Unveiling the Path to Flourishing: A Conversation with Dr. Maike Neuhaus

Have you ever felt stuck, like you’re just going through the motions? Dr. Maike Neuhaus joined us on the podcast to dive into the concept of flourishing—mental well-being beyond the absence of illness. Flourishing is about thriving, joy, growth, and connection.

Dr. Maike shared her journey from studying psychology to understanding mental well-being's importance. She explained how normal it is to experience fluctuations in our mental state, especially as entrepreneurs. These moments of feeling like a “living zombie” can prompt actions leading us back to flourishing.

She emphasized the importance of joy, growth, and connection—three pillars of flourishing. Pursue what truly brings you joy, keep growing and learning, and build meaningful connections.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re just going through the motions, this episode is for you. Dr. Maike’s insights will inspire you to move from languishing to flourishing and embrace a vibrant life. Tune in to discover how to thrive and connect deeply with yourself and others.


Where to find Dr. Maike Neuhaus:

• The Flourishing Doc: Theflourishingdoc.com
• Podcast: Flourishing-unfiltered.com
• LinkedIn: Dr Maike Neuhaus 
• Instagram: @theflourishingdoc
• Threads: @theflourishingdoc
• Facebook: @theflourishingdoc
• TikTok: @theflourishingdoc
• Pinterest: @theflourishingdoc

00:00:00 Intro 
00:01:44 Maike’s Journey into Flourishing
00:07:25 Flourishing vs. Languishing
00:10:06 Relationship Between Languishing and Mental Illness
00:13:29 Strategies to Combat Languishing
00:14:06 Normalizing Fluctuations in Mental Health
00:17:24 Elements of Flourishing: Joy, Growth, and Connection
00:27:08 Overcoming Barriers to Flourishing
00:29:09 Integrating New Activities into Routine
00:38:06 Closing Remarks and Where to Find Maike's Work

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Transcript

Ruby Lee:
Hi, everyone. Welcome to the podcast. We have Dr. Micah Neuhaus. I am so excited, Micah, that firstly, you and I are doing this because we had an amazing in-person coffee and now we get to share our conversation, our energy together with the world. But thank you so much for taking the time out to be with us today.

Dr. Maike Neuhaus: Oh, Ruby, I am so honoured you asked me to come on to your show. This is amazing. And you know, I've been listening to your show for a little while. And so this is a dream come true.

Ruby Lee: Oh, my gosh, we have to let the audience know how we met. And we need to shout out Johnny Beale. Yeah, thanks, John. So John is my, my coach. Like I, I speak to him once a week and he and I, we jam and we mentor on all things flow and flourishing. And then one day he mentioned to me, he goes, Oh, I've actually got a friend and I believe that she lives in Queensland. And then my ears went. Like, what do you mean? And yeah, we got connected, and you so happened to have been on the Gold Coast, and we had the best catch-up coffee. Time just melted by. Yeah, totally.

Dr. Maike Neuhaus: And isn't that the best? Like, when you meet someone for the very first time, and it feels like you've been friends for 10 years. Like, you're not pretending anything. You can jump straight in. You can talk raw and honest. This is what I live for.

Ruby Lee: Exactly. Oh my goodness. I cannot wait to share more of your story. So let's get started. I want to know, and so do all of the audience, we want to know how is it you got into the world of flourishing? It's just such a beautiful word in and of itself. But when did you decide that flourishing was going to be your thing, your focus?

Dr. Maike Neuhaus: Yeah, and maybe before I start, I should probably clarify that the way I use the word flourishing is in the positive psychological way, which is basically a synonym for having mental well-being. So there's this whole notion, you know, when we talk about mental health, let's be honest, we all think about mental illness, right? The first thing that comes to mind is like depression and anxiety and all those things. I always say flourishing is the other half of mental health that no one ever talks about because it's not in our mindset, but it's actually the the phenomenon of having mental well-being. And we know from research that it's important to have both the absence of mental illness and the presence of mental well-being or flourishing. So that is what I mean by flourishing. Then the way I landed there was a very backward way. I guess, where do I start? As a child, you know, I have these very young childhood memories of, you know, people telling me about their regrets, adults, you know, saying things like, oh, if I were your age again, fill in the gaps. You know, I would also learn how to play a musical instrument or learn how to ice skate or travel around the world or whatever that might be. And it frustrated the hell out of me because every single time I asked them, well, why aren't you doing that now? I was met with a world of excuses. If you ask me, I don't know, maybe I'm, you know, accusing them of something, you know, that isn't real. But to me, it always sounded like excuses, you know, too late, too old, too many responsibilities, not enough money and Look, we all grow up in a more or less privileged way. I didn't have everything going for me either, but I come from a privileged country, I guess. But we didn't have a whole lot and I kind of found my way through it somehow too, I guess. But anyway, so that was one thing, was the idea of regrets. And I always thought, I want to empower people to go for it, to dream big and never give up on their dreams. I want to live my life fully and be able to empower other people to do the same. Because the other thing that I realized or that I noticed from a young age was I basically saw the world divided into two different types of people. Those people who, you know, know what they wanted and they went for it. They pursued their dreams with all their might. And then there are other people who just seem to get in their own way, bang their head against the wall and then complain about walls. And again, It drove me insane. It left me so frustrated. And I just thought, what is it that these guys have or do that the others don't? So that drove me to study psychology once I finished school. And I don't know if you have many psychologists listening to your podcast, but at the time, there wasn't much in the field of psychology that actually helped you understand those differences. So I ended up specializing in health psychology and also organizational psychology. So I did two things. I helped individuals and population groups adopt healthier lifestyle behaviors. And sort of in my other job, I was focusing on leadership development, talent management, those kinds of things. They were like the most positive ways in which psychology was applied back then. But what followed was a career in academia. I was working in research for many years in those fields, and I always left Well, I would now use the word languishing. We can talk about that more in detail. I always felt as though I wasn't aligned in my career. I couldn't be myself. I wasn't playing to my strengths. I wasn't feeling alive within my career. It just wasn't the right thing. And I had no idea where I was going wrong until one day I finally sat down with a pen and paper and just thought, what's going on? Like if I had to start all over again, where would I, Where would I, what would I do? Would I still go to uni? Would I study? What would I study? Why do I love psychology so much? And I ended up basically writing a workshop in self-leadership and later on positive psychology when I discovered that field for me. And that's how I got to where I am today. There are still not many jobs out there in that field. So I do work as a lecturer, you can do that. But so at some stage I realized I have to create my own business to support people and organizations to flourish and realize their potential and create impacts that excite them.

Ruby Lee: Isn't that just the classic though, if there's nothing out there, you've got to make it happen. If there's a gap in the market or there's a problem to solve, so to speak, where there's not quite anything like it. Hey, it's on you, babe. You know, it's kind of like, wow, you're looking around everywhere for these opportunities or these jobs. It's like, I'm just going to make my own. I'm so grateful. Exactly. And we definitely need more of your messaging out there. I love what you said about how it's about mental wellness. You know, it's about that thriving aspect and how we get to understand that part of psychology in the brain so much more. And I know even when I was at university, I studied a little bit of psychology because I studied HR, but a lot of it was how to deal with the bad shit and not how to accelerate and amplify our natural strengths and abilities. And if we did talk about that, it was always in the form of some crappy survey or, you know, something that was like, you are this person, but let's now look at all the things that you don't have. And that was almost like the way that it went down. Right. Yeah. But I want to learn because this is great that we've sort of brought this up as the conversation starter. And this is the term languishing. And I know a lot of us in business and a lot of our listeners here who have started businesses have by far been more motivated by feeling a sense of languishing. So can you help us understand or define what that means first and foremost? And let's begin there and I want to continue digging into your amazing mind around it.

Dr. Maike Neuhaus: Yeah, and I've never seen such a happy face when being asked about languishing, so that's fantastic. You are keen. Well, languishing is basically the opposite of flourishing, so it means having a lack or low level of mental well-being. means is, if you look at what flourishing is, so flourishing is the presence of mental well-being. So that is when we feel joy in our life, but also when we function well. So flow, which I know your listeners will be intimately familiar with, you know, because you're all about flow and the flow state, that very deep level of engagement, for example, is a key part of flourishing too, of our psychological well-being. alongside perceiving life as meaningful, feeling like you can live your purpose, feeling like you're growing as a person, those kinds of things. And then we also have social well-being, where we feel like we're deeply connected both to ourselves as well as with the people around us, and we feel like we can contribute to something greater than ourselves, our little community, or whatever that might be. So that is flourishing. And if you ask me to describe that in one word, I would say aliveness. Actually having that feeling that you are deeply alive and engaged with life. The opposite of that, languishing, I would say, is feeling like a living zombie. And I guess many people have probably been able to relate to languishing because there may have been languishing throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, where a lot of us were finding ourselves in a situation where we might have been socially isolated and we couldn't live in the way that we would usually choose to live. So pursuing our passions, connecting with nature, getting out and about, doing exciting things. connecting with our, you know, our best friends, with our families, hanging out with the people we love and so forth. So languishing is that feeling of, yeah, like you are a living robot, you're functioning, everything is okay, but there's that deep level of disconnectedness, boredom, you feel blah, meh, la-di-da, you know, it's like, it's almost like indifference, Those kinds of things. That's how I would describe languishing. Groundhog day, you know, it's like eat, sleep, work, repeat. So it's not that you have a mental illness. So languishing is not having a mental illness. It is distinct from that. And research shows that. It is related, though. That means that if you're languishing and you have been languishing for a while, you will be more likely to develop a mental illness, for example, or in particular, depression, right? And it kind of makes sense intuitively, too. And vice versa, if you're depressed, you're also more likely to also languish because, for example, if we're depressed, many people, you know, retract. We don't pursue social activities so much anymore. We may not pursue our hobbies. Many of us stopped going to work or doing other things that we usually enjoyed doing. And so, of course, that then can lead to us languishing as well. And research also shows that what's worse than having a depression or any mental illness is having a mental illness and also languishing at the same time. And on the contrary to that, even if you have a mental illness, you can still also work on your mental well-being so you're flourishing. And that will make you more likely to overcome your mental illness better, faster, and sort of more sustainably as well. So when we think about mental health, I hope that at some stage people will think of two things, mental illness or the absence of mental illness, but also the presence of flourishing.

Ruby Lee: Oh, I love that, the presence of flourishing. You know, even as you're explaining in essence, what languishing feels like. There definitely have been moments, it's been a while now since I worked in a job that I loathed, you know, even the last job I had before quitting, I actually really liked that job, but I just knew the call for entrepreneurship was so much greater. And on my last day, I had a big cry with my boss and I was like, oh, I'm so sad that I'm leaving. But the job beforehand is everything that you're describing. I just felt this full body numbness, you know, getting up and doing the routine and getting to work. And to the point where I honestly stopped to ask myself if I was depressed. And I was like, is this what it feels like? As you can tell, my nature is not someone who gets down a lot. But, you know, truly for a good few months before I finished up there, I just felt so indifferent. That's the perfect word. And in apathy, just feeling so unmotivated for all things life. And, you know, there have been certain moments. Thank you for defining the difference between being in languishing versus moving into mental illness land. And a lot of that dissipated as soon as I left and took some time out, walked in nature. What do you know? The things that actually bring you so much joy. But I sometimes recognize this feeling now, being an entrepreneur, I've been in business for six years full time, and you know what it's like. You know, there are seasons in business where it feels shitty. It feels like everything you're doing doesn't count, or at least you tell yourself that, or that you're speaking to an echo chamber and no one's on the other side of it. And all these years of building, building, and what's even the point? You know, we go through these mood dips, and I know there's probably a ton of research behind it, but what can we do when we identify moments of languishing that actually works? I guess there's a lot of noise out there around positive psychology. affirmations and what works and didn't, like, what do you do? I want to know from, you know, from someone who intrinsically embodies and lives this, how do you get yourself out of the languishing funk, especially in business?

Dr. Maike Neuhaus: Yeah, the languishing funk. Absolutely. That's what it feels like, right? And look, I love, Ruby, that you're highlighting how normal this is. And I also just want to make sure that I don't give off a wrong message and just say that with mental health, both with mental illness, as well as with that whole continuum of languishing to flourishing, it is completely normal for us to fluctuate, right? It is never that either you have a mental illness or you don't. Of course, we We do diagnose for other reasons to know when, you know, health insurance pays for certain things for therapy or for medication or when you should maybe get some medication and so forth. So that's why we diagnose. And by the way, we can diagnose flourishing or languishing in just the same way that we also diagnose a mental illness. But the thing is, we are all human and we fluctuate and it's completely normal. And it's completely normal to have days where you feel a little bit more bored or indifferent than on other days. You know, just like you have days where you might feel completely flat or sad or, you know, something or more anxious or whatever, you know, so some level of fluctuation is normal. So I just want to put that out there. I do love that you're highlighting that this might be especially a topic for us solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, people in their own businesses, because I was just talking to a friend of mine about this this morning as well. I feel like when you're employed, your attention is often so much on the outside and the way you work is often from the outside in. because there is an external purpose, agenda, goals that need to be met, and so forth. And you somehow take that on and work with that then internally. Whereas when you work for yourself, I feel like you work a lot more from the inside out. And you said in the beginning, well, there wasn't this product before, there wasn't this service before. So somehow we have to create these things that have never existed before. So you create that from the inside out. And so naturally I feel as though our focus and attention is on ourselves and what's in our hearts and what's in our heads all of the time, right? I've never felt so alive and so within myself and aligned with myself and with myself. As I ever have when I was in employment before. So a certain level or certain phases of languishing are very normal. And I absolutely agree with that. And I also have those days. So what do I do about it when I feel like that? Sometimes I'm more proactive about that than other days, because again, if it's normal, sometimes you just need to have a bit of a downer day. Sometimes you just need to maybe feel a little bit more disconnected. We cannot and must not be happy all the time. So when we talk about positive psychology, what we do not mean is toxic positivity. We all should be happy and cheery and, you know, keep it on the bright side and cheer up. And you know, that's not what we want. That is not how we as humans were built. We are aiming for psychological richness for the whole spectrum of emotions and experiences because this is how we grow. This is how we learn. But to actually give you an answer to your question. I love this! Feel free to cut me off or out at any stage.

Ruby Lee: I'm so lent into the screenwriter.

Dr. Maike Neuhaus: So it always starts with awareness and with knowledge, right? What is flourishing? So in the beginning, I mentioned it has three elements, emotional well-being, psychological well-being and social well-being. If you ask me to put that into very simple terms, I would say joy, growth, and connection. So for emotional well-being, that literally is, well, what lights your fire? What makes you happy? What puts you into an emotionally regulated state? you know, so that you're not feeling stressed, but you're feeling calm and content or happy or, you know, whatever that might be. So, you know, your joys, what gives you a level of an experience of joy and pleasure? I know that these things can sometimes have a little bit of a bad rap because, again, we shouldn't just chase joy and, you know, it sounds a little bit hedonistic, right? That next serotonin hit of some kind. Exactly. Exactly. But the thing is, we do need levels of joy and we do want to feel more positively throughout the day than not, because otherwise it probably goes into a direction of depression or languishing, right? So ask yourself what brings you joy, but like real joy, you know, not that next serotonin hit, like scrolling can feel awesome until it doesn't anymore. So, you know, like, so ask yourself, you know, is it your passions? Is it, you know, some hobbies? Is it like a good book and a cup of tea on the couch? Is it whatever that might be? So pursue your joy. The second one of growth is like, connect with yourself. You know, understand yourself. What are your values? What are you hoping to achieve in life? What are your dreams? Break them down into goals and into milestones. Set them. Work towards them. We all want and need to grow as a person. We need that as humans. It is a human need. So keep growing, keep learning. We need it. And it feels really good. And pursue those flow states in business and in your personal life. And then the third one of connection is reach out. Research overwhelmingly shows that our social well-being, our social connections, connections with others, are so incredibly important. It might be the most important factor to longevity, happiness, you know, immunity, you know, all those kinds of things. There are really some strong studies out there showing just how important our social connections are And we do live in an online world, don't we? So I have people tell me all the time, you know, it's not the same as meeting in person. And so reaching out and spending time without the phones, without being switched on, and having deep connections, real chats about things, and yeah, just spending time together, and maybe also seeing whether you can support other people. You know, the people around you contribute to something in your community. Those are the keys to flourishing.

Ruby Lee: Hi, my loves. I hope you are loving this episode as much as I have loved creating it for you. I'm quickly dropping in to let you know of a flow tool, which I think you will love to have alongside you in your business and definitely your more complex goals that you might be setting for yourself. This is a tool which is steeped in flow science. It's a 90 minute audio flow track. filled with my favorite lo-fi productivity beats, and it is soaked with the best subliminals to help you call in more focus, more impact, more income, and more productivity than ever. If you are wanting to experience this level of time dilation, of folding time, of getting more done in a shorter period of time, then this is what you'll need in your business. I'm gonna leave the links below, and for now, let's head back to the episode. You know, this has really brought up such an interesting moment for me. This was pretty recent in the last, it was somewhere within the last 12 months. And I have to look it up because I did a YouTube video on how I was feeling lonely and how, you know, just talking to my audience, I'm really authentic with them and I'm like, I feel so lonely. I have this thriving business and I have a beautiful lifestyle and I have friends, but all my friends are based in another state because we had just moved to the Gold Coast. And at the same time, I was telling myself that I have this social connection. because I speak to my team every day, because I speak to my clients every day. And I have a lot of clients that I work with, sometimes anywhere between 50 to 100 clients I work with, whether it's in smaller groups, masterminds, things like that. So I'm like, I'm social. I'm always speaking to people. But then I realized that I wasn't connected. I wasn't feeling socially connected. The work connection and the personal connections, that was when the light bulb moment happened for me. And deeper than that, it was in person. And do you know what changed that? I decided to join a tennis club. And the tennis club opened so many social doors for me, but it just brought me so much joy in the form of connection with complete strangers of all ages. In fact, the tennis club I've joined, there's an older demographic, but you know, their skill level is freaking better than mine, but it's amazing, you know, and I just love it. And I'm like, I've made all of these new friends and connections and then that opened another door and opened another door and then it's funny like what happens right when you put out that frequency or that vibration of I'm choosing to be more open to relationships. Honestly, that's when. you know, connections like you came along through John and others that I've met with for a coffee. And those, like, when did we last meet? Months ago. And it still feeds my soul. You know, the chats that we had, I'm like, oh, it was just, that was so nice to have like the hour and a half together or whatever we did. This is so important that we're talking about this to an entrepreneurial community, and hearing you explain, breaking it down, explaining the science behind it, and even just the logical aspect, it just makes so much sense.

Dr. Maike Neuhaus: Yeah, it does, doesn't it? And I feel like so many people can relate to that, especially in that entrepreneurial field. So many people struggle with that, and I can totally relate to sort of your story too. Not sure if I can mention that here or plug it shamelessly. But you know, that's exactly why I started my own podcast, because I feel like We all have these experiences. And when I say we, I mean us entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, people who work for themselves, new coaches, new business leaders, also people who work, who are employed, but are new leaders. We might have feelings of loneliness. You know, we might have feelings of not being good enough, not being successful enough, you know, being too broke. I feel like there is so much suffering in silence and behind curtains. But when you talk to people and you are able to talk openly and honestly and raw, and someone will always have to make the first step, and then most of the time the other person will open up too, you can see that it's such a common and shared experience just because It's part of the job. It's a different way of being. You're no longer in a team until, or if ever, you establish your own team, if that's what you're working towards. So it's interesting, I think, because I don't know that we're used to this way of online working yet, because as human beings, you know how slow evolution is, right? Our brain is still basically the same brain it has been hundreds and thousands of years ago. And how, you know, how long have we had the Internet for? I do remember a time without the Internet. Should I say this?

Ruby Lee: That dial-up noise is still haunting me.

Dr. Maike Neuhaus: Exactly. So we're not used to it and we believe we can just do that. And yes, you said, you know, I was telling myself, it's fine. I work with so many people. I don't know that we understand yet why it is so different for us as humans in our experience to connect with people online versus in person. Why is that so different? I don't know. There probably is a lot of research on that out there that I haven't read. I'm not sure. But it's not. And it becomes so important that we become attuned to that or that we tune into that intuition or feeling of, actually, there's a qualitative difference here for me. And I love, Ruby, that you said, you know what, I'm going to go out and about and join a tennis club. I mean, that is healthy for so many reasons, not just that real social connection part, but also to do something completely different from your work. Be physically active, go outside, follow your passions and hobbies. I mean, there's so much flourishing in that.

Ruby Lee: It took me so long though, Micah. I don't know why I had the idea for ages. It took me so long to actually buy the tennis racket. It's so funny, maybe you can actually commentate on this. We know it's good for us. I knew intrinsically this was going to help me flourish, but I'm talking it took me months from the nudge to go join a tennis club to buying the racket and then I made up these excuses. Oh, I need to have a cute outfit to go and play tennis. I was just like, oh, you know, maybe I should go practice on this wall. There's a wall nearby. So I was like, I'll go practice on the wall and just get my, you know, my strokes going again and all that. Oh my God. Like it was so ridiculous actually looking back now at how many barriers I put in place when the end goal for me was to always feel better about myself. What is that? Why does the brain do that? Is it protection? I don't quite understand why those things always unfold in that way.

Dr. Maike Neuhaus: I know, isn't it so stupid? I mean, where to start? I think there are so many things that are at play. First of all, we live in a hustle culture society, right? So straight away, all of a sudden, playing tennis isn't about the process anymore. It becomes about the performance and the outcome. So straight away we have that outcome focus rather than the process focus. And we know from research that that is a killer for motivation. Kills your passion, your motivation instantly. Well done. I'm not. But also I think it is a new hobby, a new something, a new element in your life. And I wouldn't underestimate the challenge it poses for us to integrate new things into our routine. As human beings, whatever trajectory we are currently taking, we are determined whatsoever to just keep going in that direction. Any bit of change, any bit of, oh, this is different. Oh, it's so uncomfortable on so many levels. So, you know, it was something new, different you hadn't done. And there are so many unknowns, uncertainty. What are the people going to be like? What is my performance going to be like? They can talk about things like shame. I mean, I don't know you enough, Ruby, to know, you know, are there any fears of, my goodness, I'm going to make a fool of myself or people are going to think I am X, Y, Z. I don't know.

Ruby Lee: It's acceptance for me. It's acceptance, like feeling like I'm not going to be in the tribe, you know, like in the crowd.

Dr. Maike Neuhaus: Yeah. Isn't that so interesting that we can have that so quickly? Personally, I relate to that. And you know what? I catch myself. And look, I always say I have two specialties in my work. One is self-leadership, because I did a PhD literally in behavior change techniques. I've helped, and I still do on a daily basis, individuals and organizations implement behavior changes, you know, whether that's in the workplace or for yourself in your life. The other one is positive psychology. So he would think that for me, you know, I never procrastinate and those kinds of things. And I do sometimes big things, sometimes small things. But you know what? I made it packed with myself this year that I said, all those little anxieties, those tiny little ones, I've had enough of it. There are so many things, and this is quite embarrassing. that I fear on a daily basis for various reasons. So for example, I was going for a walk with a friend the other day. We walk past a group of Latin dancers in the park here in Brisbane. And I said to her, my dream is always like, I love the idea of dancing salsa, right? I have lots of Colombian friends and it's like, you know how to feel really unsexy very quickly. It's like, be the German amongst the South Americans. on the dance floor. It's like, bingo.

Ruby Lee: I felt like, can you hold like 16 beers? You know, isn't that the… Is that enough?

Dr. Maike Neuhaus: Nah, I can tell you 16 beers isn't cutting it either. But anyway, and actually I was walking with a German friend too. And I said to her, she goes, oh, don't you like dancing salsa? I was like, yeah, I like the idea of it, but like, I'd never joined this group just spontaneously. I'm too scared. She goes, what? I thought you can, you know how to dance salsa. I was like, yeah, it's, I sort of know how to dance salsa, but I still, you know, there's anxiety of making a fool of myself or whatever. And she always says to me, you know, you're so fearless. You're so successful. You do all these things. You just bang, bang, bang. You have everything going on in your life and in your world and in your job and whatever. I cannot believe, and I said, these are the moments I'm scared of. Like, this is the stuff I don't do. This is the stuff I procrastinate, I get in my own way, I get in my own head, and she goes, this is it. She goes, don't you dance salsa? Like, she can't really dance, but she goes, don't you dance it like this? I was like, yeah, that's pretty much the base step. She goes, this is it. And she drags me onto the dance, and here we are dancing salsa. And it's like, this is what I mean. This is what I mean. Those little things, I mean, that was almost a bigger little thing, to be quite honest, for me. But I don't know, sometimes, you know how you get nervous about asking for, I don't even know, I'm trying to think of an example, asking for, not directions, but, you know, those little moments in life where sometimes we become reserved and we kind of don't want to do it.

Ruby Lee: Yes, or even just like returning something that wasn't right. It's really funny, my husband, this is classic, he's like, oh no, no, no. I'm like, but you have a right, as someone who's a consumer, the thing wasn't right, you can return it. He's like, no, no, no, I don't want to. And it's this thing where he just feels it's silly or inconvenient, but he also just doesn't want, it's really, I totally get what you mean. Yeah. Exactly.

Dr. Maike Neuhaus: And that's a perfect example. Yeah. I mean, all those moments where, you know, we feel like, you know, we have to set boundaries, maybe, or, you know, like, voice ourselves, give ourselves a voice or I don't know, there are so many anxieties that I have, little bits of anxieties that I have throughout the day or throughout the week, throughout the month. And for me, it's like, you know, I do not want to get in my own way anymore. So your example with the tennis, I would say is a little bit of a bigger thing. That is a bigger step. That's not an everyday thing, you know, that you start joining a new club or try out a new hobby or pick up a really old hobby or whatever that might be. But I feel like it's also such a good opportunity of practice. Taking opposite action is actually something that is used in dialectical behavior therapy, I think it's called DBT. It's a really good practice, you know, when you have that internal barrier, you kind of want to do something like returning that item and something inside yourself goes, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is now where you start pushing. This is how we can practice, first of all, creating willpower, and we can cultivate more willpower, but also practice setting boundaries, pushing beyond our comfort zone, becoming fearless. You know, it's those little things that are the perfect practice for you to overcome bigger barriers in life and pushing through that fear that is so important to a thriving business and really a flourishing life. Okay, that sounded a bit cheesy.

Ruby Lee: Every single time that I have thought, you know, you just helped me recall some things that I've really gone the extra little bit where I thought I am too scared to do that. Something as simple as even starting this podcast or, you know, going live on Instagram when I used to do a lot of that. so scared, like full-blown sweaty palms, heart rate would be going crazy. I could have easily just walked away and just gone, no, I'm not going to do that today. And every time I did it and I showed up, it honestly, these little moments is what has really helped me become who I am now. And truly, I, you know, I think I told you this when we met, but I just feel So fulfilled. I'm so happy. I'm just at so much peace in my life. I feel incredibly grateful for what I have. I truly am a different person. I've looked through, if I look through the lens of who I was like seven years ago, versus what I see now. I'm a totally different human in the way I think and how I process things and how I look at even disappointments. But when good things happen, I don't think, oh, that's just a one off. I think, oh, that's just an indication of more and more and more and more and more good stuff to come. You know, like you said, there's an aliveness, there's this overflowing wealth of fulfillment. I don't know how else to explain it. And, you know, I just love how flourishing and flow, they just, they're like the soulmates, you know, they work so beautifully together in terms of it being very physical, but also very much about the consciousness and how you think about things and how you choose to interpret that in your life. You know, it's so stunning.

Dr. Maike Neuhaus: and how you choose to operate and therefore also grow as a person. I couldn't agree more with you. And, you know, that deep level of fulfillment and aliveness, I 100% agree and resonate with that as well. Because I think, you know, what I said earlier, when you work for yourself or in your own business, you are so much more with yourself. You're living from the inside out. It's this privilege of self-expression, isn't it? And realizing potential in your own way, determined by you, both in the how as much as in the what, you know, how quickly you do that, how much pressure you put onto yourself or not. And I think what's really important, though, also is that through working in that way, you and spending so much time with yourself, you cannot You don't have any other option than becoming your own best friend because everything starts and falls with you. Your goals, you know, so how much you know yourself, how much you understand your values, how you would like to operate in your business, the service you want to provide in this world, you know, what your strengths are. I think is so beautiful, can be such a blessing. It can be also a real challenge, but you are forced to build that self-love, self-compassion, self-trust, and basically nurture the single most important relationship you will ever have in your entire life. And to me, that is the biggest gift in working for myself.

Ruby Lee: I love that so much. Oh my gosh. Micah, thank you so much for just sharing your insights. And, you know, you have an amazing Instagram account. You guys need to check it out. It's in the show notes. And you just have a way of delivering really short and powerful, to the point explanations on how to flourish in life. And it's just, I love it. It's such a resource hub for me. Whenever you post, I'm so excited to see, and I always know, because you've got the orange background, you've got such a signature look on your Instagram. Where else can we find your work? Where is the place that you mostly hang out as well?

Dr. Maike Neuhaus: Yeah, well, that's a good question. Sometimes I fluctuate between Instagram at theflourishingdoc, as well as LinkedIn, where you'll have to try and find me under Dr. Mike and I House, but I'm sure you'll link to that. Otherwise, you can find me on my website, theflourishingdoc.com.

Ruby Lee: Thank you so much. You have been amazing. And I am so grateful for the time we've had together. Now to go and… Flourish some more. Everybody enjoy the rest of your day, week, whatever you're doing, and we will catch you in the very next episode. Thanks, Micah. Thank you so much, Ruby.