392. “You Are The Problem” | Being the Problem and the Solution with Kayla Logue

 

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Kayla Logue: 

Things out of our control give us a lot of anxiety, whether we realize it or not. But if we can really reframe anything that's bothering us, what control do we have in that moment and what can we do?

 

Dr. Richard Shuster: 

Hello and welcome to The Daily Helping with Dr. Richard Shuster, food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, tools to win at life. I'm your host, Dr. Richard. Whoever you are, wherever you're from, and whatever you do, this is the show that is going to help you become the best version of yourself. 

 

Each episode, you will hear from some of the most amazing, talented, and successful people on the planet who followed their passions and strived to help others. Join our movement to get a million people each day to commit acts of kindness for others. Together, we're going to make the world a better place. Are you ready? Because it's time for your Daily Helping.

 

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of The Daily Helping podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Richard. And I am so excited about our guest today. She is a dynamo. Her name is Kayla Logue. She is a trailblazer on a mission to empower individuals to sculpt their own destinies and redefine success. She is a bestselling author and founder of the nonprofit, Move into Words. Kayla inspires others to embrace radical self-accountability and unleash their full potential. 

 

I'm going to omit this part because this is her journey and we're going to talk about her journey. But more importantly, we're going to talk about her bestselling book, Always Squeezing Lemons. Kayla's passion also lies in mental health advocacy, including her initiative Operation One Million Journals aimed at making journaling accessible to individuals seeking purpose and clarity. There's so much more I could talk about Kayla, but we're just going to get right into it. 

 

Kayla Logue, welcome to The Daily Helping. It is awesome to have you with us today.

 

Kayla Logue: 

Thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to be here. 

 

Dr. Richard Shuster: 

No, we're going to have some fun today. So I purposely left out that little section of your bio you sent over that told your journey. And I love finding kind of why, why do people show up in the world today doing the great things that they're doing. So let's jump in the Kayla Logue time machine. Take us back and tell us what puts you on the journey you're on today. 

 

Kayla Logue: 

Yeah. So, I mean, 2020, Mr. COVID, I'd say we all have our crazy COVID stories. And I think we all kind of had a aha life clarity moment to a certain extent and obviously the whole world being shut down gave us that time of clarity. It wasn't just in that moment that I decided to start over, but I was really living a life of, as I say, checking off society's boxes, the standards of what I thought I should be doing, rather than really looking deep within and asking myself the hard questions of, what do I really want? And like, what purpose do I want to have in this world? And how can I get there? 

 

And I found myself doing everything besides what I wanted. I was in a career that I was capped out in. There was no growth left. I was in a relationship. I was in a marriage that was really at a complete dead end. And I realized everything that I had put myself in that position, I was just pleasing others. And I was not really doing the deep work within to figure out what that looks like.

 

So, tried to work it out, tried to figure it out, and realized there was really no other way but deciding to completely start over. So, took $900 and just left, and was like, I don't know what job I'm going to do, I don't know where I'm going, um, but I'm going to figure it out. And over the past couple years, I've not really -- it's been four years now. But over the past four years, I've found a lot of internal success, the contribution I've been able to make on a larger scale, but also found my own strengths and how I can really contribute that to the world.

 

And it's been quite a whirlwind, a lot of failures, a lot of heartbreak along the way. But also, really finding the opportunity to redefine success for what that looks like for myself. 

 

Dr. Richard Shuster: 

So, there's a couple of things you said there that are curious, redefining success. And then you generally spoke about -- I'm paraphrasing, but you essentially found your true north, right? You found out what you want to do instead of how you're going to please everybody else. That's what I'm taking away from this. 

 

So I think those things are important. So let's talk about them. So how did you find out, okay, I need to stop pleasing others because so many of us have the life you just described, right? You go to school, you get a job, you're in the job, you could get married, right? Like, you checked off all the boxes that society tells us we're supposed to check off. And then you said, now, the hell with this, give me my 900 bucks and I'm going to reboot myself. So talk to us about the steps, the things you learned and what strategies helped you redefine what all that looks like for you.

 

Kayla Logue: 

Yeah. I mean, really in that moment when it kind of hit me, like this is not what I should be doing. You just feel so stuck. And I really, in terms of the strategy, I think the best way to lay it out, I call it the three Ds. It's dream it, define it, do it. And I found myself really stuck in the dream it phase, where I think a lot of us get stuck. So we're just living in our dreams rather than making our dreams our reality. 

 

And I think that distinguishment is super, super important because I did find myself and as I reflect back, I was constantly thinking of a different life that I wasn't living. And you find yourself so encapsulated in your thoughts that every day just goes by and it's monotonous. You're like dream walking. 

 

And when I realized, like, I don't have to be doing this. I can start pursuing my dreams and things that I want. And the dreams of what I was doing wasn't aligning. And so that was when I started going through the define it phase. 

 

Now, when I decided to go towards my dreams, I didn't really know what that looked like in terms of the systems. Over the past four years, I've really been able to get more specific with the defining it and having the right systems and screwing up to figure it out, essentially. But the doing it phase, I kind of just jumped right into it, right? I was just like I'm going to go do it. I don't know what, how I'm going to do it yet. 

 

But really over the past four years, I've been able to not only just in that moment when I decided to make the leap of faith and move forward, I was really able to take that system of, okay, if I'm seeing something that I'm dreaming or I want, how do I need to get there? And what do I need to start doing in order to get there? No, I just think in terms of the system, I think that's the easiest way to really kind of start identifying it. Like, what are you dreaming and how are you going to make it your reality?

 

Dr. Richard Shuster: 

So what I was going to ask is what were you dreaming? What was the dream that you wanted to have at that time? 

 

Kayla Logue: 

I knew I just was supposed to have a much larger purpose, meaning I was supposed to help a lot more people. And that's like where I find, even with writing this book, we were talking before the show, is I've just wanted to make a contribution. I knew I had a story that could help. 

 

And even in that moment, I really didn't know what it was. I was just like, I know I'm supposed to reach masses on some level. And that's where even with moving towards the nonprofit and the journaling, the impact that we're working to make there with Operation One Million Journals, that's where I'm finding so much purpose. It's not -- even doing these podcasts and talking is awesome to get the message out there but the real reward comes from the impact you're able to make with this type of stuff. Right. 

 

So I was definitely dreaming really of that and just having more purposeful purpose in my life. Like I did every day, I was just going through the motions. I wasn't doing things that I really loved. There are things about what I was doing that I loved, but I didn't, there was no growth there. There was no opportunity to move forward. It was just stagnant and that didn't work for me. And like I said, in that moment, I didn't know what it looked like, but I knew I had to make moves to figure out what that was.

 

Dr. Richard Shuster: 

I had a professor many, many years ago, as we were talking about behavioral change and her statement always stuck with me because it's true, it’s grab the guts and the head will follow, which essentially is what you're talking about, right? If you start taking action, the rest of it kind of falls into place. 

 

So I just, I want to get a timeline here, because we're talking about, there's a few things you're doing. There's your nonprofit Move into Words. I presume the initiative of that nonprofit is the Operation One Million Journals. Is that correct? 

 

Kayla Logue: 

Yes. 

 

Dr. Richard Shuster: 

So did the nonprofit come before the book or vice versa? I presume before. 

 

Kayla Logue: 

It was -- yeah, before the book launched. So this has been our first full year. My book launched in May of this year and our first, like, really released event for Move into Words was in February of this year. So, really, what the mission behind moving towards is cultivating a community for young professionals to thrive. 

 

So, this year, we've done quarterly events all around the Charlotte area. where it's really a workout for the body and a workshop for the mind. So we have a physical activity, we've done yoga, we've done boxing, we've done HIIT, we've done walking, so something that's physical. And then we bring a motivational speaker of some sort to really, depending on what the topic is, we've done confidence, we've done anxiety, we've done self-awareness, and then we bridge it together with journaling. 

 

And so it's really just kind of bringing it all together, bringing a community of young professionals that have a growth mindset and want to grow and want to be better. And with the Operation One Million Journals, our goal is, of course, to get a million journals in the hands of a million young professionals. So we're just taking that level of wanting to break out that movement on a much larger scale. 

 

Dr. Richard Shuster: 

In your mind, Kayla, what happens when a million young professionals are journaling? What does that look like for you? 

 

Kayla Logue: 

I mean, it will make me so happy, but I mean, I just see so much opportunity for clarity, for growth, for purpose, for great habit tracking. It's truly profoundly like the one thing that I can, any success I've had professionally, personally, financially over the past four years, it's the one thing I can credit it to. 

 

Dr. Richard Shuster: 

My thought though was, was journaling critical to your rebooting yourself? Was that part of your process? 

 

Kayla Logue: 

Yes, absolutely. I even write about it in my book and my third chapter of my book, I talk -- it's called Catch Me If You Can. And I found myself -- I've been an athlete my whole life and I found myself just trying to outrun my thoughts to the point that it wasn't working. So I would be running miles and miles a day and I was a softball player. So like we don't run far. We sprint to first base and that's it. So I was running anywhere from 6 to 12 miles a day. And I found myself just repeating thoughts in my mind that I couldn't really come to any sort of conclusion. 

 

And my sister, she's a double major in Psychology and Spanish. I say she's one of the smartest people I know, just awesome. And she kept hitting to me that I should journal. And honestly, I thought it was stupid. I really did. I was like, there's no way me writing all my thoughts down. That 25-years-old, it's a long overdue diary is going to be helpful. 

 

Well, it was very wrong. I finally gave in and I just pretty much like word vomited the first time I did like for about 10 pages. And it was wild because all the thoughts that I was running through in my mind when I wrote them down, it was like clarity came and it started to become a daily practice. 

 

And in that moment, I mean, the months before, I'm just kind of trying to figure it out, going through life. And I mean, I felt much better. I felt free. I felt like I had the opportunity to do something different. But until I started writing my thoughts down, I didn't really have the clarity. I didn't really have the define it phase. And so that was really, for me, I mean, so impactful, critical, as you say.

 

Dr. Richard Shuster: 

So as you're journaling then, this really was the foundational piece for you is what it sounds like kind of really getting things correct. And so how long after you began journaling did you know you had to write a book? 

 

Kayla Logue: 

It's funny because in 2020, I wrote down Always Squeezing Lemons. Like, I wrote the title Always Squeezing Lemons. And I think it was more kind of like the journaling part of keep going, which really that was you don't -- when life throws you lemons, you don't just squeeze them and stop. Like you always have to keep squeezing lemons because there's always going to be challenges. There's always going to be hardships.

 

And I think that was more -- I love metaphors. I think they're just the greatest way to explain more deep concepts and just really put it out there. But yeah, so it's kind of weird because I don't know that I really committed to writing the book until 2022. Like, I knew I had the story. I knew what I wanted to put out there. I knew how it could impact people, like the real comeback story and the resilience that it took and going through failures and really defining what that looked like. 

 

But in 2020, I did write down Always Squeezing Lemon. So it's kind of, I think I almost manifested it in that time. But it wasn't until 2022, I was like, okay, I have a story that I know needs to be in the hands of other people, that I know if I had this book, even four years ago, my life might be a little bit different. 

 

Dr. Richard Shuster: 

Okay. So let's go through it. And I was going to ask you about the title, but you already got us there. So Always Squeezing Lemons. So I know that journaling is obviously a big part of this. It's in chapter three, which Is titled after one of my favorite movies. So I like that. But let's talk about the book overall. So somebody picks this up, guide us through what they're going to get out of the book. 

 

Kayla Logue: 

So the subtitle is Taking Responsibility to Define Your Own Success. And really in one sentence, it summarizes when you realize you can be the cause, problem, and solution for everything in your life, your world changes. And so it's really about that taking that radical responsibility. So from the beginning of completely starting over to redefining what success looks like for myself. 

 

At the end of it, it really was just, I had to forgive myself, I had to move on, I had to figure out what I wanted to do, what my purpose was in this world. And I realized it wasn't consumption, it was contribution. And being able to figure that out and go through that and use my stories as a tool for somebody else to be able to -- it's an easy read, it's fun, there's a lot of exciting stories in there. 

 

But at the end of the day, at the end of each chapter, it’s I would say the most like practical takeaway for readers because I have a lemon drop, which is the summary of the chapter. So it's like that really one engulfed thing that if you just even were to take the book and read at the end of each 12 chapters, the key takeaway, and then you take the journal prompt, you're going to have something really, really practical that you can use in your life. 

 

So there's 12 journal prompts as well. So if you're wanting to kickstart your journaling journey, you don't really know where to start, it's also a really, really great opportunity. 

 

Dr. Richard Shuster: 

So there's something you said that I want to -- and I don't know how in depth the book goes into this, but you said forgiving yourself. So first, forgiving yourself for what specifically? And then two, because I think a lot of people don't, it sounds silly to talk about it and say, oh, I don't know how to forgive people. A lot of people don't. They just don't. And they carry anger with them, regret, guilt, whether it's towards themselves or towards others. So I want to spend a little bit of time here and talk about the forgiveness piece because I think it's so important.

 

Kayla Logue: 

It is, especially for any sort of healing journey, no matter what that looks like, it's whether forgiving yourself or someone else. For me, I mean, I think anybody that's gone through a divorce, there's a lot of pieces where I mean multiple people just want to blame the other person, which isn't, that's not how a relationship works, right? There's things that you have to forgive yourself for throughout the entire process. And it's hard. It's a really, really hard thing. 

 

So I think it's just no matter what, I mean, it wasn't a great relationship, but at the end of the day, I know I hurt somebody that for eight years I deeply cared about and lost family and friends that I knew I would never see again. So just that process of disconnecting and realizing that that was real, and in order to be able to move on for things like that, it does require self-forgiveness. It does require where you went wrong and accepting it and moving forward. 

 

So I think that was the one of the biggest pieces of it. And then also how to forgive myself for those years of not staying true to myself because I went a direction where I was just checking society's boxes. I was just doing what I thought I should be doing rather than again, being true to myself. And so that really, it put us in an entire warp of me now hurting somebody else, but constantly hurting myself too. So I would say that's where the biggest piece of the self-forgiveness had to come in.

 

Dr. Richard Shuster: 

And was this a largely facilitated the forgiveness through journaling, or did you reach out to the people you hurt? Like, I know a lot of people do that. So just curious what that looked like for you specifically.

 

Kayla Logue: 

A little bit of both honestly. Writing down like my own thoughts, things that I didn't really have to hash out with anybody but myself. And then there were, of course, family members, friends that I think just needed to have a closing conversation no matter what. And it was, again, every situation for everybody looks different, right? So my story is similar, I'm sure in many different cases, but also very different. 

 

And I think at the end of the day, we just have to really identify the root cause, because a lot of the times I feel like sometimes there's just one root cause that causes a lot of chaos in our life. So when we can identify where that's coming from and we can just address it, it releases a lot of the stress that we have. And I do think a lot of that comes from animosity or lack of forgiveness, whether it's towards our self or someone else. 

 

Dr. Richard Shuster: 

One of the things -- and we talked about this a little bit before we started recording together today, but I liked the phrase that you use. You basically went from consumption to contribution, which is a powerful shift. So even recognizing that was a shift you needed to make is important. 

 

So walk us through that, because I think there's a lot of people probably listening to this who believe that they've got a superpower because we all have special gifts. Right? But they're not really able to leverage them in a way that that helps the plan. So talk to us about that. 

 

Kayla Logue: 

Yeah. I mean, I think nowadays, it's really easy to get caught up in the next shiny thing, the next best object, the next best title, the next, just things that are very surface level that we don't realize are surface level until we start achieving them. 

 

And even for example, I was the top sales producer for one of the largest land development companies in the Southeast. And I won the top sales producer title. I won a Rolex. And don't get me wrong, it was exciting. I was -- I did a lot of great things for that, but the way I felt receiving that award and the way I feel when somebody reaches out and just says your book has made a huge impact on my life is completely different. And so, receiving that award was something that credited me for my good and great hard work and obviously my skills, but when somebody, when I know I can make an impact on someone else's life, no matter who it is and how big or small it is, I receive so much more reward from that. Right.

 

And so that's where the contribution is compared to the consumption. And when I realized that's where my heart and like burning passion and desire comes from like, okay, now, how do I, and again as we were talking about earlier, it's like how do I align my unique ability and what I have to offer in the world to be able to continue to 10 times this and grow this so much more.

 

So that's really, I would say the mental shift, but also just recognizing how I feel in those senses. You achieve something great and don't get me wrong, I'm not like, I was like, this is horrible because it wasn't horrible. But at the same time, it doesn't give you that light. It doesn't give you that fire. It doesn't give you that purpose and passion to just keep driving forward. And when you can really identify that, the shift needs to be made.

 

Dr. Richard Shuster: 

When I talk about it at the end of every episode, I'm going to do it today. The happiest people are those that help others. Right? There's just -- and the science bears that out. We have demonstrated this empirically time and time again. We're wired to feel good when we do good things for other people. So I love this. 

 

So, in the time we have left Kayla, take us through, I know we can't go over every chapter, but take us through, they're all your favorites, but pick one. Let's pick a chapter that's really calling to you right now that you think would serve the audience for us to talk about. And let's jump into that. 

 

Kayla Logue: 

So, since we're talking about kind of like relationships and people and helping others, I think it's really important to identify the people in your life in order to be able to make sure you're giving back on the level that you want to. If you're not surrounded by people that care for you, truly, it's going to be hard. 

 

So it's chapter, I want to say 11, it's called Know Your Starting Lineup. And I break it down again, being an athlete, sports analogy here. So your starting lineup is your core people. It's people that love you unconditionally, the people that will be there for you no matter what. And your starting lineup isn't super huge. Not everyone can be on the starters, and not everyone is the top tier, always going to be there. 

 

And then you've got your team. And your team can be big. It can be your coworkers, it can be people that inspire you, it can be your mentors, but they're just not there ready to start yet. And then your cut. You don't make the team. And those are the energy suckers, those are the people that really put you down, they're the people that should not be anywhere really on your team. 

 

And so when you can really identify and like break it down in those tiers, and when you have people, maybe you're not sure if they should be your starting lineup or on your team, and just really identify how much time you should be spending with them, or if you shouldn't be spending any time with them, I think it really adds a lot of value to your life and to be able to characterize in that way is I think really, really important. I've gotten a lot of feedback on that chapter just in terms of people being like, okay, I really like this and I like how you categorized it. 

 

Dr. Richard Shuster: 

No, this is really awesome because I've never categorized it as a team, but it makes it really easy to do this because there is no question that if you are on a journey, right, you have a goal, if you don't have people around you that are going to help you achieve that goal, you're not getting there or certainly it's going to be a lot more difficult for you. 

 

And as you're saying this, as you were talking about the starting lineup, what popped into my mind is that starting lineup could be anybody, right? Just because somebody is your sibling or parent, or cousin, doesn't mean that they automatically get to even be on the team. Right? I presume that that's your position. 

 

Kayla Logue: 

For sure. It's all about characteristics. It's no title. 

 

Dr. Richard Shuster: 

So what is some of your -- because and again, like God making a list. Okay. I need like, you think like a coach, right? A coach has to put their -- in basketball, they're starting five together. Right? So that's pretty easy if you've got a roster of X number of people, right, to say, okay, here's my starting five and then here's my second unit off the bench. Right? And then here are the people that I am going to bring in when somebody's followed out or somebody gets hurt. Right? But they're -- I don't want to call them scrubs because that's disrespectful to our friends and family, but the people that are not really going to be in the rotation often. 

 

And so, you said something, so that's a really easy exercise to do because you can simply do it on a sheet of paper and say, okay, here's my starting lineup. Right? You said something else. And you talked about those people who suck your energy. These are the non-supportive people where you want to limit your time with them or just get rid of them completely. A lot of times, those people, as I mentioned, they could be family. That's something that I've heard people tell me time and time again when I've talked about things like this on stage, or they say, hey, listen, my immediate family is really the problem, right? 

 

And so what are some of the strategies that you would recommend to people listening to this on how they can create healthy boundaries and distance themselves from people who are those energy suckers, as you said those negative people that would be limiting our success. 

 

Kayla Logue: 

It's interesting because that's actually a question I get often and I think it really depends on the situation, on the person because there are situations sometimes that there's just nothing that needs to be said. It really is just distance, and you just create it. Right? And there are sometimes where you almost -- and I know I've felt this way sometimes with energy suckers, like you almost have built up anger inside of you because you don't really understand why there is that energy sucking, but it's there and you just have to have a conversation, if you initiate the conversation. 

 

And I think sometimes it just takes sometimes closure and maybe you have to give that to yourself somehow, but sometimes also having that conversation and opening that door to figure out like, why is this happening? Why do I feel this way? And sometimes you don't get the answer you want. And at that point, you do just have to start setting the boundaries and saying no. As simple as that. And it's much harder said than done. I mean, it's much harder done than said. We say just say no and gosh we usually start saying yes to things we shouldn't, right. So it's just prioritizing your goals and what you value and really holding that to the highest standard. 

 

And if those people can't change or you know you're never going to change somebody else but you can change what you do. And at that point, it really is just saying no if they're trying to come into your life or really cross the boundary that maybe you've said. And sometimes boundaries, you don't just have to say them out loud. They're internally set.

 

Dr. Richard Shuster: 

Kind of like when somebody is calling you to hang out and you just say too busy, too busy, too busy. After a while, they just kind of go. 

 

Kayla Logue: 

They just stop. Right. Yeah, exactly. And again, sometimes that works for some people. And sometimes you just got to hash it out. And it doesn't mean that that's going to do anything else besides at least give you maybe a little bit of release upper chest.

 

Dr. Richard Shuster: 

Awesome. Okay. I've loved our time together. As you know, I wrap up every episode by asking my guest a single question. And that is, what is your biggest helping, that one most important piece of information you'd like somebody to walk away with after hearing our conversation today. 

 

Kayla Logue: 

Yeah. I said it a little bit earlier, and it really is a main takeaway from the book being when you realize you can be the cause, problem, and solution for everything in your life, your world changes because that's a simple mindset shift that things out of our control give us a lot of anxiety, whether we realize it or not. But if we can really reframe anything that's bothering us, what control do we have in that moment? And what can we do to release distress or take that away from us? But at the end of the day, like we are the only ones in control of our actions and our responses. And when we can really live life that way, it's interesting how your perspective starts to change. 

 

Dr. Richard Shuster: 

Awesome. Awesome. The book is Always Squeezing Lemons, available everywhere now. Kayla, tell us where people can learn more about you online. 

 

Kayla Logue: 

If you just go to my website, kaylalogue.com, I've got the book there. I've got the speaking. I've got workshops. I've got literally anything and everything, free content and social media. All of it is on my website. 

 

Dr. Richard Shuster: 

Perfect. And for those of you in the car, we'll get you covered. Everything Kayla Logue will be in the show notes at drrichardshuster.com. Well, Kayla, this has been a blast. I knew that it would be. Thanks so much for joining us on the show today. 

 

Kayla Logue: 

Thank you so much for having me. 

 

Dr. Richard Shuster: 

Absolutely. And I want to thank each and every one of you who took time out of your day to listen to this conversation. If you're excited, if you're inspired, if you're going to go pick up this book, start squeezing lemons, start journaling, all this stuff, go give us a follow and a five-star review on your podcast app of choice, because this is what helps other people find the show. 

 

But most importantly, go out there today and do something nice for somebody else, even if you don't know who they are and post it in your social feeds using the hashtag #MyDailyHelping because the happiest people are those that help others.