Latest / Afzal's Reset Entropy Podcast / Sixteen Awards and Still Empty — Claudia Rucker on the Wall High Achievers Don't See Coming

Transcript

Sixteen Awards and Still Empty — Claudia Rucker on the Wall High Achievers Don't See Coming · Afzal's Reset Entropy Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: 16 awards, a seven-figure business, every external marker of success you could point to.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: And she still hit a wall so hard, it changed the entire direction of her life.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: My guest today lived the exact thing I talk about constantly.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Looking completely fine on the outside while something quietly falls apart on the inside.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: What she found when the performing stopped is the conversation I want to have today.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: She's the founder of Beyond Ordinary Business Advisory, helping founders put purpose before profit.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: A lesson she learned after building a seven-figure business and every award that came with it.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: And finding it still wasn't enough.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Claudia Rakus, let's go.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, how are you doing today?
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: How's everything?
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Everything is going really well.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's really hot here, but besides that, it's okay.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you right now?
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Which city?
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: In Santa Barbara, California.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: And where are you located?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm located in Mumbai, India.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: So actually, uh normally how I do this, I connect to what people are doing most, and you know how well their idea is about a particular topic.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I like to do it a little bit in a podcast manner, but not like a complete regular podcast.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Where I get to know about how they operate, why they operate in that manner, and what is the driving force behind them, you know, and what is their idea behind the whole thing.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: So should we go in that direction?
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: So Claudia, I want to start somewhere.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Most conversation about you probably don't to be honest.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, not with what you built, but the moment it stopped being enough.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because from the outside, your story reads like a success story.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the seven-figure business, the recognition.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I have a strong feeling that underneath all of that, at some point, something wasn't matching, you know.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: You have to trial and test a lot of things.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: So before we talk about any of what you built, take me to the version of you who had it all working on the paper and still felt like something was wrong.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And was there a moment you want you can name that or describe that?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, um, well, I think before you like we get to the point, um, what's important to understand is that uh so for me, just that version of myself, right?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm I feel like I've evolved quite a bit from that version of myself.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that version of myself was really seeking significance and um and success and monetary success, right, in that moment.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with either of those, of those two driving factors.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: But um I think that that's what would drive a lot of the decisions because I didn't have um enough financial structure or support to really and my values really as part of the combination um as I was building and growing the business.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: I I literally would take advice from my bookkeeper who would say, Well, you're not profitable, but you know, you need to just keep on selling more.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so that that is what I thought success was.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I was getting advice from someone who didn't intimately know my business, like how it actually um worked.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so you end up working just like as an immigrant, a child of immigrant parents, you're already taught uh to work hard.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so I just kept working harder, harder, harder until basically I came to the point where my mental health suffered.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and part of that I think is like I didn't like I'm doing everything that I'm told I'm being told to be to make this all work out.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Why is it not working out?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so at that point, I think I really started to reconsider like, okay, how like there's more to just making money and more to to just working hard.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: So how do how do I take what I already have and reimagine it?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that's at the point that I feel like sometimes when we're in that mind space and we don't and we're not advisor ready.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: We're we don't have and we might have advisors, but we really don't know how to leverage them, um, that's at the point that you get stuck in, oh, I'm what I call like you're in the messy middle, right?
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: You're growing very fast, but you don't have operational support and you don't have um financial management support to help you in the decisions.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're not really understanding what really matters to you, you can get sucked into what matters to a lot of other people and you just kind of take that on as your own.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I feel like as a society, we've evolved quite a bit, right?
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because there's a lot more information now.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, people are writing about um mental health challenges and entrepreneurialism, and there's a very big push towards well-being too, being part of that success, um, the success success metrics.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: But in the time that I was building um my business and growing it, we didn't have access to that that that information.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: It was very traditional business growth operation.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm a small business, really using enterprise level um reading material to grow a small business.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: So that also didn't help, right?
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't really know what stage of business I was in.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I I hope that answers your question.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: It really was I'm I was ambitious.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I got poor um advice.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't really understand what stage of business I was in, and I did not have the operational and financial management systems in place for the amount of demand that was coming through the door.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I was always seeking more demand to try to fix all of my issues versus really understanding where the core issue was and how to reimagine this business so it worked for me personally, for the business needs, and then also for my team's needs.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: So the gap you're describing, you know, the one outside looking one way and you know, inside feeling completely different.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's exactly the thing what I build my work around, to be honest.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: So most people assume that if they just achieve enough, the inner part will, you know, will be short itself or will everything will get sought out.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: But your story suggests exactly opposite, you know.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: We actually can see that you need to take it, align it all together, or else it becomes a huge gap, which even you don't know where is the gap, and then it goes haze wire and there is no structure, and then it collapses in the longer run.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: But you are you you actually saw done and sorted all of it, so you got to like a greater path ahead.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: That that's very inspirational because many times people just go all in more hard work, more hard work, and until that exhaustion just comes in very badly, and they just leave everything because they don't see any openings anywhere most of the time.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think for me that wasn't an option.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I had a team that I really cared about.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think I cared more about them and their livelihoods, right?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: Then at a certain point I cared more about them than I did about me.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that was good in a sense, and that um that's what I couldn't let go of.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't let go of saying, you know what, let's just close all this thing down, right?
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: They can go find other jobs.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: We had a very particular um family-friendly uh work environment.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of the women who we employed were single moms or single women, um, or main um the men who worked for us were uh single providers for their family.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: So to me, it was more personal and saying, like, oh, let me throw the baby out with the bathwater.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's what you're speaking to.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like, let me just throw the baby out with the bathwater.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think the slowing down and like what you spoke about, the slowing down, going inside, really um understanding my spending the time to understand myself better and and having the structure, like the financial management structure in place to really use the data to reimagine what could this new manifestation, how would it feel, how would it look, how would the numbers, the profitability, the productivity, um, the rate, how would that all have to change to get to that vision of I don't want to drive a million over a million dollar business, but I still want to be profitable, I still want to pay myself market rate, and I still want to make sure that my my um team members get paid over living wage.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: So though the constraints became different when I worked on myself first and I gave myself space first.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: I had the opening, right?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: This the and the mind shift, because you talk a lot about mind shift, right?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: The mindset that I had the opening and the space to basically work on myself.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: And with that investment of investing in myself, basically that's where I have the capacity now.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I had the structure right in place to use the data and um the my imagination and my creativity to say what does this look like?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: If I can't run a volume business where we're open seven days a week, 12 hours a day, every 30 minutes we're flipping somebody over.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what does that look like?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you know, it looks like a beautiful spa where we charge more for beautiful curated experiences where we can really um treat our clients and give them a lot of value, but they're willing to pay for that value.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: And now I'm not in a volume business uh without uh that's really what it came down to.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: But the inner work was where I had what I had to do to get to be able to have the space and be able to reimagine the business and not just throw it out like you said, the baby with the bathwater and just say, Okay, I'm done.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: I just didn't the constraint was the team.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I care for the team.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that makes sense totally.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that that belongingness you start getting, you start understanding everyone's problem, not only yours, especially as someone who is trying to build something.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what fascinates me about high achievers.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Also, I think you lived it for sure.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's that belief that runs quietly underneath a lot of ambitious people, also.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: That the next win will finally make them feel okay.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it becomes a very repetitive thing, next milestone, next award, next revenue level.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: The chase becomes the the key, you know, instead of actually when they reach there, nothing happens to them genuinely.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Believing feeling is waiting at the finish line, finish line, and you know that finish line just goes on going bigger and bigger.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: So you crossed a lot of those finish lines 16 times over by one count.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to ask you directly did the achievement ever deliver the feeling you thought it would?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, or or did each win leave you scanning for the next one?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's exactly it.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: Each win was such an empty feeling, but then I didn't even allow myself to be present with that or even explore it or question it.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: It was just like, okay, next goal, right?
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we open the first location, let's open the second location.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um I need more business, let's open more hours, let's train better.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was just like a constant, it's a it was a constant.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: Now I do have back then I didn't know, right?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: But I but I do have a condition.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I have ADHD.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: So that shiny, that shiny like object syndrome is something that I don't know, I'm ambitious, but I also have a condition.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so that super hyper focus was the condition.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: If I found something fascinating, which was to hit the goal, right?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I would say stick with it and drive it.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then what would happen is there was the underlying ambition piece of it that basically um was like, and it's gonna feel so good.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like I would build that up in my mind.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna feel so good and it's gonna be awesome, and I'm gonna work towards it, but then I would hit it and it'd be like, actually, it doesn't feel really good.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: Where else can I reach to find something?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: Can I find something?
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: But it had to be interesting for me.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: And entrepreneurship is a fascination that I have.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how how do we do business for good, right?
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: How do we make profit?
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, have a beautiful workspace that is conducive to people growing and thriving, and that includes the clients, but also the team members.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, how how do we make this all work with profitability coming out, coming out and at the other end?
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: And my pay, right?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: My sustain and my sustainability.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's that's what we're trying to figure out.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel like no, hitting that's the biggest big misconception, is that a lot of entrepreneurs that I work with, my clients, when they come to me, well, first of all, my clients are professionals, so they've achieved some sort of success, and that even getting through their profession, like doctors or lawyers or um dentists, chiropractors, even even some people in the wellness industry, uh, they've achieved some sort of success getting through their master's degree or their licensing.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: So they're very highly capable uh people and they're ambitious.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: But once they start to bring the business in there, that ambition is what's going to cause a little bit of the, they're gonna try to drive the sales, right?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: Drive the growth.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: But then what ends up happening is because they don't have a strong, um, they don't have strong financial and operation management systems in place, what ends up happening is that they end up failing.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: So it might not even be that they've gotten to the goal.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: It might be that as an entrepreneur, they really are not competent.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that dissonance between being so competent that you have so much demand, right?
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: And not being competent because you don't have the right financial and operational structures underneath you, right, leaves you in this place of I'm doubting my capability as a as a as a person.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where I come in.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: And the gap that we fill is that even though you have a bookkeeper, even though you have a CPA, there's still a gap of financial management that you as an entrepreneur need to put in place to be able to be successful, right?
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so this is a lot of the work that I do.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: It it kind of coincides with yours, with the work that you do, but there's a practicality of what you need in place, the structure and practices that you need in place, even though you're a successful business owner.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: And these people are my clients are amazingly successful.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they have when they come to me, it's because the money piece doesn't make sense to them.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: I have so much coming in, but what's left over or what I can pay myself is there's a disconnect there.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: Can you help me understand the financial piece and how this business works financially?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: And they have to be a little bit humble, right?
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: To be able to do that because on the outside they look so successful.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: Does that does that, you know, that and that was that that was that was me, right?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: That literally was what was happening to me.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and there's where the disconnect, the disconnect happens, right?
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: At at a certain point.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because that dissonance between the money piece is a lot of what is driving that um that kind of questioning and just yeah, being having the mental mental health challenges.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: You're also exhausted and you're not taking care of yourself.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Makes sense.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: So people who look most successful are often most exhausted also in inner sense because outside they will be looking very successful on their capabilities, their service providing, but they're holding up that image also most of the time that doesn't match what is happening inside, also, because there's a lot of going things going on, and when they enter the entrepreneurship uh side of the business, they have to handle something which was never their part or they never learned, also.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: And like you mentioned, that they start doubting their skills in the wrong section rather than you know fixing those blocks which are needed to for the strong foundation to be there, and holding that gap all day for years is one of the most draining things a person can do.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: I've talked to a few people who are done that for last 46 years straight, and they have just exhausted this point where they feel like you know they just want to do something about that, not for themselves, but rather for their family now.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because the time has passed so much that it's very difficult for them also, you know, to mix this and align together.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, did it feel like that for you like you were maintaining something on the outside that was costing you enormously on the inside at times, or for the clients and the people around you even know that or felt that that was happening with you?
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so yes, and and I think that that that's what comes to the breaking point, right?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: I I remember um sitting one Christmas, you know.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm in the bathroom actually, and just like I'm so busy.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the only time I really had time to really think was like when I was in the bathroom, and I'm sitting there and it's Christmas time, and everybody is celebrating.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: We're helping them get ready for all of these celebrations.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I just felt so sad for myself because I was like, I have nothing.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: I am so busy trying to drive this success train that I sacrificed relationships with my family and with my friends.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because what ultimately happens is you say no, no, no, no.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then what ends up happening is people stop asking you to do things.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's kind of at the point where I had picked my business over my relationships with my family, relationships with my um my husband, relationships with my friends.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so we come to the holiday time that's all about relationships, and I I don't have anything, you know.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm feeling very, I look very successful, but I'm super sad, you know, I'm super exhausted.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I just say I'm sacrificing everything for this business, and something has to change, but I don't know what has to change because honestly, I think I'm doing everything right.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: I I mean, I don't, I didn't even have um, yeah, I didn't even have time to even research or look or find a solution.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm just kind of going, you know, trying to keep everything, trying to keep everything afloat.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so to your point, yeah, it it is super painful.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: It it is one of the most sad and painful experiences that you have because you feel so alone, right?
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: And if you go and tell people, hey, by the way, you know, I feel really lonely, I feel really um sad and depressed, what are they gonna tell you?
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: What do you mean?
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: You got everything going, right?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: You you have you're winning awards all the time.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: You are, you know, your business is very busy.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, but that really doesn't feel hard.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Holistically, what you need as a human being.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: True.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: So you you uh also, like you mentioned, also there was a phase, you know, where everything like became a standstill where you had to revamp everything.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, you know, that feeling of hitting a wall.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I want to go there because the wall is usually where the real story is also for many people.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: The breakthrough also for most people happens right at that wall.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh not the breakdown itself, but what is revealed when that happened with you?
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: So, can you take me into that what actually happened when it all caught up with you?
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean the external circumstances, I mean what it felt like from the inside, when the version of you that had been holding everything together couldn't hold it anymore.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: And how, especially as an entrepreneur, you might also see that when that scenario happens, you feel like, how can I stop the existing thing so I can think straight in a correct direction, also?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes the existing criteria also doesn't allow us to stop and think for that criteria.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, how did you manage to do all of that?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it wasn't a short process, first of all, right?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: I can look back on it today and I can say, oh yeah, that makes sense, right?
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: When I was living it, it's it wasn't as linear as I'm going to share it with you for purposes of time, right?
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: And in this conversation.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the first piece was first what happened was that there were a lot of changes, like changes in the labor code, um, of disasters, a fire, a couple of fires um that were detrimental to our business.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: So this all of these changes happening very rather quickly, um, like one year after another.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I I would say for like a period of four years, it was um labor code change.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, we got to change our business model, right?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: Friction, uh like a lot of friction.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay, fire.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, we got to recover from the fire.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, another fire, right?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, we got to recover from that fire.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, fire and mudslide, right?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it was at that point where I was like, oh my god, what the heck, right?
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: Is how am I gonna get myself out of this one?
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because I got myself out of all of them.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: So it came one day, um, one one early morning.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, oh, and I turned 50 also.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm starting to reflect on my life.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: So um one morning, I'm um early in the morning, I'm sitting there, and this is the script that's in my head.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: I can't solve this problem any, I can't solve this problem.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not I'm not equipped to solve this problem anymore, right?
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: And the problem is obstacles and challenges.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't have the wherewithal to be able to do this anymore.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: So because I can't solve this problem and figure my way out of this, um, wouldn't it just be easier if I just died?
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: Literally.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: And this is like a picture you're in a Roman arena, right?
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm uh the picture I can that's closest is I'm in like with all these noise and all these voices, and I'm sitting, I'm the gladiator, the lion is gonna come out.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: I have nothing, no sword, no nothing to help me defend myself against the lion.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: And the lion are the voices in my head that are really, really loud.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so, um, and telling and and the voices like I am on survival, I don't know how I can survive this without any kind of tools or help or support or anything at all.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that that's the first one, and so you can imagine how much stress I was under because suicide ideation thoughts were coming to me.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: The second thing is that my husband was there, right?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I started to cry.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so he heard me like, you know, and he's like, What's wrong?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I had enough trust in him that I told him, look, this is how I'm feeling.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Don't worry, we'll get through this together.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: We we, you're not alone.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: We, but in that moment I felt alone.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we'll we'll get through this together.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so that was just the first step in that.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: The second step is COVID happened and they closed the business.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: So that was probably the best thing that could have happened, right?
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: Was that the business was closed, and that gave me the time to slow down, to think, to really re-evaluate, and not to have the pressure of running the business day by day.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: And by then I had, you know, a lawyer, a CPA, I had a banker, I had a whole advisory team around me that basically guided me through the decisions to um get through COVID.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then I ran the numbers because by then I'm have financial management, I have operation management.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, this business needs somebody else, and I'll sell it.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: Then I had everything ready to sell, and so I sold.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, okay, this is this is this is it.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I can now I have choice and I can basically rebuild a different business.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: And but it's a business that's going to be based on my values, and I did a lot of I did a lot of mindset work, I did therapy.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I really invested a lot in myself to be able to get to the point where today I can't even imagine that version of myself.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so evolved, right?
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm really living my values, I'm doing what I'm very passionate about, and there's profitability strategy behind that also.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: Makes sense.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: So there is a specific thing that happens when a higher achiever hits that wall, and all the achieving stops working as distraction, and of course, the running part, how you explain, and whatever they were using, the achieving to avoid feeling, or while running everything, it finally arrives with when there's nowhere left to go.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: And for a lot of people, that's the first time in years they actually meet themselves, not the performing self, the real one underneath.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I have seen this happening.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: Is this exactly what happened with you also?
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: When you know this everything else stopped, what did you find uh waiting underneath is also I would like to know more about that.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think that is what connected to what you love and the values that was necessary for you to build something.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, what was that underneath?
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: What did you find in that moment?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you can say that in a few lines.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um I found a person, I found a person who wasn't broken and needed to be fixed.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: I found a person that just had used the wrong strategies, right?
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: The wrong um focus, had valued the wrong, had focused, had focused on things that were really outside of what really mattered to to me.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I I really first I had to grieve that loss of that time.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because when you meet yourself fully and you're it's it's almost like you're grieving that you didn't do this before and that you wasted so much time and energy on things that literally are again strategies just to survive, right?
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: Entrepreneurship in life.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but once you meet your yourself, once you go to invest in yourself and you take the time and you have the space and the support, what ends up happen for me, what happened was that I really had to grieve a lot of of time and energy misinvested, right?
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: And and I had to make a promise to myself that that was not the way that I was gonna live, but I also was not gonna go to the true extreme, that I kind of had to meet myself somewhere in the middle and allow myself and prioritize evolving as a person to become more authentically the person who I always was.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: I just was using, you know, I just got kind of misdirected, right?
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: To come back to be authentically myself, to live my life with my values, and and to really give myself all the time to really take time to pause.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: So out of this came um, I call it a planning practice, but actually it's I mean, it's much so much more than that.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: But basically it gives me time every week and during the seasons, key points in the season of the year, um to reflect.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: So weekly and seasonally, so that I don't get to that point that I got in the past where I'm so off track and so out of alignment with who I am, right?
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that I can come back and reflect and give myself time.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm always balancing out capacity.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: What do I have capacity to do?
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because the striver in me, right?
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: The ambitious person in me always wants more.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I have to kind of say, you know, you're I love you that you're in there.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: I love it because it's what keeps me growing and keeps my business um relevant, but I always have to kind of recalibrate, right?
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: And bring back to what who I am authentically and what matters to me.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: So one of my my one of my values is family centrism.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so in family centrism, it means that I have to make time for my family, my husband, my these relationships that are important to me.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's where I have to balance, and that's where the reflection points weekly and seasonally make a very big difference.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because if I get off and I let my ambition and I start driving, then I know that I need to come back, take things off my plate, and then prioritize so that I can make sure that I'm investing in um meeting my support advisors, um, having time for friends, having time putting out the work because today I'm today I'm a business advisor.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I have to have enough time, energy, and resource capacity to basically guide women like me who are going through the same, who are going through the same journey that I went through.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, then you won't believe my next question was going to be about grief in that moment, yeah.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: But you already covered that part.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I was thinking of like, okay.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm curious.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, tell me about grief and your like your experience with other entrepreneurs and grief.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because I don't think we talk about that.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I have found is generally when they hit the wall, when the realization starts, and you know, you get some enlightenment within you.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: That is when you connect with your inner true inner self.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: When you connect to a true inner self, you suddenly start thinking, what the fuck I did for this much time, and and where was I running?
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like in which direction, for who?
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: And generally the grief goes in the direction of I wasted so much time chasing something which was not even me.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that is that using that grief, many people come ahead and you know they want to correct it now.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: They that is when they they put a new order in place that this is me, this is my value, this is what I want to do, I'll do this.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people, when they come out and they start building, they build uh whatever they build, they build it in a very beautiful manner where how you put reflection timings before I can guarantee you never had that kind of time for yourself or for anyone.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: But when you build, when you come from values, when you understand that it's not only one thing in your life, it's the whole holisticness to your life.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: So your business becomes part of your family, becomes part, everything gets incurred in a good ecosystem, and that is what I have seen.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: So grief acts like you know an eye-opener for many, and this is how you're supposed to do.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: So that is where I was going to come, but you already covered magically.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I love that you that you speak to this because um when you're grieving, right?
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: When you're when you're through, when you're going through that process, it's almost like you get angry at first, right?
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then you and then you then you're like grieve.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um what I what I think is I would not have recognized that I was grieving, and I would not have recognized the the feelings of being um sad and disappointed.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: And and um feeling like I had an unintentionally caused like a little bit of hurt for the people that were that really loved me and really wanted me to be engaged with them.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so this really requires being accompanied by someone, right?
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: As you're going through this grief, if I had not been um well, I had a couple of accompaniments, right?
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: I just didn't have one.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I I had a therapist who accompanied me through the processing of this.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but in addition to that, I had a I had business advisors that basically were invested stakeholders in my business.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: And um they helped me through a different type of grief.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: So if the help if the therapist helped me professionally, there was through the grief cycle real need for um advisors that were helping me through process through how does this impact this grief and this understanding, how does this help me as I'm going to have to reimagine this business?
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so I feel like grief isn't just the accompanying me through the therapist, it's through your most valued relationships and having that support.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm really curious, like, how do you hold, like, how do you accompany entrepreneurs that um that are your clients, right?
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: How do you hold space for them when they're grieving?
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: What does that look like?
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: So for what I teach, I'm all about patterns.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: I recognize the smallest pattern to the most biggest pattern in anyone's life.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I believe too much into data sets and data points of a person as well.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: I believe there is a trajectory of every person, every being.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: When they reach this kind of situation, it's very important to make them understand that what has happened in the past was a phase of their life.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't actually mean their whole life has gone down.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: Once they get that awareness and understanding in place, they start absorbing everything around them, what happened to them, why are they now, what they can do.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: That process transition starts there.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: The first step itself, that is what I call awareness in general.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: Normally, we are just aware that we are stuck or we are going to something.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: This state gives us a very broad version of awareness where we see okay, there's much more to life, there's much more to things.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: It was not my fault completely, but I was not knowing also, I was just running, I was running blindly, and it's no one's fault in all of this.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: Many of the times we want to create something, but so many other factors lead us into a total different direction.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: But we are not completely wrong in that.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: We are just doing what we feel in that moment, we just did it.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: What is important is you have this much time left.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: And do you really want to build what you thought and what where are you aligning now?
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because most people start aligning also their values, their vision, and now it's that is the switch which is actually needed for them to shoot ahead.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: If I have seen like many people, they're not able to push also.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they go into grief and putting it personal blame.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: If they go in that spiral, is another pattern strategy which just goes down the hill for them.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it's all like a door which opens out of nowhere, and it's a very mysterious door.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: The thing is, they have to believe, and not only in the door, to be honest, in themselves first, then the door, then everything starts opening on its own.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a belief which needs to be integrated, the seed which is there.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I I highly believe right people at the right time, or something that should happen at that point is very necessary because it's a difficult job for that same person to come out of their own.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: They need that push sometimes, or else they wouldn't be able to take that door so easily.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: They might procrastinate, delay it, maybe boil themselves more down.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, that is the switch what I do.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I see their trajectory, I see their patterns, I know when this would happen, also.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I have also seen people being people, most of the time they wouldn't listen until that thing happens.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: But when that thing happens, they would be like, Okay, do help me with this, right?
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I know okay.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: I was also always prepared with the manuscript on what to do next.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm always excited for that, also, because that shift is going to be like life-changing for them.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: I know that, and I believe in that.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: When I start believing, they also somewhat start believing in themselves.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes that is also needed a lot.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, like how you mentioned that you know, we'll we'll come out of this together, like your husband mentioned, that togetherness pulls people out like magic.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like, people don't understand that until they realize that moment happened.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, in that moment, it's like uh a dark room, yeah.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that that light for anyone, yeah.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: That light is important, is what I believe for anyone to break out of these patterns and loops.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, one more thing I noticed that you mentioned that purpose before profit.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: You talk about this, and I want to be very careful here because many people use this as a like a phrase, catchphrase, and business slogan.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: But coming from someone who hit the wall the way you did, I suspect that this means something much more deeper and more personal, not only for you, but for the clients also you're helping them with.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and what does the purpose before profit actually mean to you?
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: Not like as a business principle, but as something you learned the hard way.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think um maybe I was quoted as saying purpose before profit before like I evolved, right?
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I just want to reflect like what does that mean to me today?
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there is no mission without the margin, right?
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's the financial sustainability that actually keeps us able to um keep the purpose or or the mission um sustainable.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so one of my one of my values is called um radius.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: So it means uh the value is that I want to make an impact, not not like one on one coaching only, like we're with one person.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um a lot of the work that I do and the entrepreneurs that I work with, what we share in common.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Common is we're like you, we we have a very um heightened awareness of patterns.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so what that happens is we when we have systemic challenges in any kind of industry, we have industry that runs like business that runs like status quo, right?
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: This is the way it's always done.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: But for individuals like let's say maybe you and I and and my clients, we come in and because we have pattern recognition as one of our strengths, um, is that we say, well, this isn't really working.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll give you an example with one of my clients.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um she has a law firm, and when she hit her wall, she called me.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what was the issue?
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: She she said that she had a cash flow issue.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's what we were trying to fix.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's a cash flow issue.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: But the but the reality of the situation is that for her, what she had recognized was a pattern of wherever she went to go work, you had to choose the law or your life.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: And she started her business because she didn't want to choose the law or her life.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_01: She wanted to, she wanted me to help her reimagine how she could offer a workplace for lawyers who are excellent at what they do, but also don't want to work um 120 hours a week, right?
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: If that's even possible, whatever they have to work, because that robs them of their life, right?
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_01: Same thing that we're talking about here.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_01: So she said, Can you come help me kind of figure this out from like a cash flow?
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because I need I'm gonna need cash flow.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_01: But the pattern was lawyers have to sacrifice their life to practice law.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's status quo legal industry model.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: She wanted to reinvent that because she saw the pattern.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_01: She wanted to reinvent that.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: We had to make the pay piece paying herself market rate, because of course she wants to sell the practice, it has to be ready to sell at any time.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, she market rate pay, profitability, but this beautiful experience for the lawyers who are working with her and the clients who are the legal firm clients.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_01: So to me, um, that she has purpose in her work.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's profitable, but they're in synergy together.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: And my job is to come build the financial plan and financial management system and operation management system to take what her experience is and make it clear for people who are coming in and who want the same thing that she wants so we can open up more hours to sell and to keep our to keep the business profitable and pay her market rate.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_01: Again, no mission without the margin.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: It has to, it all is part of the puzzle, but it takes somebody that's recognizing that the industry has a pattern that is not sustainable for the way that we want to live and work today, and so that that's what it means to me.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's work, work, life, profit, purpose, it's synergy, well-being, synergy, it's all holistic.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_01: We have to see things in a from a holistic perspective.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_01: And when we see patterns like you do and like I do, and like my clients, is we can create really amazing uh businesses that serve, uh, but are also really there's super awesome financial strategy without extracting from people or extracting from the planet, or you know, we just get creative because of course we're resting, we have enough time for our our family, we're not choosing any of those things over money or outer metric success, you know, right?
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: And when these people arrive into for help to you, when they are rebuilding everything, do most of them arrive with something kind of a pattern which they have already seen that they won't help with?
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_00: Also, do you feel that once they start rebuilding with you uh the second time, did you notice that what changed inside them also?
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, did they start acting different in a way because your whole approach is holistic?
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, sometimes the value gets transferred as well.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_01: So by the time they meet me, they've probably done all of the inner work, right?
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_01: They've done the inner work because it's in doing the inner work that basically they're like, okay, can't keep doing that, right?
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: Can't keep sacrificing that.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like you said, they they they've gone through that door that you are talking about.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they also know that what they were doing before didn't work, so the reimagination needs financial strategy to it, because otherwise it's not sustainable.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_01: But they are professionals and they don't understand like the financial piece of it.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: That that's why I start with the financial piece, because if we don't hit the profit piece, the business is not going to be sustainable.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_01: And this beautiful vision, right?
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_01: That they now want to shoot out and grow, um, won't be sustainable and it they'll be back in their loop.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: Now they're in survival, but now they're in survival because the they've chosen profit, they've chosen purpose, but they didn't choose profit to work synergistically with it.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_01: So they get back into the loop again.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_02: True, right?
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_01: This is this is this is when they swing all the way to the right, and it's all about let me live my purpose, let me live my authentic self, let me well, if you go all the way to the right, if the pendulum swings all the way to the right, it's going to have to come back and recenter itself, like recalibration, right?
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_01: But that's what my my therapist loves to tell me that he's like, okay, Claudia, our our goal in life is to constantly be recalibrating, you know.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_01: You stayed too long to the left of success or whatever, and then you went to the right, right, where it's all about purpose and well-being.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_01: And and how do we stay, get out?
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: Something will change, it will throw us off.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_01: How do we put the systems and practices in place personally and professionally and with support of people who who are alongside with us and how and look at things holistically, but how do we put those systems and support so we're constantly recalibrating, coming back to um homeostasis as people, right?
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, especially when you're on entrepreneur, I think that that idea of homeostasis as a stagnant point or a destination, that's where we we start, right?
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's a destination.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna get there, we're gonna work towards it, we're gonna pond towards it.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_01: But you and I know that coming back to homeostasis is an art, it's a practice, it's never a destination.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's being present in your life and then under putting enough structure and practices in place that you come back.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's why the reflection practice that I have is so important because the reflection practice is a promise that I never stop doing that because it helps me come back to homeostasis.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_01: It tells it, I they're like stopping points where I pause intentionally to say, Am I out of homeostasis?
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_01: If I am, what is it?
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_01: Let me recognize the pattern of what's happening and let me come back and do something, give my time, energy, and money and invest them in what will bring me, what will bring me back to homeostasis.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_00: True.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_00: So um what I realized is the next question was going to come, but you already answered that is people hit the wall, they recover, they quietly rebuild the exact same pattern which was there the first way with a new name, same performing, same emptiness, just a different business on top of it.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I have seen this like you said, coming out of it is an art in itself as well.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_00: What in that there are two things what I have seen the most people who can get presence into picture, like if I can leave everything and be present, for them it's easy to break patterns.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_00: One, and second is people who can be still, if they want to stop thinking, like be still with their thoughts, they can easily break the patterns.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like sometimes when this happens with any of them, if they learn these two things for themselves, they can easily break any patterns, also, if by any chance they enter it.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because again, when you enter a pattern, you don't realize what's happening, and the slowing down system is very necessary for you to understand.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_00: Am I going back to that?
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_00: Is it me or is it again that uh not going too much into overthinking, but just a stillness gives the answer many times itself.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I think that that's where having like I meditate a meditation practice becomes really important in this journey, right?
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_01: I I haven't talked a lot about that, but um during COVID, uh Headspace was giving away an app, you know, to meditate.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I was so desperate, right?
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_01: I was so desperate.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_01: I was going through that door, right?
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I was so desperate that I said, well, let me try this meditation thing.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_01: There has to be something to it.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think um meditating, learning how to meditate, even through the app, uh was the key piece of of all of this beautiful life that I'm living today.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I I honestly I cannot even imagine, you cannot even imagine the difference, right?
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's radical.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_01: People that knew me back then say, what happened to you?
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_01: You changed on a cellular level.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's what they that's how they describe experiencing me from before to to today.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_01: But the key piece was COVID, right?
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_01: I had time, but it wasn't only that I had time, is that I used that time intentionally with whatever I had, which was the mind, the my headspace app, and a meditation practice.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so today the meditation practice isn't like it was before.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_01: The meditation practice is I'm so self-aware, like body scanning, right?
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that I say, okay, I'm I'm a little bit off, right?
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_01: Let me use my meditation practice to come back and center me and be present.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that's okay.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_01: I just I'm just getting a read.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just rebuilding some awareness.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not like anything that is like, oh, I gotta go sit in my room and meditate, that stop the whole world.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_01: No, it can even be a couple minutes of like, okay, my heart rate is elevated.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm stressed, I'm feeling it in my stomach and my shoulders.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_01: Let me come back and meditate, right?
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_01: Or the overthinking, when the overthinking happens, I'm overthinking, I'm feeling the anxiety.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_01: Let me come back and use my meditative practice to help me get centered and and rooted back into my body and not only not in my head, right?
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_00: I I have also uh so I try many methods just to break this pattern, especially of overthinking.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_00: One of the one of the worst weirdest one which I've found is I challenge the brain, what are you thinking?
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it just stops, yeah, it just stops.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like the brain gets confused, what was it thinking?
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's it's like a very quick way to become calm.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, there are like many, many things which I teach people also, you know, just to break that thing because that small breakage is needed, or else it starts storing in your body itself as well.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_00: And like you mentioned, you know, the heartbeats, the shoulder, yeah, those are like like biggest giveaways, or to separate yourself from that exact moment, which is very necessary.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_00: Unluckily for sorry, I was yeah, no, no, go ahead, go ahead.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'll put a pen in it.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_00: Just so uh unluckily for me during COVID, I was in a phase of running.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I was I was building something to run away from a place technically.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like from my from my the situation back then, and so I didn't utilize that's uh that time to reflect upon me, but I did uh utilize that time to gather a lot of information which I never used until two two years later after that.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_00: No, actually three years later after that is when I used properly everything, and I realized, oh, I should have done that when everything was slowing down.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_00: I should have actually slowed down and used it.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_00: So many people got you know a very enlightened moment in COVID as well.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_00: Many people actually, it's very wonderful also for many.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_00: It was bad for many, but for many, just boom to go their life after that changed drastically.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_01: I I just want to say one thing that I really appreciate about what you just said.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, one is you've been through this journey, so you you understand it intimately.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think because you've been through the journey, one of the things that I want to celebrate you and and what you just shared is that um what works for me might not work for you.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's something that for the listeners, I think it's really important um to have people who are walking alongside with you as you're going through this journey that have ideas, right?
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_01: They have they have experience, they can share, but they're walking alongside you, offering you these things, right?
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_01: They're not talking at you, right?
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because what you said is your your overthinking interruption is you ask the brain, what are you thinking, right?
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_01: Interrupts that pattern.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_01: For me, it's let me close my eyes, let me have those thoughts come in and say thinking and kind of imagine like a broom pushing them out, right?
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_01: So everybody, something is gonna resonate for that individual, but you got to be curious, you gotta be, you gotta take it as this is a curiosity, not a fix, right?
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it might work until it doesn't work, but how can I be present enough to understand when it doesn't be curious to come back and and seek that that support of somebody walking alongside that is gonna that is gonna fast track you, right?
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_01: So for example, if I was going through that hitting the wall like you described and going through that door, if I had met you, right, or if I had even heard the podcast, I don't know if I would have I would have signed up for that kind of help.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because I didn't, I thought everything was a destination and not an experience of life.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm an ambitious person and I'm I was chasing goals, right?
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so for the people who are listening the to the podcast, I think one of the best things that you just shared right now is um, and you're in hey, I've been through it.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_01: I have some things that basically because I'm I'm I recognize patterns, I I have some things and I've worked with enough people.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_01: I have some things that I know I can offer you as a way to fast track, but remember this is all about you, and you have to be open and curious to try things and know that this is gonna be a constant, right?
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because change happens, things happen, we evolve, and so it's just being in relationship with yourself in this beautiful way of being curious and being surrounded by people who want to share um how this holistic leave living really looks like and and support you.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I I applaud you because I love what you said, and it's so on point.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I would say we're very different ages, right?
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_01: We're in different chapters of our life, and to know that you're out there offering the support to um to people who might be in different ages, different chapters of their life, it gives me real hope for entrepreneurs because there's nothing that sets you up for this journey.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_01: But it's the mindset, it's the pattern recognition, it's having the tools to support yourself and figuring out what works for you, but being curious enough to listen to other people and take what they have to say and then bring it in and create it for what's gonna work for you.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like you're doing that.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and I just want to tell you very much.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_00: It means a lot when I hear that, you know, it motivates me to go try to help more people with that motivation.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to close with the person listening to this as well, who is exactly where that wall criteria is there in their life, maybe successful on the paper, admire doing everything right, but quietly hollow inside, unable to say it out loud because from the outside they have nothing to complain about at times.
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_00: Internally, they can feel it, so they haven't hit the wall yet, but they can feel it somewhere ahead, you know.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want to say to that person, the one who still believes that the next achievement will finally make the make them feel whole in itself?
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that that there's a such a different way to live and experience life, and it's so much bigger and um magical, if I can use that word, right?
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because I feel like my life is magical, right?
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like sometimes I have to pinch myself, right?
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_01: To say, I really created this.
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_01: I and it's holistic.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, is it perfect every day?
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_01: No, there's it's not, but but to trust and finding the right support, um, somebody who again is gonna walk alongside you um because you're not alone, it's not you.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_01: This is this is a pattern, this happens to us, right?
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_01: You're part of you're part of a special community, and where there is there is another side to it, right?
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_01: And it once you walk through that door and figure out what it looks green, right?
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then start to rebuild holistically with someone walking alongside you, you you are you become part of this special community that is doing business differently, that's doing business beautifully, that's doing business in a beyond ordinary kind of way that really meets both human person and business and clients and team, and it just is all working together.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it's magical.
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's uh that's what I would like to say.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_01: There's hope.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_01: You are not alone, and it's not you, it's it this happens happens to many people.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to add one thing here, it's very comical to say, to be honest, but life becomes fun to me.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_00: It it feels fun.
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_00: It before there was a lot of crying, and from there it just became fun, you know.
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_00: If if there's an issue, it doesn't feel like an issue now.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it feels like a challenge, more like you know, like okay, let's let's try this, maybe we try this.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it it becomes fun, it doesn't feel sad anymore that way.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_00: And one last thing, if you could go back and say one thing to yourself, to the version of you holding up 16 awards and feeling empty behind them.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_00: What would you tell that person?
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be okay.
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna get through this.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: And on the other side of that journey, really, like you said, that I say magic, right?
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_01: But what I mean by magic is I today, I you're gonna fall back in love with what you do, that solving problems for people, walking alongside with them and being part of their journey and your own journey, that's that's fun to me.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_01: I tell my clients, when I work with you, I wish I could tell my past self is you're gonna come back to thinking like you used to think when you opened your first business.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, wow, I can't believe they pay me to do this.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_01: I it's it's such a privilege.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I I'd even do it for free, right?
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um you will get back to that place.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I wish I would have told would have told her.
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's gonna be the best investment of your time and your energy and your money, and it's gonna be worth it because the return on that is fun, it is magic, it is living in purpose and and living your values and being surrounded by people who are just as excited about business as you are, because there's not a lot of us out there right now, but I truly believe if we continue to have this conversation and the way that you frame it and the work that you're you and I are doing, and people who are part of our community are doing, we can reimagine business, and it can be beyond this ordinary status quo business vision that we have today.
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_00: True, very true.
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_00: I I do believe in a ripple effect, definitely.
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_00: We may never be able to measure it, but every client you talk to, you have every client I have, as they are also entrepreneurs, they will also be treating their subordinates in that manner.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the value just keeps on multiplying.
• 1:07:57
  SPEAKER_00: We will never be able to figure out in the lifetime, to be honest, how much impact it had, but I think it will create a very beautiful space out of just operating from that value and system.
• 1:08:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I agree.
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_01: I I have um I have team members that worked with me.
• 1:08:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I have clients that impact their team members.
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and and the relationships that are built, they're really beautiful.
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_01: You cannot talk to them for years, right?
• 1:08:28
  SPEAKER_01: But once you see them, because of the way you're running a business in such a different with such a different mindset and presence, uh, there's the ones that really enjoyed it and valued it and are going to be that ripple that you talked about, they are so jazzed just the way that you are about business and about life.
• 1:08:51
  SPEAKER_01: That you know, it it's beautiful to see how it ripples out.
• 1:08:56
  SPEAKER_01: And and when they come to say thank you.
• 1:08:58
  SPEAKER_01: It was tough.
• 1:08:59
  SPEAKER_01: You're very tough.
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_01: You were very tough to work with, right?
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_01: You have you have a lot of standards, but today I I see that.
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_01: I see why we I see the the reason and the intentionality behind everything that we were doing.
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_01: I just I just couldn't see it in that moment because of course they haven't met themselves yet, right?
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_00: True.
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_00: True.
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_00: So, Claudia, this was exactly the conversation I hoped for.
• 1:09:27
  SPEAKER_00: To be honest, you answered a few things and before I could even ask, and it just came in the flow.
• 1:09:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we came in with a story that looked like you know, about external success, and we actually talked about the thing underneath it, that it's very heavy, and that is sometimes acts like a breakthrough, the gap between how a life looks and how a life feels, and what it takes to finally close that gap to live this holistic life.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, for everyone listening, if you recognize yourself in this, the achieving that never quits fills the hole in between the heart, the image you're holding up that's costing you more than anyone knows, and that's not a problem more success will fix, it is exactly work that we both do technically.
• 1:10:21
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where I want to end today's uh podcast on this note that you have to go through that door, that door will come in your life.
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Just trust in it, and you know, just go ahead.
• 1:10:38
  SPEAKER_00: You will find success, endlessness, and to be all happiness, which we can already feel, and that will be breakthrough of your life, of any life.
• 1:10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's the excitement of living, right?
• 1:10:53
  SPEAKER_01: The good, the bad, the ugly, right?
• 1:10:55
  SPEAKER_01: But you view it through different.
• 1:10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I wear glasses through different glasses, right?
• 1:11:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's viewed through, oh, you know, I get to, I have the creativity, I have what I need to get through the these friction points and these obstacles.
• 1:11:11
  SPEAKER_01: They're opportunities to create, right?
• 1:11:14
  SPEAKER_01: Solutions.
• 1:11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Done proper.
• 1:11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 1:11:19
  SPEAKER_00: There should be that thing.
• 1:11:20
  SPEAKER_00: And for anyone who wants to reach out, my video link is there in the description.
• 1:11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Claudia's information will also be present for whoever would want to find her work and you know get the help what y'all are looking for to build that exact system which you are getting confused about at the moment.
• 1:11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to thank you very much for being part of this podcast today, Claudia means a lot.
• 1:11:46
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, sharing a few things becomes very difficult, but I always like to give light to people who are lost in the dark.
• 1:11:55
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you very much for sharing, and thanks for being part of this podcast today.
• 1:12:01
  SPEAKER_01: It was my absolute pleasure, and I'm happy to welcome you into my community and be part of your community for people who are going through that door.
• 1:12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely.
• 1:12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:12:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'll send to you whenever I would need help and direction for sure.
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Bye-bye, take care.
• 1:12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 1:12:23
  SPEAKER_01: Stay in touch, okay?
• 1:12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely.
• 1:12:25
  SPEAKER_00: All right, also, uh, one more thing.