outside and let nature drain the energy you no longer need to carry, or simply notice the animals that cross your path as spiritual messengers, you are already beginning to listen in the way Stephanie describes. You do not need to be gifted. You do not need permission. You simply need to be willing to get out of your own way. Watch the full conversation on YouTube. Find Out More About Stephanie Banks Website: soulinsight.com Instagram: @stephanieIntuitivechannel Facebook: Stephanie Banks YouTube: Stephanie Banks

    1 hr
  6. The Hidden Reason You Keep Making the Wrong Decisions (And How to Stop) with Dan Ariely

    Apr 28

    The Hidden Reason You Keep Making the Wrong Decisions (And How to Stop) with Dan Ariely

    What if the voice you’ve been trusting your entire life was never qualified to guide you? What if every snap judgment you’ve ever made about a person, a relationship, or a career was based on a feeling that never had enough information to be accurate? What if the very thing you call intuition is actually your biggest blind spot? In this extraordinary episode, world-renowned behavioural economist Dan Ariely reveals why we place enormous trust in a gut feeling that has rarely been tested and almost never earned. From his deeply personal story of spending nearly three years in a hospital burn ward, Dan traces a lifetime of research into why human beings consistently follow instincts that lead them in the wrong direction, and what we can do instead to make decisions that actually serve us. This is for anyone who has ever wondered why they keep repeating the same patterns despite knowing better. The Burn Ward Where It All Began Dan’s journey into understanding irrationality started with pain. Burned across 70% of his body, he spent years watching nurses rip his bandages off quickly, convinced they were being kind. Dan felt otherwise. Years later, he tested their approach scientifically and discovered they were wrong. Pain is far more sensitive to intensity than duration. A slower approach would have caused significantly less suffering. The nurses were not cruel. They were following their intuition. And their intuition had failed them. This became the foundation of Dan’s life’s work: identifying the places where we believe we are doing the right thing, but our instincts are quietly steering us in the wrong direction. Why Your Gut Feeling Has Not Earned Your Trust Dan explains that reliable intuition only develops under very specific conditions: repeated experience with slight variation and immediate, clear feedback. A basketball player adjusting each throw. A chess master reading patterns over thousands of games. But in the areas that matter most to our lives, from choosing a partner to evaluating a new job to trusting a stranger online, we simply do not have enough data points. We have lived in a handful of houses, held a handful of jobs, dated a handful of people. That is nowhere near enough to build a trustworthy instinct, yet we treat these feelings as gospel. He shares a remarkable study where participants were asked to identify their closest friends from a list of 40 people described only by their characteristics, with no names or photos. The result? People were terrible at it. The feeling of knowing who we connect with did not match reality at all. The Beliefs You Inherited but Never Questioned Perhaps the most confronting section of the conversation comes when Dan reveals how many of our deepest values were simply handed to us. Through his work speaking directly with people who hold extreme views, he found that when asked where their beliefs originated, most traced them back to a single comment heard in childhood. They had carried it for decades without ever testing it. He extends this to everyday life. Ask someone about their position on any deeply held topic, then ask what they have actually read about it. The answer, more often than not, is very little. Our confidence in our own opinions far exceeds our knowledge, a phenomenon Dan calls the illusion of explanatory depth. Key Takeaway Your intuition is not worthless, but it is wildly overvalued. The path to better decisions is not about thinking harder. It is about slowing down, suspending judgment, and building the intellectual humility to admit you might be wrong. When you give yourself advice as though you were guiding a friend, think long-term instead of reacting to the moment, and create rituals that force you to pay attention, you stop being a passenger in your own decision-making and start becoming the driver. Watch the full conversation on YouTube. Find Out More About Dan Ariely Website: danariely.com Facebook: danariely Instagram: @danariely YouTube: danariely LinkedIn: danariely

    54 min
  7. Your Mind is Protecting a Version of You That No Longer Exists with Jim Curtis

    Apr 21

    Your Mind is Protecting a Version of You That No Longer Exists with Jim Curtis

    We all want to change. We read the books, do the courses, sit in the meditation. And yet somehow, we keep circling back to the same patterns, the same reactions, the same version of ourselves we swore we had outgrown. So what if the problem was never a lack of willpower or awareness? What if the part of your mind that is supposed to protect you is quietly protecting a version of you that no longer exists? In this episode, hypno-coaching pioneer Jim Curtis sits down with Catherine to unpack the hidden architecture of identity, the subconscious programmes running beneath our conscious desires, and the simple but profound framework that has helped thousands of people step into lasting transformation. The Illness That Changed Everything Jim’s journey didn’t begin in a classroom or a coaching certification. It began in crisis. At 20 years old, he developed lesions on his spinal cord that stripped away his ability to walk. He travelled the world meeting with healers and medical institutions, searching for answers. A diagnosis never came. And it was precisely that absence of certainty that became his greatest teacher. Sitting in the unknown, Jim discovered that if he could learn to communicate with the subconscious mind, and perhaps tap into something even greater, he could create real, lasting change from the inside out. That discovery led him to pioneer hypno-coaching, a method that fuses traditional coaching with hypnosis to access deeper brainwave states where genuine reprogramming becomes possible. The Two Most Powerful Words You Say Every Day One of the most striking threads in the conversation is the power of two simple words: “I am.” Jim explains that every time we attach a belief to those words, we are not just describing ourselves. We are programming ourselves. “I am not smart enough.” “I am just that kind of person.” “I am someone who struggles with love.” These statements become instructions to the subconscious mind, and the subconscious follows them faithfully, even when our conscious mind has long since outgrown them. But Jim takes this further, into territory that bridges psychology and spirituality. Drawing on the 33 I Am Discourses, Buddhist philosophy, and quantum science, he reveals that “I am” is not only a psychological programme. It is, across traditions, the very first way that source, consciousness, the divine, identified itself. When we speak those two words, we are creating reality at the deepest level, whether we realise it or not. Manifestation Is Not What You Think Perhaps the most powerful reframe in the episode is Jim’s take on manifestation. It is not about attracting something external. It is about becoming unavailable for the old version of yourself that keeps choosing what no longer serves you. When you release the subconscious belief that was keeping you safe in the wrong life, your outer reality shifts naturally. Not because you forced it, but because you finally stopped blocking it. Pre-Gaming: The Practice That Changes Your Reactions Jim also shares one of his most practical tools: pre-gaming, or pre-visualisation with intention. Rather than hoping you will react differently the next time you are triggered, you mentally rehearse the scenario in advance, visualising yourself responding with calm, love, or even humour instead of your usual pattern. He shares a striking example of a client with a severe spider phobia who, after this process, ended up holding a tarantula with a smile on his face. The mind, Jim explains, does not distinguish between a vividly imagined experience and a real one, and that is exactly what makes this practice so powerful. Key Takeaway Your subconscious mind is not your enemy. It is a deeply loyal protector that is still guarding a version of you that you have already outgrown. The work is not about fighting it. It is about releasing the old programme, aligning with what you truly want, and becoming the person your conscious mind already knows you can be. When you do that, change stops being a battle and starts becoming a natural unfolding. Watch the full conversation on YouTube. Find Out More About Jim Curtis Website: www.jimcurtiscoaching.com Facebook: Jim Curtis Instagram: @jimcurtis1 YouTube: @Jimcurtis1 Book: The Book of Possibility

    50 min
  8. Put Your Mind on a Leash Before It Takes Over Your Life with Dr Steven C. Hayes

    Apr 14

    Put Your Mind on a Leash Before It Takes Over Your Life with Dr Steven C. Hayes

    For most of us, the mind feels like the most trustworthy part of who we are. It’s the voice that plans, decides, judges, remembers, and tells us who we are. But what if that voice isn’t quite the friend we thought it was? What if the very organ we rely on to solve our problems is the same one quietly creating most of them? In this powerful episode, world-renowned psychologist Dr Steven C. Hayes, the founder of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), shares 50 years of research distilled into one life-changing conversation. What emerges is nothing short of a new way to relate to your thoughts, your pain, and your life. The Misery That Started It All Dr Hayes didn’t come to this work through theory. He lived it. Growing up, he watched two loving parents trapped in their own suffering, his father struggling with alcoholism, his mother with OCD and depression. As a child, he had thoughts like “I’m not going to make it out of here alive.” That experience sparked a lifelong question: what is the smallest set of things that does the most good for the most people? Fifty years and nearly 1,500 randomised trials later, he has an answer. The One Sentence That Took 50 Years to Write “Life is asking you to learn how to be more open, aware, and actively engaged in a meaningful life while scaling that to your relationships and your body.” That’s it. One sentence that, according to Dr Hayes, summarises the entire world’s literature on psychological change. Open means emotionally and cognitively flexible. Aware means able to direct your attention with intention rather than being hijacked by every passing thought. Actively engaged means connecting to what genuinely matters and building habits around it. Why You Need to Put Your Mind on a Leash Here’s where it gets fascinating. Dr Hayes explains that the human mind can relate anything to anything else in infinite ways. The mathematical potential of your thoughts exceeds the number of molecules in the universe. And yet most of us fall into the same narrow ruts: “I’m not good enough.” “It’ll never work out.” “I’m unlovable.” “We better learn to put your mind on a leash,” he says. “If you have a mind with infinite capacity, that’s wonderful. But if you’re going to learn to use it without having it use you, you better learn how to put it on a leash.” Pain Is Not Your Enemy One of the most powerful threads of the conversation is Dr Hayes’ distinction between pain and suffering. Pain, he explains, is not optional. Love and loss are one thing, not two. But suffering is different. It comes from the act of carrying pain rather than letting it walk alongside you. And the more we try to avoid pain, the heavier the suffering becomes. “You had the pain, but you’re not having pain about the pain,” he says. “So much of human pain is pain about the pain, added by a problem-solving mind trying to turn your life into a problem to be solved instead of a process to be experienced. Once you’re there, you’re doomed, because you’re more like a sunset than you are a maths problem.” You Are More Unique Than Your Fingerprint Dr Hayes also offers a beautiful reframe on your own uniqueness. Your fingerprint alone is so distinct that if every grain of sand on Earth were a fingerprint, it would take more than a million Earths to find a match. Now multiply that by your memories, your experiences, your emotions, your genetics. You are, in his words, precious to the universe. There is only one person like you. Key Takeaway The reason your mind feels like it’s running your life is because, unchecked, it will. But your thoughts are not the truth, pain is not the enemy, and healing doesn’t mean erasing what hurts. It means becoming whole enough to carry it lightly. When you learn to put your mind on a leash, feel what’s real, and engage with what actually matters, you finally stop living as a problem to be solved and start living as a life to be experienced. Watch the full conversation on YouTube. Find Out More About Dr Steven C. Hayes Website: www.stevenchayes.com Facebook: @drstevenchayes Instagram: @drstevenchayes YouTube: @StevenCHayes LinkedIn: Steven C. Hayes

    1h 12m
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4.8
out of 5
19 Ratings

About

Your ultimate resource for expanding your mind and accessing more of your brain, while experiencing unparalleled ‘aha’ moments with guaranteed radical shifts to your learning and growth. Catherine’s goal is to help you become the very best version of yourself - to live an extraordinary life by reaching your fullest potential, with self-coaching strategies to boost your confidence, make better decisions, create new habits, kickstart your motivation, get extraordinary results and build lasting change for a meaningful life that you will absolutely love! Get inspired and energised with your weekly dose of new ideas and insights.

Information

  • Creator
    Catherine Plano
  • Years Active
    2016 - 2026
  • Episodes
    400
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2025 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    The Catherine Plano Podcast

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