Finding Your Voice And Learning How To Use It

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Welcome to beyond you'd why podcast where we go beyond just talking about your why and and actually helping you discover and then live your why. And so if you're a regular listener, you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys and then we bring on somebody with that why to see how their why has played out in their life. And so this week we are going to be talking about the why of make Sense to make sense of the complex and challenging. So if this is your why, you are driven to solve problems and resolve challenging or complex situations. You have an uncanny ability to take in lots of data and information, observe situations and circumstances around you and sort through them to create order. You consider factors, problems and concepts and organize them into solutions that are sensible and easy to implement. It's not even that you enjoy problem solving necessarily. You simply can't help yourself. It is the lens with which you view the world. Interestingly, it is not for you to share your solutions on a continuous basis. It is sufficient that you yourself have solved the problem or resolved the complexity of the situation. Often you are viewed as an expert because of your unique ability to find solutions quickly. You also have a gift for articulating a solution and summarizing it clearly in an understandable language for your own benefit and the benefit of others. You believe that many people are stuck and that if they could just make sense out of their situation, they they could find a simple solution and move forward. You help them understand and see their way through. Now, today I've got a very interesting guest for you. Her name is Hilary Silver. She is the CEO of Hillary Silver Enterprises, a multimillion dollar personal growth and development company dedicated to serving women who want to live a more consciously created and fulfilling life with more meaning and purpose. She is the creator of Love and and Beloved and Extraordinary Women Rising and is one of the most sought after, acclaimed and successful coaches in the world. Hilary, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to this discussion.

Well, let's start with this. So when you took the Y discovery and it came up with Make Sense, how did that feel to you?

I was a little baffled and then I was a little angry actually because I always like resonate with being the challenge I think is the one that's the entrepreneur. You know, I've just always been insubordinate and unemployable and I've just been born to be an entrepreneur. And I resonated with that. So when I got this one, I was like, what? You know, that doesn't sound like me at all. And then I started to really think about it and it makes total sense. Why make sense is who I am because I'm a diagnostician. That's what I do. And it's not that I can look at companies and make sense of problems or what I make sense of is the human psychology and our personal struggles. And I've been doing that for myself since I was a little girl, even before I knew what I was doing actually. And that's really what I do for my clients, is I can diagnose the core deep, real root issue of what's going on that's keeping them from solving their own problems and being stuck where they are. So it made total sense. Like really it did.

Yeah. So it's interesting what we think of ourselves and then what reality is and is sometimes not the same. Right?

Yeah.

And once you're clear on who you are, your essential first step, then the rest of it kind of falls into place.

Yeah, for sure. It was a deeper level of my who I am and what I do and what drives me than the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur came later. It really was. This was something that formed inside of me when I was little.

Yeah. So let's go there. That's. That's interesting because oftentimes people with why have make sense? Were forced at a very young age to. They had some big challenges, whether that was through a parent or through something happened where they were had to make decisions quickly when they were very young. Can you think back to anything like that?

Yeah. Oh, for sure. So I just was a. It's sad. It's a sad. I was a sad little person, but I had an awareness of it and I knew that something wasn't right for me and I didn't really know what it was. And I was observing and looking for answers when I was 12, 13, 14. I was a self help junkie when I was in college and I stumbled across a university class, which is so unusual, but it was called Loving Relationships and it answered everything for me that I had been looking for. And it really started my career. Even though I didn't know it at the time, it really did. I was reading, you know, the original philosophers of love and human psychology and behavior. And it answered all my questions that I'd been really seeking. Why am I not happy? Why am I struggling? Why is this happening to me? Why am I having a hard time? All of those questions that I had been seeking for a long time. So, yeah, that's kind of where it all began.

Can you think back to the first time when you were put in a situation where you had to make decisions quickly, you had to figure things out? It might have been when you were 3, 4, 5, 6 years old, when you had something. You know, we see sometimes where people were.

They had issues with maybe a parent or they had issues with relative that made them have to be able to do things quick. Right.

I mean, I think for me, it was a more pervasive chronic exposure than it was a single moment in time, which can happen for a lot of people, too. And so, you know, I'm not. I am so past the blame game, but I'm explaining to you where it came from for me, which is, you know, just parents that had their own issues. I really came from a very privileged experience where on the outside it looked fine. But emotionally, I was very neglected and just alone and lonely, and I didn't feel like anyone was there for me. My whole story really was, no one's gonna be there for me. I have to figure it out for myself. And that's kind of where it all came from. Just parent. My dad was gone all the time, traveling for work, and when he was home, he was totally disengaged with his own issues. My mom was doing her thing. And so, you know, they both are flawed human beings who are perfect in their own ways, too. And I'm all good with that now because I've done my work. But at the time, it was very painful, you know, just kind of a benign neglect experience for me. So it was just a more drawn out, long, chronic experience for me where I learned over time, if I'm gonna get something in this world, I have to go get it myself, and I have to figure it out.

That's exactly it. Yeah. And so have you always been the person that others have come to with problems? Let's go ask Hillary. She'll figure it out. She'll help us with it.

It was a little bit different than that. Like, I feel like I. When I was trying to figure out who do I want to be when I grow up or what's my career gonna be? I was like, God, is there a job where you can be a good friend? Because I knew I was a good listener. I Knew I wasn't judgmental and I knew I was compassionate and I knew I had empathy. And so I just was one of those people who had the presence to just sit with people in whatever they were going through and not judge them and understand actually what they were going through, because I had been in their shoes in one way or another. So it wasn't that they were coming to me to solve problems. They were coming to me to just connect and have a heart to heart or to feel seen or heard or validated. Yeah, that goes way back for me, like elementary school even.

That's just so typical. Or not. I don't want to say typical, but that's common with the why. It makes sense that people have always come to you and said, hey, can I share something with you? Can you help me with this? Hey, can I, Can I just talk to you? And then you can listen. And probably in your mind you're very fast at solving the issue, whatever it is. Right. Instantly it comes to you.

Absolutely. I already knew within moments, like what the core issue was, what the negative belief was that they were having that they were stumbling with. I already could tell what their automatic thoughts were that were getting in the way and I knew how they were feeling. It's just a gift. I think I was born with. I really do.

That's a great question that I get asked a lot. People will say, is your why something you're born with or is it something that develops over time? And so obviously I have no way to answer that. Right. I mean, I think you're born with it like you do, but your life experiences are so common to people with the why that you have of having to figure things out by themselves when they were young. And so which one is it?

It's both, I think that, you know, and I, and I, we write our own story. And I just believe that if I changed anything about how I grew up and what I experienced, I wouldn't be where I am today. And, and so I wouldn't change any of it. So, you know, if I was born this way a little bit, which is absolutely the nature component, it was honed and perfected over time with my, with my nature experience, growing up, for sure.

And so when I'm asked that question on stage, I will always. The way I answer that is, it doesn't really matter. Right. We can't prove it one way or the other, so it doesn't really matter. All that is important is that you know what it is. Yeah, right.

Yeah.

And so that's that's where we are in your situation. So you went to college, tried to figure things out. You read the book Loving Relationships, and then where did that lead you?

I mean, it was really about the relationship with the self and the relationship with friends and the relationship with lovers and learning to love your enemy and loving your community. It was all about our human connection, starting with our own connection. And I was learning about how to be authentic and how to advocate for yourself and navigating power in relationships. And so I think what I ended up, really what that led me to do was graduate college and buck all tradition. And I found my voice and I used it. So I traveled the world for five years all by myself and was really seeking to define myself and differentiate myself and to become autonomous. These are big words that I use a lot with my clients. Become truly self determining and self defining and autonomous and differentiated so that you are, you are intentionally living your life the way you want to, not by somebody else's standards or the terms that they have set forth for you. So I stripped away all the shoulds and supposed tos at a really young early age, and I traveled to crazy, remote parts of the world that are kind of dangerous. I don't know how I did it. Now I look back, I'm like, I can't believe I survived some of those things. But I was really seeking my independence and my voice. So that's what it led me to do first. And then after being dirty, how did.

Your parents feel about that?

I think they wanted me to do what everyone else was doing. That's what I was taught to do. Go with the flow, don't rock the boat. You know, everyone's doing this, so go do that. And so I had to find myself. And I remember distinctly having a conversation with my mom where she was questioning, what if you've run out of money? Or what if you get lost or what if you get hurt? You should find someone to go with, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, mom, if you don't stop, gonna go. And you won't know anything about it. So I need your support or I'm cutting you off and I'm going and you won't be a part of this. And the longer I was gone, it was an eight month experience. That first trip that I did. The longer I was gone, the more they got on board and they got excited about it, and then they were like, oh, our daughter, you know, look what our daughter's done. They became proud of it, but I had to fight for that.

So Let me ask you one more question on that. What was the defining moment that said, I'm out of here, man. I gotta go for I just gotta leave or whatever that was. Take us through that. What happened?

I was in my senior year, and I just, you know, I had studied anthropology. That was what I decided I wanted to study. I think if I had it to do again, I probably would have chosen psychology, but I didn't know any better. I wasn't getting a lot of guidance, so I studied anthropology. And so I was totally interested in cultures, and I learned a lot about culture, you know, cultural relativity and all of that. So I was curious about traveling. And I think I just decided I want to go see the world, and I want to challenge myself, and I want to see who I really am and what I'm really made of and put myself in situations to see how I'm going to react and respond. And I kind of was like, giving the double bird to my parents. Like, you know, a little bit of rebelliousness, like, I don't want to do what you want me to do, and what you want me to do and what everyone else expects of me is gonna make me sad and unhappy. And I lived that way as a kid, just doing what I was supposed to do. That's one of the reasons I was unhappy. So for me, it was not. There was no other option. This is what I'm doing. And so I watched all my other high school friends and acquaintances go get their first jobs out of college. And I did live with my parents for six months to save some money, and then I was out. I was gone for a long time.

That's great. So I have two daughters that are right about the age that you're talking about there. So it's fun to watch the choices they make and the decisions they make. At this age, I don't think either of them is going to take off for eight months by themselves through the world, but you never know, right?

Would you support them if they said that they wanted to do that?

I'll tell you, I would be scared to death for them. I don't know how I would feel about that. I would want somebody to go with them. I don't like the idea of either of them going by themselves, so I can't imagine your parents were excited either.

Well, now that I'm a parent, I totally get it. But at the time, I was, like, really needed to forge my own way and to find my own voice, and it was the best thing I ever did. And the world's a different place now than it was then. But it was even scary then because it was 1995 when I was traveling. I'm older than I look. It was 1995 when I was traveling, and it was all Israel in the news with the bombings and everything. And I went to Israel and I went to the Sinai Peninsula and I went to Egypt. Those are part of the. Part of the, you know, some of the places that I went to on that trip. And I just wanted to go see. And I had this mentality at the time, like, hey, if I die, I died doing what I really wanted to do. And it's different now.

Right.

I'm older now. I'm more mature. I have responsibilities. But at the time, I was like, I. Some of what I did was travel in through Nepal on the top of a bus in the mountainous region. Those buses topple off cliffs all the time. And I was up there doing that when I was 22. Yeah.

How old are your kids?

They're nine and 12 right now.

So you got a ways to go before you have to face these kind of decisions.

I'm hoping I can do things better than it was done for me so that they don't feel the need to give me the double bird to explore who they are.

Good luck with that.

We'll see.

Okay, so you traveled the world. You saw things you never thought you would see. And then how did you get involved with helping women learn to love and be loved?

Yeah. So when I came home, I mean, I did travel more after that trip. I lived abroad for a year, taught some English, traveled some more, and I just got to the point where I was tired of being poor and dirty and traveling out of a backpack and lonely. I was ready to settle and connect. So I did that. And I just took my first real job that I could get in Denver. I. You know, my. But both the first two real jobs that I had were, to me, temporary. They were stepping stone. I was still trying to figure out, how can I use all of my knowledge and wisdom and experience that doesn't look good on a resume and figure this out? And. And so when I was 27, I realized I need to be a therapist. I need to go back to school so that I can help other people figure this out. I had done some of my own therapy along the way and mentoring. Then that meantime. And so at 27, I paid my mortgage. I bought a. Had bought a house by that time. I paid my mortgage with student loans and went back to grad school full time. Because I had gotten laid off. That was, you know, the year 2000, technology bust. And so I went back to school full time and here I am. So, you know, a lot of. I mean, it's been a long journey to get. It's been 17 years, 20 years, ish, since I started that career choice. And I had a brick and mortar in Denver for 17 years. I worked with all kinds of issues with men, women and couples from anxiety and depression and self esteem issues, communication, conflict, body image, emotional issues of all kinds. I trained with some of the masters in my field. I always invested in myself. I've studied with John Gottman and Esther Perel and some of the big names that you see now. But what I realized was it all went back to that original class when I was reading the original philosophers of love and human behavior that everybody I was studying with, I already knew. I felt like I already knew, like, why do I already know this? Why do I already know this? And it was because that those early seeds that had plant been planted in me when I was 19 and 20, at some point during my brick and mortar, I realized I was repeating myself over and over. And not only was I then, because of that, developing my own methodology and my own curriculum and my own way of explaining things, people were feeling on top of the problems that they were struggling with. They were feeling alone in their problems and isolated. And that's shame inducing. And so even though I could tell them, hey, you're not alone, I just talked to somebody about this last session. It's not the same thing as hearing it straight out of somebody else's mouth. And so I just kind of started to realize I have more to offer. I have a bigger impact to make. Doing this one person at a time in private is not going to get me there and it's not going to make the impact that I want to make. So I really started learning how to take my business from one, you know, from a brick and mortar therapy practice to an online coaching business. And I did that in about four years. It took me to figure it out. It was a long, hard road, but I was just driven to help more people at a higher level. And I'm getting better results faster for my clients doing it the way I do now than I ever did as a therapist with that old model.

So you spent 17 years trying to figure it out?

17 years. I had a very successful therapy practice. I was one of the most successful in Denver. I was. I had a wait list. I had therapists working for me. And I did all of that, but it just wasn't scratching the itch for more that I had. So it was all good. It was everything that. I mean that was a very. What I learned working with clients one on one through those really challenging times, marriage and divorce and infidelity and sex problems, you name it, really honed my skills. And that's why like what I'm doing now is really offering my clients the best of the therapy, science based, research backed interventions and the best of the coaching world. That is not just about why are you stuck but what are you going to do about it and how are you going to fix it moving forward. So it was, I didn't spend all that time trying to figure out how to get here. I just, I used all of that time really building my skills.

Yeah. What's interesting is looking at you from the perspective of your why. I know that you're somebody that is taking in lots and lots and lots of information and trying to figure it out. And so the question I have for you is what was the question you were trying to answer? What was the question you were looking to solve?

Well, when I kept going and kept going and kept going, give me more, give me more. I want to study with this and this and this and over here and do this and I want to. And what was that question you were trying to find an answer to?

Well, when I was with a client it was what's going on with them. But for me personally it was over time trying to figure out what is my true gift here. Like, of all the problems that I can help people with, what do I enjoy helping them with the most. And so though I had a long practice with lots of different specialties over time I was honing and honing and honing in on ultimately what brought me back to the very beginning, which is the relationship piece. It's the relationship with yourself and your relationship with others. And so now what I really am doing is helping women. I can help anyone, but I choose to work with women now is what is it about their relationship with themselves that's missing? What's that core piece? The awareness of self, the awareness of other and then that relational dynamic because that allows them to be the most effective and empowered, whatever role they're doing in that moment. Mother, daughter, friend, leader, business owner. So it is now helping them solve that problem inside of themselves at the core, so that they can then go solve their own problems. Right. My job is to work myself out of a job as fast as possible. Nobody wants to be a lifetime therapy Goer, nobody. We want to solve the problem and move on. And so what I love about where I'm at now is I'm helping people solve that root issue inside of themselves while we're applying those new tools and skills, concepts and ideas to current life situational issues. So we're fixing things at many levels all at once. But then they get to become the version of themselves, their ideal self, so they can go solve their own problems moving forward. And they get to be that autonomous, self determining, differentiated person that I was working on becoming way back when.

Which frees them up to what? Be in a better relationship with themselves.

And with others, to be more successful in whatever it is that they're doing. Have more intimacy and connection by being more authentic and genuine and vulnerable, speaking up for themselves, knowing that they can trust themselves. You know, I call it being the pilot instead of the passenger. Because if you're not at the wheel, you're not living the most consciously created and intentional life. And we don't sit at the wheel because we're scared sometimes we don't trust ourselves. We're not confident. So it's really about helping them become who they need to be so that they can have the relationship that they want, the success they want, take themselves higher and higher and higher and never let themselves be their own limiting factor.

So of all your options of types of therapy you could do, why did you pick this one?

Well, I mean, what I'm doing now is multiple modalities. We do a lot of narrative therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy and neuro reprogramming. I'm trained in emdr. It's everything.

You could have picked any avenue. You picked this one. Why did you pick this one?

I guess I'm not sure what you're asking, because it is not just one. It's like what. What I'm doing now in the way that I serve my clients in the program is that it's many pieces combined and that's why it works so well. There's even little bits of the Law of Attraction. And I'm retraining the thinking so that they have a. It's really mindset training and shifting their identity, helping them decide for themselves who they need to be and who they want to be all the time. So it's the program. The way I'm serving people is so many different methods all combined.

I see. So when you were working with, however, you know, thousands of patients over the years, did you start to notice patterns and trends and similarities that they all had?

Yes, that's why. I was repeating myself over and over. I'm like, I've got to get this out. I can't keep seeing this over and over. Let's record it in a video and then teach it so I don't have to say it over and over.

That's what happened to me when I would. When I developed the nine whys is I would sit down with somebody and I'd spend an hour or however long I needed to, to help take them through this process to discover their why. And I started noticing the same story, same story over and over and over with the people that had the why of make sense or the people with a better way why, they all said the same thing. And so when it came time to figuring out, how can I have a bigger impact, just like what you were saying, if I just work with one person at a time, how big of an impact can I have? Right. My whole life I'll see 50 people or 100 people or whatever it is. But when I started to notice the patterns, that's when I figured out that there was nine whys. I'm curious what kind of patterns you've seen that are going to allow you to scale. And that's probably what you did in your course, right?

Yes. I mean, there are a lot of components to what I do, but I'll give you an example. So in my program, I teach women how their fear is really sometimes at the wheel. And when fear is at the wheel, then you're not being your best self. You're making decisions that are gonna limit you. And so in the Love and Be Loved program, it's about having intimacy and romance and love and finding that partner, that best partner for you, and having a healthy, mature love. And when you're in fear mode, you're afraid of rejection or abandonment or being hurt again or being betrayed, that you're showing up in the world with one of three main Personas. You're either pleasing as a pleaser, you're a perfectionist, or you're a pusher. And so those are some of the themes that I was seeing. And so I'm helping them identify how they're. The concept is protection prevents connection. If you're in protection mode, you're not going to be in the connection mode. And the protection is being a pleaser is changing who you are and altering and editing and shape shifting and being a chameleon and bending yourself into a pretzel to be liked and accepted and validated. And, you know, he'll just love me if I could just be who he wants me to be. And the pusher is somebody who's more guarded and has a wall up and can be hard to get to know. And then I'm just making this very simple for the sake of the interview. But. And then the perfectionist is somebody who really believes they need to be perfect to be loved. And they have a fear of not being good enough. And so they won't just be real. And it's. And it's hard to really make genuine connection with somebody like that. And sometimes they're all of them all at once, but those. That's just an example of some of the patterns that I was noticing. And so taking the comp. Like to go back to the why of makes sense. Human behavior and psychology is extremely complex. And so what my main talent is is to understand that pretty quickly and then explain it in a way that makes sense to everyone. Because if they can see it, they can understand it and they can self identify and they have this awareness now. They can be more effective both at healing some of these things and overcoming some of those things, but also accepting them and using themselves as a tool more effectively.

You were right on the money there with the why it makes sense. I mean, you said it perfectly. Which is really the gift that you have. It's that thing that very few people have. And you've been able to take that and taken lots and lots of data like we talked about and lots of philosophies and books and information and said, ah, let me make sense out of that so that then we can actually do something with it.

Yeah.

That are just talking about it. Let's go figure it out and make it happen.

Yeah. And when you can understand the problem very, very clearly, then you can absolutely create the best solution and just get, you know, move on. Like, let's not identify with being stuck and having the problem. Let's identify with being the winner. Let's be a winner.

Yeah. Is there one thing, if you could break it all down to one thing, what would that be, if that's possible, that you have to have in order to be a winner? I think you've said it, but I'm curious.

You have to have the identity of somebody who wins. And that's which means the mindset. You have to believe that you can do it. You have to believe you're worthy of it. So worthy and capable are my two favorite words when it comes to that. If you believe you're worthy of it and you deserve it, you won't sabotage and if you know you're capable of it because you have the tools and the skills and you know what you're doing and you have the confidence, you will get out there and do it. And so that is a mindset thing, an identity of somebody. You know. If you want to be a CEO, then you have to think like a CEO and you have to act like a CEO and you have to know that you're capable of being a CEO. And what does that look like? So my other program is the Extraordinary Women Rising. And it is the training, the mindset and really reprogramming those deep beliefs and the daily practice of choosing your focus, of changing the thoughts and putting yourself in the emotional state that you need to be in to create what you want instead of just being in the passenger seat and accepting what is. If you want more, you have to be self determining and define what that is and decide that you have to become that person to get what you want.

If you're worthy and you're capable, what does that give you? What does that do for you? And I think you said it earlier, but I want you to get it.

Because I have, I don't listen to myself enough. So if you're worthy and you're capable.

What does that do for you internally? What does that allow you to do?

You create and you go and you do and you act and you behave in ways that give you the success.

What I hear is right in line with that. But it gives you the ability to trust yourself.

Yes, it's everything.

That's that bottom line, I think.

Yes, it is. Trusting yourself is everything. And without that, you have anxiety, you are depressed. And a lot of my clients though, they're not coming to me for anxiety. They go off anxiety meds if they've been on them for a long time, within weeks. Because it's really that relationship with yourself. You have to. And we have a whole segment on, I call it byobff. Right. Instead of be bring your own beer, it's be your own best friend forever. And how do you do that? And it's that really cultivating and developing that rock solid, unshakable relationship with yourself. So you can go do anything you want.

That to me seems like the essence. If I had to, you know, just in listening, if I broke it down to that one thing, it's like you got to be able to trust yourself.

You gotta.

Without that, nothing else will matter, right?

Yeah.

You can't succeed, you can't be worthy and you can't be capable if you don't trust yourself. Yep. And that's.

But it's cyclical because you learn to trust yourself by believing you're worthy and then, and knowing that you're capable. And then you get out there and you try it and you learn. You create new evidence to support this new belief that you can trust yourself. That's why it's, it's a very cyclical, circular process.

So do you feel more successful when you're able to help someone or when they trust you? There's a reason I'm asking you this.

Yeah, that's a good question. When I can help someone, I think when they trust me, I have a bigger impact. They're not resisting me. They're not, you know, if there's a trust with me and I, and I'm very trustworthy, I can, I pretty much create that trust experience almost immediately because I'm real and I'm transparent and, and I'm very authentic. But them trusting me allows them to say yes to my coaching and then I can help them. I think, you know, one has to happen before the other can happen. If they don't trust me, they're gonna not, they're gonna resist what I'm saying or they won't be completely open to hearing what I have to say and then I can have more of an impact and help them.

So the reason I asked you that is because I'm gonna take a stab at what I think your why, how and what is.

Okay, let's hear it.

This is my based upon. Because you're an outside the box thinker, right. You, you just, you don't follow anybody's rules. You fit, you create your own path.

Yes.

So I would say that your why is to make sense of the complex and challenging and how you go about doing that is by thinking outside the box and challenging the way things are done. And then what you ultimately bring is, and that's where I was going, is that a trust, is what you ultimately bring a trusting relationship? Or is what you ultimately bring a way to contribute and add value to other people?

Well, my goal is to help other people and add value because it's not about me and it's not about the relationship with me. I'm just a temporary scaffolding and then I gotta go away so that they can go do their own thing. So I want to put more confident, empowered, capable, self loving women into the world. It's not about me, but it has to happen first. So they won't let me in.

They do, but they probably trust you. Because you've made so much sense out of it. You've already gone down this path a thousand times, and by nature, you're a doctor, and so they. A therapist. So they. They trust you for that as well. And credentials and what you've done and their friends, and they see you, you know, all the rest, they're going to trust you. So then this is how I would say, just. I would say that your why is to make sense of the complex and challenging and how you go about doing that is by thinking outside the box and challenging the status quo. And then what you ultimately bring is a way to contribute and add value to other people to help them along their journey.

I would agree. Good assessment.

So that's the essence of why I would choose you. Right. I know you've already done the work, many, many, many years of it. You couldn't stop yourself, but you didn't get caught in the box of being a therapist. You got outside that and said, okay, what else can I do? What else can I see? What else is out there? And then you created something that's gonna have a big impact for me and not just be the same old regurgitated stuff that everybody else has said.

Exactly. I kind of buck that. I don't read any poppy. I'm in my little ivory tower. I don't want to hear what anyone else is saying because I say it my own way. For sure. That's why when I first saw the make sense, I was like, no, I'm the rebel. I forged my own way. But the deeper you're right, it is. Definitely makes sense. Is really what drives me at the deeper core.

How you do it is by bucking the system.

Yeah.

And then what you bring is something that's gonna work and make it have an impact.

Yeah.

If it doesn't help somebody, do you. Do you care?

Oh, my God. If it doesn't help somebody, I'm. I absolutely care. I have to go back and figure out.

Yeah, you don't want to use it. I mean, I guess I didn't ask that correctly.

And do you care about it if it's not going to have any value for anybody? I mean, do you want to spend any time with it?

Not at all.

Yeah. You want to go back and get something else.

Exactly.

So it sounds like what you've created has every woman should go through every person. But since your focus is women, it kind of feels like every woman, like my daughters, should go through that and get clear at age 22 and 25, instead of waiting till 42 and 45.

Yes. My flagship program is the Love and Be Love program. It is an 8 week online ultra premium coaching program and it is for high level successful women who just have not been able to be successful in love. But I do have what I have been pulling out of that and extracting out of that that women always need to work on, whether they have a love person, a love interest in their life or not, is continuing to develop that relationship with themselves. So Extraordinary Women Rising is a mindset and confidence program that I'm actually, it's already in existence, but I'm making it more robust so that it is for anyone who wants to really become their best ideal self. And it is brain retraining, changing your identity, evolving your identity. It comes with this gorgeous journal. So there's a pen and paper aspect to it and it's just that one piece of the Love and Be Love program pulled out but really developed further. So it's available for all women whether you want love or not and you know, whether you're, you know, a CEO or a stay at home mom.

So here's something I want to get your perspective on because there was a time that I went through a lot of the kind of the stuff that you're talking about and learning from different brain experts and all kinds of stuff, the whole change your brain, change your life, all this stuff. And I struggle with the word change because I don't find that people change much. I find they try to, they find themselves which allows them to be themselves. But when you ask somebody to change from who they really are, if I said, okay, Hillary, I'm going to help you train your brain so that you stop solving problems. You just are no longer making sense out of things. We're going to change you to be somebody totally different. Is that going to happen?

I think it only happens when somebody wants to change bad enough that the pain of where they are and what they're doing is just unbearable and intolerable. That they absolutely can change. But it's not what you're talking about where you just become a completely different person. We can change behavior, we can absolutely change the way that we think and it's incremental, right? So for me, when I was struggling for four years to leave my brick and mortar to finally be fully online, I had done all that work that I told you about already and I thought I was there and I still had some blind spots around my own mindset blocks. And so really doubling down and super committing to my mindset work is what turned the corner for me and I left that brick and mortar and went fully online and in the first year hit a million. That was absolutely changing my brain and changing the way I think about myself and what's possible for me and being able to envision what my future success was going to look like. It is possible, but I am not going to be a different person and we have to want it bad enough. I wanted it so bad, nothing was going to stop me. And I was the only thing stopping me, really.

So is it more important to have self awareness or to change into something you want to be?

I think you have to have the self awareness so that you can make the changes that you want to make. They go hand in hand. I had to first see what my blocks were and I was just stuck in my mindset that it can happen for everyone else but not for me. It can happen for her or him. Why is it happening for them but not for me? I was really stuck in that because I was trying and trying and trying and trying, but it was my mindset and when I shifted and I made a slight shift and it was if they can do it, I can do it. If they can do it, I can do it better. It was. I just didn't see it. And it was right on the tip of my own nose, which is what so many of my clients, you know, a lot of my clients, they're all smart, wicked smart. They can help everyone, everyone else, but they can't see the tip of their nose. And in that case, I just couldn't see the tip of my own nose either. And so I just am always. I'm committed to having my own coaching, always continuing. Mastery's cup is never full. I don't know who said that, but it's a famous quote and it's true. You know, just continue to have that self awareness so that we can continue making the change that we need to make.

Love it. Love it. Well, I am sure you are having a huge impact for a lot of women and I got to get my daughters in touch with you. Not that they are, you know, struggling right now, but why wait till you're struggling before you've got to get something, you know, get on the right path and get all the craziness that we have in our heads sorted out.

Exactly. We are our own biggest obstacle. Always. That's what it is.

Well, Hilary, if people are listening to this and they want to get a hold of you, what should they do?

Just go to my website, hillarysilver.com you know, you'll find everything that you need. Lots of different links to take you to different places so that you can access the different programs. I have a free webinar that you can sign up and watch on my website, and I'm also on Facebook. That's kind of where I mainly hang out. So I have a huge video library on my business page, so just go find me there, too. Get to know me. I'm sassy. I tell it like it is, so be prepared.

Love it. What we need, right?

Yep.

Well, thank you so much for spending the morning with me, and I really enjoyed getting to know you, and I look forward to staying in touch as we move forward.

That sounds great, Gary. I enjoyed myself, too. Thank you.

Thank you.