Exit The Matrix with Me Experiment: Guest: ETM With Me: Susanne Goldstein | The Hollywood Insider...

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.

Oh my goodness, here we are again at Exit the Matrix with me, this live book research experiment. And every single week I sit here thinking Could I get a guest that inspires me and excites me more than the week before? And once again, the perfect person has turned up. I've got Suzanne Goldstein here. Hi Suzanne.

Hello, I'm so happy to be here. When I learned the name of this project, I was like, how is this possible? I haven't met you before since all of my work is about waking people the fuck up and helping them step out of the matrix.

And you know what the funny thing is? I heard someone say on a podcast just this week, Um, sometimes you meet your— you meet— there's, there's a number of humans that are in a soul container, and you meet them, you're like, they're just like me! How did we have the similar experiences? How are we going through the same thing? How are we going talking the same way? And then you meet them, you're like, oh, this is like someone I want to know for life. So when we had a chat last week, I was like, please come and chat. I don't know where this conversation is going to go, but I'm just so excited for it.

Well, and ditto. I feel like you and I need to meet in person and we're going to be BFFs, and I have no idea how many millions of things we're going to do together in this lifetime and probably the next few, but, um, I'm excited for it.

Well, let's just get into context here. So I'm going to give you a little brief. Basically, I wrote a book like 13 years ago. It was pretty solitary, didn't enjoy it, and I definitely had the urge at the end of 2024 that I needed to kind of get some of this learning out and these questions and ideas and And I'd been working and coaching with people for, you know, almost over 10 years, and I was seeing them getting in the way of themselves. And I have a premise that the universe is working in our favor and we're the only ones who get in the way. And, you know, we're in this matrix, be it from cultural background or family or society or religion or school or whatever it is. And in actual fact, the bars in this matrix are of our own making. And if we take back our sovereignty and our agency and we say, I actually just demand a life of abundance. I demand a life aligned to my life. I want to live abundantly in all aspects of my life. What does that look like? And so part of these interviews is just speaking to people who have been on a path of maybe there's an awareness that something's not quite right. They're in it something and then they get to the next stage of going, I'm awakening. And then there's this abundance and this life that they're living that is empowered and has legacy and leaving, you know, impact in the world. When I spoke to you, we met in a completely different forum. We were on a, um, you were a guest speaker in one of the networks that I'm in on speaking, and someone asked, you know, could they have an example or a primer, and, and I was volunteered, and so gratefully, because your background, if we just go back to your kind of beginning, film school, actually there was something before film school, wasn't it? Accounting?

Engineering.

Engineering, that's right, like me, engineering, of course. And so engineering and then film school, and then you became a Hollywood, you know, executive producer, and you were teaching how to tell stories. And of course, we've had this conversation, we've all got these stories playing in our head, and, and you took us through, you know, the, um, the hero's journey. So I just want to come back to that. You had these kind of transformation moments before you moved into coaching, you know, and, and, you know bringing this work to the world. What was that like for you? Was there like a major shift or awakening or moment when you went, ah, it's not engineering, it's film, it's not film, it's coaching? Like, what was that for you?

Hmm. So I'm not going to give you a direct question answer because I don't really have one. I am a person who has followed my whispers my whole life. And sometimes the whispers are very loud, so they're hard to ignore. And then sometimes the whispers are super subtle, and sometimes the whispers are like, you know, somewhere in the middle. But what I have known from a very, very young age is what I was put on here on this planet to do. Um, it came about in a very strange way, and I know you've heard my story about the brook Please share it. Okay, um, so when I was 5 years old, I had these two friends. One was named Kimmy and one was named Kathy. And we grew up in the woods outside of Boston, and literally the woods was our heaven. And this was back in the days where parents would open the front door and say, be back by the time that the street lights come on. And so we would just go run around in the woods. And, and I had this friend named Kimmy, and she had a brook behind her house, which a treat. And so we would go play by the brook. And at this brook— and I'm going to tell the abbreviated version of this story because it can go on— is that it was our heaven. It was our— we're going to be princess and president. It was that kind of brook. And then the winter came and we couldn't play by the brook anymore because there was snow everywhere. And we came back to the brook in the spring and I couldn't really find the brook. And that sounds weird, but I live in a forest and there was lots of pine cones and pine needles and branches and leaves and trees and, and all kinds of stuff that had fallen into this brook. And so I looked at the brook where it had been, and I see this teensy bit of water struggling to get down where it's supposed to go. And to my 5-year-old brain, this is something I really wanted to fix. And so I dragged my friend Kimmy to the brook all the time, uh, for about what felt like forever, but was probably 2 weeks, until every day— you know that spring water that's so cold in your It would make our fingers freezing, but we were clearing out the brook because I felt bad for the water that it could not flow freely. And so I think from a very, very young age, I had a sense of what I was meant to do here, that I was meant to help people free themselves, to flow freely in their lives, to not be obstructed by the leaves and the pine cones and the things and the branches that fall in our path. and that's what the system is. This puts us in a place where we allow things to fall in our way because of the shoulds, the ought-tos, the have-tos, the imprints, the coding that our family and our society put upon us. And so because the universe is kind in its own weird way, um, later that year, uh, another one of my friends, Kathy, who I also played in the woods with, I went to her house one day, and normally I would knock on the big door and come flying out and we go play in the woods. And this one particular day, I knocked on the door and she opened the big thick wooden door but left the screen door shut. And, and she said, I'm not allowed to play with you anymore. I'm like, why? She said, cuz you're a Christ killer. I'm like, what's a Christ killer? And she slammed the door in my face. Now at this time, I didn't know I was Jewish. I didn't know what religion was. I certainly didn't know what a Christ was. And I went running to my mom, "Mom, can anyone play with me?" My mom's like, "What'd you do?" "I don't know, I'm a Christ killer!" Well, it was the beginning of my own emotional torment and journey of being otherized. And as a result of that, I went into life very intentionally, not even knowing it, because I was so wounded early on. And I was always looking for ways to fit in or belong. And I can go deep into how all that happened, but my evolving, my becoming, has always come from the place of knowing what I was put here to do. I was very fortunate. Most Souls don't come here understanding their assignment.

Yeah.

And as a result of that, I've always been following the nudge.

Right.

And noticing what's happening around me. And so, when my parents really encouraged me to go to engineering school, they did everything they could to build the case around it. You know, they sent me to meet with a college advisor who was like, "Do you have a magazine that you've collected forever and you keep them in order?" And I was like, "Of course, I have 17 magazines. Doesn't everybody do that?" And like, "Uh, no." And then he's like, "That tells me that you should become an engineer because you organized your magazines." Oh my gosh. Then he said, do you tell me how you've organized your closet? I was like, oh, well, it goes, you know, sleeveless shirts, short sleeve shirts, long sleeve shirts, turtlenecks, you know, pants, skirts, dresses. And he's like, okay, anything else? I said, yeah, well, within each section, it's by color to the rainbow. And he's like, hmm, I think you should be an engineer. And I flipped out and I was like, my parents paid you to say that. But I didn't know what an organized brain was because I just had one, right?

And so I realized I probably shouldn't have been an engineer quite, quite early because I didn't do any of that. It's like, where are the clothes in the cupboard? I have no idea.

I, I didn't know that other people didn't organize their closets that way. They like had a skirt next to a blouse next. I was like, how do you find anything? So I did go to engineering school, and I'm so grateful about it. I know you and I, Jane, have talked about like if-then statements and how they can really help you solve big issues and challenges in your life. And I'm so glad I went to engineering school. But the whole time I was there, I was taking every arts class I could take, every film class I could take, every, you know, uh, literature or whatever. It was just like I filled my bucket with arts and theater and film and singing and dancing and all the things. And every weekend end, I had an argument with my parents about them saying I could do it as a hobby and me saying I want to do it as part of my life. And so when I graduated, I went in to prove them wrong.

I'll be honest, I have to be honest with you, you have dropped so many things here that I'm writing notes going, okay, so there's 2 hours of conversation just there. We're not even going to move on to anything else. But can I just bring you back to the beginning of the story with Kimmy? Because You know, we talk about, and we started this conversation, Joseph Campbell's, you know, the, the hero's journey. And, um, for those of who are not aware of that, pretty much, you know, someone who, like yourself, I will get you to explain it, but, you know, has— once you see it, you can't unsee it in pretty much every movie that you've ever seen. And what you're talking about is it playing out in your life. You had this winter you know, the winter that changed everything. And I think there's a lot of people who have these, you know, they talk about the dark night of the soul, or, you know, this major thing that there's this threshold and they get to choose what happens. They get to choose that the brook is, is bogged down and we can't do anything, or let's clear the brook. And for that, for you to then move on to this also experience where your best friend put you into a box because their parents are telling them a story, and then you're taking that story and that's changed your life. This, this idea of, you know, the stories that we tell ourselves and the choices that we have, I just want to expand on that because, you know, I mean, you obviously, if we fast forward, you've coached with a lot of people. Do you find that this whole, um, navigation of you know, the hero's journey, is something that people are living out unconsciously?

No, I, I think that most— well, wait, actually let me answer that differently. Unconsciously, yes, but I don't know if everybody's given the opportunity to live a hero's journey and be the hero of their own story because they've decided that they're a background singer, or they've decided that they're an extra on the movie. They haven't centered their story around themselves. And that's because, especially for women who are constantly being shown models of take care of everybody else first, I think most women especially, and people in general, are blinded to the infinite possibilities that exist when you decide that you are the writer, producer, and director, and main lead actor in your own story. I was lucky because my story has been challenged so many times that I've literally— by very significant things— that I have had to literally face up against brick walls that made me look at the story, that gave me the opportunity to look at the story and to decide in my own hero's journey every time, am I going to take that fork this way or fork that way? Which is the main component at the end of the first act in the hero's journey is the hero is faced with a big decision. Yeah, and most people don't take the moment to make that choice, to make that decision. They go with what they consider to be fate. The famous Carl Jung quote, right? And I'm gonna probably mash it up, but it's like, until we make the unconscious conscious, we will live that life and we'll call it fate.

So this is, um, interesting because you've talked about whispers a few times, and it is that, that moment of that whispers, you know, the, the— what do they call the angel feather? Or the, you know, before you get the slap in the face. Like, sometimes people don't get the slap in the face, these big dark moments of the soul, these great crisis points. But there's a lot of these little whispers that are saying, you know, look at the other path, maybe talk to this person, take this stream. Do you— did you find it that your young age, having gone through that type of experience, that you were more open to listening to intuition, whispers, divine spark, whatever it is, that others miss?

You know, I can only take from that period of my life people who I knew, which was my family. And, you know, I eventually started making more friends because Kimmy moved away, and Kathy, her family eventually moved away because my parents were like, we're Jewish and we're staying here. Um, Yeah, so, um, how do I want to address that?

Because these whispers can be ignored, right? But you, from a young age, actually took a bit of ownership of— I'm going to clear the brook, I'm going to address why does my friend not like me, and how am I going to turn up like that. And, you know, I think your story goes on where you found other outcasts at school where you then identified as the others and then had a whole different path of, you know, opportunity and knowledge and experiences. But, you know, that—

I think that opens your mind, right? Because so I grew up in this very tony town. We were not the wealthiest family in a very tony town. My parents were very much about get the right real estate, even if the house is this big. And that's how we grew up. And, you know, I watched my parents, who I love very much, work very hard to make life better for their kids because my dad was, you know, first-generation American, and he really wanted us to be able to excel. And for his mind, excelling was educational perfection and athletic prowess, and that was kind of the curriculum that I was brought up in. And so I was living outside the curriculum. My curriculum became different so early on because I saw how other people lived. I had playdates in the inner city of Boston with Black kids because they were— they felt more like me than the kids in my own town who I always felt so separate from. And so my eyes and my purview on life were so much broader than even my siblings. They both went to college in Boston. They both went to grad school in Boston. I went away for school, and I went away to live in different countries and really just fill my cup with different ways of seeing the world and also tuning into different whispers, right? Sometimes you get a whisper of, "Hey, that's not safe over there." Yeah, sometimes you miss that whisper and you get an opportunity to learn a big lesson about safety. It just depends how tuned in you are. And so I would say that not a lot of people at a young age have an opportunity to start seeing the world differently. So my wake-up really started at age 5, and then it paused for many years as I was trying to play the Matrix game. I became an outstanding athlete, I became a really spectacular academic, uh, because the pressure within my household to do so and to get love from that was all I knew.

So I had—

I shut down the whispers for a long time, and what that ended up causing for me in the long run was a lot of trauma and a lot of significant chronic post-traumatic stress disorder.

Goodness. You know, it's interesting just talking about that awareness.

I—

and, and where you were kind of shocked that you were other, different to other people. And I remember an experience I had. I had won a Winston Churchill Fellowship to study overseas this new explosive blasting practice to rehabilitate mines. And they brought all the award winners together for a lunch. And I was sitting next to this guy, and he was the lead in the Australian Ballet. And he was really quiet. And we were all talking about, you know, what our studies were going to be. And I said, what's happening for you? What's coming up for you? What's— dude, you know, what's going on? You're a performer. Chat. And he said, I, from a very young age, have been in ballet school. And I eat and I sleep and I exercise and I travel with them. I have Christmas with them. I have every event with them. I sleep with them. Like, this is my life. And we get on stage and the lights are in our eyes and we never see the people out there. And this is the first time I've realized that there's people who are not like me. Wow. And he said, I just, I just am so in my life. I'm just shocked. There's someone here who's a China painter. There's a policeman here doing, you know, AI fraud analysis. There's, you know, there's people studying these things. I, you're the public. Behind the spotlight. I never see you. And, and that for me was just staggering because I— it then made me wonder, what am I not seeing because I'm just living in what the world is that I've got? And like you saying, you travel and you have these experiences that kind of awaken or give you insights into other, other cultures and ways of thinking. I think that And you know, for a lot of people, it is the mundane, it is the minutiae of life. You're just getting on with it. You're dealing with the situation, the kids, the school, the career, whatever. And a lot of people don't even, they close themselves off to that whispering. But when they travel or when they go somewhere else, there's almost like that opportunity to take a break from life and be aware. But I think we've gone through so many of these cycles of going on the holiday to Europe or whatever it is we even miss that. It's like, it's a nice, a nice Italian dinner, isn't that great? Rather than hanging out with the shepherds in the hills singing Sound of Music or whatever that is. But it's interesting hearing you say that because, you know, when we look at that formative years of, you know, that 0 to 7 where we're kind of hypnotic and we're taking these messages in, for you to receive that message but then suspend it for what we all do— love, belonging, safety, security— you know, is, is almost diabolical. So I can understand that there was this almost post-traumatic stress because you'd had the experience of the other and then you experienced what you have to do to fit in. That makes sense.

You know, I love that you use travel as an example. And let me just add a piece to it that I think is so important. There are so many ways to travel. I know people who only travel to places that will take American dollars. Mm, wow. So they'll go to Kenya where they'll take American dollars, or they'll go to Grand Cayman where they take American dollars, or they'll go to wherever. But the idea of going someplace where they don't have familiarity with the price of things, needing to convert or hold or carry dollars that to them look like funny money, because all our money in America is all green, it's all the same size. It's so horrible for blind people and people who, you know, have vision issues, but that's how it is. And so there are people who literally only want to travel to places where you can use American dollars. There are people who, they go to a country and they do all of touristy things, but they never meet a local.

Yeah.

And if you're anything like me, Jane, and I think you are, I spend all my time when I travel with locals, because that's where the— that's where the yumminess of a culture is. But people are not interested in culture. Is a thing that pe— like your guy who's the ballet guy, like culture is something you see on a stage. Right? Culture. Oh good, I'll go to Australia. I've been to Australia and I made the mistake of going to one of those Aboriginal parks because I was like, oh, I need to learn about Aboriginal culture. And oh my God, I felt like I was being so horrible in visiting a zoo of Aboriginal people. It was the most horrible experience, but I didn't know better at the time. I didn't know how to get to know Māori people and Aboriginal people. Right, we try to do the best we can, but our eyes are closed, our blinds are shuttered to so many things.

So, so you moved into film, right? You're in Hollywood, you're in film, you're given almost a framework of how to tell a story. Did that go against you? Like, did you feel tension on there, or did you feel that you had artistic opportunity to tell a different story, or, or bring things to life that, um, could awaken people.

So I entered the film business, um, with the intention of becoming a Steven Spielberg type of filmmaker. I wanted to make art. I wanted to make projects that were going to move hearts and minds and change how people see the world. Turns out most people in Hollywood have no interest in that. They want to make blockbusters that are going to make a lot of money. And you can see that right now in 2025 where where, you know, Mission: Impossible 8 just came out, and it was fantastic, by the way. Um, but, but, you know, people are willing to invest in big tentpole movies like that because there's pretty much a guaranteed audience. You don't have to create brand recognition, it's already there. Um, I went there to do different things, and I ended up partnering with a writer-director from a very young age. I was 24, um, and I was smart and, as he called me, overachiever, which I did not know, by the way. He told me that when I was 24, and I did not know until I was 28 that he was trying to insult me. Oh, because I was brought up that overachieving is exactly what you want to do.

It's like, okay, thank you for the compliment.

Yeah, exactly. That's what I thought he was, and it turns out he was just cutting me, right? I had no idea. Culture in California is very different than culture in the East Coast of the US, and I came from cutthroat culture. It's like, "Be the best." And so when he actually generously started teaching me story structure, what I felt was it gave me a scaffolding to be as creative as I wanted to be. Sometimes It's easier to be creative within some kind of scaffolding. Sometimes it's easier to grow within some kind of scaffolding. It's why I love the coaching container so much, because I can provide for my clients some scaffolding for what they're working through.

Yeah.

And allow them to get the support they need as they're working through it. But in a coaching container, my job is not to give the answers. My job is to demonstrate what the answer could look like and then help my client figure out how to get there. Because if I just tell them, it doesn't work.

Well, I— what I love about what you're saying there is that framework gives some predictability because you know the path, you know the journey, and it can vary within the boundaries. But they're not boundaries that are matrix-defined. They're boundaries of success orientation that can guide people gently and bring them back on the path, because I think it's really important that, that what you're saying is around the fact that even the framework of you are acting artistically with the story structure gives you some confidence and clarity of the predictability of the end result.

Yeah, and I remember I hosted this thing when I was young. I used to run a theater company in LA. and we pulled together a bunch of alumni from my college to have a conversation about creativity in the, in the entertainment business. And one of the young people in the audience asked a well-known TV writer and producer how they felt about working with a studio, because a lot of people think of the studio system as the evil empire. Right, all the people who are trying to restrict their budgets and restrict their creativity and blah blah. And this gentleman who is incredibly successful says to the young man in the audience, I love when they give me constraints. Like, if they want me to do a TV show about two people who are trapped in a snowstorm in New Hampshire and that's the constraint, I get to make that into anything I want. Whereas if they gave me nothing, I don't know what they're looking for, so I'm guessing in the dark and hoping it's going to appeal to them. Yeah, I don't know if you guys have ever done any like visual design work or decorating your home, but there are people who can see it before, and there are people who need to see it to understand what it's going to look like. So do you like a green couch? Well, in the abstract I do. Do you like a green couch in your house? I can't even see it, right? Whereas I I can not only see the green couch, I know what shape it is, I know, et cetera. I can be as creative as I want if I can see within the constraints.

Oh gosh, I love that. And you know what's really resonating with me there is that when you have a limit, like I'm thinking, I think it was the publisher of Dr. Seuss said to him, I need you to write a book. Can you do it in 35 words? Most famous book is that there's 35 words, you know. And it was like, it's almost like a, you know, challenge on, but I know what we're working towards. Because I think that end result and that vision of what you want is so important. Which brings me to the work that you're doing now, like Energy OS. You know, you knew at the age of 5 that you were here to unblock people. You were here specifically, you know, for working with women and very brave men. But that you're here to help people remove the debris. So when you're doing that, and I'd love to hear a bit more about Energy OS, but when you're doing that and you're creating, you know, these boundaries for them to operate in, how do you navigate those that are like, you know, I think I've been playing by the rules, I'm kind of not getting what I want, I want this life of abundance and opportunity, like like, how do you awaken them to the whispers? How do you awaken them to the energy in themselves? Like, what's that look like? And is it— can everyone do it?

I guess I, I think so. The answer is I think so. I have not worked with everybody, um, but I have had a lot of success waking people up, which is not a simple job, and not everybody's ready for it. Not everybody wants it. Some people, you know, they they see it and they're like, that scares me too much. They're not my preferred client. But if you wouldn't mind, before we go into Engineered US, can I double-click on something you said before? And if we don't have time, that's okay too.

I have plenty of time.

Perfect. So I want to give an example for everybody to understand what it means to be creative within constraints because there's an example out there that I think all of us or many of us will recognize. There's a woman named Sara Bareilles who's an incredibly talented singer-songwriter, and she wrote the musical Waitress, and she's had many pop albums, and she's just incredible. And her, her label came to her for her sophomore album and said, we want you to write a love song. She wasn't in love at the time, and she had no desire to write a love song, so she wrote a love song called Love Song, and the words are, I'm not gonna write you a love song because you asked for it, right? Right? And so it doesn't mean she had to write a love song about being in love or falling in love or the damage of love or the pain of love or the joy of love. She wrote a "I'm not gonna write you a love song" because she— that was the constraint. And so she created something magical.

Hello, just a quick message. I hope you're enjoying this podcast bonus session. Now, if you have heard this interview, then you're probably sitting in there going, what is this all about? Well, this is all about my Exit the Matrix experiment. Now, I decided to write a book because I'm really interested in how do we go from the existence that we have now to exiting the matrix and living with intention from our hearts, following our heart's desires but also creating abundance in all areas of our lives. And hence, whilst I've been researching this book, I thought, this is a really solitary journey. I want people to come on this journey with me. And hence, I've got this very special group. Now, come and join me. The first month for founders is free. And if you decide to stay, fantastic. So what I'm doing is I'm interviewing incredible people. I'm getting insights about what's this awakening that people are getting, you know, what's what is the exit the matrix kind of sliding door moment for them? Now, I've obviously run this podcast for over a year now, and I have more than 30 stories, but I'm also interested in those people who are in this transformational space who are actually not just awakening themselves and they're awakening others. What is the mechanism? As Bashar talks about it, it's the permission slip. Are they going through astrology or meditation or yoga or breathwork? Are they just going within and getting a sense of what's really going on? So that's what all the Exit the Matrix experience is about. I'm going to let you get back to the interview, but if you want to join me, go to exitthematrix.today/etmwithme, which stands for Exit the Matrix with Me. So that's exitthematrix.today/etmwithme.

Sign up.

I'd love for you to come along. I'm creating courses. There's currently courses in there around 4D Gratitude. There's more courses to come. I'm creating custom GPTs on how you can exit the matrix and helping you uncover what lies beneath your subconscious and holding you back. And also other custom GPTs that I'm sure you're going to love. And most of the speakers are actually really motivating me. So I'm creating courses, I'm creating ebooks, I'm creating experiments you can try. I'm creating tools that you can use and I'm also writing a book. So at some stage I'll get to writing the book. At this moment, it's just all about the research. And I hope you choose to join me because I'm really excited about this experiment. So I'll get back to the interview now. Enjoy yourself. And as always, here's to your success.

Within the constraints. So if we can start seeing constraints as opportunities to unbuckle the seatbelt as opportunities to actually take the step and jump out of the airplane. Like, that's— I get goosies just thinking about that. And I think anyone can access that.

I, you know, what's interesting, it brings me back to when my book publisher approached me, you know, back in 2011 and said, uh, we really want you to write a, a book about property investing, renovation, et cetera. And I was like, oh, I don't, you know, I'm not really a writer or an engineer. I can't I can't spell, you know, grammar's not my thing. And they said, no, no, but you're teaching this stuff, you've got these, like, you put it into a book. And I was like, oh, okay. So I've signed the contract, I've got a nice advance, it's all lovely. And they said, but by the way, you have to have renovation in the title. And I said, why do I have to have renovation in the title? And they said, oh, the biggest bookseller in Australia has a gap at the moment in their shelves and they've got nothing on renovation. So you have to write a book on renovation. I'm like, no, I talk about strategic research and how to understand. And they're like, well, we need renovation in the title. And I had that opportunity of kind of like being the, you know, the holy rebel or accepting, oh, I got a book deal. I can actually manipulate this. And what created from it was, you know, a beautiful framework of the Trident Strategy, which included renovation. but I got to tell the story that I wanted as well. So hearing you say that actually prompts me to think, ah, yeah, you know, you can have the choice of seeing the matrix, seeing the boundaries, seeing the constraints, and choosing to work within them gently. That kind of complies, but gives you the opportunity for your own self-expression.

And that ultimately, Jane, honestly, is what the Energy US system is all about. Out. Because let me just give you a little bit about how it works, because I think if I explain how it works, then people will understand it better. So 95% of our behaviors, our daily behaviors— reaching for your bottle of water, turning the keys on in your car, whatever— 95% of our behavior is dictated by our unconscious. We're not even aware we're doing it. When's the last time you've thought about brushing your teeth? 5% comes from our conscious mind. I'm choosing this, I'm intentional about that, I'm listening and I'm responding, I'm not reacting, right? Well, it turns out there's a part of our consciousness that most people don't talk about, and I always like to pretend it's right here in the forehead. I call it— it's called the preconscious mind. Yep, right here. And if I said to you, Jane, what's your phone number?

You'd say, blah, blah, blah, right?

Because you know your phone number. It's stored in your preconscious mind for easy access. If I said to you, what's your passport number? You'd probably say to me, Suzanne, I need to go find my passport wherever the heck I put it, and then I'll get you the number, right? Because we didn't bother. We don't use our passports enough that we would bother to take up space in our preconscious mind. So we just expunge that information after we've used it if we're traveling.

Yep.

So what if I could help you install codes, imprints, tools, frameworks, teachings into this part of your preconscious that could help you navigate various different types of situations so that you could make the unseen seen, so you can make your unconscious conscious? That's what we're trying to do in Jung's quote, make the unconscious conscious. So if suddenly I am aware of how I'm doing something or why I'm doing something or my motivation, or even the simplest one, the emotion behind what I'm doing— most people even miss that one.

Yeah.

So if we can start to understand that and we start to see that there are helpful codes in our life and then there are codes that really belong in our history. Like, I love that my parents taught me to work hard, but I don't love that they pushed me for perfection.

Yeah.

To this very day, I always say the only perfection is progress, and I judge myself or evaluate myself based on who I was yesterday and who I'm managing to be today.

That's it.

Because if I'm constantly judging and evaluating myself against other things like other people or who I used to be or who I wish I were, I am not being present. And therefore I'm striving for perfection and I'm not living this life, which means I can't hear the whispers. Whispers are the present moment.

You know, it's interesting. I ran a masterclass yesterday for my coaching clients called On Time. And I talked about the fact that you can't be aware or create anything that you want from the past or the future. You have to be in the present to hear the little whispers from the universe.

You said that yesterday. Yeah.

And so the fact that you say that, I'm like, tick, I'm glad we got that right. But it's interesting, isn't it? Because, you know, when I think of, you know, Dr. James Doty, the neuroscience neuroscience scientist, he talks about intention and having emotion to your intention so that almost when you have to make a decision and even in the fight, flight, freeze, fawn, or faint period, you have to go to a hierarchy of stories really quickly. And what makes sense to me what you're saying is we've got these things embedded through emotion or that we've anchored in our prefrontal cortex. It's the go-to. It's like, how do I react in this situation? Or, or I'm hearing a whisper, am I going to be aware of it? If we've got this presence in the present of being conscious of this, it activates without us even knowing. I guess we get to the unconscious activation of these preconscious thoughts and codes. Is that right?

Yeah, I mean, so I have one of the codes I teach is called the Vestibule of Now. So this is very present for you. Because you were talking about it yesterday. And in the vestibule of now— and it's a visualization plus teaching plus framework, it's pretty powerful— but basically the idea is this: the vestibule of now is— and I encourage if your audience members who are listening to this are not driving, take a second, close your eyes for a minute, and take a couple of deep breaths on your own time. And as you do that, I want you to just come into this present moment, tune into my and allow yourself to, for a moment, just give yourself permission for a moment to be fully present with me. If a thought comes in, it's just like a puffy cloud. Let it blow by. Don't let it interrupt your ability to tune into me. So in this moment, in this present moment, there is nothing else but my voice. Now I want you to imagine that you're sitting in a room and it's circular and it's white, and you are in the coziest chair on the planet with a cozy blanket on top of you. There's a skylight with sun coming in. It is the perfect temperature in the room, and you are happy. And whether my voice is there in that present moment or not doesn't matter. This is presence, just being there. But here's the challenge: Imagine to your left is the hallway of your past, and in that hallway you notice when you stand up from your chair that the pictures on the wall are literally photographs that you took on your phone yesterday. And then you walk a little farther down the hall and it's photographs from a week ago. Everything's framed, it looks beautiful. And as you're walking down the hallway, this is the hallway of your past, and every single thing that's ever happened to you, for you, against you, by you, to someone, to you. Everything about it is in these photographs, these snapshots on the wall. The moment that someone teased you, the moment that you got a divorce, the moment that you got married, the moment you had your first child, the moment someone hurt you— every single one of these moments exist in this hallway. And for some people, this is very traumatic to look at, and some people it's very joyful, and everywhere in between. But one truth is here, which is at the end of the hallway. There is a door, and there is laughter and light coming out of that door, and you walk up to it, and you notice it's the day that you were born. And in this day, there is no coding, there are no imprints, there's no shoulds, there's no Suzanne, go to engineering school. There is nothing like that. People are just happy that you decided to come Earthside. To be present, and they're celebrating. And I call that state of being me. It is pure and it is untouched. Now, you have some ancestral coding, we can talk about that another day. We're not going there right now. As you then grow up, so now you're taught— first you're crawling, then you're toddling, and then you start walking up the hallway of your past towards your present, and you're noticing all these pictures on the wall. For instance, one of mine was me winning a race. Race swimming, uh, you know, another one of mine was getting into an Ivy League college. These were things that had been programmed for me that I was supposed to do, and if I didn't, I wasn't living the path that I was told was important for me. And I noticed all those things. And so as I walk down that hallway towards my present and I notice all of the— let's call them codes and imprints What kind of people are good versus not good? Who should you be afraid of versus not afraid of? What do people tell you matters? Who deserves your judgment? How should you judge yourself or think about yourself? Or is it terrible that you want to practice self-care? All of those codes that we learned from our moms, our dads, our school teachers, our society, the shoulds, the coulds, the ought tos, the would-haves, all of that stuff exists in this hallway. I call that state of being myself. You become myself by walking up the hallway from your birth to this moment. Mhm. But before you step into the vestibule of now, you, Jane, and every one of your listeners gets to choose which of these imprints and codes you want to leave in the hallway of the past. Mhm. And which of those imprints and codes still serve you to this day, and you want them in your life. They're helpful. I love that my parents encouraged me to have a high drive, but not perfection, like I said earlier. So as you decide that you're about to step into the vestibule of now, you're choosing which codes to leave behind, which ones to take with you, and I call this new state of being I. Now we've just developed a relationship with me, myself, and I. Me, uncoded. Myself, full of codes. I, freed of the codes that don't serve me. And here's how it really plays out beautifully, is in the vestibule of now, anytime a thought, a story, or a code from your past comes into your present, I want you to do what I call the Beyoncé technique. That's another one of my codes, because your hallway to the past is your left. And so you can say, to the left, to the left, and you can ask that thought to leave your present moment. And the last piece of this that I'll just add is that in the vestibule of now, if that room is like like a garage space and it's got junk everywhere, there is no room for stuff from the hallway of the future, which is to your right, to actually make its way into the present. We need to keep it clear and open so we can manifest from the future into the now. That's a code.

I feel imprinted.

And now you get to go play with that code. So that's one of the codes that I teach as part of the Energy Operating System is like, okay, if I understand presence, now I can start working on my emotional intelligence. If I understand presence, I can now under— work on my energetics. If I understand presence, I can work on my manifestation. I can work on how I get along with people. But if I'm never present Who are they dealing with?

Yeah, that's, that's so profound. And you know, it leads me to, to wonder something else I've been exploring, which is this concept of I am, I am connected to source, God, universe, essence, and the Tao Te Ching. And I keep talking to people and they're bringing, bringing a lot of they may be atheist or they may not believe in religion, but this God consciousness and this I am, you know, the, the essence— is that something that, that you could talk to, or is something that you have some thoughts around?

Yes. Um, there's no mistaking why I called it Me, Myself and I. Yeah, I've said a lot of the Tao, and when in the Tao, once you clear yourself of all of the coding, um, what happens is the answer to the question, who are you, becomes I Am, right? So when people say they're connecting to this I Am consciousness, what they mean, if they're in their spiritual alignment about it, is that I am connecting myself to the part of me that doesn't need you to know that I'm an executive coach, doesn't need you to know that I'm a storyteller or a speaker, doesn't need you to know that I have 75+ Energy OS codes. I don't need anything. In fact, when you understand I AM Consciousness, you get to this place of mastery where you can say what you think of me has nothing to do with what I think of me. Me. And that's not a harsh judgment about somebody else, it's actually just a present moment about me. It's like, you might think I'm full of crap, or you might think that I'm hard to understand, or you might think that my hair looks silly. Whatever the case is, what you think of me has nothing to do with what I think of me, because I am. I just am.

Yeah, it's funny, I had this conversation with my mom who's deeply spiritual and Catholic, and she was like reading Eckhart Tolle in the '70s You know, she was— she meditates every day. And I was saying to her how I've been exploring this concept of I am God, I am God consciousness. And she said, are you telling people you're God? I'm like, no, I'm not telling people I'm God so they worship me. I'm saying you're God and I'm God and we're all gods within. And she was like, Jane, that's heresy. Like, you know, you could be smited down. And like, the old Catholic guilt came up and I was like, And it was, it was interesting hearing it from her saying that, because for someone who is quite lib— as she is, you know, quite open, and I am— all of a sudden the structure of, oh my God, you're going to be smited because you think you're God came up. And, and what, what really I had to sit with then is going, no, I am. I believe I am. I have the self-referential opportunity to step into life how I want to be. And she said, you know, I think people will probably find a great opposition to working with you or coaching with you because of this. I said, Mom, if they do it, they're not my people. I'm okay with that. That's how they are. And it was kind of liberating, right, to go, you don't have to be everything to everyone. And when you stop looking to others and you have that identity of, well, this is who I am, kind suck it if you don't like it, then, um, there is power in that, claiming that for yourself. And I imagine that's what you see with your clients.

For sure. The Catholic Church is one of the most coded, imprint-filled places. I mean, the whole world just watched as we got a new pope, right? It was as if that pope was for all of us, which, thank goodness, I think he is gonna be for all of us. But I mean, It, it fascinated the world because there's this system and this structure that exists, and the people who grew up in the Catholic faith, no fault of their own, there's a pageantry to Catholicism. There is a, a separation of power in Catholicism. In fact, until Vatican II, which is when I was called a Christ killer, it was pre-Vatican II. It was Vatican II that decided that that, um, church should be done in local language, not in Latin. And that was also the time when it was announced that the Jews did not kill Christ, that Jesus was actually a Jew and he was killed by the Romans. But until these times, what the codes are that are dropped in from the top and then brought through all of the bishops to all of the— I don't know Catholic hierarchy very well, but down into the priests, um, and it gets to the congregants, and that's what you're told to believe. Hence why this family decided to tell their kid that they couldn't play with me anymore. There's so much coding in these systems that we revere. And so to your mom, her reverence for that system, she's now worried that you stepped outside of the system. You freed yourself. Now the question is, how much freedom can we create in our lives? I have freed myself from many systems, and yet still I need to pay bills like everybody. Yeah, I would love to live in a post-money world. People give to society what they can, they take what they need. I'm not a communist, that's not what I mean. I actually love capitalism, as long as it's not greedy. But that's hard to stop. But my point is, we all need to pay bills, right? There's logistics in that system, and until we solve that system, everybody needs to go out and make money. So which systems have we freed ourselves from, and what systems are we still bumping up against and having, again, a whisper going, there's something not quite right here, but I don't know how to break through it yet? And yet, as one of my favorite words—

pardon, that's the myself hallway. It's all of the systems in your myself hallway of your past, and you get to choose now. And, and there, there, it's, it's scary, and there's grief, and you lose people along the way, and you have to be powerful and willful, right? There is a, there's an energetic power around making those choices.

I remember sitting my parents down— very close to my parents, they're turning 90 this year— and I remember sitting them down, God, I don't know when it was, sometime in the past decade, and saying to them, this is going to sound very strange to you, but I need you to know that I'm what's called a Starseed, and I was actually put on this planet as a Soul to help Humanity rise. So if I'm not doing things that make sense to you because you know I'm capable. You knew I built over, you know, helped build over 100 tech startups. You know that I taught social entrepreneurship at Harvard. You know I've done all these fancy things and now I'm trying to teach people how to free themselves. What are you talking about, Suzanne? Right? I have to help them understand that I've been doing this my whole life.

In different ways.

Yeah.

How did that conversation go?

It's built over time. Um, the fun thing is that my mom has a lot of psychic ability, but she denies it and calls it coincidence. However, one of my favorite spiritual teachers, Wayne Dyer, He talks about the word coincidence because there are no coincidences when you live in a spiritual world. There are no coincidences. Everything goes together. And what he says is the history of the word coincidence, the etymology of this, is that it's two angles that coincide. They go together. And so when you say things are coincidence, we've made it in our system, in our society, in our matrix, to mean a spooky, weird, unexpected thing that is just improbable. Yeah, that's what we think a coincidence is. But it turns out coincidence actually means, in its etymology, things that go together.

It's funny, my mom, from a very young age, whenever she needed to park, she'd go, 'Parking fairy, give me a park,' and there was always just a park. And I remember my son, who was like 2 or 3, and we were in Sydney. We went with my parents where they are on the farm. And I was driving along going, "I need to park." And in the backseat, I hear this little voice go, "Parking fairy, we need to park." And I'm like, we are getting imprinted from a young age. But I thought, oh, isn't that nice? There's this kind of belief that there, of course there is, it works for mama. So of course it's gonna work for me. And yet, but I think there is, there is a conversation to be had around the fact in stepping into the new coding and accepting the new coding of I, and, and realizing that there is a shedding of people who may not come on the journey with you. That can be difficult, right?

I don't think losing people is ever easy. Um, I'm very grateful that my parents decided to come along with me on this ride, and they actually have gotten more and more interested in my work over time. But that doesn't mean every person has gone with me. I mean, there are people who think I'm pretty out there, and then there are people who listen to me and they're like, oh my God, I've been wanting to hear this for my whole life. So there's all kinds of people, and how I look at things is sometimes people in your life for a season or a reason And, um, when we remain detached— this is one of the hardest things for humans to do. And I will tell you, it took me a long time to learn this one. I mean, I've been on my own growth journey for— I'm 61 years old. It's been a long time of personal growth, and this one took me a long time. And again, a lesson from Wayne Dyer in his, in his amazing work The 10 Secrets to Success and Inner Peace. Number 1 is be open to everything and attached to nothing. And what he defines as detachment is so brilliant, and it took me 5 years to remember one word. He says remaining detached doesn't mean I don't like being with you, doesn't mean I don't want to hang out with you, doesn't mean if we're in a romantic thing I'm not attracted to you. It means that when I don't get what I want from I am not incapacitated. And very interestingly, it took me 5 years to remember the word incapacitated. Now, I happen to have this lesson come to me when I was going through my second very deep, dark suicidal era of my life, and it came after one of those walls. I found out I was a cough away from being a quadriplegic, and I had to go through some very serious medical treatment and some serious problems afterwards. And I'm like I used to get triggered or activated negatively, and I was so attached that I'd go down for years, right? It would take me years to get out of that depression, to bring myself back to even some remote kind of stability, because I had no detachment. What everybody thought of me affected me. What what everybody did around me. My lenses were broken. I call these— excuse me for reaching— I call these my victim glasses. And I wore victim glasses for decades without even knowing they're on my face. And it took me a long time to start to understand that things incapacitated me on a regular basis. So when we create that detachment, that space It allows us to say, hey, if you don't like the journey I'm on now, I want to say I love you, thank you for being with me for this part of the journey thus far. If our paths ever cross again, I welcome it freely, and I wish you love. But when you're attached, I want you to go with me, why don't you see where I'm going, what do I have to do for you to come with me, what do I have to do to get I get to love me as I'm going there.

So, so 75 codes, right? All of the plus that you've got that you can help people put into the prefrontal cortex to be the go-to for them.

Where are they getting to?

What's, what's that life look like? Are we talking about this abundant life on the other side, or is it a life of calm, of peace? Like, what is it? Where, where, what's the end destination, or is there one?

Well, I call this concept finding true freedom. It's actually what my new book is going to be about. And my version of true freedom and your vision of true freedom are different. Yeah, but what the baseline of true freedom is literally escaping the Matrix. Meaning, for those of you who don't know what the Matrix is, it's a construct. I assume Jane's talked about it plenty, um, but it's a construct where we have literally been made into productivity factors in a society that it wants to keep us on the hamster wheel so that we keep producing energy, capital, products for the system. And this system wasn't designed for everyone. So the way I like to describe this, and how you ask me how do I wake people up, and this is easiest way to wake people up, to at least get them to see the system. So I have a kitchen, and my kitchen I built, so it's organized exactly as I want a kitchen, which is hilarious because I don't cook. But when I assemble my food, um, I want things to be where I want them. When I host a party, I want things to be where— so my silverware, my cutlery, is in a particular drawer. And if you didn't know in my house where it was, you might be looking for it next to the dishwasher. You might go over here to look for teacups. You might go over here to look for plates, and you might look at me and go, Suzanne, your kitchen makes no sense to me. And I'd be like, well, it makes sense to me, and I'm the one who lives here. So when the people who designed this system— and there's none of them alive today, by the way, so we can't go finger-pointing or blaming. But when they design the system, especially Western society— they were my country, the U.S. particularly, where I got to write the rules from the beginning— they came here and they're like, hey, I'm designing my kitchen the way I want to. So they decide that they're gonna design a kitchen the way they want to. And so they're like, hey, we like it when people do and we like it when these people aren't allowed to do this, and we like it when these people count as 3/5 of a human, and we like it when women can't vote, and we like it when this is how you make money. And they designed a system, and since it came from a monarchy, there was polarization built into the system.

Yeah, the hierarchy.

Exactly. And so For us to really understand that we're in a system, we've got to realize you didn't build this kitchen to work for you. So when women tried to find their way in the workplace, the only thing they could do is act like men because there was no space for women to act like women in the workplace. And a huge proportion of my work today— you said, what's the end result? True freedom, number one result. Number two result that I desire personally is for us to start changing systems where we emphasize collaboration instead of competition, where we emphasize cooperation instead of individual achievement. And here's why: when we live in a hierarchical world of individual achievement, it is one person achieving one thing so they can get ahead, even if there are 100 people behind them helping them achieve it. Yeah. So we've got to look at incentive structures within organizations of how teams can rise versus individuals. And until we do that, until the team gets a split of that huge CEO salary, because the team is what allowed the CEO to get there to begin with, we're still living in someone else's kitchen.

Yeah.

Does that make sense?

Absolutely. And I think the, you know, this, I think we'll have to have another conversation, but I think the, the linkage to universal income, to AI freeing people up from jobs, you know, there is this shift coming that every, everyone's kind of feeling like, you know, the Star Children are feeling in the world and I'm hearing from them, they're going, you know, they're there's something that's coming, and maybe it is activated by AI, but there's an opportunity to rewrite how we make money, share money, contribute, see ourselves. And it's interesting, I spoke to some people yesterday and I said, introduce yourself and just tell me how you define yourself, because a lot of people define themselves in different ways. Like, you're at a barbecue and you say, I'm an engineer, I'm a mother, I'm the wife of, you know, my husband is, or whatever that is. And it was lovely to do that because people turned up going, I'm a truth seeker, you know, or, or, you know, something that actually really struck them. And out of everyone that was there, you know, everyone, um, had to think about how they would identify and themselves. But I think that's what, you know, a lot of this AI opportunities to, and robotics to replace some of the jobs that aren't really the creative, innovative, you know, things that humans are. And we free ourselves up with time, and we have this universal income or whatever that is, you know, based maybe on contribution as well. But it allows us to have the space to go, what could I make? What, what is true freedom for me? And how would I express myself? So yeah, I love what you're saying there because there is that societal economical construct of the way schooling systems were set up was based on the Industrial Revolution and kids being in factories. Like, you know, we've got this construct that we've accepted, and I love that analogy of it's not my kitchen. I want to design my own kitchen, and I've got to tell you, can I tell you my secret design for my own kitchen?

Yeah.

I saw this once, this is completely aside, um, but they had two dishwashers and one had a green, uh, uh, magnet on it, one had a red. And basically you take the things out of the green dishwasher and use them and put them in the red so you don't have to store things. Because you know how you just use the same things all the time? So it can reduce on all the storage by just having two dishwashers beside each other. So that's my dream kitchen.

I love it. And so you shall have it. As soon as you say it to the world, it shall be true.

I love that. Okay, we have explored so many different things. People can reach out to you at SuzanneGoldstein.com. Um, as you've heard, Suzanne is probably going to have to come back and chat to us more in the future. But, um, I really— and I really loved the conversation that we had around this this, well, it's just your story of knowing at such a young age, you know, who you are here and what you're to be. And then the system blocked that, and trauma came because of that. And then you saw yourself again, and now you've come into this incredible knowing of these codes and in being able to assist people in printing these codes. So they go through the me, they go through the myself, they become I, and then they can face the future of total freedom and go there with choices consciously of how they turn up. Like, I just really appreciate you bringing your gifts and your, your absolute heart to this conversation. So thank you so much.

Oh my gosh, Jane, I just adore you. I will come back anytime you ask me to. This is the secret sauce of my life. I could talk about this nonstop all day, every day. I think these are the messages that people want to learn about. I'll encourage anybody who's listening, I launched a— excuse me— a TikTok channel, and everything does get put over to YouTube Shorts, but TikTok is my place, and I'm @followsusan there, which Susan is S-U-S-A-N-N-E for anybody who's listening. And I do sequences over there to teach concepts and to teach codes. Like, I just did a whole 6-day sequence on tuning into joy radio, radio, because so often we're tuned into lack FM or scarcity FM or fear FM. And what would happen if you just changed your own dial and tuned into joy radio? And so all of these codes have come through because my life was so broken. I'm a survivor of every kind of abuse on the planet, and the reason I do this work is because I want to show people I was so broken, and I can be this free now. And if I can do it, there's nothing special about me as a human. I am just like everybody else. And that's what I want people to see and hopefully be inspired by, because so much of— so many of us are struggling right now. And if you can take one piece of my story, which is that I was not this person at all. And, you know, on the day I tried to take my life, I couldn't have told you a single code. So anything is possible. The timelines change all the time, and we get to be the screenwriters of those timeline changes. Back to the hero's journey.

That resonates. I may— I'm emotional. It resonates on such a deep level. Thank you so much. And I will make one correction. I do think you are special. So, uh, thank you, Suzanne. I really appreciate your time and, uh, and the gifts that you bring to humanity in showing us a new way forward.

Thank you, Jane. Much love.

And as always, to everyone, here's to your success. Bye for now.

Bye-bye, Penelope! Bye-bye, Penelope! Bye-bye, Penelope! Bye-bye, Penelope!

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.

Sankumulu nethiwa. Sankumulu aniwa. Waila ethiwa.