Ep #93: The Dance of Entrepreneurship with Malerie Veillon

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 guys and welcome back. I have a special guest on the show today. Her name is Malerie Veillon. Malerie is a marketing strategist and brand photographer. And today we’re talking about the rollercoaster ride of entrepreneurship. We’re discussing disbelief or healing limiting beliefs. And what her journey as an entrepreneur looks like, going from a full-time physical therapist into her role of an online entrepreneur.

She helps health and wellness practitioners who have an integrative or holistic practice gain exposure, tell their story and market themselves online with simplicity and ease. I love having conversation with her and watching her journey because she is an example of what I see so much of going from I really want something more, something new and different. I want to have this purpose driven passion inside of me and I have been trading my time for dollars, rather than tapping into the potential that’s inside of me and sharing it with the world. She is an example of doing this.

And I know a lot of you listeners are in this exact position where you’re in a full-time job or some kind of position where you’re just doing the same old and you’re sitting in the dissatisfaction and not sure what to do about it. So we kind of weave in and out of her story, her disbelief, taking her from, heck, I don’t even know if I can do this all the way to her first $13K month. And kind of being in the celebration or the way I say it in the show is the anatomy of. It’s when we really look into the dissonance, into that dance between the contrast of belief and disbelief.

And we are sharing this raw material with you today in hopes of turning on your own passion, and potential, and possibility that resides inside of you. Because I do believe she is an example of this work. She’s a great component or piece of this new holistic mindset, this integrative approach to healing on all levels. And I wanted to share her story with you today, so I hope you enjoy.

                                                                                                                   

I have a special guest with us today, her name is Malerie Veillon. Malerie is one of my clients who’s been through the integrative coaching program with me and is also a part of Self Healing Masters. And we are here to talk about the work that she has been doing, her inner work, her outer work, her business work. All of the things that have evolved especially this – I’d say these past few months, Malerie, don’t you think?

Malerie: Definitely, a lot different than it used to be.

Kim: Yeah. Malerie is a marketing strategist for holistic health practitioners. She’s also a brand photographer and she’s been playing with video, let’s – what are we calling that now?

Malerie: I call it filmmaking, to me that’s the creative word for it, creating the vision of what the film looks like. So it’s a little bit more than just videography. A lot of people like to use videography, but I like filmmaking better because it brings in, yeah, the skill set of actually creating a video, but creating the vision for what it’s going to look like too.

Kim: Yeah, I love that. Malerie and I started this work together, I would say a couple of years, she was already doing photography. She is a physical therapist and she started – you came into the Weight Loss and Wellness program, is that how we originally?

Malerie: Yes, a couple of years ago, I think what, three years ago now I think.

Kim: Yeah, these were live sessions that we were doing, the business. And that eventually led to this awakening inside of you that there was something else that you wanted to do. And you weren’t quite sure what. And it has all evolved over these past few months. So I want to talk about that. I want to share your story with the audience. And also I think the thing I’m most excited about, Malerie, is that month that you thought, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do this. And so I want you to take the audience there, before you sent the text, what was going through your head, because I really want to talk about the work that we do in healing our belief systems?

Malerie: So the overall story is a little bit back and forth and I feel it’s kind of complicated. So just to make the long story short, I’m no longer – well, I’m still practicing very minimally as a physical therapist. I lost my full-time position the week before Covid shut everything down. And that was how I made money. I wasn’t really making that much money in my business because I was working full-time. So fast forward to the last couple of months and I’m barely bringing in any income as a physical therapist.

And now I really need to depend on my business to support my family, to pay the bills every month. And it was the beginning of the month. I had looked at; I created my budget for the month that we were in. And it was the first month since I lost my full-time position that I realized I didn’t have enough money at the beginning of the month to pay all of the bills for the whole month and I freaked out. And I was like, oh my God, what am I going to do? We don’t have enough money this month, what’s going to happen?

Worst case scenario we’re going to lose our house and we’re going to be living on the streets, like where the mind goes to the worst case scenario. And that’s when I sent you the text and I was like, “I am freaking out and I don’t know what to do.” My mind is just in panic mode. And it was after that that we, you know, the things that you said to me when you were like, “Okay, let’s just come back to presence, this is what you need. This is what you have, so you need, you know, the difference is”, I needed, what, $3,000 to cover the bills for the whole month.

And you were like, “Okay, what can you create that’s going to make that much money?” It took me a couple of days of kind of spinning in the drama. But when it finally kind of clicked I was like, “Okay, this is the perfect package, everybody needs this.” So then you were like, “Okay, go sell it.” Making it sound so easy. I was like, okay, so that was my next step. And it was making some connections online and then just putting the offer out there, putting the offer out there to people who needed it. And just being personal, being a real human.

Hey, you have this problem. I can help you with that. This is what I’m offering. And just being really clear about it, really confident about it, yes I can do this. And I ended up making $13,000 for the whole month. And I’m still kind of mind blown about that. I keep saying, “I can’t believe this.” But I don’t want to say that anymore. I want to say, “Yes, this really happened and this is just how life is now.”

Kim: Yeah, this is who I am. This is what I do. This is the service that I offer. This is the life that I live. But it’s so hard to accept that when the old story has been, what’s your old story?

Malerie: I don’t know how to do this. It’s being an entrepreneur is hard. I don’t know what I’m doing and people don’t want what I’m offering, lots of limiting beliefs.

Kim: Yeah. I think the part where you were really stuck at is that you can’t actually do this. Being a physical therapist was supposed to be the thing, going to school, graduating, getting the full-time job, you had it made. You were it, that’s kind of the message that your environment fed you.

Malerie: Still does in fact. The people who are closest to me are still kind of – I think they don’t really know what I’m doing and they’re like, “Well, apparently she’s figuring it out because she’s still paying the bills.” Just the people that are closest to me and they’re just like, “I guess you’ve got it covered. I don’t know what you’re doing but I guess you’ve got it covered.” They don’t know and I can’t really talk to them about it because they just, they don’t understand.

And then when they ask the questions and I go into explaining what it is. And they’re like, “Why are you not being a physical therapist anymore?” And I’m like, “Do you see a job around here? I don’t.” Which has also since changed, but.

Kim: Yeah, I’m letting you kind of be in this moment here because I think so many people are here. And so it’s like showing that you actually don’t have to be perfect to make a lot of money. You actually don’t have to be perfect to support yourself to become an entrepreneur. Because as you’re actually listening to yourself right now and you’re kind of catching what you’re saying. That awareness is so fun to watch. I think we get to this point as entrepreneurs where we think that we have to put on this show.

We have to appear perfect to the audience otherwise they won’t believe us, they won’t hire us. And that is the thing that actually keeps us stuck. And that’s something that I’ve worked with you on for this last couple of years is not wanting to get coaching in front of people or not wanting anyone, my clients to see that I don’t have it altogether. And I’m like, we’re humans, we need to be human and in our process. And there’s plenty that we gather along the way that we can share, that is a valuable service.

But the thought I need to have it all together, I need to have a perfect presentation is really what’s holding most people back from making this jump. And you were kind of thrown out of the nest by losing your job. So you had already had the intention, you set the intention, you were just in the disbelief, you didn’t think it could happen. And then when you actually faced the worst case scenario which was your husband losing his job, you losing your job, holy shit now what?

Malerie: So that part was back in March, we both had new jobs. And that was the big falling apart that I had. And I remember talking to you on the phone that night, I literally fell apart. I felt like the world was going to end, I thought that I was going to die. I thought we were going to lose our house, so we had no roof over our kids’ heads. And that was going to be the end of the world. And I’ve never been more vulnerable than in that moment because there was nothing left to hold onto. There was no sense of security anywhere. Neither of us had any guaranteed income after that.

Kim: What was the theme, what was the old story that was running through I told you so or what had you been telling yourself that you were so afraid of and in the moment was there?

Malerie: Well, for one thing there was some shame around the debt that we had, the student loans that are not yet repaid.

Kim: And then the investments you had made in the dream.

Malerie: Yeah. That and then now not having – not being able to see where, where we would be able to finish paying that off.

Kim: So can we go back to that, are you okay going into there? Because I think it’s so valuable for other people to hear, the shame that I felt that I was foolish enough to invest in a dream. So many new entrepreneurs are sitting in that. And I think it’s the thing that holds us back. We’re so afraid to be made a fool of for believing that we actually have something to offer. We are valuable. We have an important place in this world. Who am I to think that?

Malerie: Yeah. There was definitely a lot of that because I didn’t have – I couldn’t believe in myself and I didn’t have people close to me besides the coaching community that believed in me for me. And it was actually the opposite. They were telling me I was wasting my time, taking away time from my family to pursue this. And it was a lot of shame. And it felt like a lot of judgment. And it felt like a lot of disbelief on their part and on mine. But I would hear them say it over and over and I believed it more than anything else.

And I think that’s a huge thing that held me back was believing that they were right, believing that what they said was true rather than believing in myself and making it happen.

Kim: And what did that mean about you, that what they said in that moment what they said was right and that you should have listened or how did I get in this position? I shouldn’t have racked up all this debt. And I should have just settled. And we were making plenty of money, why wasn’t it enough? Why couldn’t I just be happy with this? Can you take us there?

Malerie: For one thing that I wasn’t good enough to make a change and be happy with what I was doing and do something that fulfilled me, not just something that just put food on the table. And it was selfish of me to want to do something different, to leave something that was ‘stable’ to pursue something that was ‘not stable’.

Kim: Risky, yeah, risky. And that’s really where our parents came from. I mean let’s just give some compassion and understanding. Because think about how we want our children to be safe and protected. And we don’t want them to go for the big thing because then we don’t want them to feel the pain, or the disappointments, or the letdown. I mean it’s crazy how much we hold ourself back and then others because we want them to be safe, because we want to protect them. We take our limiting beliefs and we pass it on to those around us.

Malerie: And it hurt. It hurt for a long time and then it finally became so painful to not do what I really wanted to do, more painful than that pain of feeling the shame of their judgments. And so that was a big part of it.

Kim: Yeah. So in that moment here you are, everything has gone. The worst cases scenario has happened and then you didn’t die.

Malerie: And then, no, I didn’t die. Well, obviously the first step in the Punch-Line Approach is presence. So that was huge in that moment because you were like, “Okay, how much money do you have? How much money are you getting? And you can live off of that.”

Me figuring out that for actually probably four months, even if I bring no more money in, I’ll be fine, everything is covered. And that’s plenty enough time to figure something out. And I was like, “Oh.” My brain was so much in freak out mode that it couldn’t see that actually right now and even for the next couple of months we’re going to be fine and I don’t have to freak out right now.

And so the next day I went off to my photo shoot and I felt lighter than ever. I had so much fun. The whole – it was the whole weekend. I had never felt that light before. It’s like it kind of transformed from being the worst thing ever to what if this is the best thing ever? What if this opens up all of the doors to all of the possibilities that I’ve been waiting for and wanting that I was too afraid to go out and get myself or create for myself?

It felt like freedom, and it felt like possibility, and it felt like that potential was finally ready to come up. It wasn’t like I quit the job. It wasn’t like I did a thing that would have been shameful or frowned upon. It just happened.

Kim: That’s so interesting. This is what we do with our coaches. We want them to make the decision and we want them to give us the plan. We want them to tell us the how so that we can do exactly what you just did. It’s like, well, it weren’t on me really. I just did what everyone else told me to do. It’s so fascinating to see it from the other side.

Malerie: Yeah.

Kim: We’re so courageous and yet so afraid. And that’s the beauty of the humanness is if we can just truly be there. So let’s fast forward this a little bit because that was the worst case scenario. And then you had the aha, the awakening moment of actually I may be able to do this because now I won’t have a choice, I have to do it. So that gave you the courage, gave you that little push. And you already have an inkling of the potential that was inside, you kind of knew it was there but it hadn’t been fully explored or believed in.

You were still riding the fence. But then, this was a few months ago, so I’d say we’re probably looking at about six months. You still played the fence because you still had that foot in the door with, well, I can get some patients. I can do some PREN, I could do a little bit of this, a little bit of this. And you kept playing that until even that came down. That’s what I felt was so fascinating is the brain went right back to the old security, went back to the old record, went back to the old thing that was supposed to be stable and sure.

Malerie: Yeah.

Kim: But your heart wasn’t – your actual soul that had something else to do, didn’t go for it.

Malerie: No, definitely not. I had my feet in multiple doors and it seemed for a minute they were starting to open up all at once. And then the next week they all slammed shut. And I was like, so it was like a resurgence of that moment, that oh shit moment where, oh, now what do I do?

Kim: It’s so important for us to stay in the middle of this. For those people who are stepping out of the corporate world and moving into entrepreneurship this is the path. This is what it looks like. It’s messy. It’s so frightening to not know, our mind just wants to know. And we’ve somehow convinced ourself that there is a knowing. That’s what’s hilarious.

Malerie: For me it’s a lot of – I can clearly look back and see even throughout high school how I just believed that doing something in the healthcare field would be stable, and safe, and I can make good money off of that. And do something that was beneficial to society, helping people get better. And then it wasn’t that. It wasn’t that fulfilling. I was repeating the same things over and over with the same people and no one was getting better. And I felt like I was working for the insurance company. So there was that lack of fulfillment in the job itself, no matter what I did.

When that happened that started opening the door to what else could I do? The photography started and the – which I had been doing for a long time. But it became an option to build a side business. Okay, well, that’s fun. Well, what else can I do? And what else can I do? And what else can I do? And that kind of opened the door a little bit wider over the last – I don’t know – five years. It grew so much to where it was so much more fun for me to do that, that the contrast of that and going to work, and feeling that lack of fulfillment felt so much heavier.

And feeling the contrast of the two is kind of what mentally – I was like mentally checking out, I wasn’t – my heart wasn’t in it anymore, because there was no results. I felt like I wasn’t helping anybody and it wasn’t fun. And I couldn’t use the tools that I had worked so hard to acquire to help the people that really needed it for one reason or another.

Kim: Yeah, let’s go there and explain this a little bit. So what happened is Malerie whenever you really got interested in just the holistic approach. And you were excited about that. That felt really right and true to you and you saw the potential of it. You saw how helpful it was. You saw it in your own life. And then you trying to integrate that in your patient care, that frustration itself is what you were describing as selling your soul. This system is not working and I continue to sell it because it pays me.

Malerie: So I was working in home health and so I was on the road a lot. And while I was driving I was listening to these podcasts about – and these audiobooks about being healthy. And a lot of functional medicine type stuff and things that we aren’t taught in school. And things that for sure the medical doctors are not taught. And things about food and nutrition, and just overall health, that society doesn’t know and thinks it’s like wrong. So we know that the doctors are only taught certain things.

And they are teaching their patients those things and the patients believe the doctors with their life. But it’s not the right information, evidenced by look at how unhealthy society is right now. And that was what led me to going to you for weight loss and wellness. And then when you started talking about integrating the mind and body and then bringing the soul onboard, what does the soul want? All of those things combined, I felt like I had found something that I had never heard before. And I had this feeling, it felt right, and it felt true, and it felt like what everybody needs.

And I was like, “Oh, this is the thing.” And it really has become the thing for me, being able to pool all of those things together, the physical health, what we’re thinking, the thought work, the mind. And then integrating our emotions and our soul purpose here on Earth that has become everything. I can take those tools and apply it to every situation that for me personally, or for my clients, or for my friends, my family, whoever wants to talk to me about it.

It feels solid, and it feels real, and it feels like yeah, we’re in this world and all these things are changing but I do have power and control over me. I don’t have power and control over that, or over this external stuff, but I have power and control over me. And that feels so much better than just being a victim of everything that’s happening, especially right now – especially right now. Especially whenever I lost my job and I thought there was nothing else I can do.

Kim: So whether you chose to step out of that job or that chose to remove you, however that turned out. And you began to see it as the gift and that is where you started really tapping into what if, what if, what if, what if. And as you asked that question you saw it, began to see more and more and more. And I think the part about it is whether you make the decision or the decision is made. Could we trust life fully, trust that there is something outside of us that is turning things? Let’s talk about how you experienced that because there was a bit of dissonance about how things worked, right?

Malerie: And there still is. That residue is still there. It’s like, am I going to make the conscious decision to believe it’s all going to work out for me regardless of what else is happening? And stuff happens and there are people that have this toxic positivity they call it, that’s like yeah, “Just look at the bright side, this happened.”

It’s totally negating the feelings, and the emotion, and the experience. But whenever you can blend those two together it’s like – I don’t know – what else can you do but trust? You may as well trust because you can’t do anything about the rest of it, you may as well trust.

Kim: It’s like dancing in the shadows is what I call it. It’s like this dance with life. That we dance with the contrast, with the disbelief and the hope, and potential. And all of – can you bring those together and kind of take a step back and a step forward, a step back and a step forward. The problem is whenever we go to step forward and then we freak out, and then we actually stop or run backwards to what was familiar.

Let me go find a few patients. Let me go apply for, because you did that, let me go apply for a couple more jobs. Let me, you know, what do you think? Let me go and do this. And I will never tell you what to do. It’s always going to come from you. I think that is what makes this coaching a little bit different is if you were in the belief fully to start you would have already been taking the action and getting the result. So then we already had proof that you had a dream. But the dream didn’t seem tangible.

Malerie: Yeah, it didn’t. And it wasn’t until I started – I could see my brain creating this drama and not believing. I could see myself not believing that I could do it. And then turning that around and saying, “No, I have just as much evidence that I can do this. So I’m just going to choose to believe that I can and I’m just going to go do that.” Rather than looking for more work in the PT world, I’m just going to go look for work in doing what I want to do. And once that happened, all these doors opened up, not only with that special offer that I created, but in the photography world.

And even doing things that I never thought I could do, the first time someone offered me to second shoot a wedding. And I was freaking out on the way over there, worried that I couldn’t do it or I wouldn’t do a good job. And by the end of the night I was driving home thinking how much fun that was and how great of a job I did. And then even after the next one I was like, “Well, I can do anything.” I can literally do anything. I don’t have to change who I am. All I need to do is be all of who I am and just believe in myself and everything will fall into place.

And just trusting that that’s what we’re all meant to do, believe in myself, be all of who I am and then everything will fall into place. That’s what it’s been like.

Kim: So whenever you had your moment of I’m not going to cover the bills this month, when we sent the text over. And it took two days to come up with getting the facts straight. I’m just exaggerating on the facts part, but it did take quite a few texts. And I could not get you to give me a solid answer. And I want to talk about this because I think so many entrepreneurs do it.

I see it a lot with you guys in the coach training, a huge jump. It looks like, hey, so let’s talk about what you want your goals to be as a coach. And they’re like, “Oh, $150,000”, when they haven’t had their first client. That’s what it looks like. I see this very often. Now, in the coaching industry it’s kind of the million thing, let’s to go make the million dollar. And the focus is completely on what can I get, and not on who can I serve and how can I help?

And so that jump is what puts people into paralysis. And that’s what you were doing and that’s what I was coaching you out of is you were looking at this what other people were doing or what you envisioned could happen. But it wasn’t real, it wasn’t tangible, you couldn’t grab it. It wasn’t even on the table for you. And so by reaching for something that was way out there you weren’t really having to take the risk of doing the little things. And so by pulling you back, and pulling you back, and pulling you back to the facts and like, “No, stop.”

Because when you’re in freak mode or freeze mode you can’t get anything done. And so by coming down to let’s talk about the facts then we’ll get you into presence. When you’re in presence anything is possible. So when we came down, I want to talk about what was going through your head when you kept jumping it and jumping. Because I was like, “What is the bare necessity that you need to make?”

Because what that does is it takes the pressure off, because if the bare necessity is for $3,000 and you have a $1500 package, it’s just two clients. It changes everything. But when you’re looking at I need to make $150,000 this year, you can’t even grab anything, your brain’s like, “How? What? It starts going into that mode.

Malerie: When I was freaking out about how much I needed, and then you’re saying, “Yes, but you only need this much and you have this package so you only need two clients.” My brain kept going back to, yeah, but that’s $3,000 into my business, not into my household and that all these little details add to this drama. And it was like, no, and I had to come back to choosing to trust life, choosing to trust that it’s going to work out. The bills are going to get paid, just keep taking little steps.

And then it took – I had to – which is not the first time it happened, I had to say, “Okay, Kim knows what she’s talking about. She’s done this before and she knows me and I’m choosing to trust in what she’s telling me.” And what she’s telling me and what I’m feeling, and what my soul is telling me.

Kim: You can see how people keep spinning and repeating the same patterns, because that was the moment where you were going to revert back. And I was like, “Hold on, do you want to keep doing the same thing? Do you want to stay where you are? Do you want to experience something new, something more, something different? Do you want to move through this?” And there is a part of you that didn’t. I want to be safe. I want to go back to what I know and I want to go back to settling.

Malerie: Because the settling was – that’s how it felt, yeah, it felt safer than trying something different and doing something different.

Kim: That’s because our brain can only imagine what it’s experienced. And I was holding your hand with a blindfold on saying that, “We’re going to across and try something new and different.” And your brain was like, I don’t think so, I’m not so sure. But then there was a switch, there was a moment. And I think it came from the fact finding when we sat down and really got specific with the facts, got it super clear. And in 24 hours you had it, then you started signing, then you started signing. Then you went from I have to have $3,000 to I made $13,000. What just happened?

Malerie: Yeah, it was.

Kim: I feel like it was Eckhart Tolle totally The Power of Now. It’s all about the power of now, not the power of how.

Malerie: It’s like the expansion in my mind that happened since then, the vision keeps getting bigger. And there’s a tendency to fall back into those old patterns. So it’s constantly – so like you said, riding a fence. It’s still one foot in this door and then one foot through the door that I want to go to. And it’s kind of like constantly stepping back and forth. What did you call it? Shadow dancing, it’s constantly that and just reminding myself, no, this happened, I created this, I can keep creating this.

This is all going to work out, even though I don’t have the certainty of I’m going to make however much this year. I’m going to match my PT salary this year. It’s all going to work out for the best. And I’m going to grow through this and whatever I’m going to learn I probably can’t even imagine right now. I can’t, because I haven’t even imagined what I’ve learned so far. I never could have imagined this right now what’s happening.

Kim: That one would be, for the audience that’s listening to, that’s what we’re talking about. There’s one called shadow dancing. But this transition or transformation is I’m no longer who I was and I’m not yet her. And so there is this in between, I’m not who I am or who I’m becoming and I’m for sure not what I was, or who I was, or how I thought. And you feel really, really lost and it’s kind of like being on this seesaw and you’ve got one foot in and one foot out and you keep going down in disbelief and then up in belief and down.

It’s like this really weird dissonance and it’s so important to get coaching when you’re in that position because chances are your brain is going to go to the safety when you’re on your own. It’s going to go back to maybe driving an hour and maintaining a PT job, or whatever that looked like. And I think what you were just saying about matching your PT salary, and then your brain going there and going into the how, then you lose that now of doing something different.

Malerie: Yes, definitely. And it took a lot of coaching and it took a lot of – I couldn’t do it for myself, so you were like, “Remind yourself, okay, how much money have you made so far this month? And how much time do we have left in the month?” And it was reminding myself, oh yeah, that happened, I did that, over, and over, and over until by the end of the month. It was done. It was a done deal and I was like, okay, I choose to believe this instead.

Kim: Yeah. And then your brain was ready to double it before it figured out how to maintain it. I get, when we talk about all of the things that I know is holding you guys back from moving forward, because this is so important. It was like, “I think I should double my goal. I think I should.” It’s like we get into this doing mode and we forget that it could be as simple as being in the moment and just taking the next step of service. How can I help you? How can I provide value? We’ll go right back into how can I double this for me? How can I prove myself? How can I secure myself?

Let me jump ahead, can you see the difference? I feel like this show, this particular episode is really slow and present in this because when I asked you to come on, it was like I really wanted to take you into the how you ended in this position and how to maintain it.

Malerie: And keeping me too.

Kim: Yeah, exactly, let’s discuss it just like we own it. It’s about embodying the experience. I don’t believe yoga’s just about making shapes. It’s about embodying the experience of evolving, and growing, and presence. And I like this kind of work that we’re doing right here. The embodiment itself is what becomes the new seed, but if we never own it, if we never possess it then we can’t figure out how to hold onto it. And so if I allow you just to jump to the next month, or go to the next figure, or goal, or whatever it is, then you haven’t gotten this foundation.

And you’re not owning the potential, and you’re not believing. But once you can embody it no one can take it from you no matter what they say, no matter what anyone else thinks. No matter what someone posts about you, no one can take it from you if you embody it. But if you’re intellectually walking around with it, just saying it and you’ve never embodied it, it’s super hard to maintain and to come back to. You’re going to be continuing to look outside of yourself for it. You’ll always need someone else to tell you.

And so this conversation is – well, I thought it would be impactful or helpful for other people who find themselves in the same position which is I want to leave my six figure job in the corporate world and I want to become an entrepreneur. And I want to monetize my skill set, or my passion, or my purpose. Because what does the mind say when I say, “We just want to monetize your gifts?” And all the old stories about that being bad, come up.

Malerie: It’s too complicated. It’s too hard. It’s not worth it. You’ll never make enough money to support yourself doing something like that.

Kim: Yeah. Can you see that those are actually your adopted beliefs? Because when I first talked to you I was really interested and kind of plugging in this holistic physical therapy practice for you. And that’s kind of the story that you said even about that, right?

Malerie: It’s still an option. It’s still a thought that I have and the more I see people my own age commenting on Facebook, asking for recommendations for a spine doctor or alternatives to surgery. And they can’t work right now because they have so much pain, or whatever the issue is. And I’m just dying inside because I feel like I know how to help them. I have everything that would help them.

And I feel like the process of opening up in integrative physical therapist practice is not practical for me. I feel like I have to fight the system to be able to do it. And maybe that’s a limiting thought. Okay, it is a limiting thought, I will give you that. But it’s a lot, like I’ve seen other people even just open a physical therapy practice and it’s a lot and it’s going to require the next level of me. So maybe I just need to build this belief first with something that – I don’t know – that I’m already in.

Kim: Well, what I think is important is just to recognize the theme of the story because it follows. It doesn’t matter if it’s about being a physical therapist, or if it’s about being a marketing strategist, or even a photographer, it doesn’t matter. It’s the same story. I have to fight the world on this. That’s the story of the work that we do. Because you’re talking about opening – whenever you just said, open a holistic practice, I’m like open a conversation before you can heal yourself. Let’s get there first.

And I feel like what you have chosen to do is actually coming from that passion to help the holistic world. That’s why you’ve chosen to work with holistic practitioners, someone who doesn’t…

Malerie: It would be like a privately owned clinic.

Kim: Yeah, with a PT background kind of thing, okay. So we’re not talking about that. But I just wanted to use that as an example because I knew the story would come up and your brain would not be able to protect you, you would just spill it out. So then we can get the dibs on, it’s so hard to convince people of a better way.

Malerie: Yeah. I have so many things that I could say about that and I’m not sure that I want to put that out there because I feel like it is hard. I feel like I tried that and it was hard and no one wanted to listen to me.

Kim: The beauty is when someone says this, “I feel like I tried that already.” Is we didn’t actually try it as the version of who we are today. And this is for all of you guys who are listening that have that story. It’s so hard. I tried it already. I’ve already done that. I’ve already tried to talk to him. I’ve already tried to convince them. And it doesn’t work. But it’s actually when you presented it, think back, what was your belief system about it? Because whatever those thoughts were is actually what was running the dialog. It’s so interesting, right?

Malerie: Yeah. I wasn’t sure, it took so much reading the books and hearing all of these stories and listening to how other people overcame their health crisis with this kind of work. And now I’m having the sciatica and I have the firsthand experience of yeah, when I recognized that it’s my fear of not being supported. And fear of not making enough money for my family and it’s all of those things.

And whenever I tell my brain, “Yeah, I see that, I know you’re trying to tell me that. But what I’m doing is legit and I’m making money and it’s happening and I trust life.” The pain calms down, I’m still surprised by it. It’s amazing. I can just tell my brain, “Yeah, I see you. It’s okay, calm down, no big deal. Go away.” And it freaking works. But so many people don’t know that.

Kim: I see you, I hear you, bye bye.

Malerie: And I can very clearly see. I was thinking about that getting ready this morning. I was feeling the pain as I was brushing my teeth. And I was like I haven’t thought about that money story lately. Yeah, it’s because I’m thinking about this sciatica instead. I laughed at myself. I was like, “Yeah, that’s how the brain does that thing, that’s exactly how this works.”

Now I have a new story that whenever someone tells me, they’re the same age as me and they’re like, “I’m trying to avoid having surgery, I don’t know what else to do.” Like, “Well, I can tell you firsthand experience that this works.” So maybe all of these things are setting me up to perfectly position me to be that integrative physical therapist in the future. I don’t know, I’m just going to roll with it and I’m having fun right now and I’m making money, and I’m okay with that. So I’m just going to trust life and if that is where I go to next then so be it.

Kim: Yeah. And I love this. I’m willing to be surprised that this is all a part of the process. And I can let go of needing to know what it’s going to look like because what matters right now is how can I serve today? Who can I serve today? How can I help you? What is it that I want to do? What is it that I’m so good at that it comes easily and effortlessly and people are willing to pay for this service? And just stay in that gentleness, and in that fun, and in that play. I’m willing to be surprised who’s going to show up in my inbox today.

I’m willing to be surprised on who’s going to ask for my help. Or I’m willing to be surprised what I’m going to experience today. Just something so simple, rather than waking up with what do I need to do? How do I need to push? What do I need to break through? It’s like everything is perfect. Everything is perfect. How many years have you researched photography, and marketing, and strategy, and mind body work, and holistic practitioners? How many years?

If you start counting, it’s about eight years. You’re eight years ahead of the person who’s just starting out or the person who needs the help. But your brain won’t let you know that, it’s always saying, “You need to know it all. You need to know more. You need to be at the top of your game. It needs to be unquestionable.” And that’s the part that jacks up these new entrepreneurs. They forget that the gift that they have to share is already inside of them because their mind is always saying, “It’s not enough.”

And I know that because they’re always looking for the next. And they wouldn’t be looking for the next if they knew that they already had what they needed, they would just be serving, what’s your thoughts about that?

Malerie: It’s so true. And I can, yeah; I can acknowledge that I don’t know everything. I’m not the best at everything. And I’m still growing and I can look back and see over the last, what, three or four years, how far I’ve come. For me, you always tell me I don’t celebrate the wins and whenever something good happens when I accomplish something.

When I look back at where I was whenever we started, look back at when we were doing Weight Loss and Wellness, or even when we started the coaching training. The way that I thought back then is so dramatically different than the way that I think about things right now. And it’s huge. I don’t even have the words to explain how important it is and how life changing it is.

Kim: What would you say to someone who didn’t understand coaching?

Malerie: That’s where the main storytelling comes in, yeah.

Kim: Yeah. Someone’s listening to this and they’re not quite sure, they have their own perception or interpretation of coaching according to their experience. So what would you tell them on I was able to do this?

Malerie: I would have to go into the storytelling, I went from being in this job that I didn’t like, where I felt like I had no purpose and what I was doing didn’t matter and I wasn’t helping people. And I was so unfulfilled and I felt stuck and I couldn’t leave it because it made money. And then I went from that to feeling like I lost everything, to now creating or recreating, or rebuilding my life consciously with the awareness of what I really want, not what society told me to want, something that really makes me happy.

And being a totally different person than I was before, being someone who is happy, and enjoys life, and trusts that it’s all for the best, really and truly, not just the toxic positivity part of it. Really believing that this life is really fun and we can do really amazing things regardless of what anyone else thinks about it. And then it has, for me it was always an experiential process. I had to experience it to believe it. I think that is the number one way that anybody’s going to believe that there’s more.

Kim: Yeah. That was the hardest thing to – speaking of marketing, to market about this integrative coaching is that it is experiential. And the mind’s like, “No, I want to see the syllabus or I want to know that.” And it’s like it’s actually personal to your personal experience. Because each one of you have a different dialog that’s running according to how you were hypnotized by society, whether it’s through your upbringing. I just happened to know Malerie when she was born, we were neighbors. And we have children. I have a child her age so we have – how would I say that?

Malerie: I grew up with your kids.

Kim: Me and your mom have kids the same age, it would be something like that. I’m not even editing this by the way, we’re just chatting. I would say it’s understanding each individual and the story that they possess, the inner dialog that they have running that they don’t even know, which takes someone else to detect, to point it out, to bring it to their awareness. Because why would you even question it if you think it’s normal?

Malerie: I had no awareness of the thoughts that were running through my head. I couldn’t even nail down. You would ask what am I thinking? I’m like, “I don’t know.” Much less what are you feeling that’s associated with that thought? It’s like I was numb. I wasn’t aware of what I thought, I didn’t know, I literally had no idea what emotions were, much less how to process them.

Kim: You used to ask me what you were feeling, do you remember that?

Malerie: Yeah. And now all of the work that we’ve done and all the human design stuff, I know that I have that open emotional center. So even the things that I’m feeling, I feel other people’s emotions too.

Kim: Well, I think it was not having the understanding of how to describe an emotion that you would look at me to ask, “What am I feeling?” It was basically could you explain what I’m trying to express?

Malerie: Right. And it’s like, okay, I feel what you’re saying, I feel it in my body but what is it? What’s the label for it? What do you call it? And it took a lot of that, but it all started with just getting present. And that’s something that, like I can do that now and it’s taken a long time. But I can do that now. I can pause in the middle of anything and say, “Oh yeah, that’s because I’m thinking this.” I can actually pinpoint it and that’s something that I had no clue about before. I’m so much more aware of myself. I had none of that before, none of it at all.

Kim: Right. And with that awareness then you can choose the thought that you want. And then you can go to work on the disbelief, that’s objecting it, clean up that story and then you can create new results. Because what we do is we take that old story and we keep regurgitating it and we keep creating the same results.

And it’s that not doing that unveiling and navigating in order to train the brain and create the new neural pathway that thinks in a different way, which is I am an entrepreneur. I serve. I have an amazing skill set that people need. I can make money doing this. Compared to I wish I could, if only, right?

Malerie: I know it will be fun, but I like even the stuff that we were talking about creating yesterday, the creating the vision of that. This amazing new thing, I noted that yesterday. The old me would have been like yeah, but that’ll never happen, just going about my day. But now I’m like no, we are creating this and this is happening. And oh my God, this is so exciting, and being in that energy.

Kim: Done. Alright, so for those who are listening who are – I feel like I need to get you just to kind of say where you were and where you are now. So let’s talk about you and your husband when you first came to me and the income you guys were making.

Malerie: We were…

Kim: Just give a roundabout.

Malerie: We were almost to a $150,000 a year.

Kim: Okay, so you were at a $150K and you want to do something different and it feels like throwing your life away and putting your kids on the street. And what would you say to the person who is actually feeling like you, which was dull and numb, and kind of – I don’t know if I would use the word ‘sad’, but just a bit hopeless at the work that you were doing? I’m not seeing any results and this doesn’t seem to be working and yet I’m handcuffed to my paycheck. And they have this dream inside of them to do something else. And maybe it’s helping people, it just looks different.

Malerie: There is more and for me it was there was something inside of me calling me and I wasn’t listening for a long time. And it was especially for someone who has a specific training in healthcare. We are so conditioned by healthcare. Everything has to have clear evidence. We have to have research. We have to be able to prove that what we’re doing is effective. And in doing all that it takes away the legitimacy of the healing for the patient. It’s not patient centered. It’s not patient focused.

That’s why there are so many healthcare workers in all different fields that are leaving, they are not fulfilled. They are overworked. They are burned out. And they know that what they’re doing isn’t helping the patient. I work with a lot of pharmacists and they’re all telling me the same thing, they’re burned out, they’re overworked, and they don’t like what they’re doing. It is not really helping and they don’t know that there’s more.

Kim: I get that they’d be frustrated that they got into the work to help people and yeah, the money was one thing, it was a stable resource. But the complaints I get from them the most is that they’re hurting, they’re hurting for their patients. They got into this because they had so much empathy. And they really wanted to help. And they had concern for humanity. And we’ve reached this point to where healthcare has been traded off for this system.

Malerie: And the system is very broken. It is so broken and that’s why it’s all falling apart right now. The reason I lost my full-time position is because healthcare fell apart, not because there were less patients who needed my help. They couldn’t get it because healthcare insurance companies wouldn’t give it to them. I felt like I was working for the insurance company.

And someone who worked with the insurance company who doesn’t see my patient, who doesn’t see what they need, is making the decisions on how many times I get to go see them and what kind of treatment I can give them. And sometimes it was you get one eval. and one discharge and no treatment in between. That’s nothing, they get nothing. They’re better off with me not going to see them because I can’t give them enough information. I can’t help them enough in that amount of time. I think a lot of people in healthcare are feeling this.

And we feel powerless, there’s no way to change it because it’s coming from this system that we have no input into. We have no way to make changes except to leave it and start our own practice in which for patients to come to us if they are going to have to pay out of their pocket because insurance will not cover it, because it’s not proven to work.

And all of these people in functional medicine, yeah, there is research to support it, but it’s not research that’s driven by the food industry telling the healthcare industry that this is what we’re going to teach people in the healthcare field to tell their patients. It’s such a messed up system and everybody feels powerless, and hopeless, and useless. But there is more and it takes being able to listen to that voice inside of you that says, “That’s wrong, I’m not doing that. This is what’s right. I’m going to go do that.”

And having the courage to be able to do that, I can’t really say that I had the courage to go and do that. I had to build it up because there was no choice.

Kim: I think you had the courage to do it when you invested in the program. I think you knew at that point that there was something, you just didn’t know how. But that was a really big jump. And I think that’s what was coming back when you actually got the call about the job and stuff, you were like, “Oh my God, I shouldn’t have, I shouldn’t have, I shouldn’t have.” And that happens to all of us when we make these investments, and when we choose something different and more.

And then as soon as we have that moment of things feeling like they’re falling apart, just like you’re saying with the system’s falling apart. The system of your life had to fall apart. It was your belief system. And so we are seeing that on the outside because it’s a reflection of what’s happening on the inside of all of us is our belief systems are being torn apart for us to move into a new way of being. So how do you feel like you can contribute to humanity and to society in the path that you have chosen?

Malerie: It’s a combination of supporting the entrepreneur who is doing this kind of work and offering it to people. So whether it’s creating the content, so I’m helping them put it out there to market their business. But it’s also a lot of supporting them, and coaching them in overcoming their limiting beliefs, and helping them to step out and do things that are hard and challenging. And helping them build up their belief in themselves and the courage to go out and do it.

And it’s creating as many ways as I can possibly think of to get this message out to all the people, all the humans, all the people who need us, because we all need this. We’ve been brainwashed by healthcare to believe that was the only way. And now we have to undo that. And it’s going to take a lot of people and it’s going to take hearing it a lot of times over, and over, and over in different ways. That’s what it took for me. It’s going to take a lot for them to realize that there is more that they don’t know about.

And there are options for them to get better and these are the people who can help them. And they can heal their lives, and they can heal their bodies, and they can heal their minds, and their emotions. So it’s all the same work for all the people, for the people who need the entrepreneurs. And for the entrepreneurs themselves, and for me, and for you, and for all of us, it’s all the same work and it’s just pushing it out there as much as possible, because the people need to hear it.

Kim: So is there anything that I did not ask you that you are dying to share about your experience?

Malerie: I don’t know, you asked me a lot.

Kim: What would you say to the person who grew up like you that was just told to play it safe?

Malerie: We weren’t put on Earth to play it safe. We weren’t created to just follow the leader. It takes us going within ourselves and listening to the higher calling for why we were uniquely created. It’s not all the same. We are not all the same and we were not all put here to do the same thing in the same way. We don’t all have the same message. And it just takes being brave enough to go against some of that conditioning to try something a little bit different even though it’s scary, because it’s the most fulfilling thing ever.

I’m having so much more fun now, even though it’s so freaking scary I’m having so much more fun doing it this way than doing it the way that I was doing it.

Kim: How is it that you can help the health and wellness entrepreneur who is putting themselves out there online?

Malerie: So as far as marketing strategies, I build funnels for people, email funnels and social media content. And I create brand photos and brand videos to help those people market themselves. So we are in a very visual society, everything online has to have a picture with it, it has to have a cute graphic, it has to have something that’s going to grab someone else’s attention.

And if we’re not willing to put ourselves out there and be seen as the person that can help, then we don’t get seen, we don’t get noticed. And they don’t, you know, the person on the other side doesn’t get the help that they need. So I create all of those things for holistic wellness entrepreneurs to be seen online and to help the people that they really want to help.

Kim: Yeah. I love the part that you do about, you know, it’s creating that net for them to capture their ideal client, the net builder. It was so hard for me. It’s what I spun in for so long, getting caught up in tech. And hearing all of the multiple systems and not knowing which one was the right one, or where to go, or how to do it. And I love the way that you simplify that and also guarantee that they’ll have themselves out there in 30 days, and I think that’s a big deal.

Malerie: I feel like I’ve tried all the – so many of the tech systems. So I feel like I know what works and what’s easiest. And I can make recommendations for what specifically each person needs, but to keep it simple everyone needs an email system. Everyone needs an email funnel. If you’re putting stuff out on social media without an email funnel and a strategy to keep it going, you’re missing out on building relationships with those people.

And building relationships leads to them trusting you and them investing in you, them investing in themselves to get the help that they need. So whenever we have that whole system all working together we are doing less in the way of doing all the tech things because it’s already set up. And it just works in the background while you do your thing, while you keep working, while you keep helping people.

Kim: So that you can focus on serving.

Malerie: Yeah.

Kim: Yeah, so much funner.

Malerie: Yeah.

Kim: Thank you very much for doing that. Alright, I will link the contact information for Malerie in the show notes and you can reach out to her for that. Thank you very much for coming on the show and sharing your experience. I’m always grateful.

Malerie: Thanks for having me.

                                                                                                                   

Thanks for listening to this episode of More than Mindset.