Welcome to the celebrate brave podcast. 

I’m Nicole Trick Steinbach, your host, and the international bravery coach. On a mission to redefine brave. How we identify it, live it, and most importantly, celebrate it. Because when you build your brave, you change your world and that changes the world. Talk about something to celebrate. Let’s go.

Hello, brave people. Today I want to tell you a story about my dog. My dog is the best!. And recently he surprised himself and the entire family because he caught a rabbit. Okay. I have a dog. I think he’s coming up on three, maybe, three years old. Obviously, I love this dog because I’m so on it. I really do love this dog.

He is part, …. . Okay, so he’s called a Dachsador and they tell us he is part Labrador, so glorified American mutt, which kind of sums me up, and a dachshund. Which is a German dog low to the ground, sometimes they’re called Wiener dogs. They’ve been bred to do this specific thing. They hunt Dachs. I can’t remember what a Dachs is right now, even though I speak German and I probably should’ve looked this up, but it’s a little creature that’s in the ground. You know, my husband is like through and through and through and through German. And has all these skills. So we joked that he totally fits our family because he is absolutely freaking adorable. And he weighs about 30 pounds because, we let them get real fat, which is part of the story. He’s totally black, except for a tiny little bit of sprinkling of white around his mouth and a white bottom, like a little on his chest and into his little belly. 

His name is Lakritz. And Lakritz means black licorice. Black licorice is basically my favorite, shout out to my aunts, my mom, my Nana, for having faith in me that I would catch up and that I would fall in love with licorice. I did. I’m a little picky about licorice because once you have the fresh stuff, Oh my goodness. It is the best. Okay. Sometimes it’s called anise in various places when it’s fresh, but licorice, black licorice. When you get fresh licorice, it has this little, it’s like a, it’s like a sugar bottom, so it doesn’t stick. So isn’t that perfect for my dog? He’s like this cute little Dachsador, weighs about 30 pounds, totally black, except for this white on his chest and his belly and a tiny little bit around his mouth. It’s like the best name ever, ever, ever. So now that I’ve talked way too much about my dog, here’s why I’m actually talking about my dog. 

So he caught a rabbit. I mentioned that we had let him get too fat to quote our amazing veterinarian. He was actually just, he was just over short, and under tall. So he is been on a diet for, I don’t know, six months or something, since we’re all like consistently sent home. Of course, I have two little ones, my husband, and I’ll be honest myself as well. We sneak them well treats. So he is on a diet. This is not a crash diet. We’re doing this in a sustainable lifestyle choice. Okay. But he has lost weight. He really has. He’s lost a good amount of weight. There is an open space, relatively close to where I live. There it is all fenced in. There are all these bunnies. Like, I’m not talking like baby bunnies. I’m talking like small rabbits and you know, he’s been a bit fat and a bit hesitant while he has enjoyed chasing said bunnies. He had never caught one. So we go for this walk a couple of weeks ago, he catches a bunny. He catches a bunny. I was so shocked. I was on the phone with my best friend. Who’s going to be a guest really soon cause her bravery story is kick ass. And I was so shocked I didn’t know what to say, and it’s not because my shock had nothing to do with, Oh my God, there’s a dead animal. I mean, I raised pigs to eat them for years. I’ve been hunting. I get it, right. There’s another episode where I go on and on about the glory of meat. Animals eat animals. It’s just part of life. But the fact, my dog, who never had a chance in hell of catching a bunny, caught the bunny. What and why on earth? Does this relate to you?

So, first of all, he had to skill build. My dog had to fail a bunch of times. He has been chasing bunnies and chasing squirrels and chasing birds. Okay, one time he did catch an injured bird when we were camping, but that, that was a oh, actually, no, let’s not reject that Nicole. Let’s bring that into the story. There was this injured bird. He captured it and he brought it to us and he was so proud. Oh my gosh, he was so proud. And I think that that gave him that initial, like, Hey, this is an opportunity, I feel it in my soul. He’s a dog. He hunts things. He’s literally a hunting dog. He’s a Dachshund and a Labrador. I mean, hello. And then he had that first initial win. Which, Oh my gosh, I totally disregard. You just heard me have this breakthrough, like, wait, that was a win for him. Wow. Does that hit into the story because you are going to have little wins that other people also say, Oh, that’s just an injured bird. Oh, this is something I heard recently. Um, I’m so glad you got the promotion of course you earned it. Of course, you earned it. It’s just the perfect timing because they need a lot more women engineers. So congratulations. Anybody else has rage in their throat?

Back to my dog. So he had had this experience that I disregarded, but I’m sure he was like, Oh my gosh, this is great! In my response to the person sharing with me. Hey, I got that promotion, but this is what I heard was like, we’re going to focus on the fact that you got the promotion that you frickin earned it, and that this is an opportunity for you to focus on what matters.

So my dog, back to the rabbit story, since he caught this bunny, he is a dog with a mission. I have to really hold him back. He knows he can catch the rabbit. He knows that he’s had that experience and he knows he can build on it. And this is what I want to share with you. First of all, your initial wins, additional learning. Folks, including myself, might write those off and it’s up to you to hold on to them. And number two, once you build the skill, you have the skill forever. Once you build the experience, you have that experience forever. My dog had to fail a lot. he’s a dog. He didn’t beat himself up about it. He’s a dog. He fails. 

On my way and my journey. Oh my goodness. Did I quote-unquote fail? A lot oh my gosh.

Recently for a coach, I refreshed my failure list. It was stunning. How many things, just in the last year I have quote-unquote, failed on. And then I went through, this is a mindfulness exercise I learned when my daughter was like, maybe a year old, so six, seven years ago or something like that. I went through all these failures and then I wrote down what I had learned immediately or over time. And there were a handful of actual failures where I didn’t take a learning where I didn’t take an experience. I just crashed and stood up and did the stupidity again, I didn’t catch the rabbit. And the other times, the vast majority of times that when I, from the outside failed, I actually caught a bunny. I caught a bunny because I learned something and then I went and I tried in a different, bigger, smaller, faster, slower, deeper, less sophisticated, more sophisticated way. And then other people could see me catching the bunny. Other people could see my success. You can catch the bunny. And once you’ve caught the bunny, you have that experience that result and that skill for the rest of your life.

Creating a podcast has been a little bit awkward. I am so grateful for the women. Yeah, all women who shared their experience in podcasting with me. I am particularly grateful for The Podcast Journey for doing the hand-holding, the feedback, the editing, the publishing, et cetera on this. And it’s been awkward. In a few years I look back on this episode and be like, what happened?  Nicole!. You were all over the place, having breakthroughs on the recording and leaving them on the recording. What are you doing? And right now, this is my bunny. So what is your bunny? What are you building towards? And maybe other people can’t see, maybe they can, keep going. Cause like my dog Lakritz you will catch the bunny. You’ll know you can catch bunnies. And then you’re going to start going after squirrels. 

Thank you for listening to this episode of the celebrate brave podcast.

If you’re ready to build your brave, to live a life you love, and create a career that matters to you. Reach out! Together we can spend time one-on-one to explore how I can help you. And until then share this episode with people in your life. People who can join our movement. To redefine brave how we identify it, experience it, and celebrate it.