How to Be Happier (without changing anything) with Kute Blackson

So we're connected because you want to grow your business, you want to scale your business, but the truth is the most important asset you have is your mindset, you know, your belief around everything you do. And so this is what we are going to talk about today. We are going to blow your mind about personal growth, spiritual growth today on the scale or fail show. Welcome to the scale or fail show. I am your host, Alison Maslin. I'm also your business growth mentor and the founder and CEO of Pinnacle Global Network. We mentor business owners all over the world to grow and scale their companies. But the most important thing that you need to work on is your mindset and to make sure that you are truly aligned with your purpose. And so today I am so excited to bring seriously one of the world's renowned experts on your personal growth to make sure that you are aligned with body, mind and spirit. So Koot Blackson is the author of the national best selling book you are the one and it's widely considered the next generation. He is widely considered the next generation leader in the field of personal development by everyone ranging from Larry King, Jack Canfield, Marian Williamson and more. In fact, Inc. Magazine calls him the mindfulness guru. Billionaire's go to for Advice. For over 20 years, Coot has been inspiring audiences from around the world seeing speaking in front of 3000 people from the age of 8 years old. Crazy. He's presented in over 300 venues by age 18. Talk about speaking experience. And he's helped top organizations develop authentic leadership and achieve extraordinary performance over the last decade. He is a charismatic visionary. You're going to hear all about his beliefs and how he helps people transform and break through. And Cout's mission is to awaken and inspire people across the planet to access inner freedom and to live their true purpose. So Coot, thank you for being here today. I am really excited to introduce you to our tribe here of business owners. And you and I have had a chance to get to know one another in the past through our own mastermind. So welcome.

Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. I've been looking forward to it tremendously.

Well, I mean you, wow, you have a very unusual background. I mean, I don't think I've met anyone that has had the type of experience that you've had. And so, you know, by 8 years old up speaking to thousands of people. Can you just kind of go back and tell us a little bit about that story?

You know, I was born in Ghana, West Africa. My father's from Ghana. My Mother's Japanese. I grew up in London and we have to flee Ghana because, you know, of a coup. The president was being killed. My father. My first memories as a young boy were two things. I always felt a deep calling, a sense of purpose, like I really wanted to impact people's lives. I didn't know what form it was going to take. But as a young boy, literally how it started for me was I was walking, I was a chubby kid and I was walking in the crowd in Ghana, West Africa, and I saw this crippled woman crawling on the floor. She picks up the sand that this man walks on. He, he doesn't know. She wipes on her face and she stands up. And it was like a miracle. So week after week, Alison I grew up seeing blind people, see deaf people, hear. People often ask me, like, did that really happen? I mean, this wasn't on television, on social media. As an 8 year old kid, I saw it weekly, daily with my own eyes. Blind people seeing deaf people, hearing people, standing up at wheelchairs. This man was my father. He'd look at a woman in a wheelchair and say, why are you in this wheelchair? Stand up, you're not sick, you know, just throw away your crutches. And so I grew up with a very unique father who really had a deep faith in the divine, in life, in the universe. And so, you know, as a young kid, I knew I wanted to help people. I thought this deep calling. But I was more interested in playing soccer. And so my father built 300 churches in Ghana. One huge church in London, like in London in the height, he probably had 5,6000 people every Sunday in the congregation. I just wanted to play soccer in the lobby. So I was always playing soccer in the lobby, breaking the windows. I got yanked out of the lobby, thrown into the front row of the church. All of a sudden I'm sleeping. This is so boring to me. One day, says my son is about to give the sermon and I'm asleep. They throw me on stage. You could say my speaking career began at that moment, at age 8. And I had no idea what I was going to say. But I remember the first time I was thrown on stage. It was as though something was activated in my soul. You know, it's often, really, we often have dreams, but I believe that encoded in our dreams is already the seed for its fulfillment. And so there was some seed already inside of me that in that moment of, you could say, being thrown on the stage, something was activated and it was, you could say my life began, my career began. And from that moment, I became very obsessed with just trying to understand, you know, asking the questions, who am I and why am I here, and what's the purpose of life? And I go to school, and I got a scholarship to quite a prestigious school. We didn't have a lot of money, but I got the scholarship. And I saw so many kids whose families had everything. I mean, they had fame, they had fortune, presidents, politicians, kids, and every reason to be happy. And I'd go hang out at their homes, and everyone seemed to be so miserable. So I asked myself, why is it that people that sometimes people who have everything seem to be unhappy? And I grew up in my father's church with people that had nothing. And why is it that they seem to be so happy and fulfilled and generous? And so that began my quest. Why are we here? Who am I? What's the purpose of life? Is it just to wake up, make money, you know, go on vacation, have sex, make babies, buy stuff, and then die? Surely there has to be more. And that began my quest in not just asking the questions, but reading and meditating as a young boy. And, you know, from age 8 to 18, I probably read 7, 800 books in the form of psychology, spirituality, personal development. Everyone from, like, Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, Tony Robbins, Les Brown, Zig Ziglar, Louise Hay, Dan Millman, Jack Camp. I mean, these folks were my heroes. And so my obsession has always been just trying to understand the human journey and the deeper purpose of life. And so I started speaking. And at age 14, I was ordained as a minister. And my life was literally Alison set out for me. My father announces one day to his congregation, unbeknownst to me, we didn't have a conversation about, this is, my son is going to take over my church. He is the successor. And he had hundreds of thousands of people. I looked at my mother on stage. She looks at me. I look at my father, and that was that. And deep down, I knew that wasn't my path. I knew that wasn't my unique destiny in this life. And yet, if I'm honest, I was too afraid to confront my father. I was too afraid to speak to him. I was too afraid to tell him how I really felt. Because I was afraid that if I dared to speak my truth, if I dared to be who I was, if I dared to just be vulnerable and honest, I would lose his love. I'd be abandoned, I'd be outcast, I'd be alone. And so I went along with it. But when I reached 18, I went through A lot of turmoil. And when I reached 18, I looked into my future and this is, you could say when my life began. I looked into my future and I realized I could follow the expected path. I could do what everyone expected of me, everyone. So much pressure. Everyone had these hopes and dreams on this young kid. And I could be successful by everyone else's standards, by my father's standards. But if I realized if I didn't have myself, if I didn't have my truth, if I didn't have my integrity, what do I really have? And I looked into my future and I just felt such deep sadness. And then I looked into this other path that I knew I needed to go in. And it was an unknown path. Something was pulling me to America. I wanted to go into self help. People often ask, why America? Why Los Angeles? Because all the authors I'd read about lived in la, you know, I mean, the Jack Canfields, the Tony Robbins, there's all these cats, they lived in la. And I thought, I want to go and find these people and learn from them. And so something pulled me. And so I had to, I had to have an honest conversation with my father and renounce everything. And that's when I really had to tell myself the truth, you know, and I realized I'd been lying to myself. And I think one of the things that keeps us stuck as human beings are really all the ways we BS ourselves, all the ways we lie to ourselves, all the ways we don't tell the truth to ourselves. You know, sometimes say, well, I'm in a relationship, but it's fine, it's okay. You know, I should be grateful when deep down we know that it's not aligned or maybe we're in a job or we're still in a business that we've created that is no longer an expression of who we really are. But because we've invested so much into it, we stay stuck in something that is no longer authentic for us. And so I think one of the keys to freedom, one of the keys to, I believe happiness is quite simple. I think it really, it's simple, but not always easy, you know, but it requires the willingness and the courage to tell ourselves the truth, feel the truth, acknowledge the truth, tell the truth, live the truth. But we're often afraid of the consequences. So for me, I had to be willing to tell the truth to myself. And I really believe that the more we're willing to tell the truth, the more freedom we're able to live in our lives. And I think the truth sets Us free. And then we can live a life that is based on what's true and authentic. And so I saw that I could not live a truly fulfilled life, a truly happy life, living someone else's version for my life. I could not truly be fulfilled and happy being someone that I wasn't. And so that began everything. And then I left everything. I mean, I could go on and on, but long story short, came to the us, won a green card in the lottery, showed up in LA with two suitcases, you know, 800, $900, knew no one, and just the journey began.

That is incredible. Absolutely. I mean, there's so much there that you said. I'm just so excited that you're here. So, yeah, telling the truth. So I want to dive into that, but I want to go back for a moment, because when you said that you were, you know, when you were young boy, and you saw this woman who's on in the sand and then she stands up and like, you saw as a young boy the possibilities. Like you, you saw that, the possibilities for miracles, for limitless abundance, that people have the power to make the change. And I think my sense is that that really, really shifted your perspective on everything.

You know, what was interesting was people often said happen. You know, is that true? Maybe you were Hulu. Like, I don't believe you. And the fact is, I know what I saw. I saw it. No cameras, no YouTube, no social. I saw it day in, day out. So it wasn't a big deal for me. It wasn't like, wow, it was just normal. It was just like you, you know, doing your trapeze and drinking your juice and no big deal. And so for me, that was just my reality. And so I grew up with a sense of possibilities were normal, miracles were normal. This is the normal state of our existence. But when I really think about it, people often say, are miracles possible? And I really look around and I go, how are miracles not possible? Look around. People often want to see these crazy miracles happen. But the fact is, if you just tune into yourself, just tune into your body, just tune into your breathing right now, inside of each and every one of us, there are trillions and trillions and trillions trillions of processes and cells just even just for you to be able to hear me, me to be able to hear you, there are brain cells and neurons and mitochondria. You know, you ate food this morning, and some intelligence, whatever you want to call it, is digesting this food. And so inside of us, there are miracles happening. And so often I think we look for some spectacular, incredible peak thing outside. But inside of each and every one of us is a living, living vital miracle that is occurring that we often don't acknowledge. And I think part of abundance and possibility, to me, abundance is a state of consciousness. It's not just a matter of what you have and the things you have and the state of your bank account because you can have millions of dollars in the bank and it's still not enough and still feel poor. And so for me, abundance is a redirection of your focus and your energy to acknowledge the inherent miraculousness, the inherent abundance of your being. And so I tell people, look at your body, look at what's happening. Look, just start there, look around at nature, start there. Just all of the obvious things in life that as people often in a quest to try and achieve more and get more, we miss what is right in front of us. You know, the sun shines every day, the moon every day. We're just in New Zealand, Alice, and I'm like, oh, my goodness, this is. It's all free. Nature, the universe, everything is living proof of just the abundance of life. And so I think we can start bringing ourselves into a state of possibility by beginning to acknowledge just the inherent beauty and the reality of what is rather than what is not. And we're so focused on what we don't have, where we should be, where we're not, where our business isn't. You know, what's not enough about us comparing ourselves to everyone else that we miss the. The miraculousness of what is going on inside of us. And so I tell everyone, take a deep breath, tune in, feel what you are. The same intelligence that is living the moon and breathing the stars and 8 billion people and the insects and the cockroaches and the giraffes and the roses is the same intelligence that is literally breathing you and I. And I think when we really just become still and tune into that, I think we can have a foundation, a foundation of, you could say, faith and trust. Like, wait a second, there is a process that's happening. There is something that's happening that we are all a part of, and it's abundance. You know, So I think we can bring ourselves. I think when we're able to bring ourselves into relationship with what we are, then we have a foundation where we can come from abundance rather than the sense of scarcity and, and lack and not enoughness. And then from that place of fear of scarcity, then we kind of often go out into the world thinking If I can get more, then I'm going to finally feel okay. If I can get more than. I'm going to finally be abundant and find peace. But it's what we are.

If we could approach every day like a child seeing something for the first time, how excited they would be. I mean, a strange. There are miracles falling at our feet every single moment.

Every moment.

What do you think it is that. Where is that shift from that child's eyes to where we're blind to it? Like it's right there and you don't see it. What happens?

Yeah, what often happens to me in my work and my observation as children, right? We're born. You look into a child's eyes and they're in touch with. There's a light there, right? They're in touch with beauty, they're in touch with their essence. They're in touch with the infinite. They're in touch with possibility. They're in touch with just life. A child is just free. A child will sing. It doesn't care if it's not Celine Dion or Bruno Mars. A child will jump on a table and dance naked. It's like. It's not like, well, I'm a little fat today, what do you think? It's just free, you know, Then we all become self conscious. So we're born these free beings and then we meet our parents. You know, we're born into this world, we meet our parents and our parents are often just doing the best that they can do based on their life, their programming, their history, their conditioning. And so we're born, and we're born into a certain environment. Many of us were born into very challenging situations. Sometimes there's abandonment, sometimes there's abuse, there's sexual abuse, trauma, you know, mental, emotional, physical, all sorts of neglect. So we're divorced, you know, so we're born into all sorts of challenging human situations. And I think as human beings, just the fact of being a human born into a human experience, we all face some level of trauma, some level of challenge. It's unavoidable. It's part of the human process. It's part of our journey as souls in this human spacesuit, so to speak. And so we're born into these different environments. So as children, a couple of things happen in terms of how we start losing touch with our light, without possibility, with our freedom as we're born into the situation sometimes the situations we're born into are often challenging, are often intense, are often overwhelming. As children, we often don't have the full capacity to know how to deal with the overwhelm of emotion, intensity, pain, and what's happening. So first thing that we do is we start learning all sorts of ways to shut down, disconnect, not feel, not feel the pain of, maybe my dad's an alcoholic, maybe I'm being beaten every day, maybe my parents are screaming, maybe they're not around. And it's painful to feel neglected, not enough, unworthy. And so we start shutting down, disconnect, not feeling the pain, and we start suppressing all of our feelings ultimately as a way to function and survive. It's a survival strategy that often unconsciously, as children, we start to disconnect, not feel, not feel, develop all sorts of layers and walls. And all those feelings that we don't feel, we suppress, just kind of stay stored inside of us. And before you know it, age 5, age 6, age 7, age 10, age 15. All of the emotions that we have not felt, we've suppressed start building up and you could say, begins to cover up our light. We begin to become jaded and we begin to become protective. We begin to become cynical. We begin to develop all these defense strategies and mechanisms just to like, just to survive and cope. That's the first thing. The second thing is then we go out into the world and we start learning all sorts of ways to the sense of who do I need to be in order to be loved and approved? For me, it was who do I need to be in order to get my father's love? I'll be the good boy, I'll be the perfect son, I'll be the preacher's kid, I'll be the responsible one. So we start developing all sorts of roles, Personas, masks to fit in, be validated, be loved. And then we hold tightly onto. So we disconnected from our authentic feelings, suppressed, shut down. Then we start developing all sorts of roles and masks to ultimately get love, be validated, fit in. And so then we hold tightly onto these, this sort of way of being, and we think this is who we are. We often say, no, this is me. I'm just shy. I'm just, you know, I'm just not creative. I'm just not smart, you know, I'm just not artistic. I'm just not fill in the blank or, you know.

And so we started developing to be though, right? That's not who you were born.

That's just who we.

You took.

It's who we've been conditioned to be. And we often mistake what we've been conditioned to be for who we are. And so for me, the question is the willingness to start questioning, who are you really? Is who you've been conditioned to be, who you really are? Or is it just conditioning? And most of the time we're just living inside of our conditioning. So I tell people, you are not your conditioning. Conditioning is, is something that occurred through experience, through past, through history, through stories, beliefs, that if you can start waking up and becoming conscious of your conditioning and questioning your conditioning, then you can begin to change. And so the degree to which we are conditioned is the degree to which we actually, we are not free. We are not free to choose. We are not free to live. We're not free to express ourselves. We're not free to, you know, shine our light. Because we're often stuck in patterns of fear in terms of survival. Most of us, we're living inside of a pattern of conditioned survival. And so for me, the first step is the ability to become aware of the fact that we're conditioned. That's step one. Because we often don't realize we're conditioned. We think that this is who I am. And awareness, awareness and then questioning, you know, the willingness to question our conditioning. I'll give you an example. It's going to get a little, maybe deep for a moment, but I think you're going to love it. I had a client, I used to do these journeys to India and I would take a person. I don't do them anymore. I take one person. It's what my book is about. I take a person to India, I take away your passport, your money, you have a backpack. You're stuck with me. I take you on a 12 day journey to India. And I had a client, a guy who came to me, his wife was a client of mine. He came to me and he says, koo, I want to go to the next level of success. To me, every single area of your life is totally interconnected. I want to go to, I want to, I want to achieve success. I want to create something. But I feel frozen, I feel stuck. I keep procrastinating. I don't know why, you know. And he said, ku, I'm just, I'm just a shy person. It's just, I'm just, I think it's because I'm shy. You know, he, he had an identity of himself as being shy, as being sort of the background person. And so he married a woman who, she was the front person. She was outspoken, she was outrageous. She, he was so shy that she did all the talking for him. And you know, his thing was, it's just who I am. And I looked at him and I said, that's B.S. you're living a lie. It's an act. And so I started to explore with him and we started looking at his childhood, looking at some of the ways in which his conditioning had come about. And as I sat with him 24 hours later, he came to me and he said for the first time, he goes, I'm 55 years old. I haven't cried since I was five, okay? And he said, I had a vision of when I was five for the first time. A memory that just popped into my head and I understood my whole life, I understood why I'm stuck and how I got to be who I was. He says, when I was five, I was molested by my uncle. I was sexually molested by my uncle. And I didn't know. I just totally blocked it, suppressed it, forgot about it completely. Didn't even remember until this moment. He's crying, tears flowing, and I'm feeling his emotion and his grief. I mean, the level of grief that he didn't even know he had. And what he realized in a nutshell in that moment was as a five year old, he was bright and he was light and he was free and he was powerful and he was radiant and magnificent. And this thing happened that should not have happened. And we all have had things that have happened, some of which we're conscious of, some of which we don't even remember. And this thing happened that shouldn't have happened. His innocence was taken, his light was taken. And unconsciously what he realized, he made up that when I am seen, it's not safe. When people see me, it's not safe, it's not okay, it's dangerous. And it was such an unconscious thing that he made up that if you can't see me, then you can't hurt me and I can't be hurt. And a survival strategy kicked in that he wasn't even aware of where he began to hide his light. He began to be quiet, be shy, which is the survival strategy that he developed. It was simply a limiting role and character that he developed to ultimately protect himself from getting hurt, which he thought he was, but he wasn't. And so he developed this way of being shy as a way to survive and function. And so the idea of, if you can't see me, you can't hear me, you can't hurt me. And he lived his entire life inside of this role. And so many times we are living roles, you know, in relationships, we're living Roles with our friends, with our family, we're living roles, and we don't get to experience the freedom of our being. So we have to be willing to become aware, to question. We have to be willing to have the courage to also feel some of the things that we have learned to suppress as a way to release, as a way to heal. And many times we're afraid to, I think, feel our pain, feel our sadness, feel our grief, because we're afraid, if I feel this, it's going to last forever. If I feel this, then I'll never recover. If I feel this, then I'm going to collapse. If I feel this, I just won't be able to cope. And the reality is, all feelings remain present until fully felt. And all feelings, ultimately, when we feel them with total awareness and responsibility, not as a victim or wallowing in them, but when we're willing to feel our feelings with total awareness and presence and consciousness and allow them to move through, all feelings will eventually, like layers, dissolve. And so, you know, I think it's when we're able to wake up beyond our identities and our conditioning, there's so much freedom that we. That we find and we're able to get back in touch with. And so now we're inside of us story.

And he built his whole life kind of around that belief. So you talked about telling the truth.

Yes.

So. And that took a lot of bravery for you to, you know, here you had all these expectations on you, and you said, okay, I'm going to stand up to my father, who I'm sure you greatly respected, and, you know, said, I'm going to take this entirely different path. So how do we, you know, first it's like really being completely honest with ourselves. Like, you might have this inkling of, yeah, well, probably. And then I think our tendency is to just focus on what we're doing and just stuff that lie. Right? And that's where the buildup of that unhappiness over time. I mean, how do we really look honestly at ourselves? And then what do we do with it?

You know, we're often. We often distract ourselves, you know, and that's what also keeps us stuck. I think there's a part of us, if we're really honest, Alison, we know the truth. We know when something isn't right. We know when that relationship is off. I mean, how many times has someone maybe listening and you've been in a relationship and you were in this relationship and you went back and forth, is it. Isn't it? Should I stay? Should I not stay. Should I go? Should I stay? Is it right? I'm not sure. Is it the one? And you spoke to your friends about it, and your friend said, it's not right. And you're like, I'm not sure. Maybe I can give. And maybe it went on for years or a decade, or you got married or a few months, whatever it was. But the moment. How many of us have had, the moment you broke up with that person, the first thing you said to your friend was, I knew that wasn't right. I knew that wasn't going to work. And the amount of times I've spoken to people and they said, well, when did you know? When I first met the person, something was off. And so I think there's a part of us that knows. There's a deep part of us on a spiritual level, there's a part of us that knows everything. Because at the deepest level, we are connected to everything. But because of the layers of our conditioning and the way the survival mechanisms, we start disconnecting from that finer sense of feeling and intuition. And so many times we feel the truth, but out of fear, fear of the consequences of, what am I going to lose? This relationship is going to end. How am I going to make money? How am I going to survive? What will people think? You know, the concept. I'm going to be alone, I'm going to be outcast, I'm going to be abandoned. I won't be loved. And so out of that fear, I think we often distract ourselves from the truth. We social media it away, we instagram it away, we drink it away, we sex it away, we eat it away, we shop it away, we work it away. We do all sorts of things so that we don't have to acknowledge the deeps. Sometimes the truth is subtle. Sometimes the truth is not this big explosive feeling. Sometimes it's a subtle feeling of something's off here. You know, you go into a business negotiation in a meeting, and you feel like everything sounds good, but something's off about this person. But we override it because we want.

How is it that override is stronger? You know, what is it that. I mean, it's.

We've learned to not trust that subtle feeling. And so one of the first things we have to do is just acknowledge that, you know, if we cut the bs, we do know. And it takes a lot of courage to just acknowledge, okay, even if I'm consciously not clear, I know. If all got stuck. I know. So we have to be willing, I think, to begin by removing the distractions, having time each day to remove the distractions from our life. We're constantly attached to our phones. We walk around and so we're more connected to our phone than to our own self, than to our own truth, than to our own soul. We walk around first thing. We wake up in the morning, who messaged me? So I think we have to start disconnecting from the world out here and really connecting, creating the space so that we can listen to our intuition, listen to our souls. But the thing is, we're often afraid because we're often afraid of what we're going to hear because of the consequences. So the first thing is create time and space in your life each day so you can be still, so that your soul can speak to you, so that you can hear the whisperings of the universe, so you can hear the truth of what you really feel, even though it's, you know, subtle. Often people say, well, how do I know? Often when you feel pain in your life, many times, I think pain is a beautiful gift. And we often try to anesthetize the pain. We often try to, you know, numb the pain. To me, the dissatisfaction and pain that you may feel in moments of your life, maybe you've reached a certain level of success as a business person in your life, and you're like, I feel dissatisfied. Don't deny that pain. Don't deny that dissatisfaction. To me, for instance, dissatisfaction is a sign of growth. You have outgrown the current level of your life. And to deny that will only keep you stuck in that pattern and cycle over and over again. Be willing to feel the pain. The pain is a signal. The pain is a message. The pain is your friend. The pain is trying to tell you something in that moment. And so there's more, there's more, or there's more, or you've outgrown, or something's off here, Something's not right, something's off. And so the pain is a fire alarm going off in your house that if you just ignore and don't listen to, your house is going to end up on fire. Which is often why many people's relationships and businesses end up blowing up. Because we didn't listen to the subtle signal until it turned into a blazing fire. And so feel the pain and become friends with the pain and listen to what is the message of this pain? What is the pain telling me what is off, what is not right? And so use that pain to shift. Use that pain to change. Use that pain to evolve. And so I think then we have to be willing to also ask ourselves some of the simple questions. Number one. And I tell people, you have to want the truth more than you want what you have. You have to want the truth more than you want what you want, or more than you want what you think you want. Because I think ultimately, nothing, in the long run, nothing feels better than the truth. And what I realized as a young boy was if I lived my life living a lie to please my father and everyone else, I would have to live the rest of my life lying in order to hold the lie and the life I had created together my entire life.

That's like prison, right?

It's a prison, which is why many people end up feeling like they're in a prison, because they've lived the life from the beginning. So I say, look, for me, nothing is worth your freedom. Nothing is worth your freedom. And when you live your truth and you live your freedom, you become, I think, truly powerful. And people feel that. So for me, the first question that people have to be willing to compassionately, ruthlessly, courageously ask themselves what lies am I telling myself? And sit with it and feel it. Because deep down, we do know. We can pretend, and we can try and pretend to everyone else, but deep down, we really do know what's right, what's wrong, what's truthful. So what lies am I telling myself? What am I pretending to not know? Because to me, we're often pretending like, I don't know. We play this game, I don't know. I'm confused when we're not. The confusion is a survival strategy, survival mechanism to kind of keep us in the smokescreen of confusion. Because then if we confuse, then we don't have to act. If we're confused, we don't have to.

Then you have to harness the courage, right? Like I would say, when your desire for change grows stronger than your fear, then you're going to act. But you really have to be willing to be bold and possibly go against, you know, what everyone expects of you, whether it's, you know, running your company and you decide to leave your company or take a new direction.

That's why I want people to feel the pain, to stay in relationship with the pain. Because if you feel the pain like something's not right, something's off. I'm not feeling happy, I'm not feeling fulfilled. But you pop a pill, you buy a thing, you do this, you numb it, then it kind of perpetuates the situation for years, for decades. Feel it. Because if you feel that pain and you use that pain to create shift. You use that pain to take action. You use that pain to make us to do something. Then I think the pain becomes your friend. The pain becomes a compass. The pain becomes a productive gift in your life. And so what am I pretending to not know? Then ask yourself, connected to the pain, what are the lies costing me? What is it costing me in my life? Because many times we don't want to feel what it's costing us, and that often keeps us stuck. But to actually be willing to feel what it's costing me to stay in this relationship that I know is toxic. What is it costing me to stay in this. Keep running this business that I know is just so disconnected from who I am today that I know what is it costing me? You know, because to me, the reality is every moment we lie to ourselves. And every moment, every day, every month, every year we spend living a lie is a moment that we can't get back. Ultimately, every one of us, we will die in each day. You, me, Oprah, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, we all have the same amount of time. In one day, we have 86,400 seconds. And so the fact is, it's not like Bill Gates has more time than you and I. And so every moment we spend, every year we spend living a lie is a moment that cannot be returned. And when we die, because the truth is, we will die. So the other thing I would say for those that are living a lie and pretending is here's a motivational sort of concept for you, you are going to die. Like, sit with that. Not as, like a morbid thing, but like you, I know, we know it into, like, I'm going to die. No, you are going to die. And the truth is, none of us know when that moment will come. The people in 9 11, the people in the tsunami, the people in, you know, the storm, no one knew when that moment was coming. No one knew that they weren't going to come home that day and look their loved one in the eyes and say, I'm sorry. No one knew that they weren't going to come home that day and be able to change their careers. We don't know when that moment is going to come. When that moment comes, we can't go to our maker or whatever you believe and say, God, can you. Can you give me a refund for those three years I wasted in my.

Business that I hated this, trashing that like, you know, that day is gone, gone.

And so I think, feel. So I would say feel your like, in the most beautiful way, I would invite people to feel their death because I think death get touch with the preciousness, the fragility, the delicateness of life. Death gets you in touch with what's really important. And the moment you die, the moment you're close to death, you start realizing, wow, what was really important, People to feel their death. Because I think death gets you in touch with what's real. Death gets you in touch with the preciousness, the fragility, the delicateness of life. Death gets you in touch with what's really important. And the moment you die, the moment you're close to death, you start realizing, wow, what was really important in my life? You know, my mother died. I don't know if I told you this. My mother died two years ago, and I was blessed to spend a year with her in that process. She had cancer. I was flying back to London where she was for the chemo sessions and just spending time with her. And, you know, honestly, the only regret I have in my life was not spending more time with her. And I was close to her and I spent time. But the only regret I have in my life was not spending more time. And so if someone is struggling with the truth, feel your death. Like, bring it.

I hadn't really thought about that way. Now I'm gonna. Now I'm gonna actually, I'm going to do that. I'm going to take the time and really meditate on that. And, you know, I mean, gosh, you know, you want motivation. I don't know anything that's gonna motivate.

You as a business owner. If you want motivation, meditate on your death and think about, wow, I'm procrastinating. Feel your death. You know, I'm afraid to make this phone call. Feel your death. I'm wasting time in doing this business I hate. Feel your death and bring it close. And let that be a reorientation, truth serum to help you get clear on how do I want to spend my life? How do I want to spend each day? What's really important to me? Where do I want to spend my time? Where am I wasting time? Where do I want to go with my life?

Getting hung up on all those little things that we worry about. I mean, so many people just wake up in the morning. The first thing is they're worrying. They're worrying. I think having this reminder that in the big scheme of things, that doesn't matter, right? Because we all are going to die. So what's your choice? You're going to focus on what isn't working. Or like how we started this interview, of just so much opportunity, so much beauty out there.

Worry is a prayer and affirmation for what you don't want. And holding on out of fear, which is often what we do when we lie to ourselves. We hold on to things that aren't working because it's familiar, because it's comfortable, you know, because we've been doing it for 10 years and we've succeeded, and it works. So we keep doing it, but it's not fulfilling, you know? And so it's scary to sometimes think about letting go of something that it's working, but working. It's kind of working. It's kind of working because I make money and I survive, but I'm miserable, you know? So I think the next level of our lives, the next level of our business, the next level, our purpose, next level of our evolution as human beings requires letting go of that which is not truly aligned with who we've become today. Because many times we made choices 10 years ago, we made choices for our businesses five years ago to do something, to start something, but we've outgrown it. We've gone beyond it. And I think to truly be alive, we have to be willing to feel our truth, and we have to be willing to let go of what's not working. And holding on to what is no longer working in our life is our affirmation of our lack of trust in the universe. And when you hold on to what's not working, you end up actually blocking the flow, blocking your abundance, blocking your aliveness, and blocking the blessings of the universe in your life.

Wow. And the total opposite of that is true freedom.

Yes.

When you tell the tree truth and you're willing to cross that line.

Yeah. To take the action.

Wow. This is so powerful. Like, I am jazzed up, so thank you. This is. I needed this today. This was just fantastic. And, you know, for the business owners that are listening to this. Right. Being a business owner is not an easy road.

It's not easy.

It isn't. And, you know, no one's telling you, giving you the exact structure. Like, you really have to tap into what those gifts are. And. But I do believe business owner is an amazing opportunity to share those gifts with the world, that creativity. But, you know, there are no rules. Like, you can do it in a way that fills you up, and that's what excites me the most.

I love what you're doing because, you know, in terms of inspiring business owners, which is why I'M excited to come to your event and hang out with you because I really believe that business owners are the leaders of the new generation. And it's through business and structure and entrepreneurship that you have the ability to really change the world. I really believe as a spiritual teacher, transformational teacher, I believe that it's conscious business owners with vision and purpose that have the ability to generate resources that can change the world. Because when I go to countries like Africa and India and what have you, let me tell you, you can meditate and you can pray, but you can't feed the children just on prayers and meditation. It requires resources and money and structure. And that's for me, what business owners bring. And I think, you know, to me, business is a sacred responsibility. Business owners are actually the leaders of the new generation. And so it's an exciting time. You know, I think we're living in really exciting times right now more than ever.

I agree 100%. I really, really do. And you know, I think that most business owners, conscious business owners, what are they doing? They're helping people to have a better life. I mean, nothing more spiritual than that. So I hope that those of you watching this are feeling that inkling, that inkling of just being totally honest with yourself and say, yes, I can set myself free and I can live the path that I was born to live. And coot. You are such an inspiration. My goodness, I am so excited you are coming to my event level up. And you know, I just, I think this is probably one of the most powerful shows that I've done. I had all these questions for you and I didn't even look at them. I was just drawn into everything that you had to say so for people to. So you're not doing those private journeys anymore? How are you working with people?

Yeah, I mean, I do a lot of more large scale seminars and people can find that on my website, cooplackson.com I also do. One of my favorite things I do is to take people on deep dive so sessions to Bali where 18 to 20 people twice a year. It's a 12 day transformational immersion retreat in Bali called Boundless Bliss where I take leaders and visionaries who really feel a calling to go to the next level of their lives and have impact and are ready to, you could say, clear themselves from the condition and connect with who they really are and just kind of catapult themselves into living their true gifts. Because I believe that if you have a dream or vision, that dream or vision doesn't belong to you. It belongs to life. That dream or vision, that business that I did, to me, it chose you because each and every one of us, you're the perfect person to fulfill that dream or vision. And so for me, one of my passions is to assist leaders and visionaries in taking their dreams and visions and sharing that with the world. And I think we're living in a time where the world is waiting for us. The world needs us more than ever. And so twice a year, I do this event in Bali, and people can find out about that on my website as well. Boundless Bliss Bar.

Well, I'm sure they will check it out. And you are doing very important work in the world. So thank you for all that you do.

Thanks for having me.

I will see you in a few days. Fantastic. All right. Thank you, Kute.

Thank you.

So, everybody, thanks for tuning in on the scale or fail show. This was fantastic. Going on this journey with Koot Blackson here today. And remember that we are on podcasts, wherever podcasts are played, itunes, Spotify, make sure and subscribe so that you are getting those notifications. And get out there and elevate yourself because you are worth it. Bye, everybody.

People always talk about they want to be part of seven figure companies. I'm now part of seven, eight and nine figure companies. I've been introduced to some of the largest corporations, Fortune 500 companies, and it's.

With Alison's help, she's kind of expanded my horizons and my capabilities.

And I think that's the most important thing where she expands. She makes she know what you can do and be successful at that.

Being with Alison and being able to learn who to hire and why to hire and how to develop a passionate, creative, inspired team was really, really important for me because I needed to shift some energy in my business. And I feel like with her help, I've really done that. Pinnacle helped me grow my company to where at this point a year ago, I'm making. I made a million more than I did at this point last year. So I really wanted to break that ceiling. I've hit that ceiling for several years in a row, and Pinnacle has helped me do that by implementing the thought. It's actually just a thought process and how you view your company and how you view what you're doing. I think a lot of us entrepreneurs are hard on ourselves and are hard on our companies when. When it's not that we shouldn't be that way. So I think it's just looking at things a little bit differently. Putting into practice the systems that she Teaches us, for example, if you want an example, putting people in place to where I want my business to be at in two, three years. So I've got people right now in place and it's wild. It's just like all the work is coming in and we're in place and we're not stressed out and it's just amazing. It's just an amazing place to be. What I love most about being in the Pinnacle is constant access to support. So whether it be my mastermind group or the recorded resources that Alison has produced for us, or the constantly cutting edge information that's coming to us on social media, Facebook ads, how to conduct webinars, you name it, we have a resource for it. So since joining at Pinnacle, we've added 12 new positions to the company. We've increased revenue about 43%, we've increased profit by 111% this year. More importantly, I've gotten out of some roles that I was in like QA manager and some of the marketing things that I was doing are now outsourced or not outsourced in sourced to a team member. And I've really focused in on running the business instead of letting it run me.

Coaching opportunities out there and a lot of times I'm a little bit suspicious. It's a kind of a sales job, you know, are they, are they in it for themselves? Are they in it for me? And at no time have I ever felt with Pinnacol that my best interest was not number one priority. And it's truly an organization and not just Allison and the coaches, but everyone there is coming from a place of giving and working for mutual benefit. A lot of sharing going on and that's a great team to work with.

Right off the bat. I laid a foundation for my coaching practice and I increased my prices and within one week I had signed two high paying clients that had basically paid for my coaching program with Alison. And since then my income has doubled every single month. It's been tremendous. But being a part of the community has been the greatest asset. I've been so fortunate and blessed to befriend so many other amazing entrepreneurs who I learn from on a regular basis, who always have my back, like minded people, people that I surround myself with and the environment is so positive. I just cannot speak highly enough of it and I am always compelled to share it with everyone I know. I feel it is the biggest gift to introduce and share this opportunity to connect with this kind of community, with everybody that I know. Don't be the company. Like, I was being in business for over 12 years, looking back and saying, what did I do in the last 10 years? Do it now. Now is all we have. We don't have the past, and we don't have the future. All we have is now. I've been in business for 21 years now, and I've worked with a number of business coaches. And I watched Alison for four years and the results that her clients had when they worked with her. And I finally decided, this is the next coach that I'm going to hire. Because she is the real deal. She is available to her people. She absolutely cares deeply about each and every individual and the success of their business. And you know what? We have to in business, take risks. And sometimes taking risk is hiring that new coach. This is a risk worth taking. There is nothing like it. I can't even explain what the opportunity and the learning that comes with Pinnacle. Don't even think about it. Because if you think about it, that's the number one thing that will hold you back. Just do it. You won't regret it. You just need to do it. I mean, you have to stop being on the fence.

You have to get off.

The fence is boring. The fence is. Honestly, I was on the fence for. Oh, gosh. I was on the fence for maybe two years, and it was a horrible fence to sit on. I hated the fence because the fence kept me stuck. And it was when I finally jumped off the fence that my business skyrocketed.