Create your best life with Rex

Sa. Sam. Hello, everybody. I'm Rex and welcome to create your best life with Rex. I'm traveling, I'm outdoors, I'm enjoying the wild outdoors. But more importantly, I'm here for another incredible episode of create your best life with Rex. What I need to find is my friend Danny and find out where he is at the moment.

I'm here. Hi.

And here he comes. And there's Danny. How you doing, Danny?

Doing good. Where in the world is is Rex Sykes?

I'm in northern Wisconsin in a remote area. I've been out where there's no Internet parts, where there is Internet parts, where there's phone service, parts where there's no phone service. So this is kind of a a excursion into lack of wi fi area.

And hopefully Rex makes it through to the end of the of the show with the bad connection. But I'm currently in Florida and hopefully the the connection is a little bit better. We do have an amazing guest today, Rex. Right?

We do, we do. And her name is Susan. In just a moment. Then, I'm gonna have to tell you that I've known Susan for many years having something up. So Susan Spears is an amazing person. I've known her since the 90s or early 90s where we met many years ago. She'll talk about that in a moment. But she is a business person. She's an advocate for so many wonderful, I want to say life affirming. She's an advocate for acceptance and tolerance and peace and kindness and goodness as well as health and wealth and happiness. She's a business person in multiple different businesses as a re life numerous times and have overcome a a horrible car accident and debilitating illness. So I'm going to have her tell you all about that. I apologize because the bio that I had for her which I did want to read, people can read on my Facebook wall. There's different places like that but I'm not going to be able to do here apparently today. So with that said, Danny, are you excited about the show and having Susan on? You get to talk a little bit.

Super excited. Just picking up a few comments that your connection, Rex, because you're in the wilderness is not the best. So you might have to relocate as we bring Susan on and welcome her and, and Susan can kind of elaborate a little bit on, on your initial welcome, but I think we'll bring it to the stage. We'll bring her on. We've had a chat behind the scenes and I know we've got something exciting for everybody. So wherever you Logged in from. Let us know in the comments. Rex is going to do his best to figure out the signal and we are going to bring Susan to the screen right now.

Susan, hi, how are you guys?

We're good. Susan. So I don't know if you could hear. Can. Am I coming through? Can you hear me now.

Spotty?

Tell us about yourself Susan.

So, so it's really funny. I've always thought about when recently I've gone through a workshop when somebody says tell you about us yourself, you start with work. And I don't want to start with work. I want to start with the fact that I am a wife, an amazing friend and family member and, and, and who I am. I love to travel and learn and be curious and live on a beautiful river. I live on the Mississippi and I most recently traveled to like London, to like England and in Italy and Croatia and Israel. So that's a lot of who I am. And in, in the spirit of all of that, I have grown up in multiple careers from teaching history to social work to, to franchising and ending up in real estate technology. Working for companies like Deloitte and Trimble launching real estate product technology products that help real estate companies and have had an amazing career, meeting some of the best people I could ever imagine meeting and having great opportunities. And now I left my corporate job after Covid and decided I wanted to design and control my own life differently. And so I do some consulting around real estate and prop tech, property technology and my exciting thing is I have a project called Trustworthy where we are really trying to work, working to build a more trusting world and a more trustworthy world. One relationship, one team, one organization, one community at a time. And so we've been at it now for like a year and a half and Rex and I go back when so part of what makes me who I am is I absolutely love to learn and I always try to show up as my best self and as part of that process, way back when I was taking NLP and did my NLP certification and, and Rex actually got me certified and we became friends so which didn't have anything that was not in relationship to getting me certified. We did that separate. It wasn't like I got certified because we were friends or anything like that. So yeah, so that, so that's my background and I love to have fun.

I told you she was amazing. And the thing about certification is that it wasn't a walk in the park. I mean I attempt to make it fun but I mean at the same Time and meaningful. But it's not like you can skirt by. You either get certified or you don't based on a demonstration of skill, talent, ability, awareness. I mean a whole number of things to consider. And Susan demonstrated all of those admirably at the time, but not only then, but she's extended those into her life and her practices ever since. And it's a powerful person in her own right as a result of what she's learned and been able to acquire and accomplish. So.

Exciting stuff. It's seems like you, you've traveled quite a lot recently and is the traveling a new thing? Is it something that you've as you after covert or is this something you've done throughout, throughout your life and career?

You know, I've always liked to travel. My family is not necessarily travelers. I mean my mom and dad went to a few places here or there, but like not the. I'm going to pick up and do it on a big level. On a bigger level. But I will tell you. So you know Paul Shealy. So Paul Shealy, years and years ago I went to a visioning session with him and we must have had to design our lives. I'll get back. It is going to relate to the travel and we had to design our lives. And, and when I moved from the big house into our apartment, I found the piece of paper that I wrote like what was it, 30, 35 years ago. And at the time I was working for a nonpro and I wrote that I envisioned my life, travel, traveling the globe, working for a consulting company and living on water. And when I found it, I was working for Deloitte, I had a global job and I was moving on to the river and I went, oh my gosh, I need a new vision. I actually manifested that from way back when. So. So I actually like made choices that got me into a global job so that I could travel and work at the same time and see the world and then do that for vacation and fun as well. So I do believe in the visioning, by the way.

Well, that's beautiful. Paul is a friend and colleague and it's a. You know, and we just talked recently about maybe doing something together. So that was cool and we'll find out as we. But I. That's one of my dogs. We're here with three now, so they're going to, they're going to sound off and when they do, I'll probably mute. But so. Well, let me ask you the first question since we brought up the nlp. How is, how is the two things, one is not all NLP is created equal. I mean there are different programs and courses and some are great, some are not so great. But how have you applied that in your life? You know, how do you use it now for trust or creating trust and relationships, connecting or creating awareness with the, with people who you work with.

So what I got out of nlp, I think the biggest piece for me was getting better at my ability to connect with people at a heart human level. And so whether it. So I, I often think of the language I use because language affects what you're thinking, which affects what you're doing, which affects how the world sees you and interacts with you. So I would say in a big way, my language has been honed, honed down and into something that would be more effective. And also ways to little tools that you use when you work with people and you're meeting with people so that they get over whether or not they like the way you look and they actually listen to what you're saying and are they going to like you or not like you necessarily, but based on stuff that really doesn't matter versus stuff that's in your heart. And really. So I do use a lot of that all the time. I notice when people are more, what do you call it, more aligned and more connected versus there's a lot of disconnect. I've even done things like I have a career in sales and marketing and I have been in sales calls where they are just going down a path where they're just never going to buy. And I'll just slam a book down like, okay, nlp, what would they do? Break that state? And I don't really care. We don't need to, you don't need to buy. But we gotta leave, friends, we've gotta leave. Like this is not gonna work for you, for me or for you. So you don't need to buy if it doesn't work for you. Let's just be friends. So I've used little tools like that. So I love it.

I mean that's the brilliant premise. I want to follow up with a question, but you know, so many people don't seem to understand that, you know, how you say things matters and you know, they don't realize that, you know, 50 years ago when we were starting in NLP and stuff like that, that the focus on language and being able to say what you wanted instead of what you didn't want, like don't think of a blue elephant versus think of a blue elephant. How that matters and how it affects people in their relationships and in their ability to process and discover possibilities and resources and connect with those and whether or not they move towards those or away from the. I mean, so it had everything to do with creating, you know, a, A practical formula for the law of attraction. How, how to clarify what it is you want and how you connect with what you want so that you make that happen. And then you've taken that even further in the sense that you're, you've created trustworthy and you have this, this notion of helping people connect. And what you said a moment ago, you know, I don't care if they buy or not, that that may be one outcome, but it's the relationship that's important and the trust that is experienced and the connections, because many times people aren't going to buy, but they may refer you forever.

Right?

And, and so there's, there's a lot more important things than just closing the sale.

Well, and I think too, that, that as you build your network, I think that that in. In my life at least, building a network that is, that is dependable and reliable and smart and loving and empathetic, all those things where we all have a stake in each other's success, we all have a stake in each other's lives is so important. And, and, and it makes me feel good about my day. Like, I don't, you know. Yeah, we all like a good sale, right? And we all like to, to. To solve somebody's problem. Problem and feel like this really worked and it was fabulous. But for me, it's always been about the relationship and about connecting with people and holding on to those connections. So it makes my day. And when people say what makes you get up in the morning? It's being able to do that interaction and have that meaningful interaction that is so beautiful.

There's something else I want to bring up and that is it's so much about opportunity and possibility and resourcefulness and connections and understanding people and how they process and understanding where they're coming from. For example, I was making some suggestions to somebody and they go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. So everything I would say, they would counter. Now this is going to sound like a technique. And it can be written down as a technique or a formula or a method or strategy that you can use. And for me, that's none of those. What it is, is it's again, it's an opportunity to connect with someone. So instead of saying, maybe you want to consider this and the other thing I said well, you know, I'd offer you some advice, but I don't think you're going to want to do this. And I take it away before I offer it. And they go, well, wait a second, what is it? I said, well, no, you're not going to be interested in going this way. And they go, no, no, that sounds good. But if I had said to them, go this way, they'd go, no, no, no, that can't work. It's never going to possibly work. So it becomes their idea. Let me hear it. Oh, let me decide whether I'm going to want it or not. And I go, okay, well, then I don't think you're going to like it. But here. And they go, oh, no, I love it. But it's understanding that from that that's a pattern that they're displaying. It's not a technique that you're doing and you're working with them in a way that they're. They're used to working. So you're not trying to do something counter to who they are. You're just offering them choices, the way they make choices.

So. Yeah, exactly. And so when we, when we look at trustworthy, the coaching that we do, the workshops that we do, we have actually monthly labs that anybody can, can join and we would love to have you where we talk about, you know, how do you build trust with somebody or how do you. Where. Where is the line between truth and lies and what are the unwritten social contracts we have with each other and how does that impact trust? Because I think the part of, and I know we want to talk about the Guillain Barre, but I'll just kind of throw my idea out here. But part of what we talk about is, is that when we start projects, we have scope. We define scopes and budgets and timelines and we sign off and we have these contracts. But what we really don't do is we really don't talk about the rules of engagement. We really don't stop and say, how are we going to work together? What are our expectations? What happens if one of us doesn't follow through? How should we handle that and get those agreements? We kind of assume that those are the ones that are just going to happen. And I think that's where teams blow up and projects get challenged. And it's all those unwritten social contracts that we have that we haven't defined accurately and appropriately. So we talk a lot about that and give school skill set, you know, give ideas and strategies around how to do that. So that we all can play in the sandbox together and deliver what we have told clients we're going to deliver, or friends we're going to deliver, or family members we're going to deliver.

Well, I'm going to pass it to Danny. Just a second. What I love about this, and I talk about it a lot, especially in sales courses, is that people are focused on closing sales. If you're focused on closing a sale, then you're targeting a mark. Essentially you're saying, I have to have this happen with this person in order to have another successful number added to my belt or whatever it is, as opposed to, I'm creating a relationship with somebody that extends far beyond a close of a sale, and that demonstrates far more respect. Now, I want to connect people up with resources. I wouldn't be selling what I'm selling if I didn't believe in it, that sort of thing. So all of that, you know, kind of goes without saying, but it's beyond the immediate moment. How can I meet your immediate moment? I may not have the product, service or the thing to meet you, so I might have to refer you. But if I don't, if I can't keep the relationship with you, then I've just sent. I've just sent you away. But if I can create a relationship with you, then there's opportunities forever.

So I'll throw. I interviewed for one of my more interesting jobs as an employee, and they wanted to know what was my sale target. I don't know what they called it any year Target. I don't know what they. They have a name for that. And what am. I would have been my sales each year. And I had no idea. I had no idea. I said, I'll have to go look it up. And they said, well, how can you be in sales and not know what that number is? Like, don't you live, die and breathe that number? And I'm like, no, I live, die and breathe the relationship. And I live, die and breathe that. My only goal in meeting with somebody is to have them want to meet with me again. And you know what? I blow out my numbers. Like, that is not the reason you do that. And you actually do meet your targets and exceed your targets, and everybody, you know, gets what they need to get out of it. And. But I remember this particular sales leader was like, how do you not know your number? And I'm like, that just wasn't, you know, the number always happened. And again, that goes into believing, right? Believing in yourself, believing in what you're doing, believing in your product that the number was going to happen. You didn't have to focus on the number to make the number happen.

So we've known each other for some 30 years. I couldn't say those numbers okay. For a couple of days. And we wouldn't. If I hadn't certified you in nlp, we would still be friends.

Yep.

And as a result of certifying you in nlp, that didn't make us friends.

No. I think going to Milwaukee and spending time with you guys and getting to know each other is what made us friends. I think that. That while you were certifying me, you were like the. Whatever they call you, certifier or the trainer or coach or whatever that was. But. But I think we just got to know each other. I don't know if you did get to know other people in our class and our cohort as well, but yeah.

Yeah. I'm very happy to say that many, if not most of all, my students and I still, if they're alive and they're around the world, maintain relationships that can be vast numbers, too. But that's not the point. The point is that it's not about getting a signature on a piece of paper. It's not about demonstrating the skill. It's not about that. It's about the creation of a relationship that extends far. I've benefited from knowing you, and I would hope you for me for all of these years, not just the interaction we had up front in the NLP program, so.

Well, yeah, I mean, I. Not only did I benefit, you actually did one of our podcasts for trustworthy as well. Like, we're doing this. We're kind of exchanging information and we're exchanging the love, and we're. We're. We're kind of lifting each other up. And I love that. I absolutely love that, Danny.

So good. And you. You guys, obviously, that connection is forever going to continue to grow and develop. I think in. In sales, a lot of folks, they just want to catch the big.

Right.

But they don't realize that the little fish will grow. And if you catch a big fish and you knock him on the head, then that's kind of done with. They're not allowing these little fish to kind of come along and. And maintain those relationships as. As we move. And I guess, Susan, you hit this on. On the head a little bit earlier. You said that your sales is about getting people. The result of solving them. The problem. The problem. Right. So that was quite profound because a lot of people are just looking at the Money they're not actually looking at. You are here to solve somebody's problem. That's the purpose of the sale, right?

Yep, totally.

You're solving that. That's solving that problem. Do you think that that's something that, you know, inexperienced sales folks are continually falling over, that they're just focusing on the money and they're not looking at. Actually, we are here to solve a problem for someone.

You know, I don't know if I've done like you have the experience being out in the world of sales. I can tell you that the people I worked with on my teams and we collaborated, they were a little more focused on a number. I did have a teammate that would call me, and he was living in the UK every morning to say where we were to our number. I'm like, okay, great. Somebody's tracking it. But he was also very keen on solving the client problem. So he had both pieces where I was actually lacking that other piece. So, I don't know. I mean, I'd be curious to see what you've seen out there. I think people are transactional, and I also think companies put so much pressure on meeting that number. And when you're feeding your family and your, you know, sending your kids to college and you need, you know, you can't afford to let your world down because you didn't make your number. So. So I think there are a lot of these influences that. That I believed in my own ability to get it done. Like, I never questioned that. So I could focus on the relationship, and I knew the rest would happen. What do you see out there? I'd be curious, because there are external.

Pressures, I think in. And just to kind of bring it back to you as well is it's kind of like a balance. Right. And some people will try and focus on getting the money in. Some people will try and focus on the problem. Some people have got that balance nicely. But when it comes to actually making a buying decision, some people want it cheap. Some people recognize the value, and it's like, at some point, the problem may tip the whole scales in the favor of if we do not spend money now, regardless of the cost, this problem is still going to persist. And. And we see these things. So is it more of a balancing act, Susan? Is it the ability to read the situation?

Okay, I'm gonna step up, go back, like, one step and say, do we take the time and we talk about this in trustworthy to intentionally get to know somebody and to know what their problems are and to be able to Help them to what Rex just said earlier. You know, they come up with their own solution and if the solution is yours, that's awesome. If you're not the right solution, is they. But to help them actually navigate to that endpoint takes rapport and takes trust and takes time and energy and effort. I personally mostly sold a fortune 100 to 500 companies. So I sold to the big companies that we all know and, and I built enough rapport that when my clients, or potential clients, because it could take a year, would be coming home from work, they'd call me and they want to talk through the project or wanted to talk through their next challenge. I mean, yeah, my goal was to, was to hopefully sell them something. Their goal was to use me as a sounding board and help me and I could help them help define what that problem was and bridge to a solution. And, and I don't know if people want to put that kind of time or effort in. In fact, I had a colleague once who said to me, because I think that relationship and building rapport is key on the front end. He said to me, we're going into a meeting. And he said, look, we really have a full agenda. Do you have to do that 10 minute stuff you do on the front end? Can we just skip that this time? We have got to get to the agenda. And I said no, because that 10 minute stuff we do on the front end gives us a right to that agenda. That opens the door to that agenda. So I guess maybe I reframe your. I guess my observation is that people don't take the time to get to know individual people as people and they don't take the time to connect on a level that just doesn't make them look like a salesperson trying to sell something, but actually a colleague. And when you're a colleague, you can actually help somebody navigate to the solution. I don't know if people take the time to that to do that.

I want to jump in here for a second just because. One of the advantages of social media is that people now can communicate all around the world. Whether we're on one versus the other doesn't matter. The platform. People have communicated, they've had battles, obviously, but they also have friendships that developed where they've never met in person and then they meet in person and it's like, well, we've known each other forever now. That can happen whether they sell or don't sell. It's not about whether selling is inclusive or exclusive or, you know, nothing is, is, you know, a sale for example, the numbers are metrics. They're just a way of knowing am I closer or further away from a target that I have. You know, in the same way that a ruler lets you know how far you can, you know, it is to get across the room. It's a measurement. And measurements are fine. They're good, they're useful. They're tools, you know, and people talk about quality, cost, and convenience. You know, somebody buys for convenience, somebody buys for quality, or a couple of them or whatever. All we're talking about really is we relate in a way that we understand what's important to the other person and try to match them up with what it is that they need so that their problems are solved. And, well, by golly, it's you or Danny or me or somebody who's connecting them. And so they appreciate that, and some kind of relationship is formed so that that's not the end of the sale process, but the beginning of a relationship where you continue to mutually benefit each other in the same way that you met on Facebook at one point and now you're friends in real life. So all of it is good. But what happens for people is they focus on one thing versus the other. They make one thing more important than the other. And I would argue that the only thing we have as people in the real world are the relationships that we have.

I agree.

Completely apart from that, there's nothing else. I mean, there's things and stuff like that. Nothing that matters unless you connected with the people you want to be connected with. And that's what. Knowing how to sell or knowing how to relate and to create trust and all that is far superior to just being able to get a yes or no or a signature on a piece of paper. But it's all part of it.

I'll share two things, a strategy and a framework. That being in sales helped me a lot. I met with a colleague. You know, you're always out networking and trying to figure out where your next lead is going to come from. And I was meeting with somebody a few times and walked away saying, oh, I guess we're not going to like. I hope I didn't waste your time. It doesn't look like this is going to go anywhere. And the person said to me, and I always, always remembered this, that as long as I learned something in a conversation and I. Whether I learned something new and I learned something about the person I met with, it is never, ever a waste of time. And so that gave me, as somebody out building my network, a framework to Think about, I'm not wasting my time. I'm not wasting the other person's time because we're learning and we're in communication and that has value and that's worth something. So that was really cool. Another person that I used to do business with, she used to work for IBM. She always would say when we started a conversation, and it was always remote. I've been remotely working for over 20 years. Years. We get on the phone and I'd be like, wanting to jump right in. And she'd go, so how are you? How are you? And she'd stop. And that felt so good. Like, I felt like she cared. I felt like she wanted to really know me. I felt like she. We weren't just jumping into business, that I started doing that with everybody. Like, I literally would not have a conversation without first checking in and finding out how that person is. And I think that goes really. It allows you to move mountains. I think those little things mean a lot in our crazy world.

Indeed, indeed. And I think the, sometimes the, the desire to get that sale might get you the one sale, but does it get you the 50 cells that would have come on the back of that if we just had that relationship and that rapport? I always say that your technology has to work. You have the right offer, and then you build and maintain relationships. That's always been principles that I've kind of stood by. And, and when people think about it like that, they're like, whoa, this is really simple. Because it is like Rex said that that human connection, those relationships, it's not overly difficult, Susan.

Right.

I think it's about taking the time, time to actually, like you said, the 10 minutes. And Andrea made a comment in the, in the chat just now, 10 minutes stuff is important. Is it? The perception of that stuff is equally important. Like your guy was saying, hey, don't bother with this. We need to get to the, to this side of it. Talk to us a little bit about the stuff.

So tell me what you mean more about that.

Wait, this ten minute stuff. And you do this at the beginning, this building of the.

Oh, you know, often. Yeah, it's like how your kid, you know, it builds right. As you get to know each other. You know, often it starts with weather, because that seems to be something we can all talk about. And then weather turns into what you're doing and your vacations and your family and your kids, and it's really, you know, I think somebody did a sales training with me years and years ago, and they said, find something about the person that you're talking with that you truly, authentically and honestly like or love, because that will come through in the conversation, that it's not just a business deal, but I actually appreciate you as a human being. And they said even if it's like the color of their hair or the shoes that they're wearing or find something so that you can see this person as a human being. And that's the stuff, right? The stuff is where you're going to connect and where are you going to find alignment and where are you going to find where you, where you come together as people. And because we, because we all have way more in common than we do differences.

So go ahead. No, I was just going to add that, you know, so many people get into this. The value of framing, of saying hi of your first off is who's important, not what's important.

Right.

You know, who are you to meet about this topic? And we'll get to the topic in just a moment. But I want to check in with, I want to check in with a human, you know, and, but the, but the other element to that is, you know, so often, and this happens in social media a lot, somebody posts something and someone says, I agree with this 1% thing, but then 99% of it they disagree with. And so where does the focus goes? It goes to the disagreement. The true measure of who you are as a person and the ability to create rapport and trust and to get along with another person is to not worry about the 99% you disagree with, but to agree with that 1% you agree with 100%. In other words, if you're wanting to build a bridge, build a bridge, you know, and that, that, that's the doorway because you go, yeah, there's plenty of stuff we don't, we disagree with, but what is it that we agree on?

Right.

And let's get there first.

Right?

Because we can always at some point troubleshoot the things we disagree on. But let's come to a solution where we're working together first. And if you start the other way around, you're never going to get to that solution because you're going to say, I don't like this, and they're going to say, I don't like that and I don't like this and I don't like that. And, and when we see this in politics and religions and families and everything, you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong. As opposed to, I agree with you, you're right. That's Cool, I like that. Let's go with it.

Right. And the aligning piece. Once you start aligning and then your brains start working on what are the possibilities from this point, place of alignment, you know, you come up with stuff you might never even have imagined versus, you know, like the whole. I think in NLP I learned this way. I think somebody gave us a sheet of words you, you know, shouldn't that be one of them use because makes you smaller. It contains the possibility. And can't is one of those words. You can not. I always remember that. Or you can. Right, so. So when you ask things, I use, I use this stuff all the time. Because when you deal in the negative and you deal in the can't, then you've closed it off. I mean you really have just close it down, shut it down. So it feels, it's just way more fun and full of possibility to deal in where you're aligned. I love it.

So you're no stranger to overcoming whether that's difficult in relationships or in your own personal life and health. So let's turn just a little bit toward that because you've had some significant challenges that many people in life face, but not everyone. So you, you overcame a terrible car accident but also a terrible illness.

Yeah, so I, I'll kind of just talk about the illness. Let's. We can start with the illness. It happened five years after the terrible car accident. So yeah, so I was in a bad car accident. I broke my C1 in three spots. And in some ways I think when I talk about resilience, I think you have to deal in reality. You have to understand the situation. I don't think I ever really understood what the C1 was until I went to Body World when it was all over and I went, oh my God, look how close that was to my brain. And, and I lucked out on that one because the bones it broke. My C1 broke in three spots. They broke open, they didn't touch my spinal cord and they didn't go so far open that I needed surgery. So they actually healed on their own wearing a halo brace. And how brilliant medicine has got evolved that you can walk around in traction versus if I had to like lay in bed for months and months and, and I, and I got scalped down to my skull. So like, you know, I, you know, it was like the accident that could have changed everything and it didn't. So really grateful. But the life changing illness was Guillain Barre, which is a condition where your immune system attacks your nervous system. And so what that meant was that in about 36 hours I was almost completely paralyzed. And that was the game changer of my entire life. I never. That car accident was nothing compared to this. I mean, with the car accident, I was unconscious, woke up, they had a halo brace on. I didn't remember the accident. I could walk around. It was horrible. People stepped up and helped me. But this was a whole different animal where I truly thought game over. I had no idea what my life was going to look like. And before I talk a little bit about that, I want to frame it in some other important things about me. Because I think how I dealt with that, how I got through it, has everything to do with who I am. So I am somebody who wakes up every day and says, how can I be the best person I can be at this moment? And so that includes a lot of learning, a lot of, a lot of showing up, a lot of, you know, eating right, working out, whatever it is. It's like, how can I be the best person? Is a core value of mine. Another core value which really showed up through getting through Guillain Barre was having faith and belief. Like you got to believe that something's going to happen or I always believe something was going to happen. And I got challenged with Guillain Barre and have faith that, that I was going to. Whether it's, you know, however you choose your faith, God or whatever, that, that for me it's God that God was going to see me through. And, and I believe that on a day to day basis that was challenged. Everything about me was challenged. Staying in gratitude. I am somebody that always stays in gratitude or at least as much as I can about really appreciating life and my opportunity and the world and what I have and the people I'm with. That was challenge. I'm somebody that never stops learning and I'm really, really curious all the time. That played a big role in my recovery, as I'll explain. And then practicing self love, do we take the moment to really go inside and take care of ourselves? I think we have so many things pulling at us all the time that I'm not sure we're very good at self love. And then once you know who you are and you do the self love, then you can really show up and be present and authentic and trusted, trustworthy. And then the last thing I throw out there because we live in community, we do not live in isolation. And I could not have done this without my network, without my friends, my family, my husband who beared the brunt of it and my relationships. So for me, those are kind of the values that I think were challenged by Guillain Barre. And so, and so with that, I'll tell you the story. This was back in December 2011, and my feet started to feel like they had sand in them. They were heavy, and they got heavier and heavier, and I didn't know what was going on. I ignored it for a night, went to bed, and I don't know how good we are at listening to our bodies. Our bodies tell us a lot. And at that moment, the next day, I'm going to work, and I'm in my car and I'm just having a problem, like lifting my legs. Yes, I'm driving. It just didn't feel normal. I was still able to lift them, but it didn't feel normal. And I called my doctor and I said something, and she's on vacation. And I said to them, I need you to give me the smartest. Something is seriously wrong with me. I, I, I'm listening to my body. It's my intuition. I'm tuned in. There is something really wrong with me, and I need somebody smart, brilliant, that talks a lot, because I talk a lot. And, and I went in and I went to my meetings and then went in and told them my hands and feet were starting to feel heavy. And so they tested me for a stroke, and they tested me for a couple other things. And it was the oddest sensation because I'll never forget the moment when the doctor said, get up on the table. And I'm standing on that little bench they have in the front. I was telling my legs to step on the bench and my feet to step on the bench. And they would not move. They just wouldn't move. I said to the doctor, my feet aren't listening to my head. I don't know how to get up on the bench. And then he helped me up, and we kind of got through it, and, and then I went home. I got a call from him later that day, didn't have a stroke. My tests all turned out okay. It'll just go away, he said, and, and the next day, and people that know me will say, I'm incredibly determined, that that's the word, and I'm pretty tenacious. And I never let go or give up. My face started getting paralyzed the next morning when I woke up and my feet felt a little heavier, my hands fell a little heavier, and I was scared to death. And I called the doctor, and they said, oh, he's with a Patient, he'll call you back. I'm like, well, I'm not getting off the phone until he gets on the phone. So if it's a half hour, I don't really care. I'm not getting off the phone. That's the way it's going to be. And he got on the phone and he listened to what was going on, and he told me immediately to get to a hospital, don't pass go, that there was something wrong, and I had three choices. And this is like, faith, right? Faith and belief. Like, I'll keep bringing the themes in. I had an ER room that was branded as the fastest ER in the county. I. And then two others that were close and really good. But I was in the middle of all three. And I said to Mark, okay, we could go to the fastest, which is what I wanted to do, since he made it sound so urgent. But I'm like, no, let's go to the one where all my medical records are. That was one of the best decisions I made, because the neurologist on staff at that time knew about Guillain Barre. And it is such a rare syndrome and such a rare disease that most doctors absolutely know nothing about it. And he did, which was great because he knew what to test for. I walked into the hospital. They immediately figured out it was Guillain Barrel, and I was admitted. Then it took another 24 hours to get into their system. So I got paralyzed, more and more paralyzed. I walked in and then started getting more and more paralyzed as I was there before they even began the treatment. And what they did for the treatment was because it's your antibodies attacking your nervous system, they had to take my blood out, separate my antibodies, put my blood back in, let me form new antibodies, take it back out again, clean it again, put it back in. So that took about six days before I stabilized. I was really, really fortunate in that I never had to go on a respirator. So it stopped right at my chest. And then it took about another six months. I had to learn how to walk again. I had to learn how to hold a fork. I had to learn how to move. I had to learn how to do everything from scratch. And the one thing that does not happen with Guillain Barre patients is that my face became pretty paralyzed. I could only talk with my head upside down because the speech therapist told me that my tongue had gotten paralyzed. I couldn't cry. I had a hard time closing my eyes. And that's where that doctor. So it was horrible. I was laying there in A bed, trying to figure out what in the world's going to happen to me. Because I saw. And for somebody that believes that you make. You can dream it and make it happen, manifest it, see yourself, you know, I'm like, there's no out. I mean, I saw absolutely no way I was going to have a life. I did not understand how this was going to end up good in any way, shape or form. I had, you know, asking for help is. Is really, really important. I had a rabbi who. It was amazing. He literally visited me two to three times a week for months to have the same conversation. How could God do this to me over and over and over again? It was like peeling the onion, like, every, every. And. And I'm sure he wouldn't have come if he didn't think that I was getting something out of it or I didn't want him there. But I needed to have that conversation because my life was going so well and. And all of a sudden I was not the person I was three days before, and I didn't have any time to work into it. And then the other person that really was impactful was the doctor because of him holding my hand so, you know, really tight and saying to me, when I told him my life was over and I'm in sales and how am I going to do this? And when he said that people buy from your heart and who you are and your product and your brain, and you're going to be okay. And so fast forward, I got home, things were a lot worse after, like, I think this whole process took like six months. And before I was up and running again. I found out through this, so I had nothing to do except pt. I mean, nothing. I mean, I'd sit and look out the window and go to PT and do my exercises because I couldn't do anything else. So I created a lot of space. The rabbi continued to come see me. I learned that people don't do pt. That was really curious. They were so excited to have me come in there because I actually worked with them and did my exercises at home. And I'm thinking, how do you again? But that's part of the. You want to be your best person. You want to actually, like. So you have to show up, you have to do, do the work right. In my healing, my face did not heal correctly. Everything healed. I am a fortunate Guillain Barre, like, ex patient. A lot of people end up quitting their jobs. A lot of people have neuropathy their whole lives. A lot of people have stuff Going on or continue with the paralysis, I actually am fine, except my eye nerves control and my mouth nerves crisscrossed in the healing process. So my eyes control my mouth, and my mouth controls my eyes. So that's my leftover craziness. So what does that mean? Is that I spent a year in speech therapy learning to use my voice so that you can understand me. Because the bottom half of my face does not work correctly. My lips don't work. So therefore, for you to really understand me, I had to. I have to use my voice a certain way. And I spent another year in physical. In facial paralysis therapy learning how to loosen up my face so that I can show up. And, you know, I. I did that back to. I don't know, I kind of got off of. I do want to say the one. The one thing that changed my moment of belief, I forgot this part. And it's like, one of the most important parts, because, remember, I said that I didn't think I'd ever get out of it. Well, obviously, I ended up changing my mindset and my attitude. The rabbi walked out of my house one day, and I was very disappointed with the conversation. And I received an email from Jean Houston, psychic to the stars. I have no idea why I was on her list, but I got an email, and she said, manifest your destiny in, like, you know, five weeks for 25 bucks or something like that. And I said, my destiny is to walk again. And I signed up. And three weeks into it, she did a visualization exercise where we had to build who we wanted to be and then ultimately walk into that, into that person. And I imagined and built me as a dancer in dancing. And literally, when she said, okay, just, like, you know, get up and do it and go into that body that you just built, I started dancing. And I was never so excited. I called my husband. I'm like, you've got to come up here. You've got to see this. I'm dancing. And I said, but you better be quick, because I'm going to fall. I'm pretty sure I'm going to fall. And so that moment, he did come up, he saw it. I fell and I stopped. But that moment made me understand that what was stopping me was in my head, that I absolutely had the capability of walking again and would be able to, and I would be okay. And so the whole idea of being curious, the whole idea of always learning, the whole idea of paying attention, like, and being open to possibility, those things that are about me, help me decide to take that course to begin with and to see what was going to happen. Because from then on my healing improved and I got, I got way better at, and at becoming everything I could be. So, yeah, so that's kind of the story. I'd say that what's left of my face now over 10 or 12 years is I can't think about my words and get them out at the same time. The speech therapist told us, told me that if you spend 50% of your energy talking, I'm spending 800% of the energy getting every single word out, 100% of my time. So I can't think and talk at the same time. So I spent 10 years not wanting anybody to know in my career and staying up and practicing presentations, practicing proposal pitches, practicing so that it would all come from the heart and not from my head and then show up the next day and make it happen. And, and never told. And then people always said, oh my God, you'd never be successful in business unless you sit at bars all night till two in the morning. For me, as soon as people say, what, what, what? I know my voice is crapping out and I can't do it anymore. So I go to bed and like, I chuck it in at 7, 8 or 9 o' clock or whatever it is, and. And there you go. It never got in my way. I used a lot of strategies and tools and it was quite the experience. That was probably more than you wanted to know.

No, I'd like to know even more. So that's all good. That's all really good. You know, for those people who don't know what you're talking about, there's the. Most people mispronounce it as Jillian Bar.

That's not how they taught me to say it. They said Guillain Barre.

No, but that's what I'm saying. But if people aren't familiar with what you're talking about because they don't get it, people call it Gillian Bar.

It's also French polio. It's what we call French polio, so you might have heard of that.

So if somebody wants to look it up, they know what you were discussing. But you know, the, the thing that impresses me, you know, having known you and what you described and, and what you've gone through, is the fact that your earlier conversation was about relating with other people and having relationships and creating trust. And yet what you discover is you have to be able to relate to yourself. There's a relationship with you that's important and have that trust too. And have that belief in yourself and in your body and in processes that we may not know anything about in order to work with them and to collaborate with them and to live your life again.

Yeah, you do. And also to understand that each of us is going to have a different end result. Right. I mean, you know, some people, you know, and it doesn't, when you have cancer, you have some other, you know, life threatening illness, it's really about how do you make the best. What, what can you pull out that's positive? What can you pull out that's the best of of it? Because one of the conversations that I had with the rabbi, which I thought was really important, he always started with, well, it depends on what you think God is. Like, why did God do this for you? Well, is God the overriding thing that's deciding every little thing on earth is God like what is God to you? And we all have a different definition of that because that's going to define how God. So for me it was God was what allows me to make the choices that I make in a way that's going to best get me to where I want to be. Like, it's, what's that drive, that motivation? It's inside of me. So how do you take that and use it on other circumstances? Circumstances whether it's cancer, whether it's a layoff, whether it's you just lost the sale. You know, we all have different things that disappoint us in many different ways or that are seemingly like the end of the world. And many, some of them are. But what are you supposed to. I always wanted to know what did I need to learn from this? What do I need to get out of this? What am I going to pull from this? It's going to allow me to live my best life with whatever that was going to look like at that moment, which I didn't know was going to be this. I had no idea I'd be okay at that moment.

So I, if I had to sum everything up, and it's not my job to do that, but if I had to, I would go back to the. Find what you can agree with 100% of the time and agree with that. Take that 1% of movement, that 1% of insight, that 1% of curiosity, the 1% of gratitude, the 1% of love and trust or whatever it is that you're able to do and go with it a hundred percent percent. And, and that's what you did and that's who you are.

I'll add one more Piece. So I, I took this off the wall. I had this on the hot. This is with me every day. I don't know if you can see it. It's my, they're my goals from the hospital. And it sits on my wall right in front of me every day. And I'll kind of just read them to modify what you said or edit it a little bit. So my goal was to do one thing today that I could not do yesterday. I mean, just one. You don't need to accomplish everything. You don't need to take over the world. Just it could be the littlest thing ever. But it does start helping you build self confidence. It does start helping you build trust in yourself. It does start helping you build trust in the world around you. And the other thing I wrote it is suck it up. Like it is what it is. Like you have to be able to accept reality because I don't know how you can change it if you're not in acceptance. And life is a journey. It's not an end game. I'm still on my journey. We're all on our journey. So if you do one thing at a time that moves you closer to that end destination, then you are a rip roaring success. You've taken a step. Good for you. That's awesome. And to live into attitude, like, don't push too hard. Be kind of Zen, like, you know, stop and make time and space to, to, to really get to really touch what, who you are and how and, and what's important to you so that you can connect on that level with others because they will show up for you.

Wow, that's beautiful. I, I want to add, we're going to run a couple minutes long and it's okay, you know, because we met at an NLP seminar and certification training and I had a Jewish rabbi, a number, come to me in the early 90s. And what we noticed were we weren't getting a whole lot of Jewish people in the programs because they would go through the weekend and they thought, well, I can't be there on the Sabbath, I can't interact. And so I love this man. He's since passed away, but he was just so insightful and so beautiful. He said, what people don't understand, Rex, is you're doing God's work, you're helping people improve. They're getting better and they're exploring their own skills and abilities and talents. And that was God is wants for people. He said most people think in terms of that God has all these rules and regulations because, well, don't you have a lot of rules that you have to live within this box of rules? He said, yeah, but see, here's where the people get mistaken. They think, I can't go outside the box, as opposed to appreciating what's inside the box. And, and we have all this beautiful area to play. And so if we just understand that, well, as a result of him telling the Jewish community, hey, this is great, you can, you guess, may not interact with the electronics or whatever on that, but you can do this because this is a way of improving yourself. Suddenly people were coming from all around the world. They were just. They had permission to now do something that they didn't know that they had. Again, it goes back to find what you can do and then do it and find what you appreciate and be appreciative and find it, you know, and, and, and so again, you know, what a powerful message. Because so many people try and do so many things, or they worry about the rules and the regulations and everything that, you know, instead of what's possible with what I have, and to make the best of that and move that forward, I want to turn it over to Danny Chu here before we close out. But you are an amazing person, Susan. I love you. I've known you all these years, and I get to know you better and better all the time. And, and here we have done this program together with Danny, and you and I and Christine have done another program. And so if people want to know, they can go to trustworthy, they can see your other conversations with other people, or they can see you and I converse, or those there can come and see you and I, you know, converse here with Danny. So, I mean, it all kind of.

Comes together and, and then because I've actually read your book twice now, and I know I still owe you a testimonial, but it confuses me because it's on Amazon, but. Because I got it digitally, but. But I will do a testimonial. But your book is also has really helped shape some of how I'm showing up today versus what we did before. So thank you. Thank you for, for what you've given me in, in a lot of different ways as well.

Oh, my God. And, and back at you. And I love you and Danny. Susan.

Danny, it's been a pleasure. And listening to that story, I think the thing that stood out is you made the point, Susan, that it was kind of your mind that unlocked the key. And I think that's so profound and so important for people, whatever they're doing wherever they are in whatever circumstance. It's often your mind that holds the answers. And you talked about looking inside of the box, out of the box. I think maybe folks giving themselves the the room and like you said Rex, the permission to look within their own selves. That's something that, that really kind of stood out for me and, and a pleasure being here being part of this. I put your YouTube on here as well. Susan, just talk to us a little bit. Trustworthy podcast what's going on on this YouTube channel so folks can get more.

So each month we, we have a really interesting video of or we filmed somebody that's talking about trust and their, their experience with it and giving insights and inspiration to our audience. So we've had we go from real estate tech except experts and national leaders to Iraqs to university professors. So we have all different and we have coming up in September a woman that, that I've become friends with that is an extraordinary she matches her stage presence and her acting to her executive coaching to teach her clients presence. So and how to show up. So she's on our September YouTube podcast. So love for you guys to come subscribe and and also to like our Trustworthy page on LinkedIn. But you can get the YouTube right there there.

Awesome. So that's, that's on the screen for folks in the chat. A big thanks to everybody who's joined us as well who's taking the time to comment. I know we've had quite a few folks on different channels. Andrea Green has been commenting earlier. Speaker Eric Swanson, Mr. Awesome has been in the chat earlier on as well. We've got other people on other platforms. I'm trying to find some additional names. Terror Tang is in one of my channels as well talking about the importance of communication. Life isn't about waiting for the storms to pass. It's learning how to dance in the rain as we move. And another segment, Rex coming to conclusion. Susan, thank you.

Thank you guys. Thanks for giving me the opportunity. I was humbled to be here and.

We'Re honored to have you here. And in a moment you're going to go back to the green room but wait until we close up the show. Don't run away. Okay. If you've got a moment, we want to, we want to catch up.

Okay.

You got it Danny. Thank you so much. And for all you watching, we really appreciate you and, and we want you to continue to stay and go to trustworthy.com, you know, and, and, and or the YouTube channel and as well as Come here and watch these shows. There we go. YouTube.com trustworthy podcast to do that and to help spread the word. You know, you can like and you can share and you can comment and you can watch the replay and share the replays with other people as well. So we thank you for that. And as I always say, if you think of something as a problem, it's the problem. If you think of something that's a blessing, it's blessing. So you should celebrate everything. Right. With that in mind, I do want to say, Danny, because people ought to know we have the Outwitting the Devil book study.

We do indeed. And Susan, we will catch up with you in a short while in the green room. Okay, thank you, Rex. Outwitting the Devil.

Outwitting the Devil Book study, which is going on right now. We have done five sessions, five incredible sessions. We're doing five Q&A sessions. There's still a few live Q&As which don't have to have been with us from the start because all recordings all there. But what we're doing is inviting you to come in. There's also, I originally said 10 PDFs, but there's going to be 20 PDF files that go through things, workbooks and summaries and all sorts of stuff that's really powerful. I mean, they get a lot.

I love going through those PDFs, my schedule, I'm not sure if it's as insane as your schedule, but going to meeting after meeting or things that we do, you don't get a chance to be on everything. Right. But reading those PDFs really give you that, that summary. And as I'm reading these things, I'm reading them in your voice, which is kind of weird because we've spent a bunch of time together. We have, we have actually done quite a lot of shows and we know we've had a few problems with the Rexax TV link being shared. And Facebook doesn't like us for some reason, even though it's a new domain. We are going to flip that around a little bit and share a new domain which hopefully people can share. But we are building up a great audience, Rex and I think so many fantastic guests, so many amazing initiatives like the Outwits in the Devil Book study that we've got and a lot more to come. Right. So exciting times, very exciting time.

So go sign up, enroll in the winning the Devil. So right now it's at a special introductory offer. Price is going to go up when we're done with the live site. It's going up. So if you, if you want to join us, join us now. Get in on the next couple live sessions and I'll even, I'll even for those people who join now, we'll do maybe one extra live session. Just to have an extra live session.

Well, it's too kind. It's too kind. Certainly generosity oozing out of Rex Sykes today. And of course Susan mentioned it. She needs to do the testimonial. How many testimonials you've had for your book, which is it's Sunday, Rex's nay, it's on his name, right? Rexsites.com forward/book. Get the book, read the book. If you don't like reading big chapters, don't worry because it's in bite sized chunks. Read one of those a day, it'll help up significantly.

And, and what Susan was talking about is, you know, leaving a rating and a review at Amazon, you know, if everybody who reads book would leave a review, you know, it's one thing not everybody does. So if you keep get the book from Amazon also go to that link. I'm pointing at it, but you can't see me putting rexykes.com forward book. And I will give them something that we haven't even talked about this I don't think on the show yet. They get the book. Book is $20 or $30, whatever it is, I will give them a $497 value. Training on mastery now this is an important thing. I also talk about it in the Outwitting the Devil book setting. But this is the mastery loop training which is how to master any skill, your thoughts, your feelings, your words, your behaviors and anything you want to learn how to master. It's a process that you go through that creates momentum so that you can learn easier, quicker or with more delight, with more fun and make the process of becoming skilled at whatever you want to become skilled at enjoyable. And so go get it. I'll give that to you as an absolutely free bonus.

So that's a big bunch of value. And again, testament the generosity. Lots of things coming up, lots of cool stuff and we know we've got Susan waiting behind the wings just to say that, that goodbye for now. And we're back again for sure. So much value, but also an amazing story. And we've got more to come. Rex. Right. So leading into, into next week. Week, who have we got next week? I know I've got a few.

That's a surprise.

Next week and then moving forward after.

After, after that on the 11th of September, we have Scott Schilling. Yes. But next week. Next week will be a surprise.

Yep. Look out for that one. So we are at that point. Anything else, Rex, we need to cover?

No, I'm thrilled. Like I said, just celebrate everything. I want to thank Danny, I want to thank Susan Spears and, and encourage you to stay tuned, stay watching and. And thank you so much for being here.

You thanks, everybody. We'll see you next time. Rex, pleasure as always.

Always. Pleasure. Dang.