Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to Elixir Radio, a podcast brought to you by Elixir Media Co.
Speaker: I'm your host, Tanya and Jane, and the founder of Elixir Media Co.
Speaker: And together with my team, we are going to journey with you on this beautiful exploration of creativity, self-expression, business strategy, and what it truly takes to embody and revolutionize your entire brand, business, and life.
Speaker: This is a podcast for the revolutionary, heart-led, God-led leader, ready to rise, elevate, dismantle, disrupt, and lead with their edge, their unique God-led brand, their soul essence.
Speaker: Let's magnify the full magnitude of your inner power, your God-given energetic signature and gifts, all of it.
Speaker: There is no hiding any part of you anymore.
Speaker: And no, you are not confusing or too much, even if they said that you were.
Speaker: We, as Elixir Media Co., are here for those who desire to harness the power of their multidimensionality.
Speaker: It is time.
Speaker: It is your biggest strength.
Speaker: We see you.
Speaker: I feel you.
Speaker: It is time to play.
Speaker: It is time to create your own stage and be the showstopper and be in deep, sacred communion with the greater collective.
Speaker: Together, we all elevate and rise and revolutionize our golden age.
Speaker: All right, all right, all right.
Speaker: Welcome to brand new podcast episodes.
Speaker: Fall, a fall season.
Speaker: And welcome to just being here, being you.
Speaker: However you found your way here, I'm so happy that you're here.
Speaker: And I'm
Speaker: This week, we have a treat for you.
Speaker: It is actual transmissions from the workshop that came to life, the seed came to life on the heels of my miscarriage.
Speaker: And this workshop finally came to the world in June, in the last week of June, and it was called God-Led Business.
Speaker: So today, tomorrow, and for the next two days in this week, you are going to hear daily episodes of
Speaker: from God-Led Business, my workshop that I teach and taught on all things team leadership, all things communication, integrity in business, ethics, a code of conduct, something that I often see has been missing in this world of online business and especially within the coaching space.
Speaker: This isn't to say that it doesn't exist.
Speaker: It just means that there have been
Speaker: a lot of occasions and a lot of times where people truly didn't feel heard or seen or witnessed.
Speaker: And, you know, I would like to believe that those tides have been turning and changing over the last couple of years.
Speaker: And especially now, as we head into the golden age, we're coming back to the roots.
Speaker: We're coming back to the roots of who God called us to be.
Speaker: You know, we're coming back to love, to oneness.
Speaker: We're coming back to being in faith.
Speaker: We are called to rise in our faith, in our leadership, in our relationship with God.
Speaker: the relationship that we have with ourselves, with our team, with our families everywhere, right?
Speaker: So this is a conversation that is very near and dear to my heart.
Speaker: We had about 16 or 17 students enrolled in this workshop earlier this year, but it is my hope that by bringing this onto the podcast, we
Speaker: you too, wherever you find yourself, will receive exactly what you need to receive from these transmissions.
Speaker: And, you know, I hope this opens up a dialogue for you and your leadership and your organization, with your clients, with your team, with yourself, with your family members.
Speaker: And come let me know what you think of it.
Speaker: Come riff with us on Instagram in our inbox at elixirmedia.co.
Speaker: But for now, enjoy.
Speaker: Welcome to God-Led Business Day 2.
Speaker: I am so happy that I actually moved with the decision to move it all to this week.
Speaker: I do not know what on God's green earth I was thinking of hosting all of this last week.
Speaker: I know why I wanted to host it and I shared that in day one, but I think I needed last week to process and last week was the solstice and...
Speaker: There's a lot of moving pieces happening and also my body went into like total shock state just doing 20,000 steps on a school field trip day that I have not done in years.
Speaker: And then I felt resistance to showing up on day one and
Speaker: I understood why I felt that resistance because this time last year, again, I didn't know if I'd still be here.
Speaker: I didn't know if I'd make it.
Speaker: I just didn't know.
Speaker: There was so much that was different this time last year.
Speaker: I was me, but I wasn't me.
Speaker: It was like there was a shell of me that was just functioning, but me as my essence wasn't there.
Speaker: And I want to kick this off with that.
Speaker: We will have...
Speaker: Moments in time where we're in places, situations, relationships, client relationships, job situations, it doesn't matter what it is.
Speaker: It doesn't matter what the outfit is, the feeling you will know what that feels like in your body.
Speaker: And so day two, we're going to get really meta today and we're going to go into sustainable business practices.
Speaker: We're going to address emotional intelligence.
Speaker: I let my sassiness come out when I write because that is literally how I talk with my team and I'm
Speaker: Then they told me that needs to be a post.
Speaker: And I'm like, okay, that's actually going to be a post.
Speaker: There's nobody writing my captions for me.
Speaker: None of that stuff.
Speaker: It literally is say it like you think it.
Speaker: And that is a rule that I have.
Speaker: followed in my business with us.
Speaker: Colleen's a part of this incredible team.
Speaker: I met Colleen this time last year, like holy hell, like holy heck and Bob, right?
Speaker: I met Colleen in a dear client's container actually when I took them on as a client.
Speaker: And it's been a beautiful journey, a beautiful unfolding and witnessing of all of our masteries in that sacred space.
Speaker: And
Speaker: Yeah, we are really going to dive into sustainable business practices, emotional intelligence with not just with yourself and not just with your clients, but with your team.
Speaker: I think that's super important.
Speaker: And then we are also going to dive into transparent revolutionary leadership.
Speaker: That's a mouthful.
Speaker: Transparent revolutionary leadership that is God-led, that is soul-driven.
Speaker: You get to be mission-driven and still hold life.
Speaker: really good standards and boundaries without being a doormat for everyone to just dust their dirty shoes off on.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You get to do all of that without being someone's emotional punching bag, or you get to do that without always finding yourself walking into a
Speaker: A burning house and you being the one putting out all the fires.
Speaker: And I reference that because I know a lot of you in here are service providers.
Speaker: And if there's one thing we all know in common, it is that there's many a times that we have walked into any, it could be any client.
Speaker: It doesn't have to be the coaching industry or whatever.
Speaker: But for commonality sake, I'll reference the coaching industry in here.
Speaker: Also another, not a disclaimer, but again, I just want to preface it.
Speaker: And if you're listening to this, please hear the love and the truth in these words, wherever you are, whatever you most resonate with, please use that.
Speaker: But for the purposes of who I am as a person,
Speaker: what elixir stands for, what we represent.
Speaker: I will, as long as you're in my house, I will always represent and I will always call it as God, Holy Spirit.
Speaker: That's for me.
Speaker: I do not impose my beliefs on anyone else, my entire team.
Speaker: We have our own sets of eclectic beliefs that we've come together with and we have such devoted, diverse, but similar missions.
Speaker: But that doesn't mean that you need to resonate with that.
Speaker: Please, please,
Speaker: take the words that resonate most to you for the reference of this talk.
Speaker: If you're here, you're obviously here because you gravitated toward God-led business.
Speaker: Something in the title, in the graphic, I was very intentional with the way the graphic was created.
Speaker: Something in there resonated with you, even if it like activated you or it piqued your curiosity.
Speaker: And I chose that very intentionally because when we think of this frequency, when we think of
Speaker: Christ consciousness, when we think of Christ-like, Christos, anointed, chosen, when we think of all those things, we're all chosen.
Speaker: No matter what you believe, no matter what your faith is, no matter where you come from, no matter your borders, we're all chosen and we're all destined for greatness.
Speaker: I deeply do believe that.
Speaker: We all have a seed in us.
Speaker: I like to call it God's seed.
Speaker: You can call it the universe, source, creator, whatever it is to you to meet God.
Speaker: We all have a seed that God gives to us that we're here to multiply.
Speaker: That could be our talent.
Speaker: You could have one talent.
Speaker: You could have 13 talents.
Speaker: You could have, could be the Jill of all trades as like many of us here are.
Speaker: And we love that.
Speaker: Do something with it, right?
Speaker: Which is why we start businesses.
Speaker: Somewhere along the line of us sowing that seed, letting that seed bloom,
Speaker: Somewhere along the lines of us finding our place in this garden of business.
Speaker: There's a lot of garden metaphors coming through right now.
Speaker: Somewhere along the way of us finding our space in this beautiful God-given garden, we tend to come across weeds.
Speaker: I love dandelion tea.
Speaker: I love nettles.
Speaker: However, not every weed is a weed that you can actually consume.
Speaker: There's that too.
Speaker: And that has a purpose.
Speaker: I want to liken the weeds in your garden of business to being a lesson.
Speaker: It can be a lesson or it could be a blessing or it could be both.
Speaker: Some of the lessons could be lack of infrastructure, lack of sustainability for yourself, lack of energetic management, lack of capacity, and red flag clients.
Speaker: Lack of boundaries for yourself, which then leads into all the other parts.
Speaker: Lack of leadership, self and others.
Speaker: It's not just you and it's not just your clients or it's not just your team.
Speaker: We each bring our quotient of leadership to this table.
Speaker: Everything, each of these has a domino effect and it all operates in tandem.
Speaker: What most people, what I've witnessed from my personal experience and what I've learned from my own personal experience is sometimes we think one has to come before the other.
Speaker: doesn't.
Speaker: You are a beautiful flower that gets to bloom or beautiful whatever.
Speaker: Insert your favorite fruit tree, flower tree, bush, whatever.
Speaker: I don't care.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Whatever you are, you deserve to bloom.
Speaker: Or as one of my mentors told me, she was like, you're guac.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You're not fricking salsa and sour cream.
Speaker: Like you're guacamole.
Speaker: Like that shit's expensive.
Speaker: That is quality.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Like you are guacamole.
Speaker: You do not do
Speaker: whatever, like no name brand chips and whatever.
Speaker: There's nothing wrong with it.
Speaker: But she's like, you're an acquired taste.
Speaker: Guac is not for everyone.
Speaker: Avocado is not for everyone.
Speaker: We'll use the avocado.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Sustainability means different things to different people.
Speaker: For some people, sustainability means it's all the financial sustainability.
Speaker: So let's talk with that.
Speaker: For some people, sustainability means time sustainability.
Speaker: Do I have the time sustainability to do what I want to do?
Speaker: Then there's the physical sustainability or a capacity, right?
Speaker: Do I have the physical sustainability to keep running a high energy business or to keep working within a high energy business environment?
Speaker: So I want you to, if you're resonating with this, make a note to yourself, high energy business.
Speaker: Okay, like I want you to start tracking this.
Speaker: Then sustainability can also mean spaciousness.
Speaker: That's a value of sustainability.
Speaker: For me, that's what I've seen as the common denominators amongst the businesses that I have had the blessing and the fortune of working in behind the scenes, my own business, and any other person, any other client that I talk with.
Speaker: We do not start our businesses to be slaves to them.
Speaker: I know I didn't walk away from an ADR corporate doggy dog hedge fund role to be working over 80 hours, not even in my own business, but to be working that in client businesses.
Speaker: Client businesses, if you logically think about it, are a life path to your own business, right?
Speaker: Because when your client succeeds, you succeed.
Speaker: And when we win, they win.
Speaker: And when they win, we win.
Speaker: That's the dichotomy.
Speaker: That was the dichotomy that was explained to me early in leadership.
Speaker: But in business, we often, and I don't know, I don't see this the case in corporate, but I do see this the case in small business because business is human.
Speaker: We tend to over-function.
Speaker: If you're here, it's because you've resonated with all of the stuff that I've shared, very raw stuff.
Speaker: on Elixir, on Instagram, on Facebook, wherever.
Speaker: We sometimes over-function in our clients' businesses way more than we over-function or even minimally function at optimal, not minimally, optimally function in our own businesses, okay?
Speaker: Ever heard the saying, the shoemaker often has the worst shoes?
Speaker: Yeah, done-free service providers can be like that.
Speaker: At least until you start to have a team or like even one person.
Speaker: Or even if you're not there yet, at least until you intentionally start to carve out sustainable time chunks just for yourself.
Speaker: What I want to talk about with this dynamic is that at some point, what starts out as a garden is
Speaker: You might see a weed popping up here and there and you're like, oh, it's okay.
Speaker: Like, I'll take care of it.
Speaker: Oh, it's okay.
Speaker: I'll just, I'll do my bookkeeping at some point.
Speaker: Oh, it's okay.
Speaker: I'll just track my systems a different day.
Speaker: Oh, it's okay.
Speaker: I'll work on my content at some point.
Speaker: Oh, it's okay.
Speaker: I'll put my offers out at some point.
Speaker: Becomes this garden that's invested with weeds.
Speaker: And then it's either you prune out the weeds intentionally.
Speaker: Think of which ones you can harvest for use.
Speaker: as a lesson, and then prune out the rest as a very expensive mistake, or a very expensive lesson, because I actually don't believe that we make mistakes.
Speaker: It might feel like they're mistakes in the moment, but I actually don't think they're mistakes.
Speaker: They are all divine breadcrumbs or cosmic breadcrumbs, as I like to call them, on our path of becoming and finding out who we are actually meant to be.
Speaker: So for me, this path of sustainable business in my early days, circa 2016, 2017 actually, looked like literally Googling and YouTubing nine ways to Sunday, how to build a website on Squarespace, how to set up an email list, how to do this, how to do that.
Speaker: I did not have the money to hire a mentor at that point.
Speaker: And
Speaker: I was so curious that I was willing to go and freaking learn.
Speaker: I think curiosity is one of the most important traits you can ever have as a leader, as an entrepreneur, as a business owner.
Speaker: Because when you are curious, that guides the rest of your business.
Speaker: And then your team follows that curiosity.
Speaker: But that's a separate conversation.
Speaker: Today, we're just going to talk about these few things.
Speaker: Sustainability for me, as a woman of color, as a first generation immigrant to Canada, looked like overwork, hustle, no matter what.
Speaker: And I know that no matter where you're located, no matter where you come from, what your background is, I know that for a lot of women in here, that's the story.
Speaker: Then you take it a step further and then you add ethnicity and the diaspora to it.
Speaker: And that conditioning from that ethnic community to it.
Speaker: The conditioning and norms that we've grown up with in my house.
Speaker: If you were resting, you're lazy.
Speaker: Like my dad used to tell me, even when I was sick with a fever sometimes, if you can think, you can learn something.
Speaker: You're not watching TV because you have a fever.
Speaker: If your brain's still working, you can read a book or you can do your homework.
Speaker: And then you can go take a nap and have your meals or whatever.
Speaker: If you're not broken or on a stretcher, you can work.
Speaker: Like that was the conditioning that I grew up with.
Speaker: And then I mentioned in day one, when we first moved here to Canada at age 13, not even a year later, my parents went their separate ways.
Speaker: I'm not going to get into that, but to give you context of what I'm talking about, I grew up in a very high conflict, highly dysfunctional home.
Speaker: It looked picture perfect on the outside.
Speaker: On the inside, it was like Tom and Jerry.
Speaker: And then I was the piece of furniture.
Speaker: Collateral damage.
Speaker: How that worked out here in Canada was
Speaker: was at 14 when my dad left.
Speaker: That looked like me going to Tim Hortons and working at minimum wage.
Speaker: I was excited because I'm like, oh my God, I'm working in a cafe.
Speaker: It's like in those TV shows.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: I'm earning money.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Go to school, from school, take the bus, to Tim Hortons, come home late at night.
Speaker: My mom wasn't well at the time.
Speaker: My mom was sick.
Speaker: Take care of my mom.
Speaker: Essentially be the parent.
Speaker: I was the parent emotionally.
Speaker: And then I started to be the parent.
Speaker: At that age, at 14, the only things that I knew were, okay, we need money to survive.
Speaker: If we do not have money, we are going to be out on the streets.
Speaker: And my dad's gone.
Speaker: And there's over 100K that has been liquidated out of the accounts.
Speaker: That sowed the first seed of, it is not sustainable.
Speaker: Having that much money is not sustainable.
Speaker: If you have that much money, you're going to end up being just like him.
Speaker: So do not have that much money.
Speaker: You can go find money.
Speaker: And I wasn't a stranger to money.
Speaker: I always somehow found money.
Speaker: I don't know, people call me bougie bucks because I was born in December, very close to Christmas.
Speaker: But I always got the best of everything because I wasn't too close to Christmas, but I was far, just exactly 12 days away from Christmas.
Speaker: So literally the song 12 Days of Christmas was like a celebration for me growing up where people would gift me different things.
Speaker: So like some of my friends and family members, like my cousins would always be like, you have it, like you just get all these presents during December.
Speaker: And I'm like, I always somehow ended up finding myself in places, opportunities,
Speaker: whether it's monetary, non-monetary, like luxurious experiences.
Speaker: Like I wasn't a stranger to that life, to the life that we see people living online and fronting online.
Speaker: I wasn't a stranger to it.
Speaker: I lived in the helm of it.
Speaker: I grew up in the helm of it in Dubai.
Speaker: But on the backside of that, on the backside of that glitterati mirage, I saw a very ugly side to people and things.
Speaker: And
Speaker: dynamics.
Speaker: So at a young age, I understood my brain started to equate.
Speaker: If you need anything sustainable, you got to over hustle your ass off for it.
Speaker: You got to be a horrible person to be rich.
Speaker: And you got to talk.
Speaker: You got to the ones in power are the ones that are
Speaker: rude or the ones that are whatever the toxic paradigm was at that time.
Speaker: And at a very young age, because of my upbringing, I started to pay attention to these things, to tonality, to vocal cadence, to leadership, to how do you act?
Speaker: How do you carry yourself?
Speaker: How are you treating your team?
Speaker: So when I was 14 at Tim Hortons, it was no stranger that I found myself advocating for the shit at 14.
Speaker: I was one of the few younger kids like working there.
Speaker: Very quickly found myself working as a supervisor and like I didn't really care to supervise.
Speaker: I just cared to be there and hold space.
Speaker: And a lot of times the people I was holding space for were
Speaker: Immigrant women coming from homes, like wherever, whatever their situation was, Tim Hortons was like an escape for them, a way of freedom, a way of sustainability, a way of having their own money that they don't have to ask their husband, that they don't have to depend on from their family.
Speaker: It was a means of independence.
Speaker: And I know that no matter what your culture is, no matter what your skin tone is, no matter where you come from, I know that this lands at a visceral level.
Speaker: Because think about it as a collective, as women, it's not been that long since we first got our rights.
Speaker: And then since we're first allowed to own credit cards.
Speaker: And then add to the fact, I was raised by a single mom.
Speaker: Like a lot of you in here, like some of your single moms, some of your sole breadwinners, like or have had to be.
Speaker: And that pressure is real.
Speaker: That pressure is real.
Speaker: So for me, witnessing that pressure with my mom, another piece of sustainability that was woven into my psyche was, if we feel this pressure, we cannot show it.
Speaker: We need to be calm as a duck above water.
Speaker: Meanwhile, on the inside, we're like panicking.
Speaker: So your hormone levels, your cortisol levels are going up, down, up, down.
Speaker: I would like to think that is where my PCOS probably started.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Because that was just around the time of puberty for me.
Speaker: So all of these things happening, your environment, my home environment wasn't sustainable.
Speaker: And life happened.
Speaker: I moved on.
Speaker: But I went into the pattern of survival.
Speaker: And I think it is only this last quarter that my body broke that loop of survival, finally.
Speaker: Up until this quarter, 14-year-old Tanya was running the show.
Speaker: 14-year-old me was running the show in corporate leadership, in leadership when I was a team leader at university, managing people, like over 200 employees.
Speaker: And a lot of them, some of them were graduate students and master's students and people that had families.
Speaker: And there I was like a young, like 20-something.
Speaker: I was 21 at the time.
Speaker: And one of the things, even in corporate hedge funds, no matter where, the golden thread always was this.
Speaker: And this was even on my reviews.
Speaker: She's calm under pressure.
Speaker: She's very good at conflict resolution.
Speaker: So we need her in the room for conflict resolution.
Speaker: She can de-escalate situations.
Speaker: I've been in rooms where I had no business being.
Speaker: I did not go to school for finance.
Speaker: Okay, like I now have a business.
Speaker: That's a whole separate story, but I don't have an MBA.
Speaker: I don't have a business degree.
Speaker: I don't have a tech degree.
Speaker: I just have a very curious, renegade, freedom-driven heart.
Speaker: I always looked at my parents and the way that they operated in Dubai.
Speaker: I barely saw my parents growing up.
Speaker: I think I remember just one year that I saw my parents, and that was the year before we moved to Canada.
Speaker: And their employers decided to reward them with a schedule that's a decent 9 to 5 as opposed to a 9 a.m.
Speaker: to 9 p.m.
Speaker: So for me, every time I saw them doing that, I was like, I don't want to be suit people.
Speaker: I don't want to be office people, whatever that is.
Speaker: I don't want that.
Speaker: I would like to have time with my child when I do have a family.
Speaker: If I have a family, I would like to have time to myself, lots of alone time.
Speaker: And I continue to follow that trajectory.
Speaker: But up until this quarter,
Speaker: And I know I alluded to, I shared in detail about it in the first day.
Speaker: Up until my miscarriage, my life was not sustainable.
Speaker: My business was not sustainable in a systemic way, in many ways, actually, because I was not sustainable.
Speaker: My life had no room for life.
Speaker: My life had room for my business.
Speaker: My life had room for my clients' businesses.
Speaker: Heck, my schedule revolved around my clients' business schedules in general.
Speaker: And then I would see, where can I fit my son in this?
Speaker: Where can I fit doing the normal human things that we're supposed to do, the responsibilities?
Speaker: Until I miscarried and it hit me like a freight train.
Speaker: And I was so angry in general.
Speaker: And I'm like, how did I get here?
Speaker: Why are we like this?
Speaker: Why do we do this to ourselves?
Speaker: Like, I get that entrepreneurship is wild and it's very stressful.
Speaker: There's no denying that.
Speaker: I am never going to love light and bypass that shit.
Speaker: Like, you don't get that stuff here, okay?
Speaker: Like, you get a lot of love.
Speaker: You get a lot of divine light here.
Speaker: And you get a lot of real white hot truth.
Speaker: It is stressful.
Speaker: Anyone that is telling you that building a business is rose baths and champagne bubbles and, I don't know, frolicking around in fields of roses is shitting you.
Speaker: Okay, they're bullshitting you.
Speaker: It's either that they have spent whatever amount of years that it took them building a brand,
Speaker: building a community, not audience, I hate the word audience, building a community that resonates with them, refining their craft and being so fucking good at it that your business is growing with word of mouth referrals.
Speaker: And then they either have one person or a team that is hustling in the fucking masculine on their behalf.
Speaker: Meanwhile, they're preaching feminine business.
Speaker: And I know that is the revolution that the industry is going through right now.
Speaker: The industry is not going anywhere.
Speaker: Mentorship, online business, coaching, whatever you want to call it, entrepreneurship saved my life.
Speaker: I will call it entrepreneurship.
Speaker: In this space, it's not mentorship.
Speaker: I believe in mentorship.
Speaker: It saved my life.
Speaker: It brought me home to myself.
Speaker: It helped me heal my relationship with money.
Speaker: It did so many things.
Speaker: It led me to my team and lifelong friends like Colleen and June.
Speaker: And there's so many of you wonderful people I've met here over the years.
Speaker: It has, but it's a long road.
Speaker: I've been in this space since 2017.
Speaker: A lot of us, some of you here at Dunfew Service Providers, you've been in this space since 2017, 2018.
Speaker: I remember some of you guys.
Speaker: I remember witnessing your journeys.
Speaker: And that's okay.
Speaker: It's okay for it to take however long it takes.
Speaker: And I think that's the part that I want to drive home here.
Speaker: Because sustainability doesn't go hand in hand with speed.
Speaker: Sustainability goes with momentum.
Speaker: And momentum does not mean speed.
Speaker: Momentum means there is a steadiness that is vibrating in you.
Speaker: At such a deep anchored level, you will feel it in your diaphragm.
Speaker: You will feel it in your root.
Speaker: Your root will be so anchored that you're not breathing, talking, singing from your head voice.
Speaker: Your root is anchored because as long as you're anchored, you can then stretch high.
Speaker: You can then expand.
Speaker: But if you are not anchored, if your business is not anchored, it doesn't matter.
Speaker: It doesn't matter how much your clients are willing to pay you.
Speaker: It doesn't matter how many clients you have.
Speaker: You can't hold them.
Speaker: I was listening to a sermon driving today and it was called Multiply.
Speaker: I love the whole sermon.
Speaker: I'm not going to drone into that.
Speaker: But one of the key points in there was if you can't master the little, if you cannot celebrate the little, if you cannot sow and harvest the little, you ain't going to get the much.
Speaker: You're not going to get the much.
Speaker: And I have no shame in admitting that last year, at the beginning of last year, I started, I share about it in episode one of the podcast, go listen to it at some point.
Speaker: But last year, I started off 2022 with just over 200, 220 something thousand in contracted sales.
Speaker: Three of them were clients that were current clients that re-signed at higher rates.
Speaker: Plus, I signed about five, five-ish, five and then counting.
Speaker: So five and counting, new clients at higher packages.
Speaker: And then on December 31st, I decided I shouldn't have, but we chased the metric.
Speaker: We chased the glitter.
Speaker: We chased the smoke and mirrors.
Speaker: And I was still enamored in all of that.
Speaker: And I desired for such deep acceptance to be seen, to be accepted in the cool girls club, because we're back to high school politics in this space.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I started the year with that and I was like, oh my gosh, we're good.
Speaker: Like we, holy shit.
Speaker: Like I doubled what my first year of business was like first incorporated year of business was.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: And now we get to build and build.
Speaker: Guess what?
Speaker: God had other plans.
Speaker: God had other plans.
Speaker: He was like, you ain't prepared for this child.
Speaker: You ain't prepared for this.
Speaker: With what systems?
Speaker: With what spaciousness in your life?
Speaker: With what discipline in your daily schedule?
Speaker: With what team that is aligned?
Speaker: I didn't really have an aligned team at that point.
Speaker: I was starting to call in some people, but with what aligned leadership?
Speaker: I have no qualms calling myself out on that.
Speaker: I wanted the God-sized vision that's in me, that Colleen knows, that June knows, that the entire team knows, the vision that's unfolding now, a year later.
Speaker: I wanted that last year in January.
Speaker: And then I wanted it the year prior.
Speaker: I have wanted what I have now for two years, and I've tried to put it together and put it together.
Speaker: It's like you're jamming a puzzle piece in like part of the puzzle that doesn't fit.
Speaker: They're like, what's the problem?
Speaker: The problem's you, or in this case, problem's me.
Speaker: What's the problem?
Speaker: I signed on a red flag client.
Speaker: Many of you know this story.
Speaker: I've talked about it without getting into any detail, like whatever.
Speaker: It's over.
Speaker: It's dealt with.
Speaker: It was the biggest correction that God could have put in my life, on my life, for my life.
Speaker: It opened up the Pandora's box.
Speaker: That was my lack of sustainability because of my lack of boundaries, because of my lack of legal contracts, because of my lack of infrastructure, because of my lack and my inability to have a backbone when it comes to my leadership, period.
Speaker: See how this all like relates and it spirals and it's like vertical leadership and that alignment?
Speaker: No, I was there just giving it up horizontally.
Speaker: Hey, yeah, you want to come?
Speaker: I'll be your Tinder situationship.
Speaker: No problem.
Speaker: I was operating in tender situationship mode for a good part of my entrepreneurial life.
Speaker: And that mode only stopped over the last quarter.
Speaker: Calling myself out here.
Speaker: In pure line six fashion.
Speaker: Like these were my lessons to learn.
Speaker: Every business partnership, wherever there was a betrayal, every business
Speaker: partnership where things maybe didn't work out.
Speaker: It was never, I always like to tell myself, and I remember asking my mentors, and this was where I met June at the time in another mastermind I was a part of.
Speaker: And I remember them walking me through the situation.
Speaker: And I remember asking them, okay, I know I'm not crazy.
Speaker: Here's where I went wrong in this situation.
Speaker: What else is happening?
Speaker: And they're like, something's not working.
Speaker: It's either a broke, it's either your systems are broken.
Speaker: Or your leadership's broken.
Speaker: Or you just don't have a process for it yet.
Speaker: And I'm like, okay.
Speaker: I'm like, I know my leadership, but I think I just need to be more bolder with it, braver.
Speaker: I was scared.
Speaker: I felt like I was hiding from lifetimes and lifetimes.
Speaker: I did this dance, even when I was younger, of open, shine, and then go back in.
Speaker: Open, shine, and go back in.
Speaker: Because I had many instances of people, of clients feeling afraid.
Speaker: Oh, like, what if you outshine us?
Speaker: What if you take on more clients?
Speaker: Then you're not going to be available to us.
Speaker: Okay, point.
Speaker: But you're not paying us enough.
Speaker: You're not paying me enough, at least.
Speaker: How many of you resonate with that?
Speaker: where you are in relationships or because your pricing is your pricing, wherever you're at, you know that you've graduated out of those rooms.
Speaker: You know that you've graduated out of that pricing room.
Speaker: You know you've graduated from that skill room because you've grown.
Speaker: But the pot that you're in, the garden that you're in doesn't have more space for you to spread your wings and spread your leaves and blossom more.
Speaker: You are containing yourself.
Speaker: And then the resentment builds and then the anger builds and then mistakes happen or whatever.
Speaker: There's all this stuff.
Speaker: It's a domino effect.
Speaker: Bring it back to sustainability.
Speaker: So I want to segue from this because I've riffed on this a bit.
Speaker: In your business, I'm going to close my eyes as I say this, but in your business, think of your business as your business has these circles.
Speaker: There's your team, the circle of team.
Speaker: What is the sustainability in your team?
Speaker: Is everyone performing at their optimal capacity level?
Speaker: Not max capacity.
Speaker: We don't want people max capacity.
Speaker: Because that's where mistakes happen.
Speaker: That's where burnout happens.
Speaker: That's where the simplest of things like, oh, there's a wrong link attached.
Speaker: It's very human.
Speaker: But that's where those types of errors happen.
Speaker: Is your team operating in optimal capacity or mastery?
Speaker: Yes or no?
Speaker: Are you as the leader operating in optimal capacity in your personal life, in your business, in your creativity?
Speaker: Because you as the business owner are the creative driving force in your business, not your team, not your mentor.
Speaker: You, the CEO, you, the chief executive officer, chief energy officer, chief embodiment officer.
Speaker: Okay, chief visionary officer.
Speaker: You are the conductor.
Speaker: You are the plant.
Speaker: You are the seed.
Speaker: You are the thing that is blooming.
Speaker: And as you continue to bloom, the leaves are going to bloom.
Speaker: The branches are going to grow.
Speaker: In some cases, you might have to cut out decayed branches and it's going to fucking suck.
Speaker: That's called an ego death.
Speaker: That's what I went through last year.
Speaker: I actually thought I was going to go through a literal death trigger warning.
Speaker: And there was that.
Speaker: I was on watch for two months.
Speaker: but it was an ego death.
Speaker: It was an identity death.
Speaker: It was a mourning of the ways in which you feel you can't show up in your power as a service provider.
Speaker: I'm going to use Colleen as an example.
Speaker: I met Colleen last year around this time and we talked and I remember meeting her.
Speaker: I was so broken when I met her.
Speaker: I felt like this little girl when I met her and I was talking to her about what was happening in my life.
Speaker: And then over the year, we got to know each other.
Speaker: And then
Speaker: I don't even know.
Speaker: I think it was over the last quarter.
Speaker: It was on the heels of my miscarriage.
Speaker: I was like, Colleen, who does your branding?
Speaker: Who does your graphics?
Speaker: She's like, I do.
Speaker: And I'm like, what?
Speaker: I'm like, since when?
Speaker: I'm like, what do you mean?
Speaker: Tell me more.
Speaker: Because I was on the hunt for my people.
Speaker: I have cultivated and I've been blessed to cultivate incredible friendships like with Janet, who's in this group with other incredible service providers and designers and leaders.
Speaker: And when I met Colleen last year, like I would see her stuff and I'm like, I really love her emails.
Speaker: I really love the way she puts it out there.
Speaker: Like it is exactly like how my brain thinks.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I need to know this woman.
Speaker: I don't know when it'll come organically, but I need to know this woman.
Speaker: And I put the intention out there on the heels of my miscarriage when I was at home and whatever.
Speaker: I'm like, can you send me an email of everything you do?
Speaker: I just want to know.
Speaker: I want to know.
Speaker: And she does.
Speaker: And when I read that, I had tears in my eyes.
Speaker: I literally had tears in my eyes because I was like, oh my God.
Speaker: I'm like, I want her.
Speaker: I want her wisdom.
Speaker: I want to learn with this woman and I want to grow and I want to help her grow.
Speaker: And there's just so much wisdom.
Speaker: Holy shit.
Speaker: She is this, she was this marketing leader, C-level leader in freaking corporate.
Speaker: And here we are in entrepreneurship.
Speaker: We're like,
Speaker: me like playing small and like little girl energy and like what's happening I was like no like you're this powerhouse that's how I see you and I was like you're in I'm like I don't know how I'm gonna like I don't even know where I genuinely do not have the physical capital right now but it'll come full transparency because we're rebuilding we're true building as I like to call it because you're building from the essence of your soul and I was like but I'm like I know that I want people in here
Speaker: alongside me where we grow, we're growing horizontally and our leadership is so vertically aligned within each of ourselves that we then come to form this beautiful, like grassroots level, equal power, but like such beautiful creativity and unique geniuses that come together.
Speaker: And I was like, I want you on my side.
Speaker: I'm like, I don't even know where this journey is going to go, but I'm like, we're, that's it.
Speaker: We're in it for life.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: It's like when you come back into that alignment of sustainability, like her own business and brand business and web design business, like it just, she was like, wait, I've done this my whole life.
Speaker: And she returned to her roots.
Speaker: Sustainability is returning to your roots, right?
Speaker: So in those circles, in your team circle, where do you need to return to your roots in team?
Speaker: Sometimes you don't need a big team.
Speaker: Sometimes you need a team of one to two specialists, not generalists, specialists.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: Or sometimes you need access to one person that has a team that is damn good at what they do.
Speaker: In your home circle or your whatever, personal circle, where can you go back to your roots?
Speaker: Who were you before you took on all of this stuff?
Speaker: shit show.
Speaker: I like to remember the six-year-old version of me that was having a semi-Maryland Monroe-ish moment, but in a cotton pink and white dress with a ruler in my hand as a mic.
Speaker: It's that picture of me, like, I don't even know who took it.
Speaker: It was, like, it's a very dated picture.
Speaker: It was 1994.
Speaker: I was six years old.
Speaker: I like to go back to that time because that was the time I would make my parents sit down in my little chairs and I would tell them you're going to listen to me and I'm going to teach and I would talk to them and sing to them and do the things and now when I look back I'm doing those things now.
Speaker: I like to go back to that happy version.
Speaker: Or the version of me like visiting my grandma or like the version of me on the beach in Dubai.
Speaker: Who are you before you take on the shit storm, the energetic puke fest, as I like to call it, of anyone, whether it is life, whether it is team, whether it is clients, whether it is, and it could be projections, limitations, whatever, but what are you letting inside your head and your heart?
Speaker: Who are you letting inside your house, in your team?
Speaker: Who are you letting inside your business as your clients?
Speaker: Because all that has an impact on your sustainability quotient.
Speaker: Who are you letting inside your creativity?
Speaker: What are you taking in?
Speaker: If you're consuming, you're not creative.
Speaker: It's okay to consume.
Speaker: There's nothing wrong with it.
Speaker: We're marketers, we're creatives.
Speaker: We want to research.
Speaker: We want to celebrate.
Speaker: But at some point, if you want to come back to artistry, if you want to come back to your soul's innovation and your soul essence, you got to have the blinders on.
Speaker: You have to have to have the blinders on and you have to
Speaker: cultivate intentional time to create for yourself.
Speaker: You do not create for your clients because you want to attract clients.
Speaker: You do not create for others.
Speaker: And that is a very like contradictory advice.
Speaker: In most places you'll hear, oh, create, write captions because you want to attract X, Y, and Z client.
Speaker: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And I believe that when you start creating for yourself in your programs,
Speaker: in your messaging, in your branding, when you start creating from this part of you, that's the idea is there.
Speaker: The seed is there.
Speaker: The seed has been planted in you because universally, consciously, from a consciousness perspective, that already exists.
Speaker: There's people that are wanting that.
Speaker: That's how that seed is in you.
Speaker: And you're the one that's meant to bring it to life and to harvest it.
Speaker: And you're the only one that can do it the way you do.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: What's your creative potion?
Speaker: How do you sustain your creativity?
Speaker: Do you take creative sabbaticals?
Speaker: Do you only focus on your creativity first thing and then jump into client work?
Speaker: I think that's so important as a done for you service provider.
Speaker: Because that also leads into your expression.
Speaker: Because when you are expressing, we're always marketing.
Speaker: I don't care.
Speaker: I don't have to be on social to be marketing.
Speaker: We're always marketing.
Speaker: We're walking, talking, billboard advertisement.
Speaker: Because it's your frequency that markets.
Speaker: It's your energy that markets.
Speaker: It's your presence that markets.
Speaker: It's your leadership that markets.
Speaker: Your kindness, your speech, your cadence, your thoughts, your words.
Speaker: You're any pretty graphics.
Speaker: I'm like, I'm a little partial to it because we're a branding and design firm and like, we're all like aesthetically driven, but we're only building our website now, four years in.
Speaker: Now that I have the beautiful team, like the aligned team, now that I have clarity and I've come back to my own roots and God's mission, couldn't build it before.
Speaker: I couldn't architect this house before because it wasn't my time.
Speaker: If you're here in this room, you are a pioneer.
Speaker: If you're here in this room, it's because revival is here for you.
Speaker: We're in a season of restoration.
Speaker: The last two years, and I'm going to touch on this briefly, but the last two years,
Speaker: The online space, especially the coaching industry, the last two years, it saw a boom.
Speaker: It saw a let's just shoot in the barrel and we're going to have our nets full of fish.
Speaker: It had that moment from 2020 till now, give or take.
Speaker: Because a lot of people were home.
Speaker: A lot of people, they wanted connection.
Speaker: So of course, the online coaching space was booming because we're all adapting to the times.
Speaker: What's happened is in that time, there's been a lot of people that have shot up super quick.
Speaker: They can't sustain.
Speaker: They can't sustain because they have little to no business acumen.
Speaker: They can't sustain because either they don't want to hire the specialists that have that acumen or they don't want to pay.
Speaker: That's a whole separate conversation.
Speaker: We're not going to get into that today.
Speaker: We're going to get into that tomorrow.
Speaker: They can't sustain because whatever newfound bounty has happened, the dialogue has been in this industry, not one of sustainability.
Speaker: The dialogue has been invest in mentorship.
Speaker: Because when you invest, ooh, I'm going to catch like a automatic effect of, I don't know, by osmosis, it's all going to happen.
Speaker: It doesn't work that way.
Speaker: You got to respect your nervous system, which is a huge part of sustainability.
Speaker: And truthfully, there's no shame in getting a damn job.
Speaker: I'm still applying for jobs.
Speaker: I have no qualms in admitting that here.
Speaker: I'm very open about it.
Speaker: I'm applying for jobs in my field as a creative director, as a copywriter, as a consultant.
Speaker: Whether it's with corporate, whether it's with eight-figure entrepreneur brands,
Speaker: It doesn't matter.
Speaker: Because part of entrepreneurship and part of sustainability is you putting yourself out there.
Speaker: So in that visibility quotient, how is your visibility sustained?
Speaker: Is your visibility sustainable?
Speaker: That's another rhetorical question.
Speaker: You don't have to be turning monkey tricks and being like, I'm not going to tell you to go Gary V style and be like seven pieces of content, 15 reels, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: That's great.
Speaker: And I get that there's a method to that madness.
Speaker: But can you be very intentional with your visibility quotient?
Speaker: What are the needle moving activities?
Speaker: I have been asked a really good friend of mine and she was a past team member when I first started out, like when I had my old brand, she helped me like put my systems in place.
Speaker: Then she asked me, you always have new clients.
Speaker: How is that?
Speaker: I like never see you post.
Speaker: I never see you go in stories.
Speaker: I very intentionally, many of you who are following me, like some of you are new to me over the last quarter, I have been very intentional with how I've been showing up online.
Speaker: I've actually been showing up online way more than
Speaker: Then I want to show up.
Speaker: And that's because I rekindled my love for social media.
Speaker: I loved social media as a kid.
Speaker: I was, we're that generation, right?
Speaker: Like we had MSN and stuff back when we were 12 and 13, totally giving away my age here.
Speaker: Like I was that kid that got our first computer at 13.
Speaker: I had a blog when Blogspot was a thing, when MSN Blogs was a thing.
Speaker: And I loved that.
Speaker: And then people told me, why are you putting your life out for the world to see?
Speaker: Who's going to benefit from that?
Speaker: So I hit my expression.
Speaker: On and off that dance continued until I, of course, found myself wanting to do it again, naturally, expressively.
Speaker: And I came back to that joy.
Speaker: I came back to that pure joy.
Speaker: What would happen if I approached social media as a relationship?
Speaker: I'm putting out what I want to see.
Speaker: As a result, my feed reflects that.
Speaker: The conversations in my DM reflect that.
Speaker: My expression reflects that.
Speaker: When everyone's here worrying about the visibility and algorithm equation, you are the algorithm.
Speaker: You genuinely are the algorithm.
Speaker: And then of course, like business acumen, go watch the updates that the founder of Instagram does.
Speaker: That's basic business acumen.
Speaker: How are you not going to go refine your damn skills?
Speaker: I don't understand that.
Speaker: I do not understand that.
Speaker: I never have.
Speaker: You always need to be learning.
Speaker: I don't care how you learn.
Speaker: It doesn't matter.
Speaker: It doesn't have to be an expensive certification.
Speaker: I think certifications do matter depending on what it is that you're doing and stuff.
Speaker: But for a lot of stuff like having a growth mindset, a learning mindset, cultivate that.
Speaker: Over the last quarter, I very intentionally was like, okay, I love stories.
Speaker: I'm going to continue to show up in my stories as much as I can.
Speaker: I'm going to be intentional with what I post.
Speaker: I always am.
Speaker: And I've trained my community to expect that from me.
Speaker: Because you're also building that trust.
Speaker: So can you do that?
Speaker: Have I expressed myself once today?
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Okay, done.
Speaker: Basic income producing activities.
Speaker: And then even if you provide done few services for another business owner, you are not responsible for their sales unless you are a sales setter.
Speaker: You are not responsible for that.
Speaker: Okay, like this is coming tomorrow.
Speaker: The deeper part is coming tomorrow.
Speaker: Your emotional sustainability.
Speaker: How are you in situations when there's refunds?
Speaker: How are you in situations when a client is literally yelling at you?
Speaker: I've had that happen.
Speaker: I've had that happen even outside of business.
Speaker: How are you in situations where it's toxic, where you're literally having PTSD flashbacks of, are they really on my side?
Speaker: Are they actually rooting for me?
Speaker: Or are they only looking at what's in it for them?
Speaker: I've had those situations too in the past.
Speaker: Who are you with these things?
Speaker: Where's your sustainability cup for each of these?
Speaker: Is it empty?
Speaker: Is it half full?
Speaker: Is it full?
Speaker: Examine that.
Speaker: That's homework from the first part.
Speaker: The second part of today is emotional intelligence.
Speaker: And I don't need to drone on and on about it.
Speaker: I will go on about it in more detail tomorrow.
Speaker: But I put this in God-leds promo.
Speaker: I was like, do you even EQ, bro?
Speaker: Do you actually EQ?
Speaker: Or is it just a cool coaching accessory?
Speaker: Do you actually EQ with your team, with yourself, with your clients?
Speaker: Because that is a problem.
Speaker: That is an epidemic that's happening.
Speaker: And not just here, like it's happened outside.
Speaker: But then we started the business so we don't have to deal with that shit from corporate.
Speaker: But then we bring the corporate stuff into business.
Speaker: I don't know why we do that.
Speaker: It's probably because our psyches don't know any better.
Speaker: We're repeating the loops that we had.
Speaker: But once you know better, do better.
Speaker: That feels like really complete for today.
Speaker: Like it's just all about sustainability.
Speaker: Because I think that was a very important portion of God-led business.
Speaker: It is sustainability.
Speaker: it is that.
Speaker: Yeah, I resonate very much.
Speaker: And again, I feel very strongly that there is a corporate hangover when you come into entrepreneurship.
Speaker: So no matter if it's a year, I would say the real reality is I'm almost a year out and I feel like I'm
Speaker: just getting over that.
Speaker: However, my perspective, and again, with a growth mindset is how can I take the best practices that I learned in corporate, the emotional intelligence that I learn and how I desire to be seen by my clients as an equal.
Speaker: And I act as her because I am her.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that's, that is, is standing in my power.
Speaker: But at the same time, I do desire to be very clear to my clients how I work.
Speaker: And also looking at scrapping toxic business practices if they don't serve me, for example, website done in a day or three day website.
Speaker: I'm like, I would rather not, I want to make art.
Speaker: I want to do a good job and I'm not here for rushing.
Speaker: So I think we can set the standard for who we are and how we desire to go forward in a new way of creating a new paradigm in business.
Speaker: But I think the truth that we do need to communicate that and be very clear at the outset, be clear on our socials, be clear on our website, be clear in our contracts of what we need.
Speaker: desire and how we work and we will draw in the clients that resonate with that and that's who I want to work with so I will be choosy
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: I think I, and I love that you said that because I think for a lot of us, when we start out like with business and stuff, like it feels like you can't be choosy or you can't be picky.
Speaker: And I remember when I first started out, like I started out as a photographer and a blogger in the space.
Speaker: Like I used to do like maternity photos, engagement, whatever, like those types of photos.
Speaker: And then I found my love for branding photography when I did a branding showcase, um,
Speaker: for a friend's studio.
Speaker: Anyway, long story short, this was like 2016.
Speaker: I was pregnant that year and I was doing my photography gigs at that point.
Speaker: And I had this person that hired me to do their bridal shower and they were amazing and they loved it.
Speaker: They booked me for a couple other bridal gigs that they had for their wedding.
Speaker: And then they referred me to someone
Speaker: Now, I don't know if they shared my pricing that I'd given to them as a friend with this other person that they referred me to.
Speaker: Maybe they did.
Speaker: I don't freaking know.
Speaker: But at that time, oh God, you guys are going to kill me.
Speaker: If anyone's a photographer in this room, you're going to kill me for charging this low.
Speaker: But I remember I would feel that lump in my throat.
Speaker: I was feeling it here when I was quoting.
Speaker: I was like, oh my God.
Speaker: I'll shoot your bridal shower $600 for a seven hour shoot.
Speaker: And I'll develop the album and, and, and it was like everything.
Speaker: Cause you just want to build traction and you want to get social proof.
Speaker: And like, you just want to get as many gigs under your belt as possible.
Speaker: And I remember it was this back and forth that continued.
Speaker: for a little over a few days.
Speaker: I was also pregnant at this time and it was a high risk pregnancy.
Speaker: So I just wanted to know, okay, are we working together or are we not?
Speaker: Cause then I can at least, if we're not, that's fine.
Speaker: I just need to know.
Speaker: And remember the person, it stung, what they told me stung.
Speaker: Now it won't sting as much.
Speaker: Now a no won't sting as much.
Speaker: because you develop the thick skin after doing this.
Speaker: But at that time, it was very much, I took it so personally, because I felt like it was an attack on my art.
Speaker: They were like, I would never pay 600 for photography.
Speaker: And I'm like, okay.
Speaker: And part of me wanted to beg.
Speaker: I think they wanted me to offer them whatever deal I'd given my friend, but I'd done that for my friend out of, I did that.
Speaker: She never asked me to do that.
Speaker: And I remember showing this message to my husband and he, and I'll end with this.
Speaker: I have something that I want to read to you and let you take that with you.
Speaker: But I remember my husband telling me this at that time.
Speaker: He was like, Kenya, there's many things in life that you have to fight about, fight for, hold and take a stance and be all armored up for.
Speaker: Your art should never be one of them.
Speaker: People will either see the artistry or not.
Speaker: They'll either value it or not, but you will never grovel for them to see the artistry.
Speaker: Your art should never be something that you have to fight for someone to see the value in.
Speaker: Your art is your art because your art is you and you are valuable.
Speaker: He doesn't say a lot of those things.
Speaker: He's a man of few words and we have our own relationship stuff that we work on and we've had our own hurdles and ups and downs and
Speaker: all the things that happen when you decide to go start a business and things start taking a toll on your marriage.
Speaker: But I always remember that advice from him.
Speaker: So that's where I want to leave you with today.
Speaker: I want you for a second to close your eyes because I want to read you a little.
Speaker: Something that I wrote last year when I was going through my revolution, as I like to call it,
Speaker: And this carried me through throughout last year.
Speaker: Somewhere along the way, we thought that it is easier to shove our truth back into our bodies and to repress it.
Speaker: Somewhere along the way, we thought we needed to hide who we are instead of allowing our truth to flow through us so we can feel it.
Speaker: Somewhere along the way, we thought it is safer to blend into the background.
Speaker: It is safer to play second fiddle.
Speaker: It is safer to let our creativity and our art become modified over and over again until we have none of it left.
Speaker: It is easier for our life force to be drained out of us, slowly, drop by drop, until there's nothing left.
Speaker: Instead of fueling ourselves, fueling our souls and honoring ourselves first.
Speaker: Let your body lead always.
Speaker: Let God lead your way always.
Speaker: Let divinity lead your footsteps always.
Speaker: And when it feels heavy,
Speaker: Ask yourself where.
Speaker: Where does it feel constricting?
Speaker: Who do you contract around?
Speaker: Where do you shrink?
Speaker: And where do you come alive with possibility and expansion?
Speaker: Because as you continue to evolve, as you continue to grow and journey through life, as you continue to tap into your power, tap into your voice, some people will like it.
Speaker: Some people will think it's too much.
Speaker: Some people will think you are too aggressive.
Speaker: Some will think that you are too scary and confusing.
Speaker: Some will admire you from a distance.
Speaker: as they continue to gather their own courage to come out of the hiding, come out of their caves.
Speaker: And others will hurl insults your way, perhaps even parnish your name in broad daylight, painting you with the scarlet letters and accusations
Speaker: Some will take pitchforks and knives and some will burn you right at the stake for speaking your truth.
Speaker: For standing in who you are and who God created you to be.
Speaker: For being the very harbinger of divine truth that floats in you because you are part of the cosmos and you are part of earth, ether and all of the elements together.
Speaker: Some will think you are un-reasonable, be un-reasonable.
Speaker: Push the edge.
Speaker: Lean into the deep abyss of your power.
Speaker: Let others talk and think whatever they want.
Speaker: But never for the sake of your sacred self-expression, for your God-given gift and calling, for the seed that has been planted in you.
Speaker: Dim your voice, your truth, your creativity, your expansion for anyone, including that version of you that still wants to hide.
Speaker: You are a leader of truth.
Speaker: Be unfucking reasonable.
Speaker: Your desires don't understand logic.
Speaker: They are birthed through embodiment.
Speaker: They are birthed through a dark void.
Speaker: They are birthed when you have the courage to burn it all down and birth a revolution, a movement.
Speaker: Let your body lead your movement.
Speaker: Let God lead your movement.
Speaker: Be unfucking reasonable because your revolution will not be for everyone.
Speaker: Your evolution is not for everyone.
Speaker: And be okay with that because where you are going, everyone cannot go.
Speaker: You cannot soar and rise when you're always looking back.
Speaker: Have reverence for what has passed.
Speaker: There is a final closure coming in place.
Speaker: There is a restoration taking place after the reformation of the last year, after the reformation of the last lifetime.
Speaker: Reverence the lessons it has given you.
Speaker: Soar forward with gratitude, God-led leadership, and a deep rumbling sense of purpose and confidence.
Speaker: I love you all.
Speaker: How are you feeling?
Speaker: Like I wanted that to hit your bones.
Speaker: I wanted that to hit every part of you that thinks you don't have a place at the table, that thinks you need to be behind the stage, like Wizard of Oz, orchestrating everything for everyone in their business.
Speaker: But you too are a leader.
Speaker: You have just as much of a right.
Speaker: You belong.
Speaker: You know about business.
Speaker: You know about business a lot more actually than
Speaker: than a lot of the mentors out there.
Speaker: They wouldn't be able to do what they do without you doing what you do.
Speaker: It is an ecosystem where we all work together, where we all come together, where we all meet each other.
Speaker: It is not an us versus them.
Speaker: It was never a you versus them.
Speaker: It was always all of us moving together in lockstep, in love, in love.
Speaker: honesty and truth and deep reverence for each other's calling.
Speaker: So that culminates day two of God-led leadership.
Speaker: If this day resonated with you, send me a DM on elixirmedia.com.
Speaker: Invite a friend.
Speaker: It's a free resource.
Speaker: It'll be here for you.
Speaker: If you love more of this stuff, follow us on Instagram, elixiermedia.co, and then there's God Led the Movement, the actual handle in space.
Speaker: There's no conversation that's exempt from this table.
Speaker: All of it is welcome here.
Speaker: And I started with these pieces very intentionally because before we can talk DEI, before we can talk
Speaker: culture code and company culture before we can talk any of those things we gotta talk your story we gotta unearth your story unearth your roots return to your roots unearth sustainability what that looks like for you re-examine restructure that and then you can start charting the new way forward so i love you thank you for giving me your hours
Speaker: Thank you so much for tuning in and allowing us to inspire and infuse life and creativity into you.
Speaker: You've been listening to Elixir Radio, a podcast brought to you by Elixir Media Co.
Speaker: If you loved today's episode, please take a screenshot, share and tag us on Instagram at Elixir.
Speaker: elixirmedia.co.
Speaker: We'd love to hear from you.
Speaker: And then we'd really, really, really appreciate it if you could go show us some more love as you subscribe, rate, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts so that our message can be heard by more humans such as yourself.
Speaker: To stay connected with us, learn about the latest goods inside the Elixir party bus, and
Speaker: Send us a DM, follow us on the Instagram and the interwebs, or head over to elixiermedia.co and get connected with us.
Speaker: Until next week, stay conscious, stay fiery, and go express yourself as you are bold, unapologetic, and activated.
