128 - The Most Powerful Skill for Success: Emotional Listening with The Maniscripting Journal's Samantha Kozuch

Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm Doug Noll, lawyer turned peacemaker. I teach executive leaders how to listen to emotions rather than words so that they can become the leaders everyone wants to follow. And I teach those same leaders how to be authentically present, available, and connected to their families despite being insanely busy. I have learned that we are 98% emotional and only 2% rational. Learning how to listen to emotions is, in my experience, the foundational skill of life. Stick around to the end of the show and I'll reveal how you can be on our next guest in 15 to 20 minutes. So let's get started.

Samantha Kozich, welcome to Listening with Leaders. You are the founder of Manuscripting, which can be found at Manuscripting.com. Welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me, Doug. I'm so excited to be here today.

Great. So you're a female entrepreneur. Tell us a little bit about your backstory.

My backstory starts over a decade back. I went to college and my entire upbringing was really focused on preparing myself to go to med school. And my senior year of college, I started feeling like, you know what, as much as I love the passion of helping humanity in this way, is— wasn't the direction that I'm supposed to go. And at the time it was very confusing because when you've spent so many years working towards going to do that, it's like, oh my God, have I wasted time? What's going on? But after, when I decided— made the decision to not go, the only other option kind of was entrepreneurship because I already knew at that point I didn't really want to go into a corporate job. I had a lot of friends in that. I experienced having a corporate— corporate job isn't just working for someone else while I was in college. I hated it already at such a young age. And so I dove into entrepreneurship and from there just kind of started dabbling in different things. Back then it wasn't cool to be an entrepreneur. It was kind of like almost like not frowned upon, but it was like, you're an entrepreneur? Like, are you a loser? Like, it wasn't cool like what it is today and what social media has made it. So it was very confusing for my family and even some friends. To know, like, okay, you went to college, now what? So I just followed my passion at the time, which was modeling, acting, got into social media. It's kind of when Instagram and Facebook kind of started, and I just started posting on there. And then slowly but surely, those posts became more and more popular. I was posting more about fitness, just literally just documenting my life like everybody did back then. Became an influencer before influencers were a thing, then kind of stepped into that. And I was just following the passion and the money because at the time I started getting brands to pay me and it was like, what is this world of being able to make money? I'm modeling, I'm acting, I'm doing all of these things. And then after a few years, people really started to take notice. And not only that, they started asking me, how did I do that? How did I grow with social media? How did I make money on social media? How did I build my programs out? Or, uh, how did I get collaborations with brands? So with my kind of teaching coaching mindset of already being kind of like in the fitness industry, I took that same methodology and I was like, well, I can teach you how to grow your social. I can teach you how to do all of these things. So all of a sudden I'm now kind of pivoting into being a social media coach. And then from there, other entrepreneurs and business owners were like, I'm not trying to be an influencer, but can you help me grow my company? And from there I turned to creating, like, like I've already done all these things, building websites, sales pages, email funnels, creating programs. All of that combined. So all of a sudden now I'm a business coach. And then fast forward that to when COVID hit, I noticed that all of my community was just everyone in the world actually, right? We're all panicking where it's negative mindset. It's all of these mixed emotions. What's going to happen to the world? And I just started sharing my morning routine, stuff that I really didn't share online before because I was very, you know, when you're a business owner, you're focused on just sharing about the thing. So I just started sharing, hey, this is what's keeping me focused during times of the unknown. And all of a sudden people are asking me like, oh my gosh, do you have that meditation? Do you have those journal prompts written where I can download them somewhere? And then that's where in my mind was like, oh my gosh, this is something. I need to turn this into a book. And then from there, Manuscripting was born. The Manuscripting Journal was born. And here we are almost 3 years later, um, lots of thousands and thousands of journals out in the world later., now the founder of a really big e-commerce company. So that's kind of my backstory in a nutshell.

Totally unplanned.

All of it unplanned.

Totally.

Every single step.

Mm-hmm. What do you think, what do you think it is about you that allowed for this totally unplanned journey to be so successful in a very short number of years?

Yeah, you know, back, it was that decision. In college to not go to med school and jump into this. Because even at the time, I didn't know it, but at the time I had followed my gut and intuition, even when everyone around me was telling me, you know, kind of like, you're stupid, you're crazy, what are you thinking? You're going to waste your life away. You're making the biggest mistake. But I followed my gut and my intuition and my heart. If my heart isn't in something, It's time to go. And I think over every single pivot over my career, which is very scary because every time I pivoted, I started at zero, zero dollars, zero everything, right? And that's really scary for anyone to do. And I feel like that's what keeps everyone on the rat race or in their career, cuz they're like, well, it's the, it's the golden handcuffs, right? So for me it was 100% every time I did that. And then when I did it the next time, it was just as scary.. But I was all like, I've been here before. I've been in this feeling before of knowing deep down in my heart, like, it's time to change. And yes, I'm letting go of money or maybe opportunities or stuff like that, but I was just fully trusting in that. And I just made the decision to jump and I followed it. And I think every time I've made these big decisions throughout my career, they always came from alignment. And it wasn't like a quick get rich thing either. Like, I knew the dedication and consistency it takes in anything to get success, and I always just kind of trusted that process.

Yeah, you know, I'm smiling because I think about my journey. I wasn't nearly as smart as you. I hung around being a trial lawyer for 22 years before, before I finally figured out that that's not my calling, but then I left.. And like you, I gave, well, in my case, I gave my partners one week's notice and walked out. Mm-hmm. Become a peacemaker. It took me, and I had no plan and no idea what, what was gonna happen. Um, but like you, my life kind of unfolded in a completely unplanned, very powerful and magical way. So it's cool when you, when you have the courage to, to do that.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. It makes a difference. And I guess that's— where do you think the courage comes from? I think I know, but I'm just curious what you think.

At a younger age, I can admit now because I've worked on it and through this, I had a pretty big ego, to be honest. Like, when I was told I can't do something, or I don't—

red flag, right?

I would go into the mode of proving them wrong. So at that point in time, especially in that big pivotal moment of med school or this, you know, it was my parents driving me because it's like, you know, they're telling me all of these things and they were like, they're loving and supportive. They respected my decision, but also they were so disappointed. And it was like the unspoken rule of like, well, if you're not going to med school, like, we're no longer supporting you financially, so you need to figure it out. So it was these multiple fires under my butt. And ever since that age, I have been fully self-independent, like fully financially independent, all of those things. So the courage kind of came from— is this just mixed thing, and it might have not been healthy at the time, might have been from a toxic place of ego, but it also drove me. And as I went through every single thing over the years, I learned more about mindset, about self-development, and, you know, doing things not from a place of ego but from a place of love and alignment and when you switch it, like, they both work together, but at the same time, when you kind of switch it and do it more from like, okay, how can this help make an impact on people? And that was kind of my driving purpose of like, anytime I worked with somebody, you know, they were like so grateful and, oh my gosh, like, thank you for this, thank you for this tip, thank you for this course, thank you for this book. And that was my fulfillment. So I really just used that as a driving factor and just knew. It's this funny, interesting— it's almost like you can't put into words because I was so trusting. And whether you believe in God or universe or source or whatever it is that we're working with, right? I just trusted it and I followed it, and I just always believed that I would be okay no matter what.

So Samantha, the word that comes to mind that you've mentioned several times is alignment. Yeah, and I know from my personal experience, I was not aligned as a trial lawyer. I was very good at what I did, but I was not aligned. It was like I had a professional life and then I had a— my other life, and they never— and they didn't line up until I left the practice of law. And that's when— that's when the magic started to happen. And it sounds like that's been your experience too.

Yeah.

And if you don't feel aligned with what you're doing, then you shift until you find that alignment again. Yeah, how do you think— and it's what I was going to say, how did— how do you, how do you coach people to find their personal alignment?

Oh, it's doing that deep inner work, to be honest, because from literally the time that we are born, we're programmed to believe, think, act a certain way, right? It's through our parents, through our teachers, through our government, through our— anyone that's influential in our life, right? We are programmed in that way. So as you grow up, and everyone's so different depending on how they are raised and how they go to school and all of that, but depending how deep those walls and layers build upon each other of those beliefs, it takes time to kind of break through those walls, break them down to find out, hey, who is inside? Who is inside all of that? And what is your purpose here on this planet? Because usually we're told to go to school, we're told to go to college, we're told to go get married, we're told to go have babies, we're told to go build up racks and racks, thousands, thousands of debt. And then we end up at the end of the day, this is why so many people wake up in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and they're like, fuck, like, I regret everything. Like, I regret my life for not going and doing the things that I wanted to do because I was so caught up in it and not being able to even breathe or think about what I wanted because I was doing everything that society told me to do. So how I work with my clients is really taking them through this awesome life design process. It's literally just answering a ton of these different questions that really break everything down in your life from literally like what has been holding you back? Like what events have happened in your life to make you think or believe certain things that maybe are no longer serving you today? What is it that you truly desire? And honestly, it's also— and tons more questions, but also allowing yourself to have the space to actually be able to think and connect with yourself. And that comes through meditation or even journaling. And I know that sounds for some people super woo-woo, like, you know, that kind of a thing. But no, truly, it's when we can come back to ourselves and really start thinking about, okay, what do I actually want to do? What actually makes me happy? How can I make an impact on this Earth? How— what can I give? Because if we're all about this ego-driven side of like, I'm going to build this company and because I want to make millions of dollars and blah, blah, blah, like, when you build something from that one, it doesn't last long and you get burnt out from it because you're just chasing something that isn't, isn't fully fulfilling for you. So it's a whole combination of things to help figure it out, but I think the first step to, like, if you want to figure out, like, I'm so unaligned, or I'm so unhappy in my job, or if I'm so depressed, I hate going to work, I don't like what I do, that's a key sign. It's like you're not in alignment, and it's time to, like, okay, bring it back to figuring out why and what you can change to get in alignment.

So Samantha, how do you bring that into your work as a founder and CEO of your company?

Me personally?

Yeah.

Oh my gosh, it is every single day. I actually meditate, journal once in the morning. I meditate at lunchtime, and I also meditate in the evening. And during those times, that is a full-on, like, drop-in back to myself. And it is insane. And I know if you, if you're listening and you don't meditate, I know this can sound like really hard. And meditation, to begin with, is hard and difficult because most people are afraid of their own thoughts. It's not about, oh, well, I can't stop the thoughts racing. It's like they don't want to sit with themselves because they're afraid of what's going to come up. And when I sit down to do this, it's insane because the amount of ideas for my business, for my life, for my career that have literally fallen into my lap through literally 5, 10-minute meditations, they would just come through and I'm like, oh my God, that's it. And they've literally made me millions of dollars in my business. It's crazy. But it's allowing yourself to like have that time and space to be able to like have that conversation with yourself, with God, with the universe, whatever, and allow it. So I, that's what I do every single day and it's been a game changer. And it's literally, it's, it's what I started doing in my mid-20s. And that's how even when things in my life and career were scary or I was quote unquote starting over, cause I was pivoting or shifting my business and starting something new. It's literally what kept me grounded. It's what allowed me to also just have that faith in myself. Like, hey, yeah, these bad things happen, these obstacles happen, these situations happen that just suck. We've had plenty of them, but also, okay, what can I learn from this? How can I take this and make sure it doesn't happen again? Or what do I need to learn and know as a founder so that if this happens again at a larger scale, I'm equipped to be able to handle it? So it's like these— if whether you meditate or not, it's almost like set it up as like a self-check-in, like self-check-in. Hey, how are you doing today? What are you feeling? What's coming up? What needs to happen? That kind of a thing. So that's what's really how I do it.

I totally get it. I started meditating when I was 18 years old, and, uh, it was actually the spiritual journey that got me out of the practice of law and into peacemaking. Wow. Through a very interesting course. But yes, meditating is a powerful skill. My wife is a spiritual teacher and she's got over 2,000 online meditations and has an international following. So we're well familiar. I didn't know that.

Oh, amazing. I did not know that about your wife. That's amazing.

Lay it down. And what do you say I have my own answers that I give to people, but what do you say to CEOs and founders and people who are entrepreneurs and they are totally caught up in the role of being the entrepreneur and they got the financial pressure and they gotta feed all these mouths to feed and they've gotta be successful and maybe they're bootstrapped and maybe they're VC funded, but they've got a runway out in front of 'em and at the end of the runway it's a cliff, right? The airplane's not off the ground, it's dive bombing into the canyon. So they feel all this pressure, and the idea of taking even 15 minutes a day, 3 5-minute self-check-in moments, just seems overwhelming to them. How can I, how can I do that? What do you, what do you say to them?

Oh my gosh. Well, first off, if that's what's going on in your life, you need this more than ever. That is like, you schedule it into your calendar and treat it like a meeting. Like, just hearing all of that, I would literally probably like fly to that person's house and sit them down outside on a mat and be like, shut your eyes, we're putting on some music and we're meditating. Because when we are in this state of constant stress, the panic, I mean, my company, we're bootstrapped. We, we are in this constant right now as we are growing and scaling and we're not trying to take on VC funding or anything like that. So it is a daily, weekly thing where we're, you know, figuring out all these pieces of the puzzle, make sure we don't run outta money, make sure we have the inventory, all of that. So For me, this is a daily thing where just things are always— could be crazy, could be hectic, all of that. But that is the point where you have to sit down and take that time. Because when you are in this state of just craziness and pandemonium, like the actions, decisions that you could be making in your business could be completely wrong. And when you take that time to slow it down, 15 minutes is like literally like nothing in a sense, right?. But those 15 minutes could be a freaking game changer because as you are over here stressing out about all the things and the money, the answer to it all might even just lie in that 15-minute meditation. Like, I can't even stress enough how many— literally everything in my company and business, I have the chills talking about it because it's unreal what happens even in that small amount of time that could be completely game-changing. So it's literally just doing it. And I know how hard it is because I teach people how to do a morning routine all the time, every single day. Like, that's literally my community. So I know how hard it is to just get started, but I'm telling you, go order some sort of journal, like, get excited. We all know when we start a new routine, say it's the gym or something, you get some new shoes or a new outfit, or you start a new diet and you get all the, um, supplements and all the stuff, right? Just order a new journal and then put it into your calendar. Treat it like a meeting, 15 minutes in the morning. Preferably when you first get up. But if you can just make it at some point in your 15 minutes, even when you're drinking your morning coffee, having your breakfast, just like take that time to just do it. And do even a guided meditation. That's what I always recommend too, guided meditation. Just allow yourself to have that time. And I promise you, you start doing it for a long amount of time, it's, it's addicting. Like there are days now where I— it's not that I feel off, but I like, I crave to sit down and have that time because I'm so excited about what's going to come up or what's going to come in. It's really cool.

Good for you. Yeah, I, I teach a graduate course at Pepperdine University at the law school called Decision Making Under Stress and Conflict, and that's one of the things that I teach my students is that you can't make good decisions when you're under stress and conflict, right? You have to find space. And since I'm teaching graduate students who are going to become peacemakers I teach them how to create the space for people in that have got to make these decisions, usually in high conflict, high stakes situations, how to create the space so they can be in a calm place. And because it goes— it— you're exactly right on what you're talking about. And you just have to recognize— I think, I think what I tell people that of the, of the type that I described, CEOs and founders, is you said you've got to take care of yourself first. If you don't take care of yourself, you can't take care of anything else. And the only way you take care of yourself is to eat right, get plenty of sleep, get your exercise, and take care of your mental, emotional, spiritual side, and make sure you work that.

Yes.

Until— unless you find that balance, you're, you're no good to anybody.

Couldn't agree more.

So, so you were just talking about journaling. Let's talk about manuscripting. That was the website. Well, this is interesting. Journaling and manifesting and stuff like from The Secret, which by the way, The Secret was the publisher of my last book, interestingly enough, Beyond Words. Oh my gosh, amazing. Tell us about your company, your current company.

Yeah, yes. So with the Manuscripting Journal, I created it. This was a process I started for myself actually in my mid-20s. It's when I I had hit my— what I considered my rock bottom, and I knew I needed to change my life. And again, it was like starting to do things that as I was pivoting and all that, things fell out of alignment and I was like, gosh, I just need to change. I want to change. But I didn't know how because again, back then it was like basically the only kind of people you'd learn from was like Tony Robbins and maybe Oprah, right? Like there wasn't— again, there isn't the tools that we have today on social media. I had actually, funny enough, watched The Secret for the first time. It came across, and that's when I kind of learned, like, this new world of, like, what? We can create our reality? Like, this manifestation stuff? Like, what is this? And I became obsessed because at the time, I just felt so desperate in wanting to change my life. And I started just pulling together all these different techniques, from creating the vision board to journaling to what I wrote down in my journals, for example, just, like, really getting super clear on what it was that I wanted from my life. Things that I was grateful for, things that I was just open to, the whole affirmation thing. And then just like action steps I had to take in order to make the changes. Because a lot of people, the reason that they don't believe in manifestation or vision boards— well, first off, manifesting, we're manifesting every second of the day, whether you believe in it or not. It's just our thoughts, feelings, actions equals our reality. But with journaling and doing this, I just started doing all of those things and I slowly started seeing changes happen and some of them started happening faster than others. But also like, whoa, this is cool. I need to keep doing it. So with the journal, what it is, it's a daily practice. It takes maybe 10, 15 minutes tops, but you go through and after you meditate, open up the journal, list things you're grateful for. And there's, it's a whole like, kind of like a workbook, kind of daily entry pages. Things you're open to receiving. You write in your own affirmations, a daily habit tracker. And the most coolest thing that I love about this journal and what I did with it is to include 3 action steps that you're gonna take today in order to get closer towards your goal. And then there is a whole section of literally just like journaling out. This can be for what came through with your meditation, things you're working on, things you're struggling with, like basically getting any of the crap out of your body, out onto paper. To get it out so you're not just suffering with it inside if that's something negative or bad. But by doing this every single day, and especially in the morning, having those action steps on those things that you desire top of mind impact the rest of your day because it's on your mind first thing in the morning. So say if it's maybe you have a business goal or a weight loss goal or just literally anything, right? Like if you're thinking about in the morning, like, and you write it down that you say, Hey, today I'm going to create a new campaign for some sort of product, or today I'm going to send— create the email to send out, or today I'm going to go put out the job application board thing to hire somebody new. Like, when you write that down first thing in the morning, like, you're going to start taking action on it because you told yourself that you were going to go do that. So by doing this, you know, every single morning, mixed with meditation and just really starting in this high vibrational state of gratitude, It just gets you into your flow for the day, and it's like, literally, that's basically it. So that's what's out there in the world helping lots of people accomplish their goals and manifest their dream life.

What do you think it— it's— what, what is it about you that's unique that you bring to the table?

Oh, good question. It's interesting because I, I see it when people reflect this to me, but I feel like it's just me. So I feel like, doesn't everyone do this? But I think just my constant willing to try new things, put myself out there, and kind of like not care what other people think of me, in a sense. And just constantly willing to try new things until we get it right. There's been so many times where we face the biggest— I face the biggest obstacles, like things that would literally make people shut down their business, shut down their company, not move forward, go crawl in the hole and die. Like, truly, like all of that stuff. But I'm just like, no, like, because of what my mission is in the world, it's like I have this perseverance to keep going. And I don't know how to explain all of that as a characteristic, but I feel like that's super unique because I talk to so many founders or people that want to be a founder or an entrepreneur of something, and they just like can't get to that next level, or they can't get to that point. Like, stuff is just holding them back. So I feel like that's kind of my uniqueness. 'Cause people always ask me like, how the heck do you do this all? And I'm just like, I kind of don't know. I just wake up and just keep doing the next step. I don't care so much about, I don't look too far ahead of the future because that's what gets people overwhelmed. I just do the next thing and I keep going until we get it right and it works.

If I were to highlight some of the things that are unique about you that make you special, number one, you're really persistent. Almost to the point of stubbornness, probably in a good way. Yeah. And you're very disciplined. Yeah. And the, the, the— I meet so many people that don't have persistence and they don't have discipline, and they have great ideas, but they can't materialize anything or manifest anything because they can't put their energy in a focused, laser-like way day after day after day to make things happen. And I think that's what probably is unique about you.

Um, thank you, thank you. I received that. And yeah, I feel like with discipline and the persistence, I feel like when people hear those words, they hear, well, that's boring. So I almost feel like it's not— they don't— exactly.

I mean, it's kind of exciting because I'm the same way. I mean, people describe me as being very persistent and very disciplined, very focused. It's anything but fun. With the beauty, from my experience, is that all the distractions go away. I get laser focused on—

exactly—

and I don't get distracted. Like, for example, I don't own a television set. My wife and I don't ever watch TV.

That's amazing. We don't either. We haven't watched TV in— my gosh, like, actually, when we moved to Austin, Texas 5 months ago we cut TV out.

Yeah, no TV.

And it's been amazing. And people are like, what do you do at night? And I'm like, I don't know, we have dinner, we have conversation, we hang out, we talk. We're not— we're not inundating ourselves with this garbage on TV that's literally just programming you even deeper outside of yourself. And it's been a life changer.

That's right.

So I love that.

For me, end of the day, I pick up my violin. I play jazz and blues violin, so I spend an hour playing violin. Then I go out and My wife's usually— we're both done with working around 6:30 or so, and we go out. And we live on this beautiful ranch in the Central Sierra Nevada foothills, and we watch the sunset having a glass of wine or whiskey, and we'll spend the next 3 hours just talking.

Yes, yes, that's what we do. And reading. We sometimes read in the neighborhood too.

Like, yeah, yeah, it's just beautiful distractions. Yes. And when you do that, you're persistent in your discipline, the distractions go away, stuff happens. Yes, that happens.

It is so true, so true.

Well, one more question. I'll let you get back to your busy day. What's one thing about yourself, Samantha, that we would never guess at unless you revealed it?

Oh, one thing you would never guess. Um, well, I would say that my, my upbringing was very interesting. My parents actually immigrated from Poland to Australia, so I was born in Australia, and then we moved to the States when I was 12 years old. So I'm actually a tri-citizen. I have tri-dual citizenship— not dual, so tri-citizenship in Europe, Australia, and America now, which is really cool.

We wouldn't know that. Well, thank you so much. This has been a great conversation. Thanks a lot. I just— this has really been fascinating.

Thank you, Doug.

Doug Noll here. Thank you so much for listening to Listening with Leaders. If you are a successful executive leader who would like to be on this program, please visit podcast.dougnoll.com.

DougNoll.com/podcast.

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