The Unmistakable Creative Podcast

Getting a PHD in Street Smarts with Hillary Rubin

Hillary Rubin’s difficult childhood resulted in an incredible work ethic in which she started creating demand for herself at a very early age. Her need to survive gave her what she referred to as a PHD in street smarts.

Learning to let go of the imprints that hold us back
Saving yourself through forms of self expression
Focusing on the individual and connecting with people
A look at a career path that involved lots of running away
Why we must learn to forgive our past in order to heal
Plotting the experiences of your life on a timeline to see patterns
Looking at the language patterns that dictate your life
The difference between releasing and letting go
Not getting caught in the trap of the self help high
Why you must take responsibility for your life
Giving yourself space for failure and success
Taking ownership and learning to call yourself out
Creating a persona an image that could come back to hurt you
Core questions that determine whether or not you’re ego driven
Differentiating between reinvention and evolution
Looking at your body of work for the clues that reveal your work
Seeing every part of your life as progress

Hillary Rubin, spiritual life and career coach, creator of Breakthrough to Coaching Experience and The Art of Becoming a Coach training program, helps women around the world create lasting change to live a more soul-fulfilling life. She’s been featured in The Los Angeles Times, Yoga Journal and The Daily Worth.com and was named one of the top 25 Women Entrepreneurs to Love in 2012 and one of the top 50 Entrepreneurs to follow in 2013 on Twitter by SheOwnsIt.com.

Subscribe for ad-free interviews and bonus episodes https://plus.acast.com/s/the-unmistakable-creative-podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Duration:: 1h 22m
Broadcast on:: 23 Apr 2014
Audio Format:: other

As you probably noticed, this month we're bringing you our "Life of Purpose" series and revisiting some of our most transformative episodes, tune in to explore expert insights and practical strategies on help, performance, and community well-being, all aimed at helping you achieve personal and professional fulfillment. If you sign up for the newsletter, you'll not only get recaps of the key ideas in each interview, but at the end of the series, you'll receive our free "Life of Purpose" ebook. What you have to do is go to unmistakablecreative.com/lifepurpose. I'm Srini Rao, and this is the Unmistakable Creative Podcast, where I speak with creative entrepreneurs, artists, and other insanely interesting people to hear their stories, learn about their molding moments, tipping points, and spectacular takeoffs. Ah, not quite. What's up? Ah, sell my car in Carvana. It's just not quite the right time. Crazy coincidence. I just sold my car to Carvana. What? I told you about it two days ago. When you know, you know. You know? I'm even dropping it off at one of those sweet car vending machines and getting paid today. That's a good deal. Oh, great deal. Come on. What's that saying? You're right. When you know? You know. Sold. Whether you're looking to sell your car right now or just whenever feels right, go to Carvana.com and sell your car the convenient way. Terms and conditions apply. Explaining football to the friend who's just there for the nachos, hard, tailgating from home like a pro with snacks and drinks everyone will love, any easy win. And with Instacart helping deliver the snack time MVPs to your door, you're ready for the game in as fast as 30 minutes, so you never miss a play or lose your seat on the couch or have to go head to head for the last chicken wing. Shop game day faves on Instacart and enjoy zero dollar delivery fees on your first three gross reorders. Offer valid for a limited time, other fees and terms apply. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big row as man, then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friend still laughing me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get a hundred dollar credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com/results to claim your credit, that's linkedin.com/results. Terms and conditions apply, linkedin, the place to be, to be. Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. With the price of just about everything going up during inflation, we thought we'd bring our prices down. So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a thing. Mint Mobile unlimited, premium wireless, have it to get 30-30, get 30, get 30, get 20-20, get 20-20, get 20-20, get 15-15, 15-15, just 15 bucks a month. So, give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch. $45 up from payment equivalent to $15 per month, new customers on first three month plan only, taxes and fees extra, speeds lower above 40 gigabytes of detail. 1800flowers.com knows that a gift is never just a gift. A gift is an expression of everything you feel and helps build more meaningful relationships. 1800flowers takes the pressure off by helping you navigate life's important moments by making it simple to find the perfect gift. From flowers and cookies to cake and chocolate, 1800flowers helps guide you in finding the right gift to say how you feel. To learn more, visit 1800flowers.com/acast. That's 1800flowers.com/acast. Getting engaged can be stressful. Getting the right ring won't be at bluenile.com. The jewelers at bluenile.com have sparkled down to a science with beautiful lab-grown diamonds worthy of your most brilliant moments. Their lab-grown diamonds are independently graded and guaranteed identical to natural diamonds and ready to ship to your door. Get $50 off your purchase of $500 or more with Code Listen at BlueNile.com. That's bluenile.com code Listen for $50 off. Hilary Rubin's difficult childhood resulted in an incredible work ethic in which she started creating demand for herself at a very early age. Her need to survive gave her what she referred to as a PhD in street smarts, listening as we discuss her incredible journey from stealing food to making six figures. Hilary, welcome to the unmistakable creative. I'm really excited. I'm so happy to be here. Yeah. We're thrilled to have you. I mean, you and I connected by way of our mutual friend, Melissa Casaro, who is truly masterful at somehow getting guests on this show. For those of you guys who always ask, how do you get on the show, talk to Melissa? She may be able to help. I want to ask you my first question, which is tell us a bit about yourself, your background, your story, and how that has led you to doing the work that you do today. Well, it's a very wide question, so I want to keep it as succinct as I can. Well, my story, it starts off from the beginning. I feel like the hard part of my life had to start in the beginning. I was adopted. Right away, out of the womb and all of that, I was imprinted with my own abandonment issues and not fitting in and just rough stuff and not even realizing that and had to over years really face that as an entrepreneur and also in the work that I did. My life was supposed to be the perfect Jewish upbringing and it wasn't. I was adopted. I was picked because I fit. My parents waited seven years to adopt me so I could match my brother, so it was very much a product of the 70s of people did it want to know. You didn't want people to know your kids were adopted then. It's very different than now. My life, instead of it was meant and was on a track of me going to private school and having money and whatever that means, being the middle, upper, middle class, and basically I would have grown up going to private school, meaning like sent away to private school during the year and then summers overnight camp so that my parents weren't really like I was just basically a purchase thing, like a suit, so that was kind of what my life was supposed to be. You know, whatever, whether I was supposed to become a lawyer, like my father or what have you, but things changed. My parents got divorced at five and that's when everything got really rough and tumble and my brother, when he came back to us, I was abused physically and emotionally and he was in drugs and so there was a lot of neglect. My mother worked a bunch of jobs just to scrape by so we went from a big house to a two bedroom apartment and I slept in bed with my mom. That's happened through elementary school, junior high school and high school, I had a lot of that so there was just really moments of how my life was and very quickly I had to learn how to create some kind of persona and image to be something that I wasn't, which bit me in the butt many years later and so I had to survive. My life was based on survival all the time and the interesting thing is, I always saw the good in things. I don't know, it just was instilled in me and it was like okay, I could always see there was something good and so I had contrast because I had family members that would come and take me away when I was abused, it was like oh, this is how life's supposed to be, somebody makes dinner, I'm not eating junk food and stuff and so there was just many years as things went on and my mother got remarried, divorced, all that stuff. My brothers were drug dealers so that was my first exposure to entrepreneurialism and I just really knew that I had to find another way, so how I found safety was in a refrigerator box in Philadelphia is where I grew up and when people threw away the boxes for refrigerators, the first kids to get their hands on it, it was like you got gold, so I remember outside of the house that we were in, it was row homes, there was this box that I was in and I brought all my crayons and my pillows and I created this little like getaway for myself, so it was through art and photography and self-expression which really saved me, which then later on I worked very early on whatever jobs I worked at trade shows, selling jewelry, setting up the sets, like the booths for my aunt because she was, that's what she did is she sold jewelry so that was like my second phase into seeing someone, like it was like seeing a woman work for herself because I didn't have a lot of positive role models and I was very hungry for it, so that was the, and I'm realizing that now as I'm telling you because I've never shared this before is I saw that she worked for herself and she taught me a lot of things like always have good relationships with people, know things about their family, like really teaching me to be focused on the individual and how to connect with people and so I just, you know, I was like preteen when I did all that so I was always really working, I wanted to be put to work right because it helped me stay safe, anything outside of my home and so did it matter what jobs I did, whether I worked for a pizza place or I wrapped gifts like I just did whatever I could and then later on I guess in high school I got a job in fashion doing windows and one of my friends sisters managed to store, so that exposed me to fashion and went oh I can become this other person, so I on the outside everything looked normal, you know, I was able to put myself together, I was able to recreate this person and at a very young age I was dating older men and going to clubs, like it was just kind of crazy, you know, I had a lot of insecurity, I was pretty messed up on a mental level, but I knew that I had to get out of Philadelphia in order to survive and I did, so I went to FIT, I was in the fashion world, I didn't finish school, I just used street smarts, it was like whatever I could do to kind of hustle to make it work because I needed to survive, in the really beginning part of my life was running away from things, you know, that's really what got me to do things and I did sales, I could sell ice to Eskimos, like literally I didn't, I just knew how to do it and that saved me, really, and then as things went along, you know, I didn't finish school because there was just other stuff, my mother passed away from cancer, you know, it was just like crazy and I just wanted to work, I just didn't feel like I had enough time to do anything, it was, I got to work, I got to get out there, I will learn on the job and I went to school for display and exhibit design, so I didn't even go for regular design because I didn't know how to sew and I just feel like I didn't have the time to sew, so I already did windows and I was like alright, I'm just going to use my skills, it was always like what can I do and how can I figure it out and like how can I really sell myself and I feel like I did that all the time. Because I was like running from my past constantly and so I did well, like I was able, you know, I was able to work it a lot, I got, my teachers took me up with different jobs, I was doing whatever I could and then I ended up working at ABC Carpeton Home in New York, which is a huge store now and they were just starting to bring in home stuff and I went and started doing that and I would just get stoned on the job and I got fired because I didn't take order, I didn't take, I didn't do what they told me to do, I just went off and did what I wanted to and they're like you need to do it like this and you need to set up like the table, this is how you have to be creative and I was like what, you can't tell me how to be creative, like get out of here. So I got fired and I just really, then it was like okay what's next and I just always networked, I always went out to parties and hustling in New York and I had friends and it was just, I would be like alright I want to, I would just say just look for jobs and it was interesting that whatever showed up there was a job for a fashion magazine, for a menswear magazine and I actually, my job interview was walking with the fashion director and he asked me a few questions and I didn't have the experience and he's like can you do this, this, this, whatever and I said yes and I got the job and I did that and that really built, like that started to shift things for me, I was like oh I have responsibility I'm a fashion editor, it was just like again still running and basically I had a lot of different jobs in the fashion world because everyone in the fashion world is reinventing themselves, so I was with a bunch of misfits that did not have a lot of personal growth and then I basically shifted things around and started to do PR because I was interested and I got bored and was like alright I don't want to do this, I want to do PR and I started my own PR firm, not knowing anything other than receiving PR stuff and I produced fashion shows and I did a fashion show at Steinway Hall which I don't think they ever did before and I got all these people to donate stuff, I mean it was amazing, I was just able to convince people to do whatever I asked them to do, which was a good power but really that all led me to a great place where I was interviewed to work at Prada and to do PR, to be their PR manager and I did some other jobs but I again had no experience in PR, I dressed the part because I knew how to become like I was like an actor going okay this is who I am and I got hired for $20,000 less for the role, so that person saw something in me and saved money or basically got the money and then I did that and I was really good, I was really really good at it and I really loved it and then I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, my whole running away caught up with me and I thought my life was over, I was like almost being in a prison and I thought that because fashion was everything for me and then I realized I had to do some work, I had to look at what was going on so that's when I got given my first self-help book, Louise Hay Heal Your Body and that's when it all changed, you know I just was like I could be a victim but I've never been in my life or I can just be a wellness warrior or just keep going on into the unknown and do something else and that's the road I took, fast forwarding, today I'm symptom medication free, the beginning of my work from fashion led me and I had a bunch of different freelance gigs that I did, whatever I had to do to survive, I found yoga and it was like the first time anyone ever said I matter in the world, I mean it was totally like what, the philosophy cracked me open and I said no to a lot of things and fought the medical world, didn't go into depression medication all the stuff, didn't do a lot of therapy and basically what happened is I just decided to leave New York and come to L.A. and do a yoga teacher training and totally changed my life and I just asked for a lot of things from the job I was working at and everyone said yes, like I was just really good at convincing people to do what I asked them to do you know because I also really believed in a lot of the things that I did, like at that point I was like I'm just gonna go be a yoga teacher and I'm gonna figure it out and that's kind of what I've always been doing and I still do it but now it's a lot more organized and I did the healing work you know, I had to forgive my past and I had to you know really look at like here's this kid who's like this little punk who is fighting the world and running away and there was a spiritual, you know there was a lot of like my own finding my spirituality and not doing things because they looked good on the outside but actually starting to go well what do I want to do right that's where it started to flip right because it's so easy to day for kids or for even entrepreneurs to go oh my God I want that business right and then people can figure it out and then you're like whoa no this isn't really what I wanted yeah so basically you know I left in 2002 New York to come to LA and I became a top yoga teacher you know I immediately just I realized that I learned on a on a kinesthetic level and an auditory level and a visual level so it put everything together and I quickly started teaching at a place called City Yoga in LA which is no longer around and I got on their schedule and like I left New York and moved here and then boom like things just went and because of my PR background and everything I used my story and I got in you know over time yoga journal I did yoga DVDs I traveled the world teaching I taught for about 10 years and then I started to transition and I wanted to coach I wanted more so I found a mentor and I went that way and now that's what I do 2012 I guess no 2013 is when I had my last yoga client I'm a big believer I've always done one thing and had an interest in another and kind of did them side by side until like I shifted the you know and just let go of something so I've always been that way in my life for the most part with my work and now I coach and I don't have a certification in coaching I think it's great if people feel they need certification but as you've heard some of my story I just got a lot of results for myself I've healed a lot to come from the background I've come from and actually be married and have a healthy relationship to me is probably my biggest my biggest triumph to not have it's not to carry on the dysfunctionality that I experienced and now I coach coaches you know to do not to like steal food to eat because I know that was a moment in my life when when I was a kid growing up which I didn't share like you know when I my house was like run by drug dealers you know I had a steal food to eat you know I've had to be in some like compromising situations so it's a long story because this is 40 years you know so so just to kind of give you that is you know today I just look at my life and I count my blessings and I'm just amazed that yes we can really recreate ourselves but do it from more of pulling me towards what I want as opposed to running away from something and that's kind of where I am today you know I really believe in what I do and I which has always been what has allowed me to succeed and then I believe in the people that I work with and come across because I see in them you know the thing that that people saw in me you know whoever encouraged me it was I just feel like that's my role is to you know inspire people and to create and all that but to really encourage people to become themselves as opposed to becoming something else you know some somebody else if that makes any sense yeah makes all the sense in the world so as you might imagine I have tons of questions so you know I want to go back to the very beginning of this you know one of the things that you said that really kind of struck me was that you said you know you've become imprinted with the you had become imprinted with the circumstances of your life and I think this is actually quite common you know we spend a lot of time Greg Hartle and I are talking about the idea that your temporary circumstances are not your permanent identity and yet first you getting that imprint really shaped a lot of the way this journey is gone and I'm curious you know it when you're when you're working with people when you're talking to people how do you deal with you know the imprints that that sabotage us and how we you know how we erase them or if we don't erase them how do you you know turn them around in such a way so that they serve us you are so intuitive and I love it you're such a good journalist I'm really I see you as a journalist I really do right because you're you really get into that and you got to the core of what my work is like I'm literally have tears in my eyes like I feel so seen by you right now and her so thank you seriously I mean that I am not a bs sir you know because I look back in my own life and I took the time to look at my what I call my my timeline and I wrote all of the experiences of my life many of what I just shared with everybody right then I started to look at it and I said okay what did that imprint put on me so adoption what do you think right abandonment how did I deal with that and I started to look at because through the self-help books I just went crazy through self-help books you know I didn't hire coaches to wait longer you know it was like every from Louise Hay to like every book I just they became my friends you know and there's like tears in the pages so what I've done is I looked at the patterns and I looked at how things were recreating and I looked at the things I wasn't looking at so I looked in my own life first and I actually taught this in workshops which is how I transitioned into coaching which is also what I helped my coaches do find your system in what you've overcome and what you've done and what tools what books what did you do what did you adapt so when I work with people one on one because I work with a lot of coaches because they want a coach but they have all these inner game issues and I just notice and listen to the language languages first so I look at it as becoming a language architect it's in my book which is sitting with my agent that we haven't sold yet to a publisher but one of the chapters is becoming a language architect so it's actually paying attention to your language I don't have enough time right my whole thing was having not enough time so when I listen to people I listen to the patterns I listen to the repetitive things that they're saying that are their beliefs usually it's not their beliefs right if someone says to me well I'm I'll say oh okay so tell me where you are are you an only child no I'm the middle child and I'm dealing with middle child syndrome oh okay so do you believe in middle child syndrome yeah I do well there's an imprint right that that's like okay if you believe that to exist and again these things in our culture and I look at people from a cultural standpoint as well is I take that all into consideration so and one of my strengths through strength finders individualization which I think is one of the best test I ever did because it's surface but it's fine because it just said this is what you're good at it's like okay so I really look at those imprints and I look at the patterns and then I point those patterns out and then I go deeper and then like all of a sudden they'll go oh yeah I'll say but when did that first happen like when did somebody say you weren't enough so like if someone's like well I'm a middle child I was never good enough as the younger one and I was never good enough as this and I'm like oh yeah I had that good enough thing I'm not good enough and so I said alright well let's look at that how is that affecting your decisions and your choices like how is that shaping your world so I asked those questions and there's usually tears and then there's exercises so I'm very intuitive with my system I have different things that I do with people but the first thing I do is I look at their language and then I we look at rewriting it so we have to look at permission when I gave myself permission to say no to medication and to go another way it was I could go that other way I didn't feel remorse or regret I was on fire it was like yeah you know I'm gonna do everything so I feel like the biggest thing is that when I work with people in these patterns is we look at the patterns we look at the language and then we create the reframe and we point out how it's showing up that's one part of it now again the permission statement I feels really important because it's I'm giving myself permission to release not to let go to me when people say let go it doesn't work do you know what you mean like it's like oh just let go of it it's like excuse me how can I let go of something that I've been holding so tightly and it's like it's like being on the monkey bars you know when you're on the monkey bars as a kid and it's like just let go and touch the floor and you're like this little midget you know what as a kid and then it's like if somebody says just release your hands a little bit so it's like I can release and then I can let go so this is just something I noticed is when people will give themselves permission to release a pattern then we put in a new pattern and they can use that verbally and hear themselves it's not an affirmation it's not whatever Tony Robbins calls his thing which is old stuff I mean it's not like I'm recreating it's like I'm just letting there be an own evolution of what worked for me and most of my clients that's what those permission statements and also I create meditation specifically for them so that they start to hear they're enough they start to hear the things that they've never heard and then they get to validate themselves because so many people all of us feel like we're not enough all of us feel like we don't we have our abandonment issues you know we all have we're all human we have the same feelings the only thing is different is our perspective on it and when we can see what our perspective is then we can change it you know and that's what I learned from yoga philosophy it was like oh that's another way of looking at it you know and one of my teacher said is like say you know hold on to what you believe but be flexible enough to let it go because if a better idea comes along take that on and let go of what you have right that's the whole breaking the ceilings so that's helpful yeah you know I love that you brought up the language you know you may have read this book I'm reading this book called the three laws of performance for a second time which is largely based on the work of the landmark forum but the reason I wanted to bring this question up is you mentioned the idea of language and self-help books one of the things that I see as a continual pattern and I've seen this you know across the board and you know when we finished our event I specifically told every single person I said you know that high that you're feeling right now after three days in this room I have to warn you that it's going to be gone because I think that you know people people become addicted to that and you know and I know it because I you know and the reason I brought up landmark is it was the example that came to my mind I said you see these people that that becomes their life but they don't actually go out and do anything they're like I'm doing all the self-improvement but it's like then you know that basically becomes another sort of obsession and another trap and I'm wondering you know I mean I've had happiness researchers here I have had everybody who talks about this kind of stuff how you actually escape that trap to turning it into actually doing something as opposed to fooling yourself into thinking hey I'm improving my life but really all I am now is addicted to Oprah or addicted to some other self-help guru well that's an awesome question and you know being that person too and understanding it you know egos are funny they're so tricky like mercury you know mercury is a really funny potent substance and you know when they have mercury poisoning in the body they can't really track it right it's really hides and like when I work with my clients I look at how their egos put together like what their coping mechanisms are and you know we all have levels of addiction you know what I mean so yeah you know you go to Tony Robbins and when I went to Tony Robbins I met people in line who was like it's my 20th time going to UPW and I was like really that's interesting you know I was like and so you haven't unleashed the power yeah like really like and you know what I mean and so you know being an activator I'm somebody who wants to test it out right that's just me and I feel what happens is people and again landmarks are really funny because I've never done landmark that people always think they're like you did landmark I'm like no like in line with their stuff I just feel like because it also happened for me in yoga I got to a point where I studied so much yoga philosophy tantric yoga philosophy mantras like I was really in like deep you know like Shri Vidya like serious yoga philosophy and it was like how many years can I study this like can I just put this out in the world and that infuse that's a foundation of my coaching is like that's where it goes and I really feel like really for people is to step back and they got to call themselves out a lot of people I feel get addicted to anything even coaching or tarot reading or astrology because they don't want responsibility I think that's the biggest thing people are afraid of is it's much easier to blame someone for it not happening or just be like I'm not ready and I'm gonna you know it's like people who study forever it's like I have a degree I have a law degree and a doctor in this and a medical degree and I'm like when are you going to stop like you're always going to be a student but when are you going to go do something so I feel like it's a couple things I feel like it's it's that leap to doing that program made them feel away they never thought they could feel before it they were encouraged in a way they never were they and then it is like an addictive thing right there's endorphins that kick in and everything now in those events people walk away with if they even put 10% into action like that's actually good like that's actually good so I just feel that for some people they just they don't want to do the heavy lifting right so going to the event just happens and there's just some people who do that you know and if anyone is listening to this like if you see that you're that person well cool I was that person too it's like I went from event to event to event and then you know the biggest and then maybe did a little action and what I would say is you know what is it the biggest thing is like what is it you're going into what you're doing like what do you want to get out of it and how are you going to use it and that's what I think is really important is having the inquiry and having the maturity to just go okay I'm doing this event for x and I want to walk away with one thing that I could put into action right that that to me sets somebody up with an intention to walk out with something and I feel like it's a myriad of reasons there isn't a blanket it all depends on the individual their personality um there's just a lot of things and and for me I just I can only say for my experience it's like I just went to an event and I said I want to walk away with one thing that I can do differently like one thing and then if I get that then it was worth it and I and so I already had that set up before and it wasn't like oh I'm going to network and make these connections I was like no I just want this one thing and then sometimes I've gone saying hey I'm open to finding out something I've never learned before that can open my mind in a new way but like that whole like thrill um it's just good to be you know it's like listen if you get drunk you know what that feeling is and then you want to get drunk again to feel that feeling you just got to call it out if it's a little bit of an addiction and I'm a big believer on I do this with my clients stop reading emails and stop consuming information like just stop I have them do it and I have them do it my coaching program I want you to get on rollme.com and just get everything in there so that if you need to get a hit you get a hit but I just know for me which changed my life in the past year and my business because I did cross six figures last in 2013 and I was edging up and it wasn't like I had big money I got money goals but that's not what drives me um it was just like because I had to deal with my own money issues and clear that up or whatever but that's another story but essentially it was like the more that I turned tuned everything out and I wasn't looking outside of myself for answers and the more that I just tuned into my own information um to the god of my heart if you will like just like let me just tune in what is my intuition let's go hiking let's it's just you know getting that feeling that's not a high but it's a different kind of feeling it's like those events give greater feelings but those endorphins or whatever gets you can go for a run and have a huge breakthrough and figure out what your answer is to what you want and then go whoa you know and and you can create that on your own do you know what I'm saying so definitely um I'm blabbing a little bit no no no something I'm passionate about and I feel people consume way too much information and a lot of information that creates them to feel anxious and then they're buying into something because people are good marketers you know what I'm saying which is cool like marketing is cool but understanding that there's no guarantees and so you can take the control and have ownership of I just want one thing to walk away from or I'm going just to have a fun time like that's it you know and I understand that this this you know that that I'm gonna have this high and maybe you can you make a connection with someone that you keep that going with you know so that would be my answer spark something uncommon this holiday with just the right gift from uncommon goods the busy holiday season is here and uncommon goods makes it less stressful with incredible handpick gifts for everyone on your list all in one spot gifts that spark joy wonder delight and that it's exactly what I wanted feeling they scour the globe for original handmade absolutely remarkable things last year I found the perfect gift for my nephew periodic table building blocks these blocks were a big hit and considering he was talking in full sentences before he even turned to I'd say that's a pretty good win they're not just educational but also a fun way to spark his curiosity uncommon goods has a knack for offering gifts that are truly memorable unique and make every occasion special when you shop at uncommon goods you're supporting artists and small independent businesses when you shop at uncommon goods you're supporting artists and small independent businesses many of their handcrafted products are made in small batches so shop now before they sell out this holiday season uncommon goods looks for products that are high quality unique and often handmade or made in the u.s. they have the most meaningful out of the ordinary gifts they even have gifts you can personalize from holiday hosts and hostess gifts to the coolest finds for kids to hits for everyone from book lovers to die hard sport fans uncommon goods has something for everyone not just the same old selections you could find anywhere and with every purchase you make at uncommon goods they give one dollar back to an on-profit partner of your choice they donated more than three million dollars to date to get 15% off your next gift go to uncommon goods.com/unmistakable that's uncommon goods.com/unmistakable for 15% off don't miss out on this limited time offer uncommon goods we're all out of the ordinary nah not quite what's up uh sell my car and carvana it's just not quite the right time crazy coincidence i just sold my car to carvana what i told you about it two days ago when you know you know you know i'm even dropping it off at one of those sweet car vending machines and getting paid today that's a good deal a great deal come on what's your heart saying you're right when you know you know sold whether you're looking to sell your car right now or just whenever feels right go to carvana.com and sell your car the convenient way terms and conditions apply i have a secret i used to struggle with dull saggy skin then i found spoiled child's e 27 liquid collagen this extra strength liquid formula packed with type one and type three collagen vitamin c and hyaluronic acid makes it so easy to visibly transform your skin and hair no more chunky collagen powders just a smooth delicious liquid that can be blended with any drink with over a hundred thousand five star reviews this liquid collagen is going viral for a reason and with their try before you buy offer you could try your full size product at home before buying take the quiz at spoiled child dot com slash quiz that's spoiled child dot com slash quiz if there's one thing that my family and friends know me for it's being an amazing gift giver i owe it all to celebrations passport from 1 800 flowers dot com my one stop shopping site that has amazing gifts for every occasion with celebrations passport i get free shipping on thousands of amazing gifts and the more gifts i give the more perks and rewards i earn to learn more and take your gift getting to the next level visit 1 800 flowers dot com slash a cast that's 1 800 flowers dot com slash a cast it took a lifetime to find the person you want to marry finding the perfect engagement ring is a lot easier at blunile dot com you can find or design the ring you've always dreamed of with help from blunile's jewelry experts who are on hand 24/7 to answer questions and the ease and convenience of shopping online for a limited time get $50 off your purchase of $500 or more with code listen at blunile dot com that's $50 off with code listen at blunile dot com expand the way you work and think with clod by anthropic whether brainstorming solo or working with the team clod is a i built for you it's perfect for analyzing images and graphs generating code processing multiple languages and solving complex problems plus clod is incredibly secure trustworthy and reliable so you can focus on what matters curious visit clod dot ai and see how clod can elevate your work yeah no i i love it you know i i think the thing that really um struck a chord for me is the the whole idea of responsibility right it's it's definitely you know once once you decide that then you're suddenly responsible for all the results and of course if the results are crappy you kind of have to own that and yeah inevitably they will be to some degree you know when you start like nobody starts out perfect at what they do and you know one of the questions i constantly get asked is how do you start and you know i wrote about this today and you know Greg Hartle said he's like you literally just plugged the microphone into a laptop and started talking to people and you know even at our event i you know i said okay look around you see the entire event see everything we've done and i'm gonna boil it down to you for three simple things for how this all starts i said i plugged the microphone into a laptop i figured out a way to record the conversation and i found a way to post it on a website and that is really at the foundation of everything that people know of me that's it it's really that that's all that's all that's actually there those are the things and i think that we over complicate things but uh but the responsibility thing i think is really it's fearful because it's kind of like okay well then you're gonna look like an idiot and it's like well if you're not willing to look like an idiot you're gonna have a lot of problems for sure and you know what it's just don't make it harder than it needs to be and i feel like we're programs as a society and this is something that i'm really wanting to write about and i'm seeing it as a pattern is if it's not hard then it's not gonna work or it's not gonna be you know it's like what if it was easy like what if it is just like taking ownership and going huh you know i'm gonna go and talk to 50 people and ask them this one question and i'm gonna put it on camera and i don't even know what i'm gonna do but i'm gonna follow the breadcrumbs i'm gonna follow the impulse to create that's what artists do that's why you know my program is called the art and i'm not trying to plug it but i'm saying it's the art of becoming a coach there because i see our life as art and that artists sometimes some projects take forever and nobody sees it and then they have a they have a painting that they cover you know i i secretly if i was to do anything and i don't like you know i would be i would have been a fine artist but i convinced myself that because i didn't have money i wouldn't it doesn't matter it's another thing but art to me is everything and i follow the stories of artists and their struggles and every i just am fascinated by them um because none they were always misfits they always stood out and they're they also depended on other people saying that they were an artist you know so to me like getting started it's taking ownership so if we take out the word responsibility and we take ownership and you actually realize that you can have space for it to succeed but you can also have space for it to fail equally because you're gonna learn from every step you take i mean and it's cliche but the truth is is if you don't take the first step somebody else will and somebody else is and it is totally scary to do it but by putting yourself out there i just feel like i always imagine it's this meditation i do with clients it's like imagine a thousand people behind you and it's inspired by you know gondi you know the 10,000 people are behind him when he was you know wanting to fight the Brits you know this little dude you know around salt and he just marched and he just took a stand and there were all these people behind him that were waiting for that little dude to take a stand and walk and i just feel like the motivation of why you're doing what you're doing and going okay i don't know what i'm doing but guess what it's a lot of fun to not know what you're doing at least if you're me like i'm okay with uncertainty in my business um you know not in other areas of my life as much but i just feel like taking ownership of what you want to do and letting it become something without being totally attached most likely you're going to be pretty surprised and i see that all the time it's like you know the iPad happened before the iPhone but the iPhone came first because somebody said like let's make that a phone and they waited until that came out and that taking ownership of starting is just beta and testing and people do it that's what farmers markets are for like it happens all around us so i feel like taking ownership and then looking at other people taking ownership and then being inspired to go listen you're not going to be the first person to look like an ass you're not going to be the first person to fail and you're not going to be the first person to succeed but however i just feel like for me it's always been in my life again like i said is i was pushed by something and now i feel pulled and so the question is like what is somebody being pushed and pulled by and and that i think is something that we all just taking ownership and calling ourselves out um is is might be scary or whatever it is but you know comedians do it all the time and they get they do you know they call themselves out so i just feel like when one does take that for step i just feel like it's as petrifying as it is i just see it as reframing it as like that's the feeling of freedom you know yeah that's fine well i think that makes actually a perfect setup to do you talk about something else that i want to discuss what you brought up earlier which was this idea of creating a persona or image which came back to bite you in the ass and it's funny because i mean we live in a world that is entirely driven by creating personas and images you know i mean we're creating these personal brands we're creating these you know media brands we're using technology to craft images and personas and you know the thing that i always say is you want to be careful that that doesn't become something very ego driven because it was for me and it led me to some pretty dark places but i'm really curious um you know when when we think about this and and how it plays in the world we live in i mean obviously it matters uh i think that you do have to think about the fact that you are crafting an image or persona whether you want to or not oh yeah um that that's happening uh and i'm curious how you you know one i'd love for you to talk about how to make sure you don't you know end up crafting one that comes back to bite you in the ass uh and then of course how do you craft one that actually catapults you and and really does serve you great question i got to write it down right now so i have it yeah no i'm just being here here's the thing you know totally we create personas i mean that's just what we do like psychology we need that um otherwise there's no structure right for the ego and you know and there's all levels and evolution to it so you know how to make sure not to be bite bit on the ass i don't know if i can totally answer that because i know i was really ego driven and i was teaching yoga it was like i was more ego driven as a yoga teacher than i am now as an entrepreneur you know and i still was an entrepreneur then but i was way more ego driven than and it bit me on the ask which is what got me where i am so the question of like you know the question is this is when you're creating the persona or creating a business persona my question is and what i do with people is when i'm looking and working with them in a deep dive and working with a coach of like let's look at your business let's see what really what you're here to do is suppose to being somebody else number one is this if you're copying someone else it's gonna bite you on the ass number one right if you're like trying to use somebody else's voice or somebody else's look or you're basically you know just going you know if you're following what someone else is doing it's not really your persona right you're you're hiding behind someone else i mean the music industry they change their personas all the time which is how they reinvent themselves and keep their businesses going i love the music industry for that um but really is the question for i would say for people is to sit and go okay if i'm creating this person and this this person is like okay yes there's ego and is it healthy for my ego or not am i wanting to be famous am i wanting to make a difference in the world i mean i just feel like there's some core questions to look at and if you're saying you want to be famous that's fine actually Melissa Cecier and i were talking about that i was like do you want to be famous she's like hell no and i was like cool i'm just curious because at a moment in my life i knew that i wanted to be but but i didn't but when you do go through fame you give up your privacy and so it's really and people say this all the time like how much of yourself do you want to share how much of yourself do you have people in your family that will be affected by it you know as you tell your story you know my persona and my story people know it and um and i'm okay with that so at the end of the day like are you gonna feel okay with what you're sharing with the world and for some people who are introverts they need to create a persona that's bigger than them so they can actually step into it and i feel like if we're creating a persona the question is is who do you want to be two years from now how do you want to be interacting with the world how do you want people to talk about you like seriously like if somebody just met you what would you want them to say about you i just feel like those are the questions it's like i just know the core is what do you want to be known for i want to be known for being generous that's something that like really over time i realized i was generous but i was like no i really want to be known for being generous and being honest and being loving and i'm known for being a hard ass that's why testimonials are good to get from you're like oh wow so i so it's really clear of like i feel the first thing is how to make sure not to be bid on the ass is asking those questions of who do you want to be in a few years so that you're like okay i want to be this kind of person in my business even though right now you might even know what your business is but you can know what you stand for and what your values are so then that will look very different than like i just want to be famous you know what i mean yeah yeah you know and to me that'll catapult you because if you look two years from now you know three years from now the person you want to become then you're going to have like a filter to make better decisions in your business like you and i spoke about you know when you say no and when you say yes to people wanting to be on your program you start to to me you have a lot i believe you have a ton of integrity like that's awesome that's a quality that i seek out in people and so the the other side of it is how to how to catapult it is also who are people that you respect in business that have personas what are the qualities that they bring not what they do like how does it make you feel and it are those the kind of qualities that you want to cultivate within yourself and i just feel like it's it's a little bit of inner game you know it is the inner game um i believe with like these certain certain things that we create you know so that would be my answer i hope that's helpful yeah that's incredibly helpful i think that um you know it's interesting i love the idea of who you want to be two years from now because i think that what that does is it creates a future that you are driven to live up to um or you feel compelled to live into and and that's something that i don't think we spend a lot of time think about i mean and and here's the thing that i think about that is that people think that okay by the way if you create that future and somehow you bring into existence that everything stops when you get there you're like i'm there and i have finally realized that there is an illusion completely made up by people who think they're not there decisions decisions wait a minute are you still looking for cars on carvana yeah decisions decisions when i use carvana i found the exact car i was looking for in minutes bought it on the spot electric or full diesel decision come on you've been at it for weeks just buy it already you're right crossover it is decisions decided whether you know exactly what you want or like to take your time buy your car the convenient way with carvana hey it's Sharon and here's where it gets interesting raise your hand if you want salon perfect nails for just two dollars a manicure yeah me too with the all of in june mani system you can say goodbye to expensive services that take hours and hours and love your nails more than ever i would know i've been doing it for years get 20 percent off your first mani system with code perfect mani 20 at alvin june dot com slash perfect mani 20 that's perfect mani 20 at alvin june dot com slash perfect mani 20 this halloween ghoul all out with insta cart whether you're hunting for the perfect costume eyeing that giant bag of candy or casting spells with eerie decor we've got it all in one place download the insta cart app and get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes plus enjoy zero dollar delivery fees on your first three orders offer valid for a limited time minimum ten dollars per order service fees other fees and additional term supply insta cart bringing the store to your door this halloween Ryan Reynolds here for mid mobile with the price of just about everything going up during inflation we thought we'd bring our prices down so to help us we brought in a reverse auctioneer which is apparently a thing mid mobile unlimited premium wireless heavy to get 30 30 30 30 but get 20 20 20 20 20 15 15 15 just 15 bucks a month so give it a try at mid mobile dot com slash switch 45 dollars up from payment equivalent to 15 dollars per month new customers on first three month plan only taxes and fees extra speeds lower above 40 gigabyte CD tail if there's one thing that my family and friends know me for it's being an amazing gift giver i owe it all to celebrations passport from 1 800 flowers dot com my one stop shopping site that has amazing gifts for every occasion with celebrations passport i get free shipping on thousands of amazing gifts and the more gifts i give the more perks and rewards i earn to learn more and take your gift giving to the next level visit 1 800 flowers dot com slash a cast that's 1 800 flowers dot com slash a cast expand the way you work and think with Claude by anthropic whether brainstorming solo or working with the team Claude is AI built for you it's perfect for analyzing images and graphs generating code processing multiple languages and solving complex problems plus Claude is incredibly secure trustworthy and reliable so you can focus on what matters curious visit claud dot ai and see how Claude can elevate your work totally so well let's do this uh let's shift gears a little bit i want to to get um into some of the creative aspects of this because there's a you know a couple of things you said that really intrigued me uh you know one is that for you you know art became this sort of form of self-expression and so i'm really curious kind of how the upbringing you know being surrounded by drug dealers the influences of your life have actually shaped um your your creative perspective on things and you know and the art that you create um and then i want to get into this idea of the impulse to create because that's i think i am that's that's something that i just um you know it's in my dna i have an impulse to create it's something i have to do constantly mm-hmm i'm right with you yeah wow i just really am enjoying all your questions and you didn't say i again you know i really really just feel so seen and i really appreciate that you know it doesn't happen all the time thanks you're so awesome because i'm not you're connecting dots that like i haven't connected dots like i'm like oh my god you know and i feel really you know i'm not a scripted kind of interview person i like to share different things you know that's that's something that i feel and that's part of my persona right like i'm a little bit you don't know what you're gonna get with me but um no in some sense you know it's this is who i am today you know so you know um you know my art and looking at artists and lives and all of that and and how so the question is really like how i express like how i express my art today is that what you're saying my piece yeah i mean well i mean it seems like to some degree i mean even through all the reinvention of every aspect you're in i mean there is some element of creativity that is brought into every career that you've had and what i'm really curious about is how sort of the imprints of your upbringing have influenced and shaped kind of the way you view the world through all these different careers through the time of product and what you do now all of that you know i was a stylist as well and i look at myself as a stylist and as a fashion stylist i was an editor right when i was a fashion editor i was really good you know like how you're really good at bringing people together and curating people i was really good at finding the things that stood out like the cool things and putting it together and how my life has influenced me creatively um which is really interesting is i can see the things um that sometimes i can see the things that are missing right because i was trained to do that in school but then i also look at the things that can be leveraged i've had creatively i've become extremely resourceful and i leverage what i have and this is what i help people do right it's not about recreating the wheel it's leveraging what's there that's how it's allowed me to be resourceful and creative in my life is like how do i use what i have to in a better way right it's it's it's not about getting more it's about using what's there and you know creatively my home is a way that i do it but in my business i have to say like i'm not a great writer but i become a good copywriter from hiring people and now like i'm a really good editor right like that's one of my creative skills like i can look at copy or a talk or a bio whatever and i can edit and i can see a spin i also because i'm a good salesperson and and understand people and how they function is i see the spin on things and i see the patterns so it's really helped me the biggest thing is how i see the world right i look at the music industry and i see how they run business i see what's under the hood naturally of how things happen so i can figure it out right because i'm like oh that's not that hard to do like how can i figure that out right like right now i have a i was very against telesummets but then i created one instead of podcast because i know the work it takes to do a podcast and i want it i don't i don't want to half-ass something and so i kind of broke down the steps like i just feel like i learned from my upbringing how to figure stuff out and break it down and then whatever areas i don't know i just like they just figure themselves out like in the moment right i'm really good in that way so it's just like when i go to supermarkets and i look at packaging or i look at how they're selling things i just feel like it's taught me to appreciate things you know and it's like when somebody's a good salesperson i'm like you're really good at what you do i'm gonna buy that like thank you so i feel like my upbringing has allowed me to see resources within things that most people don't say it's really allowed me to look at create great metaphors and to see how things function and um and i talk about creativity when i it in my work with my coaches i'm like you guys need to go to museums like you need to look at you need to look at things outside of this you need to get into other things um so i just feel like my whole life has allowed me create to become curious which is what i think is most important really for any entrepreneur is curiosity um and then to actually look at how systems run and what i like and what i don't and then just bring along what works and leverage it you know what i mean and actually i also feel creatively it's like i have a ton of ideas of things i want to do like you like i have to be creative every day i mean really like i really do and i actually create problems or situations for myself to get myself out of sometimes um you know um you know it's like it's like or i just do things i've never done before because of the it really excites me to figure it out um so that's how my my background has affected me and also because of my my full the different careers and what i've done and in and out of it and and my interest in film and directing i have a documentary that i will do at some point um around that i want to do is that i just know that i have like projects that i might do in 10 years from now because i know at a certain point i'm going to want that creative expression um so i just really have a huge interest in things and then i i bring it together you know does that make sense like i'm able to kind of use that and then create the pattern and then teach from that um that's just something nobody taught me um and i'm grateful for it now the impulse to create i i'm just like you like if if i'm not in a space of creating it doesn't even matter if i'm just doing like a brain dump and then i'm taking those ideas you know what i mean it's just like whatever process of creation i really love it you know i love the whole process of it sometimes more than the actual output um if you can i don't know if you can relate to that like i just i love the challenge of it and the you know i bake i'm a he i didn't know how to cook right i i i grew up on junk food so i actually taught myself how to cook and i taught myself to bake and i'll just all the sudden one of the things that i do because i impulse create i'm just like you know what i want to make gluten-free banana bread and um i'm just going to find a recipe and i'm just going to make it and i'm going to tweak it and um and i do that because from beginning to end i it either fails sometimes sometimes it succeeds and i feel like it's like this little mini thing that i can have a feeling of like finishing something um and then other people can enjoy it you know if i eat it or i don't so i feel like those impulses to create are really great and that they don't have to be in your business they can just be different like i feel like everyone every day has to create they do create something you create your life every day but what if you did like one little creative thing even if it's like reorganizing your socks um i just think it helps me not to go crazy so let me ask you this on that note um you know when we're when we're looking at our own lives and looking at the things that we've been through uh you know you clearly discovered a gift and an insight based on your own experiences and i'm wondering is that something that we can do it how we do it yeah i mean it's a process of experimentation you know if i feel like looking at your strengths and look at what you do i do feel strength finder whether you like it or not like now discover your strengths or strength finder that was one of the first things when i did that online test knowing what my five strengths were were really insightful for me because i was like oh no wonder why i like this this and this you know what i mean it's like no wonder why i'm so in you know individualization i'm so into cultures and patterns um you know so looking at what you do well like i feel like that's really useful and then the other thing is asking people what am i good at what do you get complemented on what do people call you for help all the time with you know like seriously you know like my husband he's really great at helping people buy cars and like he has this whole gift and i'm like you need to start a business he's like i'm not an entrepreneur i'm a film editor i mean he alone i'm like start this business he's like do it with me like no but what i'm saying is it's like when people come up to you and ask you for help or they you know i just feel like people tell us all the time what we're good at and it's like you want to pay attention to that and i feel a lot of people take what they excel at for granted and they also push it away because they think well i couldn't you know why would anybody pay me for that you know it's like that's like that's what my husband says you know what would they they can find the information on the internet i'm like yeah that's how everybody's doing businesses now you know if you compile it and you tell them the bullshit and the other stuff it's good so i feel for people listening like what you can do is like first i do believe in strength binder i mean there's tons of personality tests but that i felt was really useful because it was able to look at when you get that then you can look at all the things you've done in your past and you can start to see where the dots connect right you get to be um you get to it's like become a detective and look at your life objectively like huh like if i was doing the biography of my life what would i say i'm good at it you know and what did other people say about me like where if it's a documentary about you and i just feel like it's that curiosity that you can start to see what you're good at and then go well okay well how can i build on that you know what i mean um like what you've done i you know you're you're really you know you're a smart guy and you have this journalistic ability and this is just something that's natural in you your curiosity and then creating your event you put people together and you know and you didn't just put the usual suspects together right you put something together was very unique and really beneficial for people that's something you're good at doing and while you're doing it you realize i'm good at doing it so sometimes it's the thing that you have that impulse and that idea it's like following those breadcrumbs are going to lead you to really seeing because i didn't know that i was going to be really good at coaching code i had no idea right until somebody you know said to me you know actually years ago someone said what can you teach to yoga teachers and at that point i didn't have an answer it's like what can you do or teach to someone who might be doing the thing that you're doing and and again it might take a little bit of time to figure it out and and i think that's okay so let's do this um you know one of one of the other sort of patterns and themes i've noticed throughout your career and your journey is is this idea of reinvention and you've brought it up multiple times throughout the course of our conversation um then i've asked people about reinvention before but i want to ask it to you in a very different way and you know it's interesting because we've just talked about how we look at the threads of our past um and bring them into our self-expression and one of the the sort of really profound realizations that i had just as little as a week ago after our event um was that i would always look into the future and i would see remnants of my past and i wasn't even realizing it because that's our natural tendency right is to look at you know what have we been good at in the past so what i'm curious about is how we bring those threads from our past into the work that we do without looking into our future and seeing the remnants of our past does that make any sense at all i'm not quite sure if i'm following it but i'll do my best because what i'm hearing from you is to me we we don't necessarily reinvent we evolve okay okay that's what i really believe you know is there because reinvention is it is reinvention but i'm just going to play a word and put evolution right and i do feel that sometimes looking in our past is not useful because it's not in present time so it's more of extracting like and like an archaeologist you know what i mean it's like these little bits are the things that i rock at and then it's like or whatever that is and it's like you know looking into the future isn't necessary healthy either it's i feel like being in the present moment of the intention of what you're doing and why you're doing it and the energy of it like the enthusiasm for what you're doing the belief in yourself and the ownership is what's going to move you forward right so it's like you are who you are you have all your experience and the question is is how are you leveraging all of the things that are in you and sometimes we have gifts that lay dormant that we don't even know and we will never know right until we get thrown into the pot of whatever it is that shows up or what gets created okay i'm gonna get too philosophical here because i do i will say i do believe we create our life and we create circumstances to get the things that we want right like that we're and again it doesn't mean everything it's not every detail but you know there's a soul and there's a spirit that wants to evolve here and move a lot faster than our bodies that's what we're constantly struggling with so i feel like you know when you're creating something like in your future like you're looking at the future of the podcast and you know now the instigator experience and like i can only imagine what's coming out of with everything with your books and i feel like staying more in the present moment and the validation and appreciation of what's going on is going to be key and looking at it as an evolution right looking at it as like like from like an artist it's like some people only know like Picasso from like certain pieces of art but Picasso has a huge you know a huge body of work and it's like looking at your body of work of from where you are now and it's like where you want to go you just go hey well sometimes the clues can be back there but sometimes the clues are not that sometimes the clues are what's showing up for you you know what i'm saying like what is showing up who is asking for this what is like what do people keep coming to you for it it's like why are people keep doing this so i'll give you an example before when i was teaching yoga you know i was digging it great you know i got to be the superstar whatever you know whatever it was because you know it did what it did and i remember being cornered in trader jose the supermarket or whatever it's called i don't know if it's considered a supermarket but i guess it is um and this woman cornered me and she was like and and she was dealing with eating disorders which is something that you know i still food to eat so i never had an eating disorder really you know i mean i mean it is different my relationship with food is different um but however she's like i want you to be my mentor and i was like excuse me i looked at her i was like what are you talking about like i need help with my life and i thought she was off her walker i was like okay uh no like thank you very much i'm flattered but i don't even know how i could do that i mean this woman was like i'd be like educated but she had like i was like go to a shrink i was like get a therapist and i didn't even pay attention to it and it's like over the time in my career early on people were asking me for help but i was like i don't do that i was actually resisting it and it's like the reinvention or the evolution was showing up in the present and i wasn't even really looking at it i wasn't saying yes to it i wasn't ready for it whatever whatever it is and i see this a lot of the times and then i also see people who actually follow those breadcrumbs that they're like you know so to me i feel like using the things from your past it's not like sitting here and like spending all night and burning the midnight oil to figure out like there's gonna be i don't know you're gonna find like um it's not like you know raiders of the lost ark you're gonna find the answer you know what i mean and whatever it is it's more of like let it happen organically and i feel like that's really like when you're doing the thing you want to do believe enough in what you're doing and if you want to see who you want to be in two years i feel like it's going to be pretty obvious do you know what i mean like so i'm just tying that in is look at it as an evolution and i would suggest to anyone here whether you go online or go to a museum look at a body of work of an artist from like when they started doodling to like when they got into the museum it's pretty amazing to see the rejection it's important interesting to see where the things that they never the world never really saw and what they became known for right i just find that fascinating i think we all have those i mean i can trace back things i've created i mean there's remnants of them online um you know it's interesting because i think that what i've come to see especially very recently is that that future is very much unwritten and when we're too caught up in our the stories of the past and the limitations of the past we don't just bring what's useful we bring all the useless stuff we bring all the baggage and bullshit into the future and we put it there and so you're not creating on a blank slate it's not a completely unwritten future even though it actually is and once i got my head around that it was like wow what could i you know i'm not the person i was 10 years ago i'm not the guy who got fired from every single job i've been at yeah those things happen yeah but they're not who i am not anymore totally because the thing is a certain behavior should be there and i totally agree with you you know it's like you know it may be who made you who you are today and also when you look back you know when i look back at myself i'm like i was a bit of a punk you know i was and i was tenacious i mean i was so tenacious i remember having a fashion a writer because when i did pr like i just was so tenacious that they just put they would put the piece in just because they didn't want me to call them anymore i mean again it's a different time i had one guy say to me from women's word daily he's like you know what i'm just going to publish this because i do not want you calling me anymore you were probably one of the most tenacious publicists i've ever ever ever and i was like okay cool thank you you know like because the tenacity was great but it's like when the behavior doesn't work it doesn't work so that's the truth is you're going to bring your stuff from the past into the present but you're going to quickly as an entrepreneur burn it off if you're like really wanting to go where you want to go you're just going to learn that lesson and you release it you just go wow i or you start to see the transformation that you actually handle the situation better you know what i'm saying that's what's really beautiful about the entrepreneurial journey you know whatever it is is you start to see your own self develop and you become this other person and you know to me we're not we don't get born as a blank slate i don't believe that right so blank slate whatever we bring to it what we bring to it and what i notice a lot with my clients or a lot of people they're like oh i thought i already dealt with that on some level yes but yet then you have an opportunity to release it even more and become that much more free right so to me one of the biggest things i know i do again i have never been a fan of vision boards i used to mock them i did one a while ago and like years ago and like all the stuff started happening like four years later you know and i was like wow you know yoga journals like we they reviewed my yoga DVD that i published and i was like that's cool you know i just like folded it in a drawer and it was like the lining of my drawer now and i don't want to get all weird on everyone but i i recently decided like i'm gonna do these and i did one because i wanted to look at magazines and everything from a copywriter perspective how are they selling me on this lifestyle like how are they selling me and what words resonate with me and who do i want to become right so it's like if i look at it as i'm just getting images and we think in pictures so if whether you i just feel like knowing what you want and having pictures for it is really going to be useful i mean there's a reason why you know Michael Jordan visualizes and every golf player visualizes their swing is because we think in pictures so when we see our past pictures that stops us that creates stuff you know releasing those pictures and going oh that's from the past that's not real now is is part of what happens right the fear most entrepreneurs say that they're afraid to start i feel like it's really permission it's like just who were you asking for permission from to go like the game's on start you know so i just feel like it's we like essentially everyone wakes up every day and the universe or god or whatever you call it is asking you what do you want and making the decision of what one wants comes back to the ownership and the responsibility and a lot of people want to be told there's a lot of people who want to be told what they what they want which is why we see corporate America and the American Dream like a lot of the stuff is broken promises because it's changing and now we're all on that precipice of making the change right of doing it differently um from television you know communication from from in every area so i feel like really visualizing like if you want to be the next publisher of something you can go that big and who do you want to be and now you just have to start with just publish the blog you know what i mean like what's the first little thing that you got to do and i feel like the stuff will come up and the less we dwell in it and the more we appreciate it and learn from it and move forward um i mean that's how i survived in my life that's how i didn't end up you know i didn't end up a stripper i didn't end up a hooker and i was most voted to be that in elementary school so people had a vision for me they were like you are gonna be literally that's what i was gonna be you know my family you know as much as i was jewish were drug dealers and they're like okay you know you're most likely to be you know a hooker and i know people said that to me and you know what them saying that to me is you know a lot of my life i became who i am in spite until i realized i don't need to do it in spite and run away i can actually create who i want to be like i actually can do that from inside not just on the surface so circling back is how not to get bit on your butt is do the inner work whatever that means to you don't just do it on the surface because i don't feel like that's just not going to last people see through that anyway i circled back because i was like oh wait that goes there well i think it's fitting you actually helped me wrap up a conversation really beautifully i think that that you know now i don't have to circle back hilly this has been really really cool so i've been asking my final question which is how i've closed the last several interviews with you know we live in a very very noisy world and you and i have talked about self-expression and creating personas so you know our show is called the unmistakable creative so how do you become unmistakable in the world we live in today oh um just seeing everything is progress and not and and just taking one little step a day to to be creative in any area of your life really any area it doesn't it just one area that you can um find whatever creative solution or make something easier or make something more beautiful i just feel like it it's to me um it's all connected it's not separate and that the more that you can just validate whatever you have done and see that everything is progress i feel is really the way to do it i love it well hilly this has been just mind-blowingly cool and like i mean i always know when Melissa sends me somebody i have you know i know it's going to be great uh so i can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us and share some of your insights with our listeners here at the unmistakable creative well i um you know i wanted to do this for a while and i just allowed it to happen without pushing it so it allows me no i'm serious like this was something that was in my vision in my future but i just let it happen and i just you know is that i used to be the person who pushed and forced and um you know and that behavior didn't work anymore you know and so i just let it be it was like yeah it wasn't um you're not on my vision board but you were in my mind and it's going to say there was a picture of you in my visual but though i'm just saying and um and not to be like real you know with everyone it's just however people visualize but it really was i have to say it's been the best conversation um i've had in a really long time and as i said a few times to really be seen and heard and appreciated um to share my story and to share things that i've never shared before in this way um feels like such a blessing so thank you so much awesome and for those of you guys listening we'll wrap the show with that you've been listening to the unmistakable creative podcast visit our website at unmistakablecreative.com and get access to over 400 interviews in our archives [Music] Discover Hydro the best kept secret in fitness. Hydro is the state-of-the-art at-home rower that engages 86 percent of your muscles delivering the ultimate full body workout in just 20 minutes. From advanced to beginner hydro has over 500 classes shot worldwide and taught by Olympians and world-class athletes for a 30-day risk-free trial go to hydro.com and use code row 450 to save 450 dollars on a hydro pro rower that's h-y-d-r-o-w.com code row 450. If there's one thing that my family and friends know me for it's being an amazing gift giver. I owe it all to celebrations passport from 1800flowers.com my one-stop shopping site that has amazing gifts for every occasion with celebrations passport I get free shipping on thousands of amazing gifts and the more gifts I give the more perks and rewards I earn to learn more and take your gift giving to the next level visit 1800flowers.com/acast that's 1800flowers.com/acast Cue the fireplace and your favorite fall movie there's nothing better than a cozy evening at home with a class of first leaf wine first leaf is a personalized wine club that delivers right to your door sounds magical right they get to know your favorite tasting notes which varietals you enjoy and whether you prefer sweet or dry wines so in every shipment you get bottles tailored to your unique palette go to tryfirstleaf.com/fall to get your first six minds for just $44.95 with free shipping expand the way you work and think with Claude by anthropic whether brainstorming solo or working with the team Claude is AI built for you it's perfect for analyzing images and graphs generating code processing multiple languages and solving complex problems plus Claude is incredibly secure trustworthy and reliable so you can focus on what matters curious visit claud.ai and see how Claude can elevate your work at sprouts farmers market we're all about fresh healthy and delicious step into our bulk department to scoop up as much as you like from hundreds of bins filled with wholesome grains and limited time goodies visit your neighborhood sprouts farmers market today where flavor fills every scoop. Have you ever felt a twinge of worry about AI taking over your job or diluting your creativity well what if you could turn that fear into create a fuel we've just published an amazing new ebook called the four keys to success in an AI world and this is more than just a guide it's a deep exploration into the human skills that AI can't touch the skills that are essential for standing out and thriving no matter how much technology evolved we're talking about real differentiators here like creativity emotional intelligence critical thinking and much more inside you'll find actionable insights and strategies to develop these skills whether you're a creative person a business person or just simply someone who loves personal development this isn't a story about tech taking over it's a story of human creativity thriving alongside AI picture this AI as your creative co-pilot not just as a tool but a collaborator that enhances your unique human skills the four keys ebook will show you exactly how to do that and view AI in a new way that empowers you instead of overshadows you transform your creative potential today head over to unmistakable creative calm slash four keys use the number four k y s that's unmistakable creative calm slash four keys and download your free copy You

Learning to let go of the imprints that hold us back
Saving yourself through forms of self expression
Focusing on the individual and connecting with people
A look at a career path that involved lots of running away
Why we must learn to forgive our past in order to heal
Plotting the experiences of your life on a timeline to see patterns
Looking at the language patterns that dictate your life
The difference between releasing and letting go
Not getting caught in the trap of the self help high
Why you must take responsibility for your life
Giving yourself space for failure and success
Taking ownership and learning to call yourself out
Creating a persona an image that could come back to hurt you
Core questions that determine whether or not you’re ego driven
Differentiating between reinvention and evolution
Looking at your body of work for the clues that reveal your work
Seeing every part of your life as progress

Subscribe for ad-free interviews and bonus episodes https://plus.acast.com/s/the-unmistakable-creative-podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.