Ep #231: The Art of Self-Mastery

 

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Ep #231: The Art of Self-Mastery

Welcome to More Than Mindset, the only podcast that bridges the gap between spirituality and success. Go beyond the mind with clarity and confidence coach, Kim Guillory, and learn how to integrate your passion to serve with your skills and experience to create a business you love. Let’s get started.

Hey, there. Thanks for returning to the show this week. I am talking about what happens to our relationships as we change what happens to our relationships. You know, when I was younger, younger and old enough. When I was a young adult, I was already in business and I had a lot of acquaintances and clients and friends, and I thought the older I get, the more friends I would have.

Did you ever think that the older you got? Because we have more interests and because we’ve lived longer, we’ve met more people. And so there we have more opportunities to make more friends. And then I was always going to have someone to do things with, to travel, to talk to. Turns out that is not what happened.

I’m curious if you thought that too. So, I’m finding myself in a position as you know from the last few shows where I don’t quite feel like the same person. It’s like I have this new understanding or new identity and I don’t want to lose that. Like, I really like this sense of freedom and being basically I’m just like, okay with myself.

I like myself. I don’t mind being alone with myself. I’m actually very entertaining. I have a pretty interesting life and still there’s a part of me that once that. That deep, meaningful relationship or those challenging relationships that help me become better where we can push each other, but I’m finding myself like kind of floating around and not landing with that.

So, I kind of put out an offer this week. So, in case you’re hearing this and you didn’t see this on social media, I am looking for peers to create a sort of Peer Mastermind where we invest in ourselves and the investment goes towards, like we go somewhere two to four times a year, like either every quarter or every six months.

And we brainstorm and mastermind, and I’m talking to small group, and this is not a for-profit group. This is basically a collaborative effort and a mastery of the minds. So, the intention of it is to pull together six and seven figure earners. That we now have new challenges, but we don’t want to join a mastermind because we’ve done that.

And it turns out it’s not what we, it’s not what we wanted. So, I’m looking for people like me who have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars, who have put themselves in that pressure cooker in those organizations and that’s not what you want. And you realize that because you’ve done it and despite whatever you’ve tried, you’ve still been successful.

And I have been doing interviews, you could say about this. So, I met quite a few people and I’m meeting with four more today and finding my new tribe. I went to find new people who I didn’t know before, who I wasn’t in a relationship with, who have the same drive and intention.

We don’t have to have the same past experience and we don’t have to be in the same business. Matter of fact, I’m hoping for a variety of business owners, and I don’t care if it’s like, if it’s male and female, I don’t care if it’s couples just looking for the go-givers, the go-getters that want to do something bigger, that want to create an impact and kind of don’t want to fall into the almost like a popularity contest or this influencer contest of the masterminds.

I don’t want to be in that. I want a small, intimate group where we meet at least once a month. And someone in the group presents their successful strategy of how they got to their position or how did they maintain their position.

That can help someone else in the group. And then we get together because we want to, because it’s really hard to find friends that can take off work or can travel or will leave their partner that there’s all the reasons that people won’t travel, right? If you’ve been around while you already know that I thought when I was younger too, that I was going to have all these friends that I was going to be able to go on road trips with and do all of these things and see the world.

It turned out that’s not true. They won’t because they are locked into the commitments of their life, and that’s not exactly the same commitments as my life. So, you can say I put out an ad and I am looking for, I’m fine with it if it’s four people. Up to 10 people and we kind of set the parameters of what we want.

So that’s what I’ve been doing in these interviews. It’s like, what is important to you? What have you done? What have you accomplished? What hasn’t worked and what do you envision would work? I have a whole lot more questions, but just the basic stuff and it’s, it’s really fun and exciting because I feel some newness.

I don’t know anyone that I spoke with from previous masterminds, we haven’t worked together, and they are coming from different communities, which I’m loving that. I don’t want that same modality. Like I don’t really want it to come from the coaching world or from the sales world or from the healing world.

I want a variety of business owners who have put their sweat, blood, tears, and finances into building something bigger than themselves so that they can create an impact in the world. If that happens to be you, send an email to [email protected]. So that’s just a little plugin. What I’m going to talk about on the show today is how surprised I am by the relationships that fizzled out that I thought were forever.

And I’m curious if that has happened with anyone else or if it’s just, I’m not likable and maybe I’m too much, or they might be too much chaos and conflict or bigness or they’re like, I’ve been told. It’s this massive push energy or too much, just too muchness. Have you been told that?

And it’s like the relationships start off fun and interesting and exciting and you know, I was talking with my granddaughter this weekend and it was kind of like the conversation with her where she was like, I’m just intrigued with some of the stuff that you talk about. I’ve never heard that before. And so, she’s like, all in.

And that’s how my new friendships are. And then there’s a point where it’s just like, I don’t know what happens if it’s judgment in comparison, if I just turn them off, if I’m not meant to have friends and to be in deep, meaningful relationship. That could be true. And I also realized that I could serve without being friends with all of my clients and customers.

So, these are like all part of the new identity and. I do think a part of it is about turning 55 years old, having grown children, going through a lot of experiences in my lifetime and being in business for myself for so long. You know, I tried working when I was around 20. I worked for a finance company.

So, before that I was, I don’t know what you call that, but a person of the state where I was like, I couldn’t fend for, I needed assistance and so I worked like cash jobs and so I cleaned house. I worked at a grocery store for cash. I did side jobs, and my housing was paid for by the government. My food was paid for by the government.

It was not a great time in my life. And when I sat in that welfare office, it happened one time. I sat in that welfare office. And I looked around and I said, I’m never coming back here. I don’t care what I have to do, but I am never coming back here. I was so disappointed in myself, and I hated the limitation.

I’m glad that I had those resources. I don’t know what would’ve happened to us. You know, I might’ve been forced into not having this baby. But that experience showed me what I didn’t want because it gave me contrast and. My entire life, that’s all I have seen, is people that were living off of the system and couldn’t help themselves and couldn’t get above.

And that’s all I knew. So, I was just like following right into that trap. So, it is almost like a soul awakening that was inside of me that created that reaction. But I just knew sitting there, I wasn’t going back, and I said, I had to get a real job. I remember this, my son was like a few months old.

 I started looking. But here’s the problem. I didn’t have a telephone. My car had a hole in the floorboard. I didn’t have an air conditioner or radio in it. I didn’t have a babysitter, but I was going to figure it out. And I thought the nine to five job five days a week was boom. That, that was like the thing to attain.

Now listen, this was in 1988. So, I got the job. He did not want to hire me, and I think I talked him into it. So, I’m still grateful for that today. And I tried working for someone else for six months. It did not work out. I felt very limited. I wasn’t good at it. He was like kind of frustrated with me because I couldn’t get the numbers to balance and man, I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, and I was like on the phone all day collecting.

People like, you got to come pay your bill. You didn’t pay your bill this month. So, I was like, still in that same environment. I spent my lunch hour at the library, which was next door, reading all sorts of books and really trying to get myself out of this. My paycheck was $301 and 50 cents, for two weeks.

That was my paycheck. That was like a raise compared to what I got at the grocery store and the video store, and a babysitter took half. It was like, but I had the 8 to 5 job. Or the 9 to 5 job, like it was the best. So anyway, I think that could be a part of the not relating is. I tried staying home with my babies for a while and oh my God, like I needed to get out.

I needed money. That’s, I remember that We were poor. We, we, a house had burnt, and we didn’t have any money. We didn’t like it, it was terrible. You just like sitting in the house with no money, with bored kids. So, I started selling Avon in order to have a babysitter. So, I would trade the Avon with the babysitter so that I can go sell Avon at the bank and the stores and ended up doing pretty good with that.

So that was like the start of my entrepreneurial path at around the age of 24, I would say. And then I got this wild idea that I would start my own business. I don’t know. Crazy. It’s kind of like the wild idea that I could even be a parent like and be a business owner. I don’t know where these things came from.

I was just super brave. But anyway, I went to beauty school and that kind of started my career. But the reason I’m saying all of this today is I’m wondering if some of the reason that I’m not finding these long-term deep relationships is because we don’t have those things in common. Maybe, maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’m just not likable.

And so, my job is just to like myself, because really, I’m okay with traveling alone. But I do want company and I want friends that push me. I want people who are direct and honest and transparent who can kind of get me to grow, right? I want to be challenged. I want to be challenged by life. And I also want to laugh and have fun, and I want to be successful.

I want to do big things in the world. I want to create an impact and I want to be I just want to be; I don’t believe I was born to be bored. It doesn’t feel good, so it’s not satisfying and I’m actually very frustrated with it, and I’m scared. When I’m bored. I’m scared because I dealt with such severe depression as a kid and in my younger years that I am scared that that boredom’s going to pull me down.

And so, it’s like a part of my highly functioning energy is a survival mechanism of my brain. I have to put myself in these positions because I believe there may still be a part of me that is so afraid of going back down because it was so low. So, maybe people don’t have that in common either. So, I’m just going to talk this week about what I’m doing and maybe bring some awareness to you and your relationships and your friendships.

And see if you’re experiencing the same thing as far as when we change, our circles change, and then we go through that guilt cycle, as if we’re leaving someone behind. Then we go through that not belonging cycle where we kind of can’t get into the next level.

Like we can’t get at the popular girl table, right? All this reminds me of high school and grade school where you didn’t make the team, you weren’t popular, you didn’t get the prom date, you didn’t make cheerleader. It kind of reminds me of that. So could be my own shit. Who knows? In the meantime, it put me on a path to really getting to know myself.

And from a sole perspective, an integrative perspective. A mental and emotional perspective. It put me on a path to integrate all of those parts and to have this. I was talking with some 6/2s. We had a gathering last weekend. They said like there’s, this is a human design term, but Ross spoke about this enlightened selfishness.

Enlightened selfishness. I talked about it last week on the show, and so it’s this having to just take responsibility for yourself and your needs and your desires being met. But doing it from an enlightened perspective, not from a, it’s greedy and it’s all about me, but it’s almost like from a survival space of I have to take care of me because it’s no one else’s job.

And so, I think of this enlightened selfishness as radical responsibility. There is no one who can make me happy. There is no one who can feel all of my needs. It is no one’s job. And it’s a terrible idea for me to expect that of anyone. And the way that I say it is, I would always want them to be different because I would want them to be focusing on me, but they’re focusing on themselves.

And my husband has been a great teacher for this. He is so good at taking care of himself to the point where, I called it selfish and was like accused him of not knowing how to be in a relationship or not being giving or like you’re, he’s so self, and he kind of taught me that he had to take care of himself.

He’s like, well, who’s supposed to take care of me? Like it is my job to take care of myself. But there was a double standard because he had to take care of himself, but then I had to take care of him and the house and the kids, and that never really made sense to me. But now that I don’t have those other responsibilities, I’m getting a taste of it.

I’m getting a sense of it, and I’m seeing where I was always giving and doing in order to belong. In order to be received, in order to be accepted, in order to be worthy. And that is what has changed because when we come from that perspective, then it’s like this needy, creepy, kind of like we, we just, we want everybody and need everybody to do, see, and me.

This is different. And that’s why I think it’s the, and word enlightened selfishness really, really works because. It’s coming from an inner knowing and being, not so much as a getting so. So that is what’s happening in my world. I am heading out of here in the morning. I’m going to be gone for a couple of weeks, haven’t decided if I’m flying or driving.

I was going in the van, but had some issues and then booked a flight, and then they just called, and the van is actually ready to go. So, I don’t know how, what this is going to be like. I’ll let you know as, as the time comes, where that leads to, but I can tell you this every time. I go on a solo trip; I bring back another part of myself that I discovered along the way because traveling alone creates this selfishness and this responsibility because there’s no one else to answer or to ask.

I remember when I first started traveling alone and no one said, are we going to stop to eat? Do you need the bathroom? Do we, no one said, and I just kept like going, I just kept going because no one. And I was like, oh my God. Like this is, this is crazy. It’s still happening, so I haven’t quite figured this out.

There is a huge part of me that still wants to be in a deep, meaningful relationship. There’s a part of me that still wants to be challenged because that is familiar. I’m used to the childhood challenge, the young adult challenge, and there’s something in me that is afraid that if I’m not challenging or if I’m not being challenged and growing, that I’m going to regress, that I’m going to die, that I’m going to just quit and just get fat, not care, not do anything.

And my brain is protecting me. It’s keeping me alive by not allowing that. So maybe it’s my job, not a fringe job, but in the meantime, if you happen to be a six or seven figure earner who is looking for a nonprofit, Mastermind to be a part of. And what I mean by nonprofit, I do not mean free.

There is a cost and a commitment. And some boundaries of what this looks like, and it is an investment, but you get the return instead of some coach or influencer. And so, we will grow off of each other’s brilliance and contributions, and so we will all invest. But we will invest in experiences and mentors who are doing something bigger in the world, creating impact in an area that we want to grow in.

So, we will find that mentor. We will use these funds and we will find these places that we want to go and those, that money will pay for that. So, there are some rules to this though, and I found a pretty quick way to get rid of opportunists, and it’s one question I asked one question, and that has been the telltale sign.

So, I also know that if I want four people, I’m likely going to have to talk to anywhere from 40 to a hundred, because now I know that it’s going to be one to 10%. I learned this in business, in coaching with clients. One to 10% stay in the game. So, think about this. If you are a coach or a business owner, you are offering some sort of service and they’re having to personally develop.

1 to 4%. That’s why your pipeline has to be really big, and that’s why your containers have to offer a variety of stages and levels and opportunities, and you can’t be personally attached. And that is because we were taught that someone else is responsible. For our results. So, if we pay them, they owe us.

But when you step into this stage, it’s not like that anymore. It is I pay you for an experience and an opportunity and a challenge, like a personal challenge for myself so that that push can bring up more of who I am more. Potential that is within myself and that is what I want the investment to be in.

So, it’s going to take a while. I have a feeling it’s going to take a while. Maybe not, I might be wrong. That might be a limited belief. Like I said, I’ve already got 20 people and I’ve got four today that I’m talking to, and it’s been very interesting and enlightening to see. And hell yeah, I’m being selfish, and you should too.

You should get what you want out of it, and you shouldn’t agree to anything that doesn’t work for you, and you shouldn’t invest in anything that doesn’t grow you or give you something back, some sort of return on investment. So, that goes forward no matter what business or coaching or mentor you’re in.

All right. I know this was a hodgepodge of everything. I’m actually debating if we are going to start a new season on this show because I don’t really feel the same as when I started the podcast, 200 something episodes ago. That’s a lot of the messy in the middle. And that was like my own healing experience.

And I wanted to document the process because I had so many clients who I was repeating it over and over. So, I’m not quite sure what’s coming. I have a filling by 250 episodes that this will take a dramatic change. I would love to hear; do you want to keep it going? Is it making sense? Is it getting messy because it’s a hodgepodge now?

Let us know. And if you have friends and family who are in the messy middle or maybe beginning to take personal responsibility for their growth and they’re interested in hearing that journey, because it was an unraveling journey. It’s who I was back then when I started. This is not who I am today, and I am not sad about that, but I am looking for companions who want to like, who want this version, this identity, because I’m not willing to go back.

Not doing reverse. Anyway, have an amazing week. I can’t wait to hear from you. Come into the More Than Mindset group if you’re not there yet and let me know what you think about this. We post the podcast every week and we also offer the opportunity for you to ask questions or give feedback on what your experience was, regardless of what episode you’re listening to.

And if you haven’t given a, given a rating and review yet please do that. It really helps to get the show going and I appreciate it because, believe it or not, I need to hear it. I’m still needing to hear some validation or some recognition or appreciation. Just like you, we all do. We all want to know whether what we are doing is impactful or important.

I think it’s just who we are as humans. There’s nothing bad or pompous about that. Just to feel connected. All right. Have an amazing week.

Thanks for listening to this episode of More Than Mindset.