Unleashing Your True Potential: Unlocking Mental Blocks - Britt Lefkoe

We spend our life preparing for a world that we never live in.

Right.

We spend our life preparing for a battle that we never have to fight. And that's what our brain is doing. It's just trying to keep us safe, but it's trying to keep us safe in an environment that we don't live in.

Hey, I'm Joe Fear, and welcome to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. This is where we talk all about building businesses so they give you the freedom and fuel for your life. I'm not here to help you build a billion dollar business, but I am here to help you create a business with systems that work for you so you can make more than you need just by working part time. You know, I was a chronic hustle mode kind of guy, and I want to share my experiences and mentors I've met along the way to help you reframe things to be the most effective as an entrepreneur. I wish I had this guidance and insight when I was younger, so that's what I'm doing here for you. Please share and enjoy. Brit, it's so cool to have you on this show. And we got to give big thanks to John. John Davey, your husband. New husband. Right?

New husband.

Congrats. And he was also our tech help right before this too.

You have such a fascinating background and all the way from, you know, working and obviously growing up with your father, Morty, and he. I mean, it's just everything that you have done in your life seems so fascinating because you've. You're an anomaly. I feel like in a lot of ways, when it comes to the power of your mind and really expanding what's possible. I know you have some interesting stories and caveats to that too, but thanks for joining me and us and yeah, I guess I'll just give it to you for a second and let us know a little bit of what we should know about you to kick things off.

Cool. Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. So my world is the. Is the mindset world. Some people call it head trash, some people call it mindset, but it's really looking at where are the places where we are in our own way. And when I was a little girl, my dad created a process to help people shift limiting beliefs. And what that was really about was he was a management consultant, so he got paid to give advice. And people would be so excited about his great advice and would continue to pay him money to give advice. And my dad just had this unbelievable integrity and it drove him nuts that people would pay for advice and not integrate it and not really do the things that they had paid him to tell them to do. And so his kind of burning question was, why don't people take good advice? And that was a question that drove my dad, and it drove my dad to realizing the reason we don't take good advice is because very often advice conflicts with our beliefs. So if the advice is, put yourself out there, especially for entrepreneurs. Right. Put yourself out there, have a YouTube channel, go on social media, make videos, but if you have beliefs like, if I make a mistake or fail, I'll look stupid and I'm not good enough, it's going to be really hard to put yourself out there. And so it's not about the advice. Right. The question is really, what is blocking you from taking the good advice? And so I grew up with this process, and for me, it was, like, so clear, this is going to change the world. This is everything. If, like, you know, our mindset is the thing that makes us suffer, the thing that prevents us from making a lot of money, the thing that prevents us from taking a Friday off, the thing that prevents us from feeling good about ourself, like, this is everything. And so I was obsessed with this work. The caveat is, is worked on everyone except for me. And that was really hard. And so my journey over, kind of my life has been doing that work professionally, but really figuring out how I could evolve the work so that it would work on me. Right. So that it was a little bit more foolproof. Right. So that everyone could benefit from it. And that's really been kind of my. My journey. Yeah, My. My dad passed away about seven years ago, and that was a huge moment for me to really take a look at how do I, you know, his work and his legacy. And I was like, oh, of course. Evolve it. My dad didn't have an ego. He didn't really care about his name. He just wanted it to be more effective. And so that's been my journey.

Yeah. And what a cool way to take his legacy and build it into your own and then expand it further. And it's super cool. And obviously I want to get into the practical side of things. We'll deconstruct what this even means, like the beliefs holding us back and blockages. I think all of us have a feeling that that's true, or maybe a thought more than anything, because I know can't think our ways out of this stuff. And I've definitely gone down the rabbit hole of like, okay, when we're stuck in our heads, you know, that's. Yeah, it feels like head trash because especially if there's a lot of friction or we just keep running up against the same problem over and over and we're like, what's wrong with me? And then all the excuses and things start boiling around.

Right.

And probably that's the best time to just maybe let go of the thinking as best you can and get into feeling. I like to get into my body as well. So, like, breath work and physiology. Like, really try to go as low, I guess, on that whole chain as possible. I'm curious of how you look at that. When those issues that we come up with, maybe we could talk about some common ones as well and how to get around those.

Yeah. So what happens is our beliefs get triggered. So if we are sitting in a room and there's no one in the room, we're very often not aware that we have a fear of not being good enough or that we have a feeling that mistakes and failures lead to rejection. But then when those feelings get triggered, when those beliefs get triggered, that's when the tape starts to play. Right. It would be like being in the car and there's one radio station, and the radio station is a tape. I'm not good enough. I'm going to make mistakes, I'm going to fail. And it just plays over and over and over.

Cars get a crash, you're going to get frustrated.

Exactly. And then it's like, God, why is this drive so unpleasant? Right? Why is it so unpleasant to put myself out there? Why is it so unpleasant when I look at my bank account? Why is it so unpleasant when I'm pitching or when I'm on a sales call? Why is that so unpleasant? The thing itself is not unpleasant. Just like taking a drive is not unpleasant, but taking a drive when you're listening to the voices in your head, that can be very unpleasant. So I think one of the most important things is so often we're looking for a solution. And from my perspective, solutions emerge very naturally. It's not the solution that's the problem, it's the block to the solution. Right. Because again, the good advice exists for most entrepreneurs. You've read at least one or two books on how to be successful, you already know the answers, Right. The problem is not that you need to learn how to be productive. The problem is that there's something blocking you from doing what you know you should do. And it's the ways in which procrastination is so Often a late and fear failure, right? The ways in which our fears of money, they have nothing to do with money. They very often have to do with what we watched our parents struggle with, around money that we are then projecting onto our business. And we're not actually looking at what's going on. So I think the most important thing is getting that we don't see clearly. There's an old saying, we don't see things as they are, we see them as we are. And I think that's. That really gets to the heart that we're not seeing the world. We're seeing the world through our own eyes. And beliefs that drive our vision for the most part, are locked in. By the age of seven, one of the most, I think, important things I could tell somebody is if you look at functional MRI data of people making decisions, you kind of look at the way that the brain works. Throughout our day, 95% of the brain activity is in the amygdala. Your amygdala is your emotional brain, right? That's the part of your brain that drives your behavior. That's where your limiting beliefs live, right? That part of your brain, for the most part, is locked in by seven. So your prefrontal cortex is your logical brain. It is your most mature brain. It's the part of you that knows what you want. It's the part of you that plans, it's the part of you that dreams. It's brilliant, but it's not the part of you that acts. So your prefrontal cortex wants you to go home at 7 o' clock to be with your family, but your amygdala wants to feel worthwhile. And your amygdala is the part of your brain that drives your behavior, right? Your prefrontal cortex wants to make certain responsible decisions, but your amygdala wants to feel good enough. Right? Your prefrontal cortex wants to listen well, but your amygdala wants to feel important. And so that is the core of our conflict, is that the part of our brain that's really smart is not the part of the brain that drives our behavior. And therein lies our problem.

Oh my God, it's funny. I'm laughing kind of at myself because I have a three and a half almost. And she's already saying things like she has her own plans. And I'm like, the plans to watch tv, Paw Patrol or something. But it's like that's all that 5% or whatever it is in prefrontal. And it's, it's fascinating. Because, yeah, we're emotional creatures, we're feeling creatures. And it's obvious from the science and mri, MRI data and. Yeah, and that's where I guess the beliefs. It's a feeling thing, but they are. There's a blockage. And would you say that blockage is really that. That tug the back and forth between those parts of the brain and our thinking side trying to take over?

Yeah. So the, the blockage. I think the most helpful way to think about the blockage is that your prefrontal cortex is going to tell you what you want. It's going to dre your, you know, your finances, what you want your financial situation to look like. It's going to dream of where your business is going. It's going to dream of your life. But the part of your brain that drives your decision making and the part of your brain that drives your behavior is your amygdala. And inside of your amygdala lives all of your limiting beliefs from childhood. So the feelings of when you were young and your critical father who was just trying to motivate you and trying to help, or we're not trying to blame dad, but right when your critical father would say, why would you do it like that? You know, what were you thinking? And you're five and you're like, oh, my God, what was I thinking? I must not be good enough. If I was better, dad would be proud of me. And instead, Dad's frustrated. So it must be because I'm not good enough, right? It must be because there's a right way and a wrong way to do things, and I can't trust myself and I do things the wrong way. And we don't realize is our brain doesn't update. It would be like if you. You were born in Antarctica and you live in Antarctica your whole life. And so you bring a jacket and sweaters and gloves and blankets everywhere you go. And then when you're 18 years old, you move to Hawaii. And for your whole life in Hawaii, you drag around jackets and blankets and gloves because your brain is still preparing for a world that you don't live in. Your brain never says, we made it to Hawaii. It's 80 and sunny all the time. So you're at brunch on a Sunday morning and the waves are crashing. It's 80 degrees and you need two seats, one for you and one for your pile of jackets and sweaters and hats and gloves, because your brain is still afraid of a blizzard, even if the blizzard's never going to come. And I Think one way to look at it is we spend our life preparing for a world that we never live in. Right. We spend our life preparing for a battle that we never have to fight. And that's what our brain is doing. It's just trying to keep us safe, but it's trying to keep us safe in an environment that we don't live in.

Wow, that's a really interesting analogy too. And it's so true with what we do. We carry so much baggage with us, and it's literal baggage. And it shows up in the form of us not doing things or being the way that we probably know we should or can be. I guess that's the. At least for me. And I've heard from a lot of entrepreneurs that we're striving for more like improving, optimizing our lives, whatever way that looks like for us. But there is that blockage. There's something that is preventing us from doing that. Maybe it's procrastination shows up. We have all these excuses, I gotta be more discipline or time management. I'm not journaling enough. All these are probably excuses and things that we haven't done to maybe go back in time and do some things. And I'm curious, and maybe this is where maybe it's relevant now or not. I've heard you talk about editing, like previous times of our lives, like previous years in our beliefs. And I'm curious if that is a. If this is a good time to kind of talk about that.

Yeah, absolutely. So our beliefs feel like facts. They just feel obvious. And there are times when we logic, logically, disagree with them. Right. There's times when we know better, but there's a part of us that it just feels true. And those beliefs come from our perceptions of the things that we experience. It's kind of what we can make sense of. It's like something complicated happens and to the best of our ability. Right. You think of even like your parents fighting and you're like, I don't. I don't know, the inner workings of their marriage. Right. I've never been married. I'm young. I don't know. It must be that relationships are really hard. So it's kind of that our beliefs are the best that we can come up with with, with the information that we have. So our beliefs are really helpful in that they help us understand the world better. Right. So our brain wants to be able to predict what's going to happen. That's how we create our feeling of safety. And this is really valuable in that it conserves energy and it helps us survive in the world. Right. We don't want to have to know what a traffic light does every time we see them. We want to be able to say, oh, I've seen a traffic light before. I can guess what this thing does. So our ability to kind of pattern recognize is really valu. But the challenge is we create generalizations in contextual environments. Right? So one example would be your parents are fighting, and you say, well, I guess relationships just don't work. I guess they're really hard. Well, it's possible that they just don't have great communication skills that nobody taught them. It's possible that they weren't a great match. But that doesn't tell you about marriage. And it's the same thing in business. And I think, Joe, one of the biggest places that I see entrepreneurs get stuck is that most entrepreneurs believe that it has to be hard, that hard work equals success. And you listen to a lot of entrepreneurs, and they will kind of promulgate that idea. And the reality is, business is neither hard nor easy. Your business is you. If you're an entrepreneur, your business is a reflection of you. The places that you're strong, your business will be strong. The places that you're weak, your business will be weak. And people will tell you to try to separate business and personal. Good luck, because you're the one running your business and you are a personal person. Right? The belief that impact you in your personal life, the beliefs that impact you in your business. And so often we have these limiting perspectives that business is. And. And once you say business is, you're limited because now you're creating a generalization. Business is contextual. And when you understand that you don't have to work hard and it doesn't need to be a struggle, and that the glory. Right. That you've created from that story is you hustling for a feeling of worth not creating a successful business. The two have nothing to do with each other. All of a sudden, it opens up the possibility, okay, so what would it be like if it didn't have to be hard? If I get out of that mindset, if I said if this was going to be easy, what would it look like? Your brain will solve any question you ask. It will solve any problem that you throw at it. That's what your brain does. So when you ask better questions, your brain gives you better answers. And as soon as you decide that something has to be hard work, or as soon as you decide that it has to be A certain way, you limit yourself from any possibility that exists outside of it. And so you keep recreating it and then you call it evidence. It's not evidence. It's just what you've created. Oof.

Yeah. This reminds me of, well, a couple things, I guess. You have. Brene Brown talks about paint me a picture of what your most ideal day or thing looks like, and immediately your brain's going to start working on that thing. And constantly, what comes up when I'm reflecting or journaling is okay. If I can think of whatever I want, whatever that is, if I can imagine it, pretty damn sure there's a way I can get to it, as long as I know it's not even how to. To do it. It's just my brain will kind of consciously and subconsciously go there. And we can create that. So literally our thoughts are things, but really, more than anything, it's knowing what the blockages are that are preventing us from getting those things. Because there's definitely going to be roadblocks there.

Yeah. I think one of the most helpful things you can do is when you think of something you want, imagine it, just like you said, right? Start to imagine it. Right? Where are you? What does it look like? How much money are you making? How big is your team? Right. Whatever it is. And then be aware. What's the first block that pops into your head? I were you, I would put all of your energy into overcoming that block. Because you don't need help in dreaming up what you want. You already know how to do that. It's natural, it's easy. And your ability to solve those problems is also very natural and easy. If you're blocked, right, you'll either run out of energy, you'll get frustrated, you'll get stuck, or you'll beat yourself up because you're trying all the things, why do I keep holding back? What's wrong with me? And then you fall prey, right, to the crappy voice in your head that yells at you. And you're like, you know what? I'm over it. I can't do this. And so where I find people have the biggest breakthroughs is it's not even in dreaming bigger. It's just getting clear what the blocks are and then moving around those blocks. And even just having the awareness of, right. If I dream into, it's like, what is it that I want? And I'm like, okay, I want to have these different corporate clients. Science. And that's what I want. And the first block that comes up, right. It's like, okay, what would. And I'm like, oh, I don't have the connections. Okay, well, maybe I need the connections and I don't have them. But if I can address that block, well, if I really start to look, okay, well, I do have some connections and I could actually utilize those connections. Now my brain's like, oh my God, I have this connection. I back and I could do this and I could do that. And I'm like, you know what? Now that I think about it, and now all of a sudden my brain's coming up with ideas. So it's. Once we get past the blocks, you will be amazed in what your brain is capable of. Just how it takes off with all of these brilliant ideas. I led, I did a presentation in New Orleans a couple weeks ago for a group of entrepreneurs. And in the workshop, one of the things in the workshop after the presentation, one of the things that I did was I had everybody think of something that they wanted. Right? And you know, I want to hit 100 million. It could be, I want to take Fridays off. I want to spend more time with my family. And then I had them address what is the number one block. And it was unbelievable once they saw the block and once they were able to start seeing outside of it, how quickly their brains started coming up with brilliant ideas. We have the capacity to come up with great ideas, but when we lock that part of us away, we wonder, why do I have no answers? Right.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And it really, it reminds me of, I mean, there's so many different things that we'll kind of call this. But like you're, it's so practical, cool. It's. I love the idea of, yeah. Envision the thing that you think you want, whatever that is. And in the theme of this show, and I'm still working on what it is, but it's like finding our enough. Like, what is the thing that really fulfills us fully as us? Not just in business or personal, but it's us. And because that thing's going to carry on anywhere. And I love the idea of closing your eyes, getting just, just into your, I guess, I don't know, feelings, I guess more than anything is like to settle your body down from that fight or flight feeling. And what is the first thing that pops up? And like, for me, I do a lot of hot tub sessions at night and it's just like a chill out mode and that's how I end my day. And it honestly, a lot of that happens. Like there's a thought and Then I can almost like fork to another thought or maybe like, okay, that's the block. What's a solution? And then, yeah, our brains just kind of start working on it without us even really trying. It's kind of effortless creation in a way. Not to sound all woo woo or whatever, but it's like this is science and it's perfect. It is.

There's a lot of really incredible brain science. The neuroscience behind our decision making and our ability to create is for me endlessly fascinating. And it's really empowering because, you know, I have so many clients that come to me and they're like, I don't understand why I'm stuck, right? Like I've. Whether they're a serial entrepreneur who have had success in the past and can't find fulfillment, or whether they're somebody who keeps capping. They're at, you know, 42 million and they can't, they can't seem to go above that number. Or whether it's, you know, again, it's, it's 7:30, it's 8:00 clock and they have this vision that they're going to go home and be with their family. And then 8:45 rolls around and they're still sitting at their desk and they're like, I don't understand why I'm stuck. And that frustration is so relatable even it's so real. But when you understand the neuroscience behind why, I can tell you exactly why. Because the part of your brain that wants what it wants is disconnected from your part of, from the part of your brain that drives your behavior. And the part of your brain that drives your behavior is focused on one thing and one thing only, and that is safety. Your brain does not care about being happy. Your brain cares about being safe. The number one priority of your brain is to keep you safe. And if you believe that your worth and value is tied to achieving, you're not going to go home. Because it's not safe in this world to not be worthwhile. Your worth is tied to your safety. And if you believe that your worth and value is tied to working hard, you're not going to look for efficiencies. As much as you know that efficiencies in your business are helpful, you are going to unconsciously reject things that are more efficient. You're not going to delegate as effectively. You're not going to cut out the projects that are not high priority because working hard makes you feel safe. As much as it's unpleasant, it gives you a feeling of safety. Right. I told you before we started that I listened to an episode with you and your wife and she was talking about, you know, just taking 30 minutes to go for a walk, just kind of carving out a few minutes for you. And so many people say I carve out the time, I know I'm going to do it and then I don't do it. Why? What's wrong with me? But the reality is that as, as nice as a 30 minute walk sounds, if there is an underlying fear that you are putting your worth and value at stake or that you're putting your business at stake, which of course isn't true. But if brain is tying that safety to being at your desk and getting things done because you're not worthwhile if you don't. Or you could make mistakes and fail and making mistakes and failing isn't safe. If that's what's driving you, you're not going to take the good advice, you're not going to do the healthy things, you're not going to prioritize your health, you're not going to prioritize your family. And so when you ask the question, what is enough? I think where I see people, especially entrepreneurs, get stuck the most is they're hustling for something that they already have. What you're hustling for is not your business. You're hustling for your worth and so doesn't exist because you're trying to be enough. You're not trying to create something that is enough, objectively enough doesn't exist. And when you can untangle your worth and value from your ability to achieve and say I love to achieve, it makes me feel successful. It's invigorating. I get to experience my own intelligence. I get to be in my genius zone. I get to hit flow state. That's a really great place to drive achievement from. But driving achievement from a place of lack and fear is tiring. And what you find is no matter how many milestones you hit, enough never comes. Woo.

That, that's. I'm gonna listen back to that section, this whole thing. But that right there is. It lands close to home for one. And obviously you called out Heather and myself. And it's true, there's this, well, the fact that everything is rooted in our safety. And that's why I mentioned like the fight or flight. But I like the way you put it is we want safety. Our brains, our bodies, everything and our emotion. It's like this whole pull back to center. It's like what's safe, what's safe. And yeah, work feels safe. Clearing my inbox is safe. My emails, I gotta respond to everybody. And then you know the layers of all the emotion, guilt, shame, all these things can be and that's where I know I've speaking for myself. That's where it's been. A loop is like that until I noticed and now I have luckily. But even more so now is like no, it's safety that we're after and our body's like that's the default state.

Yeah.

Like we're gonna feel it in some way if we're not feeling safe. I think it's up to us to identify it. Right.

Yeah, there's. There's something that I think is kind of interesting. There's a in the more kind of like you said, the more like woo woo self love, right. There's a lot of people who are looking and saying that the way I thought I was gonna do business is not fulfilling. Right. Running myself into the ground is not happiness. And maybe the self love thing is a little like I'm not going to get into the self love thing. Right. But I do at least want to have pleasant a pleasant experience of my life. And I think one way to kind of marry the two is getting it's not about self love or not self love. It's getting that everything we do is self protective. Right. So it doesn't need to be a soft gushy, you know, you know, candles in the bathtub, like I'm not big on that, that's not really my jam. But I think that getting that everything we're doing on some level is an act of sel love because self protection, right Is is a form of love. And so you doing things that make no sense are actually just you trying to protect yourself. That is a form of self love. Albeit a very unhealthy way to express your self love often. Right. And so I think a question you can start to look at is if everything I'm doing on some level is self protective first to get do I actually need to be protected? Because we need to remind our brains that we're not for and unable to survive on our own. When our brain develops, we. We don't have the luxury of independence during our first seven years of life according to our brain, right. And according to reality. In a lot of ways our survival depends upon our parents. So we're not calibrating our sense of who we are and what we want around how we feel. It's around how our parents feel. And so now when we wonder, why do I care what people think of me? It's a survival mechanism. It's self protective. Because if you feel like your parents are happy with you and there's harmony in the family, they'll take care of me and I'll be safe. If there's disharmony and they're displeased with me, they could abandon me and I could die. So there's actually a really deep survival mechanism in our brain to orient around other people and how we are perceived. And so when we wonder, right, okay, so what am I doing? Why am I not putting these videos on YouTube? Why am I not, you know, putting myself out there in these ways? Why am I talking to the small clients who really aren't my target and I'm not reaching out to the people who really are my target clients. Right. Why am I not reaching out to my million dollar clients? And you get. Well, the reason I'm not doing it is because it's self protective. Because that's always the answer. It's always the answer. I'm not doing it because I'm trying to protect myself. One, do I actually need to protect myself from this? Do I need to protect myself from failure? Do I need to protect myself from judgment? Will I die? Right. Is really the underlying question. No. It might be uncomfortable, but we've done uncomfortable things. Uncomfortable is okay. Unsafe is not. When you can change unsafe to uncomfortable and get that you don't actually need to protect yourself. You're creating a foundation where you're re engaging your prefrontal cortex. When you're in your amygdala and you're in this, a lot of people will call it, you know, it's like a fight or flight. But the reality is when you are in a triggered state, you lose access to the problem solving part of your brain. So the part of your brain that need to get out of the situation is the part of the brain that goes offline. Right? Right. It's gone. And the best way from my perspective, to re engage your prefrontal cortex is to move from unsafe to uncomfortable. Uncomfortable is problem solving. Unsafe is emotional fight or flight. So, oh, I'm not putting my videos up because I'm trying to protect myself, but I'm not unsafe. Re engage the prefrontal cortex. I'm just uncomfortable. Okay, now what do I want to do if it's just uncomfortable? Now you can start to reason and it will give you an ability to problem solve that you have no access to. If you're in that unconscious Fear unsafe mode.

Yeah, I guess we're tricking our brains in a way. It's reframing and it's. I could totally see that being as a way that like now I have a plan, you know, and you get mo. At least. I've done this similar thing, but it's like almost stretching it without knowing is like, I'm gonna go reach out to like on this podcast. It would like reach out to this big name author, whoever it is. I'm like, ah, guess what? They're probably going to say yes. Most people will take your call. You know, if it's a client that you feel like, oh man, I wish I just had this million dollar client. Well, you probably have maybe a connection to it. Just go try. Because honestly, they're people too. They're dealing with similar chemistry or, you know, this biology stuff and yeah, I mean just, just get out there and do it. And I'm curious because I want to go back to a little bit more of you because you obviously have done so many amazing things. When I was doing some research. The fact that you, you've what you got yourself into positions in, in big companies that in an early age that probably were not, I don't want to say not qualified because you obviously were way above.

Right. Way above my level on paper.

There you go.

Yeah, I didn't check the, I didn't.

Check the boxes and you mentioned. Yeah, so you've done like incredible things. Obviously you learned a ton from your father and I'm sure your parents in general together as a unit as well. Well, and. But you have crafted that for yourself in the. But you said that it wasn't working for you. I'm curious about that because you're obviously in flow. I've heard you're always in flow or most of the time. So yeah. What's up with that? And how did you get past it?

Yeah, so I mean, I kind of. It's funny, it's kind of a mirror to my dad's story, but I was the companies. Right. It's like I knew all the answers. I have understood that our beliefs, you know, very dramatically impact how we think, feel and behave since I was 4 years old. Like, I remember being really young and not wanting to feed the cat and you know, instead of it being like, you need to feed the cat, it's like, what do you believe that has you not want to feed the cat? So like I was. This was integrated into my development from a really, really young age. I, I have understood that people are blocked by their beliefs. And it was like I could see the Matrix when I was like. Like, I literally had to turn it off because I could see people's beliefs. I was like, oh, of course these people are stuck. These are their beliefs. And so I've always understood that. But unfortunately, right, understanding doesn't change behavior. One of my favorite quotes is a Derek Sivers quote. If all it took was more information, we'd all be billionaires with six pack abs.

I love it.

Yeah, it's one of my favorite quotes because it really gets to the point that we all know what to do. So I understood logically that if you change your beliefs, you'll be free. And I even had this brilliant, incredible process that my dad had created to help people eliminate beliefs. But I think what happened with me was I was introduced to it when I was too young, and the part of my brain that was able to intellectualize hadn't actually started developing. So I was using the wrong part of the brain to try to take me through this process. And because of that, it just created a host of issues and insecurities and problems. So one of the reasons why I do what I do is because I never want anyone to feel how I felt felt. I was a bleeding heart person who was unbelievably sensitive, who was very aware of all of my negative beliefs and felt like a total and complete failure for not being able to shift them. Right. There was this thing that was like my family and I was not able to do it. And I was like, I'm a problem and I'm bad and I'm wrong and I'm not good enough because I can't do this thing. And it plagued me for most of my life. And everything I did was about overcoming. You know, there's a lot of people who are like, like, you know, some people like you and some people don't. And I was like, that's not my experience. Like, I figured out how to be whoever anyone needed me to be. Everyone loved me because I gave them anything they wanted, right? It was like I gave them insight. I was helpful. And because I kind of had this superpower, you know, people love to talk about themselves. So I would show up and tell somebody something about themselves that would change their life. And everybody thought so well of me. But I hit a point when I realized that I felt like I was living in a glass castle. It was like the view was beautiful. I could overlook the city and watch the sunset, but I was stuck there. And I felt very alone. And I had so many good friends. And I had, you know, achieved so many things, but I just didn't feel close to myself. I felt this gap between me and me. And it just kind of hit a point where it was like, I can't live like this anymore. Like, I need to figure out how to start taking my own advice. Like, I. I know all the answers, and I've been doing this work my whole life. Like, I need to create something that can work on me. I need to be able to figure out how to break through myself. And part of it was just, if I can break through myself, then I can live a more authentic, happy life. And part of it is, if I can break through myself, there's no one I can't work with. And so I figured if I was my hardest client ever, you could throw anyone in my lap and I would be good. And that's kind of been my experience. So I've just developed a lot of my own IP and a lot of. Kind of using in the beginning, my clients almost as mirrors. Right. Of really, really listening to what came out of my mouth. Because when I work with clients, things really, they come through me. Not. I don't feel like I'm like, thinking. It's just. I say things. Wow. I don't know.

Almost. Yeah.

But, like, it's crazy, right? It's been like that my whole life. And so just being a little bit more aware of the things that were coming out of my mouth and the things that I was creating and the patterns that I was seeing and being like, oh, this is like, this is really valuable. This is good stuff. And then, you know, going into different environments. So first I made one on one clients, and then and seeing how it works in a workshop or a presentation and going in and doing corporate work and just getting more and more data points that, like, it's working. Like, I'm getting really good feedback. It's working, it's working. And I'm like, wow, okay, it's working even more. And so for me, it's just really been this journey of slowing down and saying, I know how to build an intentional life. I have a life that I absolutely love. But how do I make sure that I'm not running over myself in the process, that I'm enjoying it and that I'm appreciating, you know, being me kind of inside of my life? I want to enjoy living inside of my head. So that. That's. Yeah, that's. That's really been kind of my. My personal journey.

That's awesome. And that's. As you're saying that. I feel like a lot of us have some kind of thing that we just know is innate or we learned at an early age. Maybe not to the same exact level, but we almost deflect what our brilliance is, our genius. And. And, yeah, if we're like that, obviously, the ones we're chatting with are reflections of what we got inside of us and whatever, wherever it's coming from, from. And if we slow down and notice, oh, shoot, that's actually something I helped with or I did. And that's, like. That's. That's awesome. That's me, you know, and noticing.

Fun. And I think, you know, it's like, we're entrepreneurs because we love something. We love the creative process. We love thinking. We love coding. Whatever it is, you love something. And I have really incredibly strong boundaries about what I'm willing and unwilling to do, because I love my business. Like, I jump out of bed in the morning. I love my business business, and I never want that to change. So I'm really, really stringent about. It's interesting. I hired an operations manager a while ago, and she was absolutely lovely, but I realized a couple months in, she wanted me to build a business in a kind of very traditional. Not bill, but, you know, build from where I was in a very traditional way. And I felt my. Like.

Yeah.

And I was like, oh, no. Like, I can't. I can't let that happen. And thankfully, she was just a contract. And so it ended up kind of working out that we ran through the contract, and I was like, I really don't want to hire somebody for that right now because I run my business in a very strange way. Like, I run my business in a way that feels like me. And I do what I love, and it works really well, and I have a thriving business, but I am unwilling to do things that I don't enjoy that don't make me come alive, because I know where my genius zone is, and I want to live in my genius zone as much as humanly possible. Right? I want to be in my genius zone, like, a solid 70% of the time. And so what that means is if there are certain things that don't excite me that look really good on paper, I'm. I'm very willing to put them away. And when I do that, I'll watch other things arise. Like, I'll start having conversations, you know, with somebody, and I'm like, it's just, you know, it's an opportunity, and they're A big name. And it's. And I'm like. Like, I'm just not thrilled. And I'll take a step back, and then two weeks later, I'll get a phone call from someone and I'm like, oh, there we go.

You kept the open loop. It was. You let him in. Yeah.

And I'm like, if I fill my time with things that I don't love, there's no room for, you know, the other kind of. For the magic to fall in. Being protective that you started a business because you love something and if you do what you love and you're very diligent about asking yourself, if you don't love something, is it. Is it necessary? Can I delegate it? Can I throw it in the trash can? Like, can I minimize it? Can I do just a piece of it? And really protecting not just your energy in terms of, like the hours in the day, but protecting your energy in terms of what you love and what depletes you. I mean, I found that to be life changing in my business.

Oh, yeah. And it's figuring out. I feel like the negatives are a lot more. A lot easier to identify. What are these blockages? And maybe it's a lot more of those sessions of, you know, close your eyes and figure out where you want to be and what's the first thing that pops up and like, listing them all out, bringing them to our awareness and start acting on them. Because there's probably solutions once we actually have them in front of us, maybe on paper, whatever. And. Yeah, and creating space. I mean, this is. This is amazing. And I think we can keep talking forever.

We can do it forever. It'd be fun.

How can you. Because I don't think you've been on many podcasts or done a lot of things like that. I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but, like, where can folks go into more of your stuff? I know you have an amazing website. You have a group. I feel like you should have more content out there too, because this is awesome.

Thank you. Yeah, I was gonna say. I mean, I've been on a handful of podcasts, but britlefko.com is my website. B R I T T L E F k o e britlefko.com and I was gonna say, if you're interested, book a call. I'm. I just. I love connecting with new people and I love working with entrepreneurs, especially taking on new clients. I'm a little close to full, but. But I've got a little bit of space, and so I would. I would love, you know, just book a call and, and see if you're a good fit. I do have a group. I do one on one coaching. I do corporate work. So I'll have certain clients who run a business like, hey, it would be really great, you know, bring you in and do a workshop with my team or, you know, I'd love to do something with my leadership team or, you know, I have have a couple different employees who are struggling with X, Y and Z. You know, what advice would you give? So there's a lot of different ways that I've kind of creatively worked with people in the past. So I would say reach out and let's just kind of see what's, what's possible. And I would, I'd love to chat.

Heck yeah, we'll do it. And Brit, thanks again. I'm serious. This is, I'm going to go back and there's going to be clips in here. I just want to take out and make them a lot more public so they don't get lost in the sauce here. So expect to see more of those around. Thank you for your time.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Joe. This was great.

All right, all right. That's what I got for you today. And remember, it's not all about living to work. It's all about working to live if you need to do the work. But you know, work can be fun and it should be fueling for your life. So if you enjoyed what you just heard, if you got some nuggets of wisdom that you want to share or you're just noodling on right now, please go tell others. The way that, that people find this show and how you can help others get their aha moments is through word of mouth. So if it is telling your friend, telling your family, send an email to your list, writing a review or whatever it might be. Everything helps. So thank you so much for listening to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast and I will see you next time.