WHY Not Wednesday with Lisa Schermerhorn

There's a certain kind of coach who believes what we believe.

Who leads people to greatness.

Gets people unstuck, who unlocks all of your passion. A coach who helps people discover what drives them to tap into their superpowers. Then knowing your why is the first step to untap potential.

To focus.

To breakthroughs.

A coach who's looking for a better way.

Are you that coach?

All right, so we are all here. Hi, Lisa. How are you?

I'm awesome. Thank you for having me. And I love that intro. I hadn't seen that yet.

Isn't that great? You are that coach. I love that you love it because, you know, when we put that together, we're appealing to the coaches that are our ideal clients. Right. So we're practicing what we preach. We talk about, you know, who are we looking for? We're looking for a coach who's looking for a better way, looking for a coach that's willing to be different, that wants to contribute to the success of their clients. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's introduce you. Lisa, we've had you on before, but I absolutely love having you and your partner Kevin on because you're one of our early adopters. And every time I talk to you, I learned something new about how you're using the why in your practice and now you're using the yos. And so for those of you that don't know, Lisa Schermerhorn is a mindset coach. She's a Y coach and an international best selling authority. And her new book coming out soon is called in every belief there is a lie. Lie is in the middle of belief. So I know we're going to talk about that, but let's talk a little bit. Like I always start every show. Lisa, let's talk about your why operating system because that has been a breakthrough for you. I saw that you're. We're going to talk a little bit about your awaken the why within challenge. But your yos is to challenge the status quo, to find a better way and to make sense of the complex and challenging. So what's that sound like now you're a little bit more familiar with it. You've lived with it for a while. What's it been like?

Oh, my God. It was such a game changer for me. The funniest thing was that when you hire someone to do marketing for your business and people tell you that this is how you're going to get this type of client, you listen to other people and. And I Realized that I was marketing to all the wrong people because they didn't share the same why that I had.

Right.

So being a challenge, I'm an outside the box thinker. And so I love, you know, doing things that are different. And when I was constantly marketing to people who are right way, who are very process oriented and very structured and I was scaring the heck out of those people.

You don't want to come at a right way person with all your different ideas and an out of the box thinking. Right?

Exactly, exactly. But it even went deeper than that for me because I've told this story many times growing up, being different and you're not understood and you can get bullied, you can have all kinds of, you know, people like, why can't you be like so and so and what's wrong with you? And so I grew up feeling broken. Now my cat, my partner Kevin, my business partner Kevin owned his why he owned his challenge. He was like, I am going to be different and I own it and I love it. Whereas that wasn't so much for me. And when I got to the time in my life where I had the opportunity to discover my why, it helped me better understand why I did the things I did. I realized that I wasn't broken. I realized that that was my superpower and it made me feel empowered and I realized that everything I do in my life is challenge.

That is so, that is so powerful what you just said. Because I think one of the things that, you know, you're, you're so you're trained in nlp, so you're, you know a lot about how the human mind works and, and how to rewire things. But yet the why gave you the most clarity, even though you'd gone through all, through all of that. But what was different about it for you?

Well, all of the other I have done, you know, Myers, Briggs and I've done the discipment assessments. I've done a lot of different assessments and they're very accurate and they help you so much. But what happened was they tell you how you do things, right? Whereas my why was like how I go on vacation. I don't know if you can all see. I live in a log home on the side of the mountain.

Not for everyone. It's like I love being different. I love being that unique person who thinks outside the box. Every time someone asks me to do something, I always think, how can I make this different? How can I make this unique? So. And that was the idea of finally owning that.

Yeah, I Love. I love that you said that. So I want to, I want to make sure we acknowledge some of our folks that are, that are listening. So Gary Sanchez is following. He said, hey, one of our favorite challenges. So you, you know, I think it's a, it's a toss up between you and Melanie, but, you know, Rosie Ward is out there. We've got a quite a few of you who love to challenge the status quo and do things differently. So thank you. And, and look, here's a guy you introduced me to, Raymond Camp. He said excellent, and he is doing some great things also. We love having him on the team. And then, let's see here. Anna Leonard said, classic. I'm sure she was responding to your challenge description. And I love this one from Bill Summers. A peacock in the land of penguins. Yay. Is that, is that how you felt, you know, growing up?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Everybody's doing it the same way, right? They're going by the book. They're doing, doing things that everybody else is doing. And you were like, hey, that's not, that's not where I want to go.

Well, I'm dating myself, but I always have the image of that show, the Munsters. I don't know if you remembered.

Oh, yeah.

And they, they had Herman Munster and they were all like vampires and Frankenstein and there was Marilyn in the middle.

You were, you were the, the one that stood out, and you were different. Right. And, and, and I love that you own that now because I think it's helping you in your practice and, and it helps you attract the right kind of clients that are looking for somebody that's going to challenge them, that's going to find a better way and help them make sense of it all. So I love that you talk about that all the time, and thank you for sharing it with your clients. Now you've got a challenge going on right now. Speaking of challenge, you. You've got a challenge that you and Kevin, your partner, are doing together called Awaken the why within challenge. So it's a five day challenge. I joined you guys today for about 45 minutes to talk about why. Tell us about that challenge. And can people still join?

Well, they can if they get. If they want to join. We have something set up on Mighty networks where they can see all of the past three days so they can see what's going on. But I will tell you, one of the greatest gifts that I've been given is having the partner, Kevin, because even though we have challenge as the same challenge as our why and the same how better way. But he's a contribute, and he was responsible for so much of that challenge because I've been in the middle of editing my book and being really busy, and he put so much time and energy and work into that, and he supports me in ways that I couldn't be able to do what I do as a coach, because having that better way and challenge, I'm always that visionary. I'm always thinking he has that IT background. Even though he's, he's got, he, he expresses his why differently.

Right.

He's more grounded than I am, so he can help actually get things accomplished. And, and that's what is really great when you have a partner like that. And the challenge has been fun. We've gotten a lot of feedback from people. They're having fun discovering the different whys, and we have VIP option at the end. So we're doing a really deep dive into discovering all the different whys. And then towards the end of the week, they can discover, see if they can figure out their why or they can take the why tests. And that's our VAP and coaching along with that.

I love that. So, so you, this is your first time doing something like this. What's your biggest lesson learned? Because I know we have a lot of coaches listening. What's the biggest lesson learned so far?

Oh, my gosh. Poor Kevin was on vacation two weeks ago, and he was doing all the technical setup, and then he missed his flight coming home, so then he had to work off of a tablet, and then he got sick. So the poor guy. So planning further in advance to get the challenge going because there were a lot of technical glitches that we've had to deal with. Um, it's been a fun ride. It, I love doing it, and it's really been great to help us learn to do other ones in the future.

I, I, I love that, Lisa. You know, I think the, the great thing about it is you guys took action, right? Imperfect action is better than inaction. And you, you just, you're gone ahead and, and done your first challenge because guess what? The next one's going to be better, right? And the next one's going to be better after that. I, I, I saw some of the clients that you had on. It was such an engaging conversation. They had such great questions. I can tell you've done a great job of preparing them with the knowledge they need so they can learn their why and then not only that, take advantage of it, but, you know, for the coaches on the line, I think It's a great teaser to get them to want to work with you further, because I think there's more to it, Right? There's. There's. You can find out your why and your why, how, and what, but what you do is bring some more depth to it.

Yeah. And one of the things as a coach that I really love about being trained through the Y Institute, it's an incredible entree. It creates a conversation, it brings people in, and it gives me so much information about the individual person. Because one of the things that's so fascinating is someone will get their why, and they'll either instantly go, yes, this resonates with me, or, no, it doesn't.

Yes.

And I had a client earlier this week, and he's like, this is not me. I would never have chosen this. I didn't even think about that one. And I said, well, let's talk about this. Because his why came up as clarity. And he said, how important is it for people to understand? You said, it's so important, but the problem for me was no one understands me. I said, well, that's the work we need to do. So it gives me insight as to the beginning of my coaching so I don't have to dig around as much.

Yeah. So you. You use it to understand your clients better. Right. And you use it to create your program specifically for them. You mentioned it, you know, and I posted about this different.

Way that you use it because your why is what makes you different. And you talk about the fact that as a coach, the why opens the door wider. It gets people through the door faster. Because people come and say to you, hey, I want to know my why. What is that like when people come to you, what's your experience? When somebody says, hey, I see you're a why coach. I want to know my why.

First of all, it helps create rapport. It helps me better understand them so I can communicate with them better. Oftentimes, people will see coaches because they're lost. They're in a transition in their life, so this helps them better understand themselves. And I had someone who was, you know, really in a lost place. And I did two things with them. I did their why, and I helped them discover their values. Because oftentimes, if you don't know your values and you don't know why you do things, you have no sense of self. So as soon as we did this, they were like, oh, my God, I see where I'm off track in my life. I see, you know, how bringing these things in my life in this way will bring me so much more joy and that's what it's really all about.

Yeah.

I've also used it for people who are in transition in jobs. I had a client who had a job opportunity with a really big corporation in New York City and she thought it was her dream job. And when we discovered her why, she realized that would have been a nightmare for her and it was too structured and that she decided to go with a startup company that was less money, that had a lot more opportunity and a lot more autonomy.

Love that. Hey, by the way, you got, you got a shout out from Melanie Egg.

Hey, team, great to see you.

So, you know, she is another challenger. So we got, we got three challenges in the house right here. I've got. That's my how. I'm not, not quite as, as high on challenge as you guys are, but it is my how and it is how I do a lot of things. I think Aiden, who's on the Y force would say, dan, you're a challenge. I don't care what you say. That's, that's who you are. And I love that you brought up values because we were talking about that. I bet we're going to get a big, big thumbs up from Aiden because that we're, we're looking at the difference between values and why. So what, what, how do you, how do you look at that difference, Lisa?

Well, when someone, when someone has their value of family. Right. What does that really mean? Yeah. And someone can say, my, my, one of my values is family, but they're not contributing to the family the way they think they are. They may be just providing and then they realize, wow, this is one of my values. Yet I'm not, I'm not holding, I'm not participating the way I really long to. I need to look at that.

Yeah.

So it's really how you do your. Why, by having your values.

I love that. Well, I want to get to the, to the book. I mean, you're, you're writing, you're working on your second book. I know you told me you. It's being edited. So you know, Gary is working, working on getting his book done. I owe him a review. We, you know, we're all, everybody on the team is reading it. We know, I know what a hard task that is, but how important it is to get your message out there. So your next book is called the In Every Belief There is a Lie, Right?

Yes. And it stems from our belief systems and how we get programmed.

Yeah.

And, and this is this is the problem with our lives. Dr. Bruce Lipton talks about everything that we learn as children up until the 7 is just, like, programmed into us. So not only do we get our, our information from our parents, the programming, we get it from our culture. We can also inherit beliefs. This blew me away. There's an actual science called epigenetics, and they've done studies where they've taken mice and they had them smell this particular smell, and every time they smelled it, they gave them an electric shock until they associated with it. Their grandpups, whenever they smelled that smell, would run without being electrocuted.

Really.

So they've done studies with survivors of the Holocaust. Their grandchildren can have trust issues, anxiety. There's all kinds of things that come up that aren't ours, and that's part of survival. It's not that it shifts the DNA, but it changes the way the DNA is expressed.

Yeah.

So we can, and this is all unconscious. So there's so many beliefs. There's so many things that we take on. For instance, I work with golfers, and I've worked with golf pros before.

Yeah.

And I had a golfer who went to a tournament, didn't play his best. His putting was normally the best part of his game, but he wasn't playing well. And someone walked up to him and said, gee, it's too bad you don't know how to putt, because you'd be a phenomenal golf pro. From that day on. He couldn't putt because he took that on as a belief system. I worked with him in one session, he went out and played the best game he played in years. We using these little mind hacks, they're really simple tools that we can use to eliminate beliefs that aren't really ours. And the problem is, along with that, is that those beliefs run us unconsciously. We get on that wheel doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result, because our unconscious mind, our autonomic nervous system, is always in survival. It's always looking for, how can I protect? How can I protect Dan? How can I protect Lisa?

Right.

And so it's always looking, and it's using the wisdom it knows.

Yeah.

And so when you educate that part of your brain.

Right.

And help it better understand, it'll change the way you see the world.

So I, I, I, I want to get back to, in every belief, there's a lie. Because I just looked at the, the, the word, and I'm like, if you put a lie inside a beef, you get a belief, Right?

Yeah.

But in every belief, there is a lie. So how are our minds programmed? Tell, tell. Tell us some more about. Because you've. You've done all this work.

Yes. Oh, my gosh. Any kind of trauma?

Yeah.

Our teachers program us our religion, if you think about certain religions, will tell us how to eat, what to wear. So. So all of these things become part of our lens that we see the world. And one of the things that's an exercise that I do with people is I have them imagine a lens. And if you go through, when you pick out what was your socioeconomic status, what part of the world did you grow up in? Did you have scarcity issues? What was money? What did money mean to you? So if you put all that inside a lens and then you put another lens of someone else that you know whose lens is completely different, you're going to see the world differently. And I always say, you have one person who watches MSNBC and another person who watches Fox News. They both believe that they're seeing the truth. So what is the truth? Each one of them is getting a lie. What is the real truth?

Right.

What is reality? So. So we have a part of our brain called the reticular activating system that seeks out what we believe.

Right.

It's like when you buy that new car, and as a challenge, I'm like, I'm getting something different. No one else is going to have this. And then I'm on their highway and I see it everywhere, and I get.

Mad because you're all of a sudden they're everywhere, right?

Yeah. So our brain is always filtering what we believe. So.

We get programmed through religion, we get programmed through our parents, through our culture, our beliefs around money, trauma. And then what I do is I help people identify.

I help people identify where this belief came from and then release it. Because let's say you had a betrayal when you were a child. Let's say a parent left and abandoned you. You suddenly see the world through those eyes, and now you start to attract people who abandon you. And so now trust most likely becomes your why. Right? So you see the world through your trust. Why? And now there's the. The challenge of each why. So all of a sudden, you see everyone through people who you can't trust, and then you start attracting situations that you can't trust. And then you keep reinforcing it over and over again. When you heal that.

Yeah.

Then you shift the way you see the world, and then you can step into your power and own your why. And that's why the why is so integral in the work I do.

Right. So even though. So you know, I wanted to recognize Aiden says she would love to have a session with you. So I don't know how you guys would ever get together because she is in Hawaii and you're all the way on the east coast.

Yeah, I work with people in Australia. It's not an issue.

All right.

Yeah.

Isabella. So Bella wants a session. You know I'm gonna have to charge you a commission because you're getting all these clients from us.

Right.

This is fantastic. Lisa. So good old trustwy. I'll take a session also. So maybe you can do them together. They're always together, Aiden and Bella. So we will. We'll give you maybe you do a two for one with them. But thank you Bella and Aiden for getting in here. And I don't know if you saw Melanie's comment living your why.

Yes.

And that is so true. So I love what you had to say on that. So let's talk about your biggest why not moment. Because it's the first chapter of your book, right?

Yes.

A time when you said why not to an opportunity, a circumstance, a choice and it made a positive impact for you. Tell, tell us about that.

Only a challenge would truly understand what I put myself through.

Yeah, well, let's see if we can figure you out. Let's see if we can understand it.

So I, I was married for 29 years.

There were. I was very unhappy. My ex husband and I, I had this tremendous fear of being alone and I was studying with this woman who contacted me and said I'm putting on a firewalk facilitation. This is teaching people through the Sundoor organization who also trained Tony Robbins on how to do mind over matter and teach people how to facilitate firewalking. Like I don't know why I need to do this, but I'm going to do it. Well, I sign up, I show up the first day and they tell us, okay, in one week we're going to teach you how to break arrows from your throat. You're going to bend a 10 foot piece of rebar from your throat. I have that re here as a reminder. You're going to walk four feet of broken glass. It's on my LinkedIn channel if you want to see me walking it.

I've seen it.

You've seen that? And every night you're going to walk 7-10ft of red hot glass coals. And for graduation you're going to walk 40ft of red hot coals. Wow. So when I found that out. I went into a meltdown. I was a mess that whole week. I felt so sorry for the people that I trained with because I convinced that I was going to end up in the hospital. But with each challenge every day, breaking the arrows, breaking the. I got stronger and stronger. I got more and more feeling empowered. And by the end, by the time we were ready to graduate and do that last walk, one of the people in my class looked at me and he said, how much fire have you walked this week? And I said, well, we've at least watched. Walked 7 to 10ft. We probably walked at least 50ft. And he said, you've already walked over 40ft. This should be your easiest walk now. Go. And I walked. And it was. It was like I felt like I floated over the coals. And I remember at the end, I rang this bell to signify that I had graduated and I had not. Not a mark on my feet. Yeah.

Where. Where did you go for this? Where did. Where. Where does one go to firewalk, Walk on glass, bend arrows and bend rebar.

A shaman in New Hampshire.

You didn't have to go too far.

No, No, I didn't. She's since passed away, unfortunately. She died from COVID this past fall. But there's all kinds of programs through Sundoor. But I knew that I had to get myself out of my own way and challenge my greatest fears in order to take the next step. Step in my life.

And that's how challenge works for me. I'm always pushing myself. I'm always saying, how's that working for you, Lisa? And then I kick myself in the butt and challenge myself all the time. That's how I motivate myself.

So how does that translate to your coaching? Can your clients expect to get a kick in the butt every once in a while? How do you use your why of challenge? And then you mentioned you tend to attract people with your why. So you're working with fellow challengers.

If. No, I would never do that to someone who doesn't challenge. I will push people out of their comfort zone only if they want to. Some people you have to really go slow, and there's some people where you can really go hard and fast. So it's really up to the individual. But I would never put someone in a situation where they're out of their comfort zone too much. You know, change requires going out of your comfort zone, and it can be scary. And that's why I give tools to help remove the fear, because it's always the fear of Your challenge that's far worse than the actual doing of whatever you need to do. Right. You know, it's always the fear of the unknown and things like that that scare us. Once we're neutral about it, then we can go into with our conscious mind and really think about it and make conscious decisions that are really in our best interest without getting emotional.

Yeah.

I want to finish because I want to hear what's next for you and Kevin. You guys are always doing some incredibly creative stuff. And I see you on LinkedIn and I see your post, I see Kevin. I love the design of your background. Background right now. It's really cool because it's talking about awaken the why within challenge. What's next for you guys?

We are actually working with a fellow, Rick Messing. He's with the Kotel Business Group. And it's all about ethics in business. And we're putting together a program because we ask people all the time, how many of you believe that there should be more ethics in business? And everyone raises their hand. Yeah. But then you ask people.

What does that look like? What is ethics in business? And what we really comes down to is kindness, treating people the way they wish to be treated. And as you like to say, your platinum rule is treating the people the way they wish to be treated. And so we're going to be integrating the why into that program along with other techniques to really help change culture and helping people have a better experience at work.

I love that. So what's the biggest breakthrough you've seen this week with the clients you're working with in the challenge?

I actually had one with the client. He was talking to me about his wife because his wife is right way and so she's very process driven. And he has simplify and clarify. So he's just like, get it done. I don't care how you do it, just get it done and make it easy. So she was having trouble because their communication was. They were having difficulty because he didn't want to listen to the process.

Right.

Like that's not necessary. And I told him, if you sat. If you sit and listen to her process, your. Your relationship will become much more intimate.

You know how to get to a guy's motivation.

Because she's going to feel heard, she's going to feel valued because you heard her process. And I understand that it's too many words. But when you have a partnership, and we talk about this too, there's the five languages of appreciation or the five love languages. When you can communicate using that and knowing Someone's why it changes the dynamic in your relationships.

It.

And at work and at home and with your kids. Because if you are a right way parent and you have a child that is challenged, there's a whole load of stuff there, of triggers.

There's a lot of work.

There's a lot of work there. But when you understand their motivations and their why, you can better learn to communicate with each other instead of triggering each other.

Love that and that. It's all about understanding. Right? I. I call it when you know someone's why you can have. You can have the grace to understand them. Right. You know where they're coming from. It's not that they. They don't like you. It's not that they don't like your rules and everything that you do. It's just the way they're wired. They want to find a better way. Right? So, you know, Aiden says so true. The knowing the yos of my significant other has saved our relationship many times. And you're talking about that with a spouse and, and, and a client and his spouse and how you helped him understand that a little bit better. I can't wait to hear the. The success story that, that'll come out of that. And we, we are going to see each other in September. I think we're gonna, we're gonna talk Kevin out of getting off the plane, off a boat and flying to Albuquerque because we're gonna have our conference in September and we're gonna have all our Y institute coaches hopefully here. We're making those arrangements right now. Lisa, what's. What's the last word you want to say today?

I just want to say how grateful I am for the Y Institute. It was a game changer for me. And I hope if any of you who are listening, who are coaches, it's one of the greatest gifts you can give your clients as well as yourself. And I use it every day. I think about it every day. It helps me motivate. It helps me better understand why I make the decisions I make and helps me own them. I can stand taller it now. And I just, I just love you guys. I love your organization and I just want to say thank you again for letting me be part of this.

Thank you so much, Lisa, that I don't think I can say anything better to close the show other than that's a wrap. Thank you and we will talk to you soon. Lisa, have a great rest of the week and good luck with the awaken the why within challenge.

Thank you.