Pivot by Design: The Ultimate Renovation Project with Teresa de Grosbois

Welcome to the Conscious Pivot Podcast with international speaker, business mentor, best selling author of Pivot, and your host, Adam Markell. The Conscious Pivot shares the stories and wisdom of people who have successfully reinvented some area of their business and personal life. You'll gain powerful insights into how you can fully embrace new opportunities, increase your performance, and master the art and science of innovation and resilience. So please join Adam as he guides you on your Conscious Pivot.

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Conscious Pivot Podcast. And today is a beautiful day. Of course it's a beautiful day, because if you're listening to this podcast or you're watching it, then you're alive and awake. And that's the greatest thing that any of us can be. In fact, it's such a blessing every day when we have that first waking moment, take that first conscious breath, that we realize how sacred that is. What a, what a holy moment, holy day it is that we're given. Knowing, knowing in that moment, when we take that first breath, there are people all over, we're taking their very last breath. So doesn't. It's not a great stretch to be grateful there. And then I just think back to all those years as I practiced law for almost 18 years, and I would put my feet on the floor in the morning and I wouldn't feel that way. I wouldn't feel blessed to be taking that first breath or, oh, how nice it is to be alive and awake and what can we do with this day? And what's my assignment? I asked none of those questions. I just had to get up, you know, hit the alarm, turn the snooze off, get the coffee, shower, shave, and head into the rat race. So my Pivot is all of you, at this point, know my story quite well. I won't reshare it, but what I love is that I get to present, and not just sort of on a level of superficiality, but the opportunity to dig deep into Pivot stories of people just like you, just like me, who've done remarkable things to utilize change instead of fearing it and hiding from it, as so many people do their whole lives. I love to meet people and showcase and introduce you to people that step right into it, get change, and right up in their grill and do something magical with it. So today is no exception. I am delighted to introduce a lady to you that has really done some incredible things in the business space, and she empowers so many people. And that's how I got to meet her, through a mutual friend. Sometimes we call it thought leadership, but I personally prefer transformational leadership, because I think everybody in this world has an opportunity to teach something, and all teachers are leaders. So I just love the idea that we're all transforming the world through our teaching and through our leadership. So, without further ado, I want to introduce to you this beautiful lady who's going to share a little bit about herself and her experience. Then we're going to dive right into the nitty gritty, the meat of the pivot story. The good, the bad, the ugly. Welcome, please, Theresa De Grosbois. Theresa, did I botch your name?

You nailed it. I'm so impressed, Adam. So many people botch it, but you did great. Thank you.

Yay, victory.

Way cool.

So will you share a little bit about your background, and then we'll dive into the pivot, the juicy stuff.

Well, you know, as many people probably know, I'm an influence expert, so. So I wrote the book Mass Influence, the Habits of the Highly Influential, which is, you know, I'm blessed to say, has remained on the bestseller list for almost two years now in seven different countries. Yeah. And I get the gift, that is from a number of people who just love me, that they keep talking about my book. And for me, that kind of epitomizes what influence is. Actually, it's ironic that that's what we're talking about in the book, which is that influences how many people know, like and trust you enough that they will take action on your word. Right. And I love that you role model that with your viewers and your listeners, too. It's really cool.

Thank you. Thank you for that. Why don't we. Why don't we talk about pivots? Because I think more than anything, people really. They want to know, is anybody. Is anybody as messed up?

I love that circumstance.

Has anybody had as much story, you know, in the personal development space, as much story as me? And most importantly. So more than commiseration, what do we do about it? And, you know, how do you. How do you utilize those things to.

Yeah, I love that. I love that you focus on pivot stories, because I always say, you know, discomfort is the doorway to breakthrough, and, you know, breakdowns are necessary for breakthrough in my world. And, you know, so I think those moments where we do pivot are sometimes the ugliest moments of our life, or at least at that time, we think they are. Right. And I've had a few really big ones in business, you know, three that come to mind stellarly, but I think the first would have been My transition from working in the corporate world to being actually a business owner, that was doing something that had a lot more meaning for me, you know, and I was in that space. You know, a lot of people say the biggest barrier to creating the life of your dreams is a good job, you know, because nobody. It's really hard to leave a job that you like and that is okay, you know, if you, if your job sucks and you hate your boss, it's not that hard to recreate yourself, right? But if your life is just sort of okay, you know, And I would say, you know, let's say you're a C or a B, it doesn't really suck. And there's some comfort zone in that, you know. And, you know, so here I was working in Canada's oil and gas sector. I actually had a leadership role, a healthy six figure income. But I, you know, I really wasn't lit up going to work in the morning and I had delved into the foray of business owner and past and. But I was, you know, really in that space of is this all there is? Is this. And I love the expression you used of like not getting up in the morning and being really excited, excited to wake up, you know. And then I had what I would affectionately call my really bad year, you know, And I can laugh at it now because I now know it was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

And I know that not because people are mean spirited at all, but I know people listening to this right now are going, please, yes, I want to hear about that was a really bad year.

Well, what that looked like for me was in the first six months of that year, my marriage had ended, my father had passed away, my health was in an utter and complete tailspin, and the business I was running at the time had terminated. Basically, like I just, it failed. Let me use the real word, it failed miserably, right? And I remember at the time, you know, waking up in the morning with the only thought in my head being how incredibly unhappy I was. And I really did. I had all the outward trappings of success. I had had a highly successful six figure career to that point. I, you know, was highly respected leader in my industry. I had the nice house, the great car, two kids, a dog, you know, everything that society might say is a marker of success, right? And I remember there was actually a specific moment where I'm sitting in the bathroom of my new condo post marriage breakup. And I've always been a renovator. You know, I know you've got renovators watching. So I'm surrounded by tools because this bathroom is going to be my latest project, you know, And I'm literally soaked with my own tears because the only thought in my mind is it's me that needs renovating. Because I'm looking back over the last 10 years of my life and I honestly in that moment can't point to a time where I can remember being totally lit up on fire passion about something. And it was such a beautiful moment because when you have those moments, it's like right then I decided I'm gonna be my next project. Forget the bathroom, forget renovating houses. I need to be my next renovation. And so I started doing everything under the sun. I took every self help course known to man. I think that's first where I got exposed to you as a teacher actually, because you were one of the trainers at one of the courses I took. I went back to school, I did a whole certificate in mediation because I've always been a conflict avoider and I wanted to get on top of that. I got a lot more serious about my health, my yoga and my meditation and slowly my life started to shift. So much so that two years after that point, I don't think I would have recognized myself. And I really, I couldn't have envisioned what my life would become sitting on that bathroom floor in that pool of tears.

I'm thinking as I listening to you that I've been in not the same exact situation, but for me it was waking up feeling dread and then going off and doing what I was doing and coming home at night missing feeling like I'm missing my own life. And it's, it's a pretty, it's a pretty low place to be. To be. And I don't attribute an age to it. So I think people sometimes think, oh, it's a midlife kind of a, of a crisis thing. Right. You know, But I don't think it has to do with age. Do you, do you think it's an age thing or you think it's something.

Other than, you know, I kind of attribute it to more like a Maslow hierarchy of needs thing, right? That once we've got those basic needs met, like once we know the roof's over our head, the rent is paid and our family is safe and looked after, you know, then the question starts, is this all there is? Like who am I to contribute to the world? And you know, if you look at the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the upper realms of it are all around Self actualization, like, who am I at a really connected level? And I mean both connected within the community. How big of a contribution is my life? But also how connected are you spiritually? You know, I loved Aristotle, actually had a term for this, and a lot of people are unaware of this. But Aristotle didn't just talk about the negative effects of hedoni and hedonistic lifestyle. He also talked about a eudenistic lifestyle, which is the happiness that comes from knowing your life is about contribution to others. And I think what a lot of us end up being is that we're in a career where maybe there's some marginal level of contribution in it, you know, because what I was doing before, you know, even what you were doing before, Adam, we all know that you wouldn't be doing what you're doing if there wasn't some level of contribution. Someone somewhere needs you. But if that contribution isn't really aligned with your heart, like in my case, because I was working in the oil and gas sector, it wasn't really firing me up to help create better systems for how we transport natural gas on this planet. It's like, I get that that's needed, but it doesn't feel like that that was really my mission on this planet and that it's the kind of contribution that I really want to have in terms of what I want my life to be about at the end of the day. And so I think really that's what it comes down to.

And it's not something that we're introduced to very early. And that's why I think more than a midlife kind of thing, I think it's just that we're trained differently, we're exposed to different things when we're younger. We're not exposed to certain things, like the question of why am I, you know, why am I here? What's my purpose? Is there a purpose to my being? Is there a reason beyond my parents getting together that I was born and. And what is that all? What is that all?

Yeah.

And.

Well, when you think about it, we're the first generation ever that's really had the luxury to delve into that question. You know, our parents generation, any cases, they spent their whole life getting the stability of their survival in place, you know, making sure their kids went to university, making sure the house was paid off, etc. And then maybe at the end of their lifetime, they had a little bit of money to enjoy the fruits of their labor and have some form of retirement. But that question certainly didn't come early. In their careers because, you know, the basic, let's make sure my family is safe and set up and everybody's got health care, etcetera, you know, when you think about what the conversation would have been 50 years ago, especially in countries, you know, that didn't have effective health care systems, et cetera, like, money was a much bigger conversation because money is important to your basic needs. Right. Especially like if you're still living in the U.S. for example, and, you know, you're one of the countries that still doesn't have really solid health care.

Don't get me started on.

Yeah, I don't want to start down that channel. But, but, you know, if you don't feel the security in your basic needs being met, it's hard to have the luxury to delve into the conversation of what is my passion and what is my life really meant to be about? Because if you're in fear, it's pretty hard to be in the space of really being a high contribution to other people.

Yeah, and it is, it's sort of a vicious cycle too, because when you don't ask those questions, you end up doing things out of a sense of, you know, I'll call it scarcity, but it's really, it is the creating safety, creating security. It's those basic needs that are at the bottom of the pyramid, Maslow's pyramid. And so, yeah, to move, to want to create the highest and best version of yourself is not exactly what we're, we're sort of trained to be thinking about in kindergarten or in fifth grade or in 10th grade, not really. You know, get your ABCs, you know, learn to read and write, learn, you know, learn math and science so that you can ultimately be of value in society. Get, you know, basically get a job and be of value in society so you'll be paid well enough, and then your security is sort of guaranteed on some level. And the truth is, when you have a lot of people that are doing things without questioning them, we're, you know, sort of a robotic society before the robotics. You end up with a lot of. There's a lot of misery, it's a lot of pain. And, you know, I mean, I don't think I've ever said this before, but years and years ago, people didn't live as long. So their pain and suffering ended earlier. You know, they didn't, they weren't around. I think when I was looking at something that Buckminster Fuller had written, he was, I think, born in 1895, and at that time, when he was Born the life, its life expectancy of a male was 42 years old. He didn't speak to how long women lived at the time. Men generally, you know, they live shorter lengths, but say 42. So he was 32 years old and he had crashed and burned a business and with other people's money, including people and his family and stuff. He was really in great deal of shame and devastated by just how his life had gone the way it had gone. They had lost their first child, had some pretty serious illnesses and she died very young. And they were just expecting a newborn, another baby. And, and he's 32 and he's like, well, I've got 10 years left in my life and I'm. I'm a complete and total disaster. Now this is Buckminster Fuller, you know, the inventor of the geodesic dome, but so much more this futurist, this mind of mine. Yeah, yeah, right. So it is, it is interesting because human needs are, have to be met. And at the same time, one of the greatest human needs that is neglected is the work that we can do on our own souls and how it is that we care for ourselves, that we cultivate what is so uniquely human about each of us.

I almost like to think of it as though there's almost like different sports at play. I like to use sports analogies because they work. But when we think about the bottom tiers of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, if you think of your basic survival needs as one sport, then money is the scoreboard in that sport, you know, and so a lot of people create their whole life around monetary success because that's the scoreboard of those foundational elements of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And money is very important. Like, don't get me wrong, I'm not dissing money. But when you move into the higher realms, things like influence become more important because the higher realms are more about your contribution to community and to society and self actualization and self fulfillment, which is all about your relationships with other people. Right. And your relationship with yourself. And so when we think about the currency of those tiers, it moves away from being money and it's more around influence. How much influence do you have in the world? And a lot of people don't think of influence as a whole different sport than money, but in fact it is. You can use money to buy influence, but it's an indirect way and not a very effective way way to get influence. Right. There's great examples of that within politicians. You know, there are politicians that we Know, bought their way into power. But it's very tenuous and difficult for them to hold influence and power because the influence they hold was purchased with money, as opposed to real, real influence, which is, do people know, like, and trust you enough that they'll take action based on your word? You know, and so it's really fascinating to watch how that works, because I think when people start to get it, I love that you were talking about breathing at the beginning of the call, because I love using breathing as an analogy for influence. You know, when we first took our first breaths of life, we actually had to learn the skill of breathing, right? You know, you came out, it hurt like heck, somebody whacked you on the back, you thought, what is this crazy person doing assaulting me? You got a couple gulps of air down, and then suddenly you mastered the skill of breathing. And probably at that point you never thought of it again. Those moments maybe when your best friend had to elbow you in the ribs and say, honey, you're not breathing right now. Take a breath. Or maybe you started doing yoga or qigong or karate or one of the martial arts where you realized, oh, there is an advanced level of breathing and I really do need to learn to master breath. But by and large, we don't go through our day and say, shoot me in the head. I've got to breathe 24 hours today. Where am I going to find the time to breathe? It's not something we do. And influence is a lot like that. When people get the skill of it and when they master it, they never really have to stop and think about, how do I go through my day doing this skill and building influence. They just naturally do it. It naturally builds and then it becomes something that very much feeds how they get to those upper echelons of the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the more fulfilling.

Realms of life, which is the ultimate pivot.

I mean, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

To pivot into a place of self, love, unconditional, self love, unconditional. You know, giving yourself what it is that you, you know, you're typically. I'm typically, and I think everybody's typically looking for attention. And when you can give that to yourself in, in an unconditional way. So you can, you can be with every, you know, all the, all the emotions, the things that come up in, in a way that's without judgment, your. You attain something of peace, which is, that's the top of the pyramid. I mean, self actualization is another way of saying, you know, the peace, peace that cannot be described. So it's. I know there's another pivot story that I'm aching to have our folks hear about. Will you share that one? And thank you, by the way, I love Brene's. Brene Brown's work. We talk about her quite a bit. So vulnerability is, I think, a very powerful thing and really beautiful, too. So thank you for modeling that and sharing a little bit about that year of turmoil. I think there's a lot of people who can really identify with that. I know I personally can. So thank you for that.

Oh, you're very welcome. You know, I think all of my biggest pivots in life and in business always come from when I'm not actually doing something I teach. And I think the biggest one for me that has happened most recently is, you know, because, you know, having the privilege of leading an organization like the Evolutionary Business Council. The Evolutionary Business Council is a community of change agents throughout the world. You know, people who are teaching transformational principles inside their work. And, you know, one of the things I often teach is figure out what you want to stand for first, and worry about the brick and mortar or the physical aspects of your community second, because it's very easy to test any kind of teaching or any kind of program online before you would ever bother with building a building or creating a physical manifestation of it. And it's funny, because I actually had, like, a lot of my biggest breakthroughs in business happened through intervention. When people point out to me I'm not doing something, I'm teaching, right? And about a year and a half ago, I was sitting with a bunch of our members of the Evolutionary Business Council, and a bunch of them were talking about, wouldn't it be cool if we could actually create a community where we all hung out together in Costa Rica? For some reason, everybody was talking Costa Rica, and I was just thinking, yeah, wow, what a cool idea. Because we all know we become like, the five people we most hang out with. What would it be like if we were sitting by the pool at night and the person we're chatting with is Dr. Shonda Perrin, who's been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, Or Parthenandi, who runs the television show Ask Dr. Nandi, or Harrison Klein, who runs the Masters Gathering? Like, huge names in the industry, right? And I remember my first thought being, yeah, but I always teach. Do the online first. It's easier. You know, test your marketing. Build the community first. And they all looked at me and they said, teresa, you've built a giant community already. You know, the EBCs, over 300 thought leaders from around the world. You have built the virtual first. And you never ever in your teaching said, don't build the physical manifestation. You just said, do it last. And they all started laughing and they said, we think you're at the last now, Tracy. You can build physical manifestation of your, of your dream. Right? And so it was funny because then I just went out with some quick emails to people saying, what do you guys think of this idea? And it was like everybody came in and went, yeah, how do we sign up? Where do we put our money on the table? How do we buy? So it was fascinating that. Not that there's a wrong and a right way, but sometimes it's important to notice what's coming out of your mouth. I love hanging around with these high level thought leaders because they notice what's coming out of my mouth more than I do, you know, and they're always the ones that call me on it when I'm not creating what I say I should be creating. You know, the really cool thing about this is that I now get to live this life where I spend my summers in Canada and my winters down in Costa Rica. And you know, a dozen years ago when I first had that really bad year, I couldn't have dreamed that I would be able to create this life where I get to travel all over the world and speak on really big stuff stages and that my book would be a bestseller in this many countries and that by the way, I would get to live in this community with really cool people in this beautiful place and never, you know, I could chase summer all year round if I wanted. That kind of life wasn't conceivable to me. It was conceivable as somebody else's life, but not conceivable as my own life, you know, So I really, I'm grateful for all those moments that were like perceivable breakdown or intervention or whatever they were that got me to actually take the next step. Because I really do think it's. If you just lean into what the next step is, eventually your life will get to a place that you couldn't have dreamed possible.

Yeah. So I'm going to ask you a question because you teed this up. It's difficult to see ourselves at times and we all have blind spots. So if you were guessing, it's just a guess. Now, is there some area of your life that you're, that you teach or that is part of your, you know, what's, you know, in your, in, in the the realm of your business where you're not, you're not living what it is that you're teaching or living what it is that you're intending.

I love that question. I would say there are dozens. One of the reasons I'm so excited about having this project where I get to pick my neighbors is I really think it's important to have friends like you who are straight shooters that will really tell you in those moments where you're not living up to your full potential. You know, one of the gifts of the Evolutionary Business Council, that I'm actually humbled to have the ability to create the context for what this community is. But one of the gifts is that they're all people I want to learn from. I may have the influence game mastered in terms of I really understand what creates word of mouth epidemics and how to generate mass energy around an idea, but that doesn't mean that I'm really good at setting up a marketing funnel. And it doesn't necessarily mean I might be a first or a second black black belt or first or second dan black belt, you know, as a speaker, etc. But there's still a fifth dan to get to. Right. And I love having this opportunity to hang out with all these other like minded individuals where we can just become friends. And you know, when I look at what I really want in friends, I want friends that are straight shooters and will tell me when I miss the mark or will lovingly support me in getting past my own weaknesses. You know, I'm one of the most flawed creatures on the planet, you know, and I like to think that we're all perfect in all our imperfections. And maybe all those areas we struggle, maybe all those places that our inner dialogue takes us out of the game are actually just part of the perfection of who we are as human beings. And I often talk about all my weaknesses and my imperfections on stage because I think that gives other people permission to go crazy and play a big game in spite of, not only, not only in spite of all the areas that they're challenged, but because of all the areas that they're challenged.

Yeah, your, your imperfections are in many ways a part of your credibility. I mean, when you, when you own them, when you're willing to not sort of try to hide them. Because I think people energetically, even in the marketplace, because we do a lot of work in marketing as well, and the world that we're living in right now I think is much more authenticity driven. And so truth, you know, truth and an honesty in marketing is kind of an oxymoron on some level, but not going forward because I think millennials and younger even still are much more dialed into what's bullshit. So they sense it, they can feel it, they smell it. And that's an old paradigm. So we feel like the more authentic you can be, the more, you know, if it's vulnerable, it's vulnerable. If it's not, it's not. But, but like you said, those imperfections that are really also great strengths. Yeah, they're great tools for educating other people so that they, you know, people look at their own imperfections as a great reason why they shouldn't do certain things, why it's not time, why it's not wouldn't be right, why, you know, they'd be a fraud or somehow it wouldn't work, you know, because whatever, like they, they crashed and burned in, in, you know, 10 years ago in real estate, wiped out or whatever in the last business they did or something. And they tell themselves those stories that are credible inside their own head. You know, they make sense. But to the rest of us, when we hear them, we go, wow, yeah, I've got one just like that. You know, it's like, I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours, but does it stop you? And so when you do that, you really give people permission to own their story because it's probably no better or no worse than yours. And it's also a great invitation to go forward.

Well, I mean, that's the great human condition, right? Is like part of what defines humanity is that we all invent inner dialogue. And I mean, it's cool that the research shows that most of us invented around the age of two or three are more significant negative self talk. And usually when we're first learning language in the first failures of our life, right? I can actually remember the day I first invented my most significant significant negative self talk, which is something you might not know about me. I'm the youngest of nine kids, right? And I'm not only from Canada, I'm from northern Canada. I grew up in the backwoods, right? We used to go in to a boat access cabin every summer. My siblings were the only people I had to play with. And I remember one day we were just back from the cabin and everybody's packed into the little tiny kitchen of our hundred year old house and my grandmother's there and she's taking everyone to the movies, which is in my family a big frickin deal, right? Because we never go to the movies. But somebody's finally convinced my mom that Walt Disney's not the worst guy on the face of the earth, you know, and my mom's letting us all go see the Love Bug, right? Three year old me is shaking with excitement. I'm so thrilled to finally get to go to a movie. And I look across the room just in time to hear mom say, teresa can't go, she's too little. Wow. Right? And three year old me makes up I'm too small to play with the big kids. And that the utter devastation of that moment just stuck and became a part of my being. And the interesting thing about having an inner conversation like that, I'm too small to play with the big kids, then start doing always one of two things. Like every other human being on the planet, I start spending all of my time desperately trying to prove that I'm not too small to play with the big kids or desperately terrified that I am. And you know, we all have some version of this going on, right? I mean, go figure that I should become a global authority on influence because importance became the critical conversation in my life at the age of two or three. I'm not, I can't even remember how old I was. But, you know, and so when you think about it, your negative self talk doesn't just hold you back, it also defines you, or what we call as limiting self talk. Right. And I think part of the key to really look at is everybody has some version of this, unless you're a sociopath, in which case you got a different kind of inner dialogue going on. But good people everywhere have some version of negative self talk that you developed when you were young. But it's probably not just holding you back, it's also probably driving you to do some really cool things in your life. And when you can come to peace with that and fall in love with that little inner child who created that, you know, because little Tessie, I call my inner child Tessie because that was my nickname as a kid. But Little Tessie was just trying to make sense of the world and just trying to protect me in that moment. Right? And I'm actually deeply grateful that she created that inner dialogue because this really cool life that I've now developed for myself has been available inside of that.

Yeah, well, inner Tessie was able to use proving as a bit of a, of a motivator to get going. And even though we know the root of proving ultimately isn't the root for doing the things we want to do, that's a, that's a developmental leap right at the beginning just to use, like you said, to use an experience like that as a driving force to break free of that, you know, that restriction, that small, that. That small world that you were being sort of relegated to that little box that, that you were being put in. And not for any bad reason, but just because it was, it was somebody's view of you at the time that you were, you know, too little. So how lovely. What. And thank you for. That's a rich story and a great example in the just a couple of minutes we've got left. I love to throw this in, if we've got time, and I believe we do, to ask you what kind of rituals or habits. But I think of habits as things we sort of do unconsciously and rituals or master habits, even things we do consciously to create results that we want. And they could be the results we've been getting and we want more of them, or they could be new things that we, that we believe we deserve. We're ready. We're ready to own things too. Do you have any of those?

I have a couple that really serve me well. The first is I do what I affectionately call one breath meditations. They're actually probably more like two or three breaths on average, but I call them a one breath meditation where whenever I get to a place in my day where I don't know what to do next, I'm stopped. I'm not sure where to go next. I consciously clear my thoughts, take a deep breath, and I just ask my higher consciousness, what's next. And I use that as a tool to help me lean toward where I'm powerful in life and lean away from the work, the activities, the busyness, the things that tend to pull me back downward into those areas where I'm not powerful. And I mean personal power when I say the word power. And so that would be the first, the second that I really enjoy doing. I call it channeling my inner elder. And you know, because you meet a lot of people when they're first trying to master a skill, they'll say things like, I channeled Martin Luther King Jr. There. I channeled Gandhi, right? And while that's a beautiful, powerful thing to do, I think it's even more powerful to be you 100%. And so not only have I made friends with my inner child, because I love that she's an exquisite part of who I've become, but I like to make friends with my inner elder because there is a version of me that's 20 years older than I am now. She's uber sexy and powerful in her 70s and she's so much living a dream life that I even at this point with how amazing my life is, I can't even conceive where she's at. Her life is so amazing and her contribution to the planet is so profound. And when I feel stuck and I'm not sure what's next or I've got a decision, or sometimes when I have to walk out on stage in front of a thousand people, especially in those moments where I'm too small to play with, the big kids is there and little Tessie's present. I pull in my inner elder and I let my inner elder give little Tessie a hug and tell Tessie to go play in the sandbox. And Tessie gets to be in charge of fun in my life because my little inner child is crazy fun. She's really a lot, a lot of fun to be around. But we give Tessie a new job, she doesn't have to worry about the fact that I'm too small to play with the big kids because my inner elder is seriously big enough to play with the big kids and she's awesome enough. And so in doing that, it helps me really come to peace with the whole of my being and it helps me to let the little pieces of me that at one point I might have looked at as flaws and has me realize that all of them are just parts of the exquisite masterpiece that is the human condition that any of us are.

That's exquisite. Thank you for sharing that. Wow. I know folks will want to get a hold of your book. What's the best way to reach either get the book or find out more about the work that you're doing in the world.

You can come to massinfluencethebook.com we have a 30 day influence challenge you can do if you're inspired. If you want to build some muscle at understanding how the influence principles work. And all of the links are there where you can get my book, any digital version of my book. We always give away complimentary. So whether it's on itunes or Kindle or Smashwords, the digital version is always free. That's my gift and contribution to society. And then if you just want the audible or the hard version, you can find the links there as well.

Beautiful. Mass influencethebook.com massinfluencethebook.com Can I call you Tessie? I always do. Do you have an inner elder? What's the name for your inner elder? Does she have a name?

You know, she's still Teresa because I love the name Teresa and it is now a power name for me.

Beautiful Teresa. Thank you so much. Thank you for your time. Thank you for the insights that you shared with us and for your just this beautiful, exquisite you.

Totally my pleasure. Adam, thank you so much for having me here.

Lovely. Okay, everybody, we'll see you on the next episode. As you know, we remind ourselves at the beginning and the end of all these conversations that our primary responsibility in this life is to model love. And so we can't give anything we don't have. It's impossible. And so it's not that you don't love other people, it's that you can't love them any better than you love yourself. And so to love others is a pretty special thing. And so I recommend that you continue the work of loving yourself unconditionally. And you can start tomorrow, as every morning you get that opportunity. If we're really, really, really, really, really lucky, we get to wake up tomorrow and be blessed with that first conscious breath. If you feel like it, if the spirit moves you or whatever moves you, stand up, put your feet on the floor and declare these words say, I love my life. I love my life, and I love you all and look forward to being with you again very, very soon. Ciao for now, everybody.

Thanks for listening, everyone. We hope you now have the tools and greater insights to navigate navigate your own Pivot. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over@adammarkel.com podcasts for more tips, strategies, and support as you consciously pivot into a new business and lifestyle you love, join our Pivot community on facebook@pivotfb.com.