Latest / Soul Salon with Ayandastood / You're blessed to be a BLESSING — how to unlock ABUNDANCE for collective impact

Transcript

You're blessed to be a BLESSING — how to unlock ABUNDANCE for collective impact · Soul Salon with Ayandastood

• 0:00
  You mentioned the word money blocks.
• 0:01
  And I think that's something that a lot of people are like working through, like blocks to receiving.
• 0:05
  What do you see as maybe the most common, the top money block holding people back, holding women back in your life, holding people back that you know around money and what it is and what it can be?
• 0:18
  I think a big thing to mention that I maybe didn't say first is a lot of the people around my life have a big purpose around impact.
• 0:24
  So I think that also affects the way that I have conversations.
• 0:27
  I think if someone's listening to this and they're like, oh, so Grace just tells people to go get private jets and yachts.
• 0:32
  That's not it at all.
• 0:34
  I think the people in my life, the people that I attract, the people that I come around, often their greatest desire is to have an impact.
• 0:42
  And so I think that changes things completely with money blocks.
• 0:46
  And I don't think I've worked through all my money blocks, to be very honest.
• 0:48
  But a big key that I try and get people to really unpack in anything, money or other aspects of life is like, what are you deeply craving?
• 0:56
  so if it's impact i believe that you're attracted to that because there's maybe someone who needs
• 1:02
  that impact right it's never about the thing in and of itself which is what i always try and
• 1:07
  unblock and unlock in people but when it comes to women i think the big thing is always like
• 1:13
  i just wish women would ask for more like just you can if you like sit in the venture capital space
• 1:19
  and listen to the pitches and i'm not saying like all pitches made by men are bad absolutely not but
• 1:24
  a lot of men are super audacious and I think it's actually a great thing to learn from instead of
• 1:28
  just like looking at it and being like oh that's really terrible or I I would look at it as like
• 1:34
  how can I learn more from that so my mom grew up in construction which is a very big male dominated
• 1:39
  space and I would always watch how she just moved so effortlessly she was never really scared I
• 1:43
  don't know if like internally she was scared and never said it but I never ever got that impression
• 1:47
  I don't think anyone who's worked with her gets that impression and so in my life when I would
• 1:52
  when I'm starting off an entrepreneurship a lot of my friends that were entrepreneurs at that time
• 1:55
  were actually men um and I would always ask like what gives you the freedom to do that what makes
• 2:01
  you think that that's like okay to do um I would just ask questions and so I think now and how I
• 2:06
  move across life when I come across people who maybe do have money blocks or other blocks in
• 2:10
  life is like ask deeper questions and try get to the root of like what is it that you actually want
• 2:15
  I don't ever think it's a thing even if like your dream is having a Birkin bag I don't know that
• 2:20
  that's like actually what you seek and so one what i also try and do is like whatever you're
• 2:26
  deeply craving if it is freedom is try and identify what other parts of life you already have it in
• 2:32
  um so that you know that it's easy to attract it and then see the thing that you're trying to
• 2:36
  attract so if it is a book and like that's just um a marker of something that i'm trying to track
• 2:41
  i already have freedom and maybe i'm trying to expand freedom um but if the big purpose around
• 2:46
  my life and like i said i think the helpful thing in my life is a lot of people i'm surrounded by
• 2:49
  want to make an impact if it's like we want to make an impact one it means that we're never
• 2:54
  gatekeeping from each other if i can see an ability or an opportunity for you to create a
• 2:58
  greater impact with someone else in my circle then let's make that impact and we expand it it's not
• 3:02
  for ourselves it's for other people um and i think when you start to look at it from that sense so
• 3:07
  not just like the physical manifestation of it of like the number or the actual thing if you start
• 3:13
  to see it as like freedom or making an impact or empowering people i'm very big on like people
• 3:19
  also having a voice um and realizing there's a really great investor entrepreneur name is debbie
• 3:24
  wiscrow and she just says you have to realize that you do need money a lot of time for people
• 3:29
  to actually listen to what you're pitching um and to make an impact in where you're trying to make
• 3:33
  an impact and that's why we need to put more money into women's hands and so i think if you
• 3:38
  think about the outer aspect of what you're trying to attract and not the physical thing i think it
• 3:41
  becomes a bit easier not not like not that there won't be any resistance i definitely think there's
• 3:47
  natural resistance i still deal with like resistance but i think it's greater when you
• 3:51
  see that there's a bigger purpose i also think with money specifically um i was always raised
• 3:57
  that i'm blessed to be a blessing to others um and that's something my grandmother would always
• 4:01
  say and that stays with me and i think i also attract people who have the same mentality so
• 4:05
  it's like if you are winning and you are abundant but the purpose is to help bless others um that's
• 4:10
  important and also again i go back to the fact that i don't think you know everything everywhere
• 4:16
  So I have been in an entrepreneurial fellowship, I think, for the last nine years.
• 4:20
  And one of the most important things I learned is sometimes your job is really just to place capital into people's hands because they understand the community better.
• 4:28
  It's not about thinking that, you know, better because maybe you have a degree or you have all this experience.
• 4:32
  Sometimes your only job is like, let's place capital and help people use this capital effectively because they know their communities best.
• 4:40
  And so I don't know.
• 4:40
  I think it's a collective responsibility for improving society,
• 4:44
  improving our communities and improving the country and maybe the world.
• 4:47
  Like if we get to that point.
• 4:50
  Thank you for that clarification around like impact.
• 4:53
  And I think everyone,
• 4:54
  the people attracted to this work are very impact driven people.
• 4:58
  So I think that they can see the resonance in that.
• 5:00
  And I love how you shared that the people you attract,
• 5:03
  the people you are connected to and connecting this wisdom to it's like
• 5:08
  whatever desire they have has a greater collective impact of them having it or them
• 5:13
  even pursuing that desire who they become in the pursuit of that freedom or of that for me beauty
• 5:19
  and money are very connected like the value that i want to access or do access through money is one
• 5:26
  freedom absolutely and then two beauty just like the idea that you could get the thing that's most
• 5:31
  beautiful not most functional you know like that's what it means um and reclaiming that because i
• 5:36
  I think beauty is so undermined because it's connected to the feminine and it is so life
• 5:41
  giving, like the blue you're wearing today and beauty can mean so many different things.
• 5:45
  But I think it's important to like know that it is tied to a deeper purpose.
• 5:48
  And I love what you said that these are the givers.
• 5:50
  These are the people that buy the people who feel almost like the most unworthiness blocks
• 5:56
  with money are the same people who in word in their hands would actually make the biggest
• 6:01
  impact on the world.
• 6:03
  so I appreciate that that insight and that foresight and so I'm really curious as someone
• 6:08
  who's also you know you love that you mentioned that you love love you love God um how do you tie
• 6:16
  this work to your relationship to the divine I think that's really interesting because I've
• 6:22
  been dealing with that for the last eight nine months um I wouldn't call it a breakdown but I
• 6:28
  think I had like an existential crisis around whether I was creating impact um and impact's
• 6:35
  important to me so I'm not someone who can do anything mindlessly I have to understand what
• 6:40
  I'm doing and why so I was a big why kid as a child I'd be like why are we doing this like
• 6:45
  it was probably really tiring to my mom but I'm also very fixated on like my brother should always
• 6:49
  ask why you need to ask why as opposed to just adopting other people's perspectives um and so
• 6:55
  So I think in the beginning of my business, it was like, oh, this is really great and it's fruitful and it's making money and it's making revenue and it's attractive to investors.
• 7:04
  But I didn't really see what the greater impact was.
• 7:07
  And I think I somewhat maybe still narrowly, but it's important to me to define impact in the sense of making a difference in community.
• 7:15
  So I could be making an impact into my clients lives by making sure that they get what they want and they're happy and they had a great experience.
• 7:20
  And that's all wonderful.
• 7:21
  And I don't think that's not important.
• 7:22
  But for me, a greater thing is making impact in communities and impacting communities is not just like giving people money.
• 7:30
  It's more so empowering people to make decisions around their own community problems.
• 7:34
  And how do we empower more people to do that?
• 7:37
  I'm also a strategic consultant.
• 7:39
  So I was like, I'm doing all these things.
• 7:42
  And yes, the capital is there, but I don't feel anything in my heart.
• 7:45
  I feel kind of numb.
• 7:48
  and I think it became harder and harder to like wake up because I do think my connection with God
• 7:54
  and one of the things I'm called to is like impact is one of them but impact through helping other
• 7:59
  people realize themselves and like realize their dreams and visions um so I did a whole career
• 8:04
  pivot and that's yeah that's been like eight nine months in the making wow where I decided to focus
• 8:11
  more on women's economic justice and how we make that possible in big and small ways so like if
• 8:17
  it's that I'm pitching or that I'm helping other women like figure out how they get capital into
• 8:21
  their businesses um and spend more time more like connecting other women and seeing how they could
• 8:27
  grow their businesses together I think that that's really important um I also spend a lot of time
• 8:32
  more in philanthropic efforts but I I'm really lucky in the sense a lot of my friends run really
• 8:37
  great like charities and foundations um and spending time with what they do so for my birthday
• 8:43
  last year i did a wellness and wine party but all the it was all for charity so i asked everyone to
• 8:50
  not give me a gift and like for us to donate to charity collectively um but my grandmother again
• 8:55
  was always big on like we can't just give money you actually have to spend time seeing that what
• 8:59
  you do matters and it makes a difference um and i had a great opportunity to spend more time with
• 9:03
  the remy foundation and education outreach and just see what they do why they do it what motivates
• 9:09
  you to do what you do and the impact that you're making um and ultimately that led me back to coming
• 9:14
  to how do i get more money into women's hands so i'm now pivoting back into the finance sector and
• 9:20
  that's why i'm doing like high net worth advisory but more with the purpose of helping see how we
• 9:25
  can strategically place money into people's hands while making sure that people get what they're
• 9:29
  seeking so of course people aren't just giving money for it to well some people i mean i always
• 9:34
  say i don't hoard money i would love money to like make a greater impact but to make sure that you
• 9:38
  reach people's objectives but also empower other people um and I think that that's maybe brought
• 9:43
  me back to my connection with God to say that like again I don't think God wants us to hoard
• 9:49
  money or keep money for any reason um but to make a greater impact with it and I guess also
• 9:56
  show people how they could make a greater impact and that's made me feel more alive in my day-to-day
• 10:02
  so I think that's probably my greatest connection with it but again always coming back to what my
• 10:06
  grandmother said that I'm blessed to be a blessing and I think we all are in any sense it's not just
• 10:10
  monetary it could be your gifts it could be your talent it could be whatever you choose to do with
• 10:14
  your time however it goes it's never for you it's a blessing for other people and I think that I also
• 10:20
  receive other people's love in that way like some people can just exist and I'm like you didn't know
• 10:24
  that you're existing but you changed my life in the way that you exist and I think that's really
• 10:29
  important it also just makes me feel so alive like you said to hear your grandmother's words
• 10:36
  in this space with us, blessed to be a blessing.
• 10:38
  That's so stunning and poetic and a great reminder.
• 10:41
  And I appreciate you sharing this deepening into integrity that you've been on because,
• 10:46
  and deepening into purpose.
• 10:47
  I feel like it really mirrors like the collective moment.
• 10:50
  Many people are in where they, especially with COVID and everything, there was like this
• 10:54
  dropping in of like, okay, what, what do I want to, if you, if I have the access or if I can
• 11:01
  envision a life where I'm living in deeper alignment and I'm having an impact and I'm
• 11:06
  doing something that honors my soul's expression and gifts, what would that look like?
• 11:11
  Even just
• 11:11
  that idea can unlock so much.
• 11:13
  So it's beautiful to see that you are finding ways to integrate
• 11:16
  these different parts of yourself in a way that feels really aligned with the work that you're
• 11:19
  doing and coming home to how, you know, your purpose channels through you.
• 11:25
  And I also love
• 11:25
  that you said that it can be multiple different aspects of self, you know, it can be gifts,
• 11:30
  it can be talents.
• 11:31
  There's so many forms of abundance.
• 11:32
  So with that, I'm very curious,
• 11:34
  is the soul salon you mentioned deepening into what you feel your relationship with god was
• 11:40
  guiding you more closer towards what does the soul or spirit mean to you what does that
• 11:46
  bring bring to your heart as you hear those words i just want to say firstly that's my
• 11:50
  favorite question that you ask people i love hearing what people think the soul is right