Ep.146- Don't Let Your Beliefs Hinder You w/Shelly Lefkoe

This is the You Winning Life Podcast, your number one source for mastering a positive existence. Each episode we'll be interviewing exceptional people, giving you empowering insights, and guiding you to extraordinary outcomes. Learn from specialists in the worlds of integrative and natural wellness, spirituality, psychology, and entrepreneurship so you too can be winning life. Now here's your host, licensed licensed marriage and family therapist, certified neuro-emotional technique practitioner, and certified entrepreneur coach Jason Wasser. I am super excited for you guys to hear today's conversation with guest Shelley Lefkoe. She's a limiting belief coach, public speaker, business owner, and author. She's helped others be free to live a fully self-expressed, joyful life in all aspects, from personal relationships career, health, parenting, money. She's personally helped thousands of people worldwide to eliminate self-limiting beliefs so you can lead and they can lead the life they've always dreamed of. And her passion is to engage with entrepreneurs to help them eliminate the beliefs that are holding them back from creating a successful business and career. She's had a tremendous amount of speaking engagements and presenting engagements, been on a ton of podcasts, has been featured on popular podcasts such as Dr. Mark Hyman's, The Doctor's Pharmacy, and Jim Quick's The Quick Brain. And I really do want to prepare you because part of this conversation at the end is going to get into some very hot topic button pushing, uh, up to date what's going on in the world conversations. And you're going to hear me get into a little bit of some of the things that are in my world, uh, some of the things that are really putting myself in a discomfortable place and how I've been navigating it. So just want buyer beware, today's episode at the end is going to get a little bit different, a little bit more, uh, a little bit emotional and a little bit more open than the average run-of-the-mill, even though our sessions or our conversations are pretty deep in the first place. But you're gonna hear some stuff, so just buyer beware that near the end of the session we're gonna go a little bit even more deeper than usual. And I really do thank Shelley for, for allowing our conversation to go there. It was such a really powerful and deep experience. So I look forward to your feedback on this, and if you have any thoughts, any questions, anything that you want to go deeper on, please reach out to us. We'd love to hear from you, both myself, my guest Shelley in this episode, and any other of our guests. But please, please send us some feedback. Like our, you know, as possible, always follow us and subscribe to hear more and leave a positive feedback on iTunes for the episode, which will help other people find the show as well. And without any further ado, here's today's guest, Shelley Lefkoe. All right, everybody, welcome back. So as you know, today's guest is Shelley Lefkoe., and she's a limiting belief coach. And Shelley, I'm so excited to be hanging out with you. I know we were supposed to do this a little bit ago and, uh, there was some good things that were going on in your, in your life, so we had to reschedule. So first, congrats on your, your daughter's wedding, correct?

Yes, my daughter's wedding.

Yeah. So awesome. So you have a soon-to-be-published book, The Self-Made: The Surprising Solution to Success, which you wrote with a serial entrepreneur. So let's start off with that. What, what, what's the book? What's it about? And, and who's gonna benefit from it?

Okay, it's, um, it's so funny. Uh, it's the least, um, uh, it's the last thing I would have thought I would have written a book on because, uh, 6 and a half years ago my husband, uh, passed and, um, uh, I had to— I was left running a business and I knew nothing about running a business. I love working with people. I can, you know, work with the Queen of England and I would feel confident, and Oprah wouldn't matter. But running a business is not my wheelhouse. So I'm writing a book with a serial entrepreneur about entrepreneurship, and, um, uh, it's less about entrepreneurship and more about What's in the way of becoming a successful entrepreneur, which is my wheelhouse. So, uh, I was speaking at a conference in Costa Rica and about beliefs, which is of course what I speak about. And, um, Vaughn, who is a serial entrepreneur, was in the— and he coaches— he's a lawyer, he has a— owns a law firm, uh, and he coaches entrepreneurs, and he heard me speak and he went, oh my God, that's the missing piece. And it was so funny because that's what I always wanted to call my book, The Missing Piece. So you can take workshops and learn information and take pages and pages of notes and go home, and 3 days later the notes are in a drawer and nothing's changed. And it could be great information. But if your beliefs are in the way of you using it, you won't. And so he said, I— and he said exactly what my husband said, my late husband, when he created this process, was that people know what to do. We know that we should eat healthily and we'll live longer and feel better, and we don't do it. We know we should exercise and we don't. We know that this relationship we're about to go into is not right, and we go in it and we stay in it. So we have great information, we know what to do, and we don't do it. And the premise of my work is that— and you know, it's funny, Jason, because we had gone— we had— we created this over 30 years ago, and when we said beliefs, people would say Beliefs? Like, what do you mean? Religious beliefs? Right. What's a belief? You mean a religious belief? And so now everybody's kind of jumping on the belief bandwagon because people are starting to realize that you can't make permanent change without changing your beliefs.

Yeah.

We have a process that actually eliminates beliefs quickly, permanently. And I watch every day of my life, people's lives change. And with entrepreneurs, there are very specific beliefs that keep them stuck. Yeah.

It's so interesting. I'm in a Facebook group for, uh, one of the integrative medicine modalities I practice as a therapist. And someone today posted about, I know I should be charging more. I, you know, and it was like this whole paragraph and it was just stuck belief after stuck beliefs, stuck belief as if someone out there is gonna give give them the answer that if I can only see that someone's charging 5 times as much per session as I am, maybe I can change my belief internally about— so what are you guys charging? And that's an inconsequential conversation, right? It doesn't matter what anybody else is charging. It doesn't matter what other products people are creating. It matters— like, it goes back to that value. It goes back to, you know, where you see those things exactly as you're saying. And I know that process, and I know that pattern, and I see different professional communities being stuck. If only I go to one more seminar, If only you take one more training, if only I hire one more coach, if only I change this one thing, then the silver bullet will happen for me. And I completely agree with you. It's an internal process, right? It's like you can go and you can have the world's greatest thought leaders, right? Those are the people who are talking about the mindset and the psychology of things, right?

They've—

thought leaders, which I don't even know where that term came from, because it's very misleading in a lot of ways. But it does go back. And I think the one word that I would sum it up as is what's the integration? How do you integrate it? And then that, again, you're right, it does go back to the belief. And we have to kind of manipulate in a healthy way ourselves to get there, because the wheel isn't— we don't have to reinvent the wheel to get there. It's already out there. Just have to make it simpler for ourselves. So, so what are some of the things that you consistently see when it comes to beliefs that in addition to the value of, am I worthy enough to charge, or is it good enough to put out there? What are some of the consistent things that you're seeing over and over again that are blocking people from getting and accomplishing what they want?

Well, the first, first thing is what you just said. Am I worthy to do it? Yeah. Um, so I'm gonna tell you the most common beliefs that people have, but I, I wanna tell you first, What's fascinating is that no amount of evidence can get you to see that your beliefs are not true. So my best metaphor is I've worked with 5 Harvard PhDs who had the belief, "I'm stupid." So intellectually, they knew they weren't stupid, but they still felt it. They still believed it. And, um, I'll explain why. In a minute. But that's the first thing is evidence doesn't get rid of your beliefs. So the most common beliefs that keep people stuck are, I'll tell you the 5 most common beliefs. And why I said about evidence is that most of us have read all the business books, Fail Forward. We heard all the quotes, just quote mistakes. And failure, and you'll get 400,000 quotes on, you know, Richard Branson says, if you're not failing, you're going to be mediocre. And, you know, you're not trying if you're not failing, right? Yeah. Larry Page and Sergey Brin said they wish they could start their own schools because kids come out of school afraid to fail, and we don't want you if you're afraid to fail. Doesn't matter. The biggest beliefs— I'm not good enough is the number one belief that people have. I'm not important. So what workaholism is, is I'm not good enough, I'm not important, but what makes me good enough, what makes me important, is having— are my achievements. So we have this belief, and we call it a core belief, I'm not good enough or I'm not important. Now we have what we call a survival strategy belief, What makes me good enough is achieving things. So as long as I'm doing that, I'm holding this beach ball called I'm not good enough underwater.

Yeah.

But if a younger person comes into the company, up in your face comes I'm not good enough. If your business goes under, I'm not important, I'm not good enough. So It's a driven behavior. You have to keep doing it. I've had many, many, many, many clients say to me, Shelley, I had one say, I'm worth $10 million. I'm on the COVID of business publications. I don't know my kids. My wife is ready to divorce me. When is it going to be enough? Yeah, never, right? It's never because your achievements don't make you good enough.

Absolutely. And I see it in unique lenses, right, as a therapist. And people show up with different— and there's really only a certain amount of archetypes to go around about it with a personality predisposition or story disposition that we have. So you're 100% right, accurate in that. And I love taking you to the next layer is what's those archetypes of those specific stories that makes them not good enough, right? Whether it's output, whether it's individuality, whether it's about fairness and balance, whether it's about avoiding pain, whether it's about conflict, right? And we all show up in our own unique way, in our own unique story about how we're not enough in that unique way. And I love seeing those narratives and kind of chunking them into different categories and then helping utilize the resources and tools based on that lens that that person carries, right? And everybody has this, right? 100%. Everybody has their own 'I'm not enough' in their own unique way. But my hypothesis is there's only a certain amount of categories, right, of that core belief, right? You can probably— and you've probably seen this in your experience, as you're right, as your practice— is they probably fall in a variation of X amount of stories, an X amount of baseline beliefs. And when we can empower someone through that lens, instead of being a victim to it, that you see those transformations, right? That's what your practice is based on.

So I want to go back for a second to the most common beliefs, because I didn't say what they were. So it's, I'm not good enough. I'm not important. Mistakes and failures are bad. If I make a mistake or fail, I will be rejected.

Mm-hmm.

What makes me good enough, and this is the big one, is having other people think well of me.

Yeah.

So if you're, if you have a belief, mistakes and failures are bad. If I make a mistake, I'll be rejected. What makes me good enough is having other people think well of me. You can't put something out. You can't put out your 1.0. You know, your 1.0 is before your 2.0. You can't do it because it's like, oh, God, what if I fail? What if people don't think well of me? So when you get rid of those beliefs, there's a huge shift immediately. You know, the first thing that happens is from session to session, people say, Yesterday somebody said, I posted 3 videos. They're not the best, they're not great, but I posted them. Yeah. And that's what you want. You want, you know, it's very—

I'll do it anyway type of mindset.

Yeah. So, so I have a question. You said, what's the archetype? So what did you mean by that?

Well, so one of the lenses in which I help my clients, uh, through, and other people out there do it, is through the lens of Enneagram personality profiles, right? It's, it's You know, it's a lens, it's a pair of glasses I take on and take off with my clients to kind of help them see things differently. And I'll give you an example. I have a couple that I've been working with for a while and I adore them and they're very self-aware and they're very involved in personal growth. And I've been working with them for, you know, give or take more than a year at this point. And I had them do this assessment over the last couple of weeks and they come back and I'm explaining it to them and I'm based on the results I came— I started asking very detailed and specific things more than usual. And their response is like, wow, it's like you just moved in with us. Right? So, so, you know, the Enneagram is a personality profile. And, you know, again, anything that I can use as a tool as a therapist doesn't necessarily have to be clinically published. And it's, again, like I say, it's a pair of glasses I can take on and take off. But in this resource, I see, right, this, they teach that there's 9 types, and each one has its specific way of feeling connected and stress. What happens when they're in stress and how do they show up and what can motivate them and what's the wounding, the story around the wounding, right? So for example, 1s are about like, you know, perfect. If I'm seen as making the wrong thing, 2 is about helping, right? Me as a 4 is more about like uniqueness and creativity. 5 is knowledge and wisdom, right? So, um, each one has their, you know, their healthy, their average, and their unhealthy, and we can all carry different elements of it.. But I know it goes back to what's their core motivation of what they want to bring into their work life, into their personal life. So my practice, for example, is not just a therapy practice. It's an integrative mind-body practice. And I specialize in integrative wellness, right? And stuff like that. It's more unique than the average run-of-the-mill therapy practice. And I also do business and entrepreneurship coaching. So it's not like you're going to a regular therapist and how does it make you feel? It's, What is your purpose? What is your potential? What's your values? What's your— all these different things that you're going to get from the entrepreneurship lens that you may not get from a typical traditional therapist. But yet I am a licensed therapist, right? Other people will be more, right, looking at it through the lens of, do I have enough information to make the right decision? Right? Which would be a 5, and a 1 will be, am I doing the right thing? And it's all black or white. It's either all good or all bad. Right? So everybody has these core motivations, these core stories that they're trying to heal and fill, and I love using that as another lens to help empower versus seeing them stuck in victimhood in their own story.

So we start with patterns. So I look at it from a different lens. We start with patterns. So somebody comes to me and says, "I procrastinate." Yeah. And we uncover the beliefs underlying procrastination. And then they could be more of a 4 or a 7 or whatever they are. So it's just a different lens. People come and they say, "I'm afraid to pull the trigger," or, "I stay in crappy relationships," or, "I don't speak up for myself." So we start with patterns. And then we uncover the beliefs that underlie the patterns. And then when the beliefs go away, the pattern goes away. And what I love is what you said about producing results is that from week to week, what's different, what's the same? And then you see what you have to work on. What do you notice that's different? And if nothing's changing, something's not working.

Correct.

Right.

And that definitely goes back to what's still layered in there with the beliefs. And I structured this out years ago, and I call it TFAB. It's your thoughts, your feelings, your actions, and beliefs, right? Your thoughts are what's going on, and that's like the sub-layer, but it's still all based on your beliefs, right? You— we— right, your thoughts inform your feelings, your feelings inform your actions, and your actions inform your beliefs. But your beliefs come loop back around and inform your thoughts, right? So that's the circle. And, and I love how you're describing it. Like, if, if you're showing evidence moving in one direction, right, it's working for you, then your beliefs are more in alignment with something that's uplifting and holistically right, holistically practical for you. And if it's still limiting with you, my guess is you're probably saying, well, there's still something in the belief that we need to tinker with to move you further down the line.

Yeah. So we talk about meaning. So your thought, your thoughts, your beliefs, have you give vent meaning? Right now, meaning comes from your mind. There's no meaning in events, right? Events don't have meaning. They may have consequences, but they don't have meaning. Another way of saying that is we don't know anything for sure because something happens. So once you form a belief, dogs are dangerous. Now the dog comes in the room and you give it the meaning, it's going to bite me, and you feel fear. So all of our feelings come from the meaning we give events. And we have a process, a very— it's a tool. And my husband did a TEDx talk on how to stop suffering, and it's all about me, you know, giving meaning to events and how to dissolve it. So if you can get— we have different techniques, of course, to teach this, but If something happens and you find yourself with a negative emotion, you stop and say, what just happened? My husband died. What meaning did you give that? Now, again, doesn't mean I didn't grieve. Doesn't mean I didn't cry. Right.

We're not eliminating that.

Yeah, right, exactly. But not getting out of bed wasn't a good idea. So I said, what happened? He died. What meaning did I give it? I'm going to starve to death. My business is going to go under. And then I would stop and say, well, it could mean that, and it could mean that I have an opportunity to step up and figure it out, which I did. And we had the best year we ever had that year, which was bizarre. But then I would find myself again feeling sad, and I'd say, Shelley, what happened? Morty died. What meaning did you give it? I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life. Well, it could mean that. What else could it mean? It could mean I have a second act coming. But what does it really mean? What do we know for sure? Because that happened? Nothing. Right. So not, not that it doesn't matter, or it's no big deal. It just doesn't have meaning. We don't know anything for sure, because that happened. You know, it's funny. I've been on big, giant, amazing podcasts with 25 million downloads. Yeah. And I've been on smaller podcasts. And the fact that it has 25 million downloads doesn't necessarily mean that the smaller one is not going to produce a great result. You know, so people go, oh, I wouldn't do that. That's too small. Well, that's nonsense. You may meet somebody in that podcast somebody might hear you, that could totally change your life.

Correct.

You know, if somebody doesn't return your phone call, that doesn't mean that they don't care about you or they don't like you. The event has no inherent meaning. Yeah. And when you get that the meaning is in your mind, not in the event, the feeling goes away, and then you can interact with it. Then you can deal with it. Then you could say, Jason Wasser, what happened? You know, you didn't return my call.

Or, you know, right, you can become curious about it versus already, you know, have a judgment about it. And I think, and I love everything you're saying, and it's like, as you're talking, I'm thinking of like, okay, cool. So like, I read, you know, in The Four Agreements, right? Don't make assumptions, don't take anything personally, right? Those are two out of the four, right? First one is be impeccable with your words. So even when you're talking to yourself about yourself, don't crap talk ask yourself, right? But number 2 is don't make assumptions. And 3, it's not about you, don't take it personally, right? So that right there is another lens exactly supporting what you're sharing and teaching. And then obviously the whole world of law of attraction and Esther Hicks and all the other people, right, the Joe Dispenzas and anybody who's doing the neurology-based, uh, emotional realities are also— right, all of this informs because at the end of the day, for me, even though I'm a therapist and we think about like neck up, I'm very, very, very into the physiology of stress, the physiology that emotions are really just biochemical, you know, the neuropeptides of our DNA carry our emotions. So therefore we can have a discomfort in our low back from an emotional stressor, right? So, so this is very much in my wheelhouse and what I love talking about. And I do want people who are listening to, you know, reorient themselves exactly to what Shelley— to what you're saying and, and understand, right, the meaning that we put to it is what creates our world. And our world is sonar. What we believe is what we put out there, and it's gonna reflect back, and we're— that's what's gonna show up over and over and over again. And you can't talk your way out of that paper bag unless you do change your—

Yeah. And, and you, you said one thing, Jason Wasser, don't— you know, I, I, everybody, Don Miguel Ruiz's book is wonderful and I love it. It's a— but if you say to somebody, don't think, take, don't take things personally, and they have the belief, I'm not good enough, or people don't like me. That's a great— I'm not likable, people don't like me. You know, whatever beliefs you have in the way, um, it's very hard to not take things personally.

Yeah.

So again, there's a lot of great information out there, but if your beliefs are in the way, you're going to have to use the occur— what we call the occurring process a lot. So you can be— now that you have this little tool, you know, you— somebody can, um, uh, say something and you, you, you take it personally and you get upset, and then you stop and go, oh, what just happened? They said that. What meaning did I give it? They don't like me. What else could it mean? They are trying to contribute to me. What does it really mean? Nothing, right? But you're going to have to do that a lot if you get rid of the beliefs I'm not likable. People don't like me. Just get rid of those beliefs. Then here's a great example. The belief that ran my life, Jason Wasser, was what makes me good enough is having other people think well of me. My mother was an angel, and all she wanted was for me to be happy. And she thought what would make me happy was having a lot of friends and being popular, not getting straight A's, So somebody would say, oh, shit, your friends invited you. Oh, your friends didn't invite you. So that was my— when I got rid of that—

That became embedded. Yeah.

Yeah. That was my belief. So I'd walk away from people going, did I say the right thing? Did I ask about her mother? Now, when the belief went away, what I noticed was my father and my brother were the people who plugged me in the most. They would say, "Eh, you don't use your head," my father or my brother. "Oh, you just, you don't think sometimes." And I used to get defensive and I would yell and say, "Don't you talk to me that way." And I'm, "No, I'm not," and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And once the belief went away, I no longer gave meaning to what they were saying. It didn't mean I didn't have their approval, didn't mean I'm not good enough, didn't mean this, mean that. And it was like watching a puppet show. They would say things and I would just go, oh. And it wasn't like I didn't have to sit there and go, I'm not going to get sucked in, I'm not going to take it personally.

But you didn't have to recreate that whole narrative, right?

I just didn't. I was just like, oh, they're saying that, right?

And that's their thing and you don't have to buy into it, you don't have to believe it. And, and I love that.

Freedom.

It's freedom. It's 100% freedom, right? In my neuro-emotional technique world, we call that near neutrality. Whether it happens or it doesn't happen, I'm okay. And I even take it a step further. And what I tell my clients is like, how do we get to a place of things being inconsequential? We're 2 years out from another presidential election. And how do you make it inconsequential about whoever's in the White House, whether it's the person you want, person you don't want, right? How do you become— how do you make it inconsequential? So you can shrug your shoulders at it and move on every moment of every day in with your mission and with your purpose, without having to use anything outside of you as a justification or excuse for your own suffering. And that's really like what— that's one of the reasons why I created this podcast was the topics that I'm talking about with my clients are really a cultivation of the resources and the conversations and the conferences and the trainings that I'm doing, and I get to bring it into my private practice. And now, if I'm only able to see a certain amount of people a week, well, I want to also share this information, right? So it's a reverse engineer. Now it became not just a tool, but it's now the stuff that I'm talking about with my clients is now the people, right? It's now becoming what I'm talking about on my podcast. So that becomes this reverse, right, flexible, going in both directions process. And it is all about going from victim about whatever that thing is, that whether it's an internal and external story, or an external thing that happened to you, or a trauma, or a drama, then moving into empowerment on whatever topic that is. And that only goes back to exactly what you said. What is the belief and the meaning that you carry about that? And one question I love asking my clients is, what would you also have to give up in order for that belief to be changed, right? What's the risk involved? And like, well, there's no risk. Well, if there wasn't a risk, then you probably would doing it already. And risk can mean a lot of different things. But, you know, who would you have to offend? Who would you have to no longer honor? What would you no longer have to honor? What about you are you afraid would most have to change? Who do you think would leave your life? What would you not be able to give time, effort, energy, and attention to anymore if you decided to change your belief into a more healthy way? And that's right, that's where we start playing some hardball and start seeing some really stuck stuff in those conversations.

Yeah, um, yeah, so I want to talk a little bit about how beliefs get formed. Yeah, so we, we come into this world as a little ball of consciousness. And we don't know if we're good enough or not good enough. We don't know if we're important or not important. We don't know if life is hard or easy, if money is scarce and hard to get or it's abundant. We have no idea. We're just this little ball of consciousness. And we come into this world and I always say that with— I do have kids.

I do.

Okay. So when I ask people who have children what their children want from them, Every client— I have clients in Uganda, I have clients in Kuwait— and I ask them, when your child runs, when you come home at night, what does your child do? They say, they run to me. What do they want? Affection, attention, and acknowledgement. That's what every child wants all day long. Sure. And I say, what's the one-word question every child asks all day long? One word question. Every 3, 4-year-old, what do they want to know? One word.

Why?

Why? So people without kids know the answer to that question. Why? Right? Why can't I have a playdate? Why do I have to go to sleep? Why can't I have dessert? Why? Why are mommy and daddy annoyed with me? Why can't I live up to their expectations? I guess I'm not good enough. Why do they ignore me when I'm talking to them? Why did they look at their iPhone when I'm talking to them? I have to get that plug in. I must not be important. Why are my parents struggling about money? Well, I guess money is scarce and hard to get.

Or I'm causing them to have to spend more money than we have. Right. In other words, the self-reflection comes in there, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, or they're getting divorced and it must be my fault because it's every child's fault that your parents get divorced. And the reason, and this is the thing that very few people understand, the reason our beliefs stay with us through lifetimes, the reason that you can go to Harvard and get a PhD and still think you're stupid is because you— we think we saw our beliefs in the world, and it's impossible to not believe something you think you saw. So yesterday, my last client, his father would stop talking to him for days on end, uh, when he made a mistake. Did something wrong. And so he was trying to get rid of the belief, what makes me— uh, sorry, uh, if I make a mistake or fail, I'll be rejected. And I said to him, doesn't it seem like you saw that? He said, I did see that. Now, anything you could see has a color, shape, and location. You can't see what's going to happen in the future, right? So you see your father stop talking to you for days on end when you don't do what he wants. But you can't see, anytime I make a mistake or fail, I am going to be rejected. You can't see what's going to happen in the future. The next day, he's doing a speech. He had a fear of public speaking, and he's doing a presentation, and he makes a mistake, and some guy points it out, and he says, oh, tell me the right answer. And he says, thank you for Speaking up, I wouldn't have wanted anybody to walk out of here with the wrong information. And he goes on with this presentation and he feels confident. It was no big deal. And he's walking to his office and the phone is ringing and it's the executive vice president of his company. And he said, I was in the room when you made that mistake. I was so impressed with how you handled it. I'm putting you up for a promotion. So he not only didn't get rejected, he got promoted. Right. So we think we see our beliefs in the world. So most self-esteem beliefs are created in the first 6 to 8 years of childhood because most parents don't have parenting skills, which is why I created a parenting course. Yeah. And there are certain cultures. So I'm about to do two 2-day workshops in Vietnam, and they're parenting workshops, and I'm really excited. And we have 300 people Friday who are going to be on Zoom for a little taste of it. And I'm really, really excited because Asian culture, it's all about A's, and you must get straight A's, performance, and achieve, and performance, and achieve, and play the violin and play it perfectly. And so you become a human doing and not a human being.

Correct.

And I always tell parents, acknowledge your children for being. I love being with you. You're a joy to be with. You're warm and kind and thoughtful. So they know that they're being. When my husband died, people said he was the most nonjudgmental person I knew. He was loving. I never heard him say a bad word about anybody in 40 years. Two people said.

Right.

You know, he listened. He was present. Not one person said he went to the University of Chicago. No one cares.

Yeah.

No one cares. Your achievements are interesting, maybe, for 5 minutes. After that, what else you got?

And people don't get that, right? The relationships, at the end of the day, it's, it's, it's as much as— right now I see this with people who are like the thought leader conference, you know, the talks. It's not as much as what they say, but what do you feel about yourself? How do you feel after they're done, right? And I think that's something that we can tap into more, especially as relationships in our culture are being torn apart, intentionally, unintentionally, whatever it is. And people are, you know, just finding more and more reason not to connect with someone than we are to connect with someone, which also probably gives us, you know, maybe we're also finding more reasons not to connect with ourselves as well. And right, as we're looking more and more to the divisiveness, and then that divisiveness definitely trickles down into our own head about how we're talking about ourself. And it's really a powerful thing of transforming and using the tools that you've been talking about to get a healthier, happier, meaningful— even I don't even like using the word happy because happy is an emotion that comes and goes. It's not something we should never like— if y'all are listening to this, like, if you stop aiming for happy, happy is an emotion that comes and goes, no different than like tired or annoyed or frustrated or sad, right? It comes and goes. So stop aiming for happy, right? I really do like meaningful, purposeful, right? Those type of things. But I know Shelley, like exactly what you're talking about, like how it doesn't take long and it doesn't take an exponential amount of effort to do the process that you're doing, but we have to be willing and open to acknowledging that this process needs to be done.

Yeah. My experience is I can't do it on myself, you know, getting rid of beliefs. And there are people who can. We have a program called Natural Confidence, and it's the 19 most common self-esteem beliefs that people have. And you can interact instead of having sessions with me. Just, it's, I don't know, $200-something, and it's life-changing. It's completely life-changing. But you have a video, you know, Morty or I on the video taking you through a process, the end of which you will eliminate a belief. You can actually do it for free. So, if you go to eliminatebeliefs.com, you can eliminate one of the 3 most common beliefs for free, my gift to your listeners. So, it's not easy. When people say to me, "I'm working on myself," I'm not big on that. You can only take yourself so far. And when you work with somebody who's going to coach you and help you and I love the fact that you don't do just traditional therapy. I'm not putting down traditional therapy, but there are techniques that are result-producing. But this idea that— I've said to people over the years, you might want to work on that. They go, oh, yeah, I'm going to work on it. I'm absolutely— my brother talks a lot. And I said, you know, you tend to talk a lot or dominate a conversation. I'm going to work on that. I'm going to, you know, and I've known him now 66 years. You know, not—

they haven't done the work, right?

They haven't done the work.

So yeah, that's a big thing, right? It's, I love it. It's kind of the Star Wars with Yoda, right? There is no try, only do, right? And I love, I love calling out my clients over the years on like, I'm like, alright, so between now and next session, like, can you, can you do this? Right? Can you watch this video? Can you listen to this TED Talk, whatever it is? I'll try. I'm like, no, no, no, no.

I'll try. Right, exactly.

Yes or no?

Yeah.

Are you committing to it? Or are you not? Because when I, and I say to them, like, if I hear I'll try over multiple things that I ask you, and which doesn't get done over multiple sessions, then I'm going to try not to fire you. And they get it as a client, right? I'm going to try not to fire you as a client, AKA I'm going to fire you as a client. So there is no try, only do. And I love taking that Star Wars theme into, you know, the Grand Master Yoda into that. And then we see this like for how many years? And I have in my— I'm in an accountability group. And I remember we do an hour every week and then every quarter we now do a 4-hour via Zoom. They're all over the country. And then I got them to together to do an in-person weekend. Uh, like, we, you know, rented a nice Airbnb, and I remember sitting there, we were at lunch at a really awesome place on by the ocean, and I'm like, guys, I really want to make sure that we're committed to not— whatever we're talking about this year, I absolutely want to make sure we're not talking about next year. Issues and challenges we're having now, obviously there's gonna be life circumstances and all that stuff.

Yeah.

All right. And, um, and that is happening with one of, um, one of our— one of the people in the group who has a major a radical thing that came out of the blue. However, I want to make sure that we are not stuck in the exact same place.

It's great.

I also added this onto him, and if we are, and it's not me, I'm bouncing out of the group. So, you know, like, I wasn't thinking about an ego play about me, and I'm going to be— but I want everybody to say, like, you know, like, we need to consider, like, what, what won't make this work for all of us if we're not moving forward, if we're not challenging the assumptions, the core things that are keeping us back from becoming more successful.

Yeah, I love that. You said something about being, you know, the divisiveness, and it was funny because I thought you were gonna say the devices that we use which keep us separate. The divisiveness, you know, the political situation is just— we are becoming more and more and more divided. And I know that you listen to Joe and all these people who talk about oneness and, you know, we are all connected and we are all one and all that. And I think that we have to be resilient because things happen in the world that are very real, you know, overturning Roe, whatever your listeners' politics are, for a lot of people, That was devastating. Very, very devastating. Very devastating. You know, what's going on in our political world. You know, we have somebody for the first time in the history of our country who will not bow to the peaceful— Right.

Succession of power.

Succession of power. Right. You know, and it's just like, you know, you sit there and go, my God, you know, a democracy. Of course he's being threatened. And there are millions of people fighting for this. So there's a lot of frightening things.

And there's a million millions of people fighting for that, not against it, right? So, so that's duality that we live in, which goes back to, right, everything you talk about with energy and with— right, right, we are— there is duality. Everything in our world is duality.

Yeah, but, but what I was going to say is that the thing about Oh, I wanted to make a very, very important distinction: beliefs and meaning. So I'm very careful, one more word, Nazi, because when I say something, I mean it. Beliefs get formed in the past, meaning gets formed in the moment. So the meaning that we give what's happening is a function of our beliefs. So if you believe that a woman has a right to choose, you're going to give the meaning of what just happened that this is terrible and throwing us back into the Stone Age.

Correct.

If you believe life forms at conception, you are going to give the meaning to what happened, this is the best thing that ever happened. The resilience comes from being able to get to that last step of the fact that Roe got overturned doesn't mean that you can't get an abortion. Right now, the consequences— it's going to impact poor people who can't afford to go fly to the next state or to California to get one. So there is a reality, but if you don't give mean— if you are able to dissolve the meaning that you gave Now I can be an activist. Now I can look at what can I do about it?

Right.

As opposed to what you just said, being a victim.

Victim to it.

Because being a victim is not a wonderful way to spend your life. You know, my husband had a word that I love, efficacious. You know, you want to be able to affect change. So I'm, you know, there's racial diversity. There's global warming. There's the political situation, food insecurity. You can't be involved in everything. My heart pull is racial diversity. So, I'm in a group called the Transformational Leadership Council with all the thought leaders. And I've been in it from inception, 15 years. And we meet twice a year for 5 days. And it's all the people in the transformational business. It was started by Jack Canfield, right? And so we're looking at, as a group, getting together and just loving up on each other. And because we all serve, so we don't take things on as a group. But what happens is little pockets of people start saying, wait a minute, this racial diversity thing is nuts. You know, when George Floyd died When George Floyd was murdered, my heart was broken, just broken to watch that. So I went into a diversity group and we meet twice a month for 90 minutes and we read books, we educate ourselves. We— I just watched the movie 13th. Unbearable but important to educate ourselves in what is good because education It's again, if you have beliefs, it won't matter. But if you at least know what's going on, now I can start doing something. So, as opposed to being a victim and going, "Oh God, the world's going to hell in a handbasket, and there's this and there's this," and you could lay on the couch and suck your thumb and watch television and go unconscious. But if you can get, again, get rid of the beliefs that you have about your own racial, your own biases. Thank you, Bridget. Get rid of your own, eliminate your beliefs so that you could be different. But short of that, at least look at the meaning you're giving events and get that the fact that a Black person robbed your house doesn't mean all Black people are bad, right? You know, it's just, uh, it's a deconstruction of everything, right?

In other words, we, we, like, it's, it's what I— if I, you know, were to sum everything up is that we have momentum, right? Our, our thoughts and our feelings and our beliefs, right? All these things, all these layers that we've talked about create momentum in our life. And in order to feel better about what's going on, in order to be more proactive about what's going on, we have find a time to stop and deconstruct that so that the momentum can be by our own doing, not by the gravitational pull of what we've become limited or challenged or stuck to. And everything you're saying is so profound and so powerful. And, and that's why, like, I love having— I love having clients that are opposing political views. I mean, again, I have this joke that I say with them, like, listen, I don't care who you vote for, I don't care who you sleep with, I don't care who you're voting for while you're sleeping with someone, just don't be a dick, right? And I have—

oh my God, my ex-son-in-law, my grandson's father, when he was little, he always— I just told this to somebody yesterday, that is so bizarre, just bizarre— he used to say to him, Loki, don't be a dick, right?

It's that simple.

Jason Wasser, the first time he said it, I went No, that's a good message.

Right? Because I have friends that are like radical. I mean, I have friends that are like, you know, you know, Tea Party. Well, I guess MAGA is now Tea Party 2.0. But like, right, I have friends that are like all the way out, like, you know, and I have clients that are all the way on the other political spectrum of me.

Wow, good for you.

And we, right, and it's just like, you know, what do we both want that we both agree about? Yes, we may have different entryways about it. But Are you okay?

Right?

I always ask this. Are you okay with working with somebody who might have a different belief than you? I'm okay.

Wow. Right? Wow.

And are you okay getting your help? I mean, just to tell you, I remember years, it was a few years ago, I had this couple I was seeing in my, when I was still in office, pre-pandemic. You know, it's like, was it BCAD? Right now it's PP, pre-pandemic and after pandemic or whatever it is, whatever we're in right now. And this, this guy went on that, like the husband went on a rant. And somehow he started saying something about like, you know, and the Zionists and this, and I'm like, are you okay with a Zionist saving your marriage? And he just like, it's just like his brain just shattered in front of the room in front of me, right? Are you okay with someone who believes in the independence of the State of Israel helping you save your marriage?

Marriage.

And they never came back after that, right? Because like, he just had spouted this thing, and I'm like, I'm okay helping you. Are you okay with me helping you, right? Are you okay with this Jewish therapist helping you when you just went on this like stupid antisemitic rant that you have no even clue what you're even talking about because you're just rehashing something you found on the internet, right? And, and that's just like— and they disappeared. And their loss, because I, like I said, I don't care how you pray, I don't care who you sleep with, just don't be a dick. And that person was a dick. So they're lost. They just lost out on a tremendous opportunity to move forward in their beliefs, assumptions, and expectations of what's holding them back from getting. So, so I really do think that like, if we all do the work, like, I take pride at turning 43, I'm turning 44 on Monday. I take pride in having—

Happy birthday.

Why, thank you very much. I take pride in taking, having multiple people from multiple backgrounds in my life. And it all goes back to again, core values. You may practice it differently than me, but do we have the same values of like, yeah, I don't necessarily always agree with how someone's going at it. And I may not like, I may think that they're like, you know, fundamentally like that's evil, right? Even though they're not evil, but like we can still deconstruct it enough to like, okay, well, what can we work on? What can we collaborate on where it would be mutually beneficial for us and for everybody else around us? And it's hard and it's a lot of work cause I'm not predisposed to doing that. I'm a grandchild of a Holocaust survivor. So the world is— there's that story, the world is out to get us. Well, is the world really out to get us? Well, let's look at it, right? So there's so many layered complexities to it.

No, that's very, very, very thought-provoking because, um, it used to be that you had different ideology. So my mother voted for Stevenson and my father voted for Eisenhower and it was like no big deal and it was just different ideology. But today, and it's so— that distinction, I'm a distinction girl, that distinction you just made, different ideology, they may be different but are they being a dick? And I have to really think about that because for me, I live in Marin County, California, So we're so left-leaning, we're all on the floor, right? And I have one friend, I'm in a women's group, these TLC people, Transformation Leadership Council. We have the biggest contingency here in Marin. So we formed a women's group. And one friend voted for Trump and I had to, Well, I had a lot of come-to-Jesus conversations because for me it's, do you embrace— I know her and I love her. She's my sister and she's one of the most extraordinary women. She's a meditator. She does seva.

Someone like that, go for that, right? There's a lot of assumptions that go along that—

My brain falls out. And so, you know, he is a very polarizing figure, right? And if your listeners are, you know, Trump—

let's just call it, he's a clinical textbook narcissist, right? As a therapist, I can say that, right? So if that offends someone, like, well, listen, it's funny how, like, when you call out someone— and I'm happy to call out people on the left too, right? Again, like, I'm not— humans are humans. We can, we can start putting all these labels on it. At the end of the day, we're still still humans with personalities and flaws and character traits and characteristics.

But wait a second, I wanted— you have— I wanted to acknowledge you, and you, you have to let me do that. And I really respect and acknowledge what you're saying, because when somebody does something against your values, right? So if you're a racist That's going to be hard for me. And I have a friend who at one time had the biggest blog on the internet. He was the number one blog for a long, long time. And he told his people, if you're Trump supporters, I'm not interested. I don't want you on my podcast. I don't want you on my blog. I don't want your business. I just I don't want your money. And I thought, wow, that's a very powerful stand. And then I thought, but you're also cutting off the conversation, so they no longer can hear what you have to say, you can't hear what they have to say, and then we're going to get a bigger gap. So, so what you're doing is, I think, extraordinary. Um, and I am someone who's always considered myself to be tolerant, and, and somebody who's willing to listen and engage. And I'm finding it harder and harder.

Oh, for sure.

I really—

well, that goes back. And I'm not saying I'm perfect at it, but thank you. I mean, I, I'm not perfect at it. It's something that I'm trying to consciously work on more and more. And still, again, it goes back to my biases and my judgments and expectations. And of course, there's like— and I was on TikTok And now there's this person, like, again, like, just going back to, like, you know, this, this middle of America white girl who left her, like, specifically, like, she left a Christian cult, and now her whole TikTok is about, like, anti-Zionism and anti-Israel and the, you know, the Israel lobby in America and all. And I'm like, you're so right. The amount of misinformation on any topic— and again, it could be on whatever it is, whether it's abortion, whether it's about, right, racial justice— like, the amount of misinformation that's out there and that everybody jumps away. They have the Ben Jerry's thing with like pulling out of, out of Israel, and it's like, well, why is that the only issue? And they just sold, right, you know, they just— Unilever just sold the Ben Jerry's company in Israel to the private company that's been doing it in Israel. It's been a whole thing about like, we're boycotting it, we don't want to sell it. But why is that the only topic? Why are they not boycotting other countries that are having other social justices? Why is it that one thing? Is it really anti-Semitism. It kind of is, as much as you say, "No, we're not," but then you're not doing this for other countries that you're selling your ice cream to about other topics. That kind of leaves you with a little bit of a bias about that belief, as much as you say, "We're not, we're not, we believe in free society and free this and free that, but we're against, you know, whatever." But so how do you deal with, you know, the Nazis are coming out of the forest with the torches? Oh, I want to know where they are. I want to know where they are.

But wait, Jews will not replace us. Yeah. And he says there's good and bad on both sides.

Right.

No, they're Nazis. Right.

But do you know what? I, like I just said, I want to know— the beautiful thing about what's happening, this is my spin on it, with any issue, right? And we'll use this as like, you know, antisemitism and racism and bigotry and stuff like that. Pre-this, no one knew who that person was because they can keep it under wraps.

Now we know where he brought it out. He brought it out.

That's the blessing.

But here's where beliefs come in again. If you have a belief that Jews are not human, you can kill them.

Well, I want to know where those people are. I don't want to know that they're hiding in the corners, lurking in some secret society, which they're putting on, right? Which exactly the words that they're doing, that they're lurking behind society doing all these things that are— that the Zionists and the Jews and the Israelites are doing these things exactly that they're doing. Everything is a projection, right? This is actually the most Jewish I've talked on a podcast. It was like specific agenda, right? But everything that like— everything that you're— anything that any group calls out on that we hate, you— that group is doing it in their own unique way, in a way that they don't realize, right? It's such a psychological projection. Of their own thing, right? Whether it's macro to micro, macro, macro to micro, that they're doing the exact same thing in their own unique way, except they project because it's so unclaimed and unknown and unevolved.

Here's the thing. Yes, but here's the thing. I don't ascribe to organized religion. My husband used to say more people have been killed in the name of religion than anything on the planet. And that's That's the truth. That's not his opinion. That's true. More people were killed in the name of religion.

What's the numbers Monsanto's up to?

Oh, sorry. My daughter went to WashU, and when they graduated, they had the Monsanto logo with the thing through it on their graduation.

What's the numbers there?

Right.

Again, everything is, everything is context, right? So like when people are talking about $5, $5 gas. Well, I know it's probably way more by you guys, but I'm in South Florida, so it's like $5.25 for premium gas, right? Okay, right. But number one, how many years of subsidies have we had to the gas industry, and how much money is coming out from the government to actually— right, to discount that and all those different things? But then those same people are going into Starbucks and spending $6 on 12, 16, 18, 22 ounces of coffee. So you're okay paying $6 for 24 ounces of coffee, but then you go to the UK or anywhere in Europe and you're paying per liter, you're paying equivalent of $6, $7, $8 per liter. What we're now just paying for a gallon. But those same people are still okay walking into a Starbucks or even a Dunkin' Donuts and paying $4, $5, $6 per 18 ounces. So again, the context of everything and juxtaposition of everything— anything in and of itself can be an issue. But when you start leaning it against, against, well, but what are we comparing it to? What are we putting it up against? Then what do you— well, you're paying for, for a cup of something that costs 25 cents for you to make at home, or 50 cents or a buck that costs you to make at home. You're willing to spend $6 for 24 ounces, but you're bitching and moaning about $6 per gallon. But then move to— then go rent a car in Europe, and you're paying $6 to $8 per liter.

That's so interesting.

So, context is everything.

Everything.

And I think that really does go back to the beginning of what is your belief, assumption, and expectation, for sure, about all this. So, as we wrap up, context is everything, right?

I say context is decisive. Yeah.

Yeah. So, as we wrap up, and I know that you and I could probably sit and talk for, for hours, which, which is amazing. And one of the reasons why my, my, my, my not so secret secret is like I use my podcast to get in front of people I really want to spend time with because, you know, they all, most of them don't exist here in South Florida. So, um, but I really do appreciate the time and I want to just give you an opportunity for you to kind of give a shout out of where people can connect with you, where they can find more of the classes, the products, the services, workshops, all that good stuff. So where should Where should they be going?

I just want to say one last thing and I will say that last— now I understand because you live in South Florida, which is where my family lives, by the way, how you can either decide to be who you are or scream at the TV like my brother does when Ron DeSantis talks and have your head explode. My nieces and nephew think he's going to have a stroke. Well, do you know what the trick is to solve that problem?

Don't watch, don't watch live TV.

Right. So, um, so, um, eliminatebeliefs.com. You can go and eliminate a belief for free. And, um, that's basically— if you want lots of information, you can go to lefkoinstitute.com. L-E-F as in Frank, K-O-E Institute, there's a lot of T's, dot com. But go eliminate a belief for free. You'll love it. It'll be awesome.

I'm so excited, right, of the fact that like we can just do this. Just be right again. People are like, oh, I'm gonna hear this and I want to go do it. Then go do it, right? If this is something that in our conversation that Rachelle and I've been talking about and there's something that sparked something inside of you, don't do it while you're driving, right? But where most people listen to their podcasts, but go Go, Ray, take this, take this course, take the reading, right? You know, keep an eye out for the book is coming out when?

Uh, we have no idea. We'd like to say, uh, September. We keep rewriting it and rewriting it. That's— I have a book meeting in minutes.

Fantastic.

So good.

So, right, so keep an eye out. So, yeah, so check out the website so you can check out the book of all these things. And obviously there's an amazing amount of resources on your website. Insight. And Shelly, I really do want to thank you for hanging out with us today.

Thank you, thank you for having me.

Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at You Winning Life.