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Summary
On episode 354 of 40+ Fitness, Coach Allan sits down with Gina LaRoche, co-founder of Seven Stones Leadership Group and a leading organizational consultant, executive coach, speaker, author, and artist, to talk about her book The Seven Laws of Enough: Cultivating a Life of Sustainable Abundance.
Gina argues that most of us are swimming in a story of scarcity we never chose: not enough, more is better, and that’s just the way it is. The flip side, chasing excess, tells us we can have it all, that having it all will make us happy, and that if we don’t, something is wrong with us. Her seven laws are a bridge out of both stories toward a personal definition of enough.
The conversation also covers how to use language to create your future before you live it, and the three elements, awareness, unwinding, and capacity building, that break old habits and build new ones.
Links
- https://sevenstonesleadership.com
Key Takeaways
- Enough is a personal declaration, not a fixed number. Gina says defining “enough” is intensely personal, and sometimes a family or community conversation too. It isn’t a single right answer: it might be four pairs of shoes for one person and a bigger house for another. The goal is finding your own thin line between not enough and too much.
- America’s founding story is one of scarcity. Drawing on Lynne Twist’s The Soul of Money, Gina names three scarcity myths we absorb from childhood: there is not enough, more is always better, and that’s just the way it is. She notes even a two-year-old who can’t read already recognizes more than 200 brand logos, proof of how early that story takes root.
- Excess is scarcity’s flip side, and just as toxic. The myths of excess say you can have it all, having it all will make you happy, and if you don’t have it all or aren’t happy, it’s your fault. Gina says most of us flip-flop between the scarcity story and the excess story instead of settling into the middle ground of enough.
- Stories matter and shape our context. Law one holds that we are all shaped by the stories of where we come from, our neighborhoods, religion, and country, and that context is decisive in how we see ourselves. Recognizing which stories we are carrying is the first step to changing them.
- You are enough, you do enough, and you belong. Laws two and three declare that worth isn’t earned through achievement. Gina points out that if you live in America, even as one of its resource-poor citizens, you already have more than most people on the planet.
- No one is exempt from life’s ups and downs, so rest is required. Law four says we can’t insulate ourselves from hardship, and there’s freedom in giving up trying to. Law five adds that resting deeply, finding a place in your nervous system for rest, changes how you experience everything else.
- Create your future by declaring it in language first. Gina’s “future from the future” exercise has you sit down and describe your life as if a goal, like finishing a triathlon, has already happened: how it felt, who was there, what you’re proud of. Once the story is written, you line up the actions and commitments, registering, training, buying gear, that make it real.
- Breaking old habits takes three elements: awareness, unwinding, and capacity building. Awareness means noticing a habit, often by asking the people closest to you what they see. Unwinding means interrupting the old pattern by sandwiching a new habit between two you already do well. Capacity building means getting help, a coach, a class, or a buddy, to actually get good at the new behavior.
- Gina’s three strategies to get and stay well: declare that you deserve to be well, since many people, especially women, sacrifice their own wellness caring for others; investigate what actually works for you rather than forcing yourself into exercise you hate; and build capacity slowly through right action and a support network, because none of us are self-made.
“The truth is, Allan, you are enough and you do enough and you have enough.”
Gina LaRoche
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