[Alexandra Terrey] ​​​​​​​Change your state change your life

Welcome to Exit the Matrix Stories of Success with your host Jane Slack-Smith, where we celebrate the incredible journeys of individuals who've transcended their limitations and achieved extraordinary success.

Hello and welcome to Exit the Matrix Stories of Success podcast. I am so excited to have you here and to inspire you to look for the sliding door moments in your own life so that you too can actually take action and create the life that you want. And today I have a very special guest here with me, Alex Terry. Now Alex is a seasoned transformational consultant. She's a facilitator. She's a thought leader in the realms of conscious leadership and cultural change. Now she's had nearly two decades of entrepreneurial leadership experience in Europe, The Bahamas, Thailand, and of course Australia. Alex's journey is a tapestry of cultural insights and personal growth. Now, her work is deeply rooted in the belief that genuine success emerges from emotional intelligence and conscious self-awareness. And of course, we all need a lot of that, right? So as the founder of The Mentoring Effect, Alex equips individuals and leaders with the tools to unlock their potential. By mastering their inner state and behaviors. And her mission is to empower leaders to foster growth, creativity, and impactful change within their teams, organizations, family, community, and of course in themselves. Now, Alex's approach is supported by her extensive background in professional coaching, behavioral profiling, and burnout prevention. So we have an incredibly talented guest here today, but it wasn't always the case. And Alex, welcome.

Thank you so much, Jane. Thank you so much for having me. And wow, what an introduction. So now I will need to play high, right?

No pressure. Well, let's just put all of that aside for the moment because, you know, what I'd love to share with the audience, although, you know, you are, you know, at the peak of your experience professionally and the people that you work with now, it wasn't always the case. And you had your own sliding door moment. So I'd love to just go back to younger Alex and for you to share with us that sliding door moment for you.

Thank you so much. That's such a great question, and usually people don't ask that, right? Where or how that all started. So I think that was actually something I was thinking about a lot. So, so when actually I took myself on the journey of more discovery and being so brave, or being, you know, uh, full of excitement about new adventures, and, and I realized that I was actually playing small for for a long time, but I was quite a happy person, you know, like you have all this like amazing stuff, amazing life, great job. But I didn't have really any mentor or someone that will tell me, you know, that is actually your decision what you will do in your life. So it was kind of playing the, you know, social rules and playing what is expected from you, what your parents expecting. And one day I was actually reading— this book changed my life, like it's Chris Guillebeau, it's probably not like very—

The Art of Non-Conformity. Set the rules you want.

This was the— yeah, that was my first actually like a personal development book, I believe. So I read it, and in the book there are like small, um, like quotes. And, and I always like, when I was reading that, I said, what does he mean? And there was everything about you, it's your responsibility, it's you, you can do everything in your life, you can do whatever you want, you are not, you know, bounded by, by, uh, boundaries, borders, or people, or language. And all these things I was just reading, reading. I said, oh my God, it's like he's writing about me. Like, I feel so— I guess that I didn't fit or fit in, you know. I felt like I'm outside of that whole community and being with kids. And, and I love my friends, but there was something missing. And he just opened up my, my doors into like, yes, let's do something. Let's do something different. Let's do actually whatever I want to do. So that's when I started to travel and opening up businesses and started to go into this journey of adventure, I guess, and changes.

Yeah.

So, so that definitely was something that started the journey, but there were different sliding doors. They were just like hitting me so hard. So I would probably talk about that one.

It's like you're in one of those, like, progressive doors going around. Yeah, I guess. You know what's really lovely about that? Because sometimes when I have guests on, on this podcast, you know, they've had a you know, a significant event, maybe the death of someone, a health challenge, someone fell off a mountain. Like, you know, we're talking like big changes, which, you know, it's almost like the universe had to slap them around the face.

Oh, that's what I love about—

yeah, it's like you've missed all the cues. Hello. What I love about your, um, your observation there is that you were, you were just fitting in the mold. But when you feel that you don't fit in, it becomes even more constricting, right?

Yeah.

And it, it gets to the point where you're not just unsettled, it's like there's something bubbling up. And just picking up a book and reading a book and going, wait a second, I don't have to fit into these expectations of society, parents career or whatever, that must have been really liberating for you. And I imagine, you know, all of these adventures that you had, this life of adventure you changed to, and this travel and all these experiences, was there, you know, some type of objections or restraints or constraints that you faced?

Yeah, I think from perspective of going on the journey, I felt empowered and I felt, you know, like I can do everything. Like I felt like I can literally just take the mountain and put it on the other side of the world, right? Like it was, it was really strong. Power. But when you're talking about that hit, you know, we all have that hit, like something happens in our life and we hit the floor. And I hit the floor when I was moving to Australia. It was, yeah, after, you know, living in these high emotions and excitement and being so powerful, I was slapped, I was put down, like I felt like, you know, I'm hitting the ground. So I think that time I realized that, aha, okay, so maybe I didn't learn much from that journey of being high, you know, and happy and really powerful. Maybe I wasn't that powerful that I thought. So I think that was the major thing when I was down. I realized I didn't learn during the journey how to deal with the low emotions, how to deal with trauma, how to deal with bad things that can happen in life, you know, how to deal with pain, how to deal with emotional addictions, you know, how to deal with negative emotions. And when I was on that kind of floor, let's call it floor, when you hit the ground, then you lose all the power, you know, and then you lose everything. When you realize that you're on other side of the doors, that's the hard one. Like, that's when, when everything comes and you realize that, okay, I didn't learn how to deal with this. I didn't learn how to be alone. I didn't learn how to deal with loss. I didn't, like, I didn't learn anything. So it came probably later in my life when I started to really learn about true life and experiences and suffering and sadness and negative emotions. So, so that's when, when probably that other objections started to come in place.

So would you say that, you know, before this kind of awareness that you could choose the life you want, you were, let's just say, you know, unrealized? So you, you're in, you're in a state of just unease. And then you've— what I'm hearing is you went to choose the life you wanted, travel, adventure, fun, sun, you know, having all of these incredible times, but there was a step in between, which was a really an awareness step of how you navigate all the spectrum of emotions and circumstances and challenges. And you kind of had this crashing moment to the, to the floor, as you say, that essentially said, wait a second, I've lived the high, I've lived the kind of sterile life, I don't know how to experience the whole spectrum.

Yeah.

So what I'm What I'm really curious about is, is, you know, those lived experiences of loss and loneliness, you know, often you have to go through those to actually have an awareness of how you would navigate them. But is there a way to, to actually have a self-awareness or a practice that allows you to have a kind of, um, an observation type of, um, view of circumstances as they happen to you?

I think I didn't learn that in that high state when I was, when I felt actually that I have power. It was actually all my ignorance, I believe. You know, when you're in high, it's almost like you think you're more than you are. It was very, it was actually not nice to reflect on my own journey and see that and see, oh my gosh, I was this person. And now that I'm down, who I am. So I was learning how to navigate probably those emotions and dealing with everything from actually bottom. And I know it sounds probably weird because not probably everyone needs to go, you know, through hardship, but I believe that's where we learn a lot. That's when we learn probably more about life than in any other circumstances. Because when I'm looking at my journey of being high, you know, being happy, I didn't learn much and I was really blind. So I was blind to my— to things that can happen, the things that you know, are my flaws and my, you know, things. I think it's all about the personality. I don't think I was a great person, you know. I probably didn't treat people with true heart, and I probably didn't value so much love and gratitude and being real. I was just selfish, probably. That's the way of saying how I lived that life. It was very selfish. It was enjoyable at some point, but it was selfish. So I feel like that suffering later was kind of like, hey, you need to actually go through the suffering first to, to understand.

Now a quick word from our sponsor, Your Success Club. Your Success Club is a group of vibrant abundance seekers. If you subscribe to exitthematrix.io, we are going to drop you into the club room, which has lots of goodies, resources, and a free gift just for subscribing. Now back to the podcast. That's interesting that the highs, we don't get those personal awarenesses during the highs, right? It's the lows. And I think, you know, now when we kind of navigate to where you are, as you know, you're dealing with the leaders, the titans, the, you know, the C-suite people who are, you know, making big decisions on the way that companies are run and often have, you know, tens, hundreds, even thousands of employees. How do you assist them in that? That regulation of the highs and the lows and actually seeing themselves and how they're turning up?

That's a really good question. That's, uh, yeah, without taking people to lows, right, like to take them down, because that's what you don't want to do. It is very interesting, but we all have our ego parts or our dark side, and we all have triggers. So starting to reflect on our personality is very important. Start to bring awareness. Okay, so am I really that good? Is that really who I am? So For example, one client shared that, you know, I always, I'm great. I always wanted to be great father, great boss, and, you know, great person to everyone. I said, but how do you know you're great? And now bringing that awareness of, aha, this is just my opinion. This is just how I perceive it. And it's based on emotions when I was actually 16, 17, 18. And it's not anymore based on emotions that I live now when I'm 58. So, so it's that comparison of how we live our life emotionally and where that emotional evolution happened and where we stopped, basically where we stopped actually evolving in emotions. Sometimes our life is going, right? So we grow the businesses, we're going high, we're making more money, we have more employees, we are leaders, but emotionally we can stay stuck somewhere. So we kind of looking at that, like where the person is, where that subconscious emotional nervous system is stuck and is still driving their decisions. And that's where people get really surprised.

And it's interesting, I was having a chat to my son recently. He's 17, and, uh, we were actually walking the streets of Singapore on holidays, and I was talking about, you know, a friend who just had this great promotion, this great new job. And he said, does it worry you that your friend is more successful than you? And I was like, I'm here celebrating the success, but what what it did prompt was a conversation about, well, what do you think success is? And he had to think about it, and he said, success means that you have more money in your bank account than your friends. And I thought, to your point, you know, he's the 58-year-old man who's looking at a time when he's 17, and he's defined what's great. And here's my son defining success at 17. And I, by having that conversation, I had the opportunity to say, You know, success for people means different things. Sometimes success is being able to take the family off for 10 days to Singapore and actually have quality time. Sometimes success is actually those little moments where you make the perfect omelette and it flips over. You know, success means different things to different people, and it's not how much money you have in your bank account. And the conversations that you have, that kind of spotlight that you shine on people who have these perceptions is, is interesting because sometimes people don't want to see it. Like, how do you deal with that when your clients go, wait a second, you know, I've got this, this, this, this, this, I'm a success, I'm, I'm great, I'm not too sure if I need a leadership, you know, coach, you know, what's conscious leadership mean?

Yeah, I think from, from perspective of being conscious, right? Like, it's, it's when you're looking at a mind and, and, you know, all this stuff, Jane Slack-Smith, so I get I can probably share with you everything and we can have great conversation because we know there is 95% of things or decisions we're making or emotions or beliefs stuck in that subconscious or almost unconscious partially, right? So we actually making decisions on autopilot. So that's that emotional evolution. When you're looking at the psychological emotional evolution, yes, some people still think in their 60s that the success is all about money because emotionally that didn't grow. And I think when you teach people first a little bit of science and psychology around that, they start to understand, so they become a little bit more open. And after that, when you trigger, you know, with the questions like, okay, do you think, uh, the same thing, uh, in your work, or, you know, that you're right, or you, you are, you're successful, does that mean for your neighbor the same thing? You know, does that mean for your wife same thing, or husband? And we started a conversation. I think reframing and seeing, or showing people that their beliefs, they may not be true. All the time. I think that's the major shift when people are like, actually, that's right, it's just true for me right now. So what is— where is that triggered? Where is it coming from? I had always example of lady, you know, being divorced, and 7 years later she still didn't date it, and she still didn't have any, you know, boyfriend, girlfriend. And it's because she believed from that divorce, from the first day when they actually just started to talk about that, that she's not attractive. So, so that was driving her life, right? It was driving her life for 7 years, and that's why she didn't find anyone. The moment that she unlocked that belief, she had the best date and she remarried very fast. So, you know, when you're looking at that, how limiting beliefs can stop us without knowing. So, so I guess that all work we do, probably both of us as well, just to bring people in that knowing and knowing what they don't know in their mind. Yeah, it's— and I think that's, that's that art of really just look at the mind and emotions. What is driving us? What is that shadow? What is the dark side that maybe is not driving us in a helpful or resourceful way?

And it's scary looking at— it can be perceived to be scary looking at the dark side, right? But unless you have the dark and the light contrast, you don't actually have an experience of the whole breadth of humanity, of what the human experience—

absolutely.

You could go through life like you described, constrained. You could go through life with this heightened experience, which is not really having a full heart relationship. You can go through the lows, or you can go through life where you have an awareness that there's peaks and troughs, and it's just how you turn up and your perceptions actually navigate how the reality turns out.

Yeah. And when you said it, right, when you think about— I was high for, you know, a big part of my life when I was younger, and because I didn't experience the real low, like real pain, I couldn't go higher. So I had to be going through really hard shit, like really hard things that happened personally to me. Like, it's part of the life, you know. I can't have kids. It was terrible, you know, 3 years of my life. And I'm thinking, before I was so angry at that, like I was like, you know, this happened to me. And I was like, no, actually this is part of my life. It's part of the experience. And when I learned to deal with it and actually start to create relationships with that shadow and dark side and light side, the highs that I'm experiencing now are so much higher, so much more enjoyable. And, and that's, that's the saying, you can't experience high without, you know, pain, or love, the strongest love and gratitude and unconditional love, without losing something or feeling the loss or feeling that sadness on other side. So I, I think it's true. Yeah, it's, uh, yeah, definitely it's true from my life.

Well, I really appreciate you sharing your sliding door moment. And as I said, what I love about it is it's like a book, right? You pick up a book and I remember visiting a friend. She was working in New Zealand, I was in Australia. And, you know, during the day I picked up this book and I was reading this book in a park in Wellington in New Zealand, and it was Rich Dad Poor Dad. And there was a question there, like the saying that you suggested, which said, do you work for your money or does your money work for you? And I thought it was the stupidest cheapest thing, right? And I was like, of course I work for my money. And then I was sitting there going, wait a second, like, I earn this much a fortnight and then I spend that and a little bit more on the credit card a fortnight. Like, I don't think I've got any money working for me. And it was just that kind of question that I was like, oh, okay, I get it. I am not being a responsible money manager of my future financial security and abundance. And You know, I was 28 and it changed it all. But I speak to people now who are 58, 68, and they're like, you know, I'm still waiting for the, the to win lotto. And they haven't taken that self-responsibility and that awareness. So yeah, I really appreciate that, um, that kind of, it can just be a book.

Yeah. It's, it is experience. Absolutely. It is experience because emotionally and, and from thought perspective, I agree. Like we, We're growing, we're growing all the time with new information, but we need to feel it. So I think that feeling perspective comes into play. And that was my big learning, right? Like what we feel, that's what we attract, how we are emotionally.

So, and it's more, the highs are more authentic and you're sated, like your whole being is sated, right? It's not just a, you know, lived experience. It's one that is actually embodied.

It's— and it's not that, you know, like, wow, I'm high, I'm great, you know, I'm selfish and I'm feeling so good and I love my life, but, you know, whatever, and nobody cares about other people's life. But now it's more settled and you're like, actually, let's make this as a normal in the world, right? Like, let's make people actually feel that highs because that they can feel it. They can feel the love and gratitude and compassion in, in real amazing high frequencies. Or I don't know, I don't want to go to WuWu, right?

I know you like WuWu, but Woo is just wow before it becomes wow as far as I'm concerned. Window of opportunity is the woo. Yeah, no, I love that. Well, look, before we wrap up, Alex, tell us a bizarre something about yourself that most people may not know.

So again, Heinz, a little bit of— yeah, look, it's, uh, when you see— when you're driving the car on the main street and you see someone, uh, on the path dancing like crazy So that may be me, and it's nothing wrong with that person. You don't need to call ambulance or some doctors like, hey, catch this crazy person. So yeah, I love to dance anytime I can, and sometimes it's not probably dancing on the street.

I love it. It's like you're in your own— what do they call that where they have a flash mob? You, you have your own little flash mob. There's no one else there.

I heard it all the time, every time that I'm on the bike.

Okay, well, I'm gonna have to watch for that now. Well, look, thank you so much, Alex, for for sharing your beautiful story with us and the nuances of just those changes of state and awareness from, you know, being static, being elated, being in sorrow, and then just being in that deep happiness of gratitude, appreciation, care, and compassion. So I appreciate that. Now look, Alex actually has very generously offered to share with the audience here a meditation on how to change your state. So this is incredible and, and really aligned to what we've talked about today. So I encourage you to go to www.exitthematrix.io/s for short, /alex, A-L-E-X, and pick up that meditation because I know I'm going to, because just having an awareness of how to change the state and during any circumstance that you're in and just taking that pause and reflection can actually give you a greater perspective of what's happening. So thank you for sharing that, Alex.

Thank you very much for having me.

Well, look guys, that is a wrap for another episode of Exit the Matrix Stories of Success. Now, just before you go, I do encourage you to head over to exitthematrix.io and subscribe so that I can give you a gift, which is the first module of my course, Your Way to Wealth, The Magician's Way. And also, I would love you to leave a review wherever you're listening to this podcast, maybe Apple, Google, or Spotify, because we're going to hack that algorithm and create more people getting inspired by stories of exiting the Matrix so they can bring that to their lives themselves. So until next time, thank you very much for joining us, and here's to your success.

Bye for now. Thank you for listening to Exit the Matrix Stories of Success. Make sure you subscribe to future episodes at www.exitthematrix.io. Until next time, here's to your success.