The #1 Internal Limit Keeping You From Your Next Level with Shoshanna Raven
Shoshana Raven, author of The Limit Does Not Exist, tells Lori Harder that shame is the main internal barrier holding people back. She shares stories of severe illness and disclosing an STI to show how owning shame dissolves it, then walks through her four-limit framework with practical tools for each.
Chapters
It's unconscious for so many of us. We're like, I don't have shame. If you've ever hedged, if you've ever apologized, if you ever said yes when you wanna say no, what if I'm not lovable? What if he leaves me? What if I end up alone? All of this, this is shame.
The thing that shame does is it keeps you quiet. The thing that you need the most in a lot of those times is someone to say, oh my gosh, me too. Everything really large in my life that has been one of the largest challenges, I haven't gotten through alone. It's been because someone says, me too. Here's what I did. Shoshana, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you on.
I'm so happy to be here.
I found you through one of our mutual friends. And I'm so excited that I did because I love all the topics that you talk about. I'd seen my friend Amanda Francis go and speak at your event and I was like, hold on a minute, who is this person? Because I have a big background of female events and I feel like whenever I meet another woman who does large female events, I'm like, okay, a lot of times our mission, our vision, those things are very much the same because if you I feel called to put on an event, which is very— people who have never done them, it's like one of the most expansive things that, in my opinion, you can go through as a human. So I reached out because I was like, I feel like I would love to have a chat with this person because I got to see the event, I heard great things about it, and I really wanted to connect. So I'm excited that not long after this, we're having this conversation right now. And the more that I dug in, the more I'm like, oh, I really, really love you.
Thank you.
your message, where it's coming from, the values, the fact that you're really all about like slaying shame and fear and continuing on with it. So I'm excited to open this up because like that is your battle cry in a way, is shame, right? So tell me like where that came from.
Well, I want to start off by saying we're going to dive in. We are the pure embodiment of collaborative frequency of more is more, of just like, yes, new friends, which is everything I'm all about. I'm like, I want to join a new space and like blow up. Like, if it's a chat box, chat room, I'm like, oh my, like, I want to be a party. I want to connect. And you are probably like one of the top super connector people I've ever met. Like, it is just amazing. You've already connected me with people who have really like changed things for me, who have just— and it's Having someone like you in your orbit is just such a dream. So I'm so excited to like collaborate with you, to get to know you. It's amazing.
Okay, I do have to tell you that that is my— it's my absolute favorite thing on earth to do with the right energy. And I can, you know, I can recognize it now really, really fast. So I will say it took a lot of work of doing wrong connections and collaborations To learn the energy that I understand is something that I actually just call it girlfriend energy. But that means a lot to me. It means like, my solar plexus feels good. It feels very mutual. It feels excited. Both parties feel excited. There's not one that's kind of like, I'm really like, I feel like you're benefiting from this, but I'm not.
It's very—
it just feels like a very clean, mutual girlfriend. Let's be friends. Like, see how we can help each other. And that's just taken years to learn. And like, I won't jump into things as quickly as we did if I don't feel that. So yeah, that's you.
Yeah.
And it— you have to make all the mistakes. I think Christian said something recently, like, an expert is someone who has made all of the mistakes imaginable in a narrow window. It's like, yes, that is it. Like, being so right there. Yeah. Yeah. You know. You see, you learn. And yeah, I'm just— it's such a joy when you see someone who's also creating for the love of creating. I know that we were speaking about that before, like collaboration. It's like, yeah, you win and who's winning more? And it just all feels very transactional rather than what I love about podcasting is I started Living Brave with a podcast that had no business, that had no offers. I just felt like I had a message that had changed my life. And if I didn't share it with someone, like I was going to pop.
Yeah.
Every time I got quiet, I sat in a meditation, it was like, it was kind of like all this creative energy bubbling inside of me that was just looking for a release valve and it was gonna come out somewhere. And so I didn't know what I was doing and I didn't know how it was gonna work. And like, I was staying up until like 3:00 AM, you know, editing this podcast on GarageBand, just trying to get my voice out. And my computer had actually crashed, like my first 8 podcasts, and I didn't back anything up. I didn't know what I was doing. I'm like crying in the back of the Apple Store, like so much grief, you know? Because you forget, like, tech just happens. And when you have a media business, you figure this out. And I started all over, and it just felt good to create, and it just felt good to express, and it just felt right. And I think as someone— I never considered myself a creative person. I wasn't good enough to be creative. I was analytical. You know, we get put in our lane at an early age.
Hmm.
To really claim that we get to make art, even if I don't know how to draw a stick figure and my handwriting looks like a raccoon on crack, like, I can make something and then other people can benefit from it. And I think people lose that in their business when it becomes very transactional. And what I like to teach is that we're, we really are co-creating our reality on different planes. Like there's our focus and what we feed, we focus on and energy flows to, and our frequency, like what we are drawing in. Vibes don't lie. You can feel it. Like you don't have to get super woo to understand that, right? And then on the material plane. So when you're loving what you're doing, when you're doing it, when you have passion and when you're really playing the game for the love of the game, Like you're collaborating with people not to get something next month or next year, but you see that everything you pour in when you are playing to just keep playing because you love it, it comes back like tenfold in 6 months, like in 6 years. It's just through a doorway that you weren't even looking at that looks unrelated. It's just like what you pour in comes back.
Mm-hmm.
And that's what I love so much about collaboration, what you guys are doing with Glossy and How all the dots on your journey have only connected, you know, looking back. So, uh, shame slaying. Okay. Shame slaying being the foundation of what I do. And you said, you know, helping people work with their shame and with their fear. We definitely slay shame, but what I've learned, and I haven't met a single person who has slayed fear, like I've been behind the scenes of so many successful women's lives, businesses, and I actually love to just give people permission to be human and to feel brave. And bravery frequency is not like confidence. Confidence is like settled and sturdy, and we all want that, but we don't want like the really kind of messy, crazy, what feels chaotic part of the growth journey, which if you're growing at a rapid pace, you're never really settled at this place of confidence. There are some things that you feel confident in, 'Cause you have evidence and then you're being brave over and over, which literally means you're just with fear all the time. You're with uncertainty. And the greatest thing in my new book, I, it's called The Limit Does Not Exist. I talk about the 4 main limits that hold us back from the sense of, oh my gosh, like the limit does not exist. Lindsay Lohan moment. The first limit that makes everything else quite impossible, like I love talking about, you know, how we navigate Relationships and circumstances and societal systems. But the first limit is ourselves. And shame is like the deepest lie that we hold about ourselves. It's so dense. And it, it's so unconscious that it, it sucks your energy and you walk around like hiding. And so shame, it's okay to have things that we hold private from the world. I think people see me and they're like, I don't want to tell the internet about my— Herpes status, thank you very much. You don't have to do that, right? But the idea is that anything that we're holding back, like, what if they find out the truth about me? That there's this thing— trauma is anything that we feel happened to us, not for us. And there's nothing from our past that we can't turn into post-traumatic growth, right? So this thing that I'm holding that happened to me, that if people found out, they would know I'm not really who I say I am, I'm not really lovable, I'm not really enough. I don't really deserve to be here. And that just distorts every single layer of reality that we're creating change on. We hyperfocus on something that doesn't need to matter. All the energy flows there, and then we make it mean that we're bad, that we're wrong, that life forgot about us. And we start to compensate in our action. We start to like try to hide and protect and avoid. And as you know, being someone who's created amazing things, It takes having an approach strategy, like I'm going to run towards what I want to create. But when we're protecting, hiding, avoiding, it leads to like very short-term strategy. It leads to building a life that doesn't even feel like our own to prove that we're good enough. And so my like main way to break through limit one is through vulnerability, is through like what my podcast did in the beginning before I had an offer. It was like, let's just talk about The stuff that no one's talking about, because through authentic connection, you will find freedom. When you drop the mask, you give other people permission to, by modeling the way. The rarest thing on planet Earth is not the woman who was confident. That's amazing. It's not the woman who has it all figured out. That's great. It's the person who's willing to be seen and who clearly loves and accepts themselves. Like, I wasn't the prettiest. I don't have all the clothes. I didn't have a boyfriend. I didn't have the bank account. I built my business from my parents' You know, house. It was like the '90s, '80s decor. It wasn't that that's magnetic. It's someone who's like, wow, they love and accept themselves like for who they are and where they've been at, and they know who they are, and they know at least not even where they're going, but what matters to them. And they're willing to find the gap in the conversation and go places other people won't go. And so that's my passion in the world is to help people. liberate themselves and then play all these really fun games in business and the world. Like, okay, now we get past ourselves. That's just a ticket into the arena, you know, where we can actually play the game.
So that is, so that is, that is the number one foundation, truly. I, I have so much to say on this, and I want to hear just one or two of your stories as well. But as you're talking, I'm like, yep, that was the first thing I had to get over. I had two, I, I had like two really large moments in my life. I actually had Hundreds and hundreds of these moments, but some that popped into my head immediately were I did not graduate high school. I was raised Jehovah's Witness, so like door knocking my whole life, and I wasn't allowed to hang out with anyone outside of my religion. So that really caused a lot of like, just kind of like a lot of challenges around even learning how to like talk to other humans and networking and pretending as I got into business, quote unquote, that I was smart enough. And I had such shame around how are people gonna take me serious, which— You know, when I started business, this was, you guys, this was like 17 years ago now when education truly, if you don't remember, if you're too young for this, it was everything. Like, if you had a business, you better have gone to college or you better have something that people will take you serious on, not some high school dropout who figured out how to sell some stuff online. So literally it was like I was hiding this thing that I thought if people found out that they wouldn't take me seriously. So it just Felt like, oh my God, any minute someone's going to research me, they're going to find this out, I'm going to be a fraud, I'm going to be canceled, it's going to be all the things. And that was holding me back in so many ways and holding me back in like rooms that I even wanted to be in because I've always felt like I was one deep conversation away from getting found out. So guess what? I never put myself in those experiences because it was always like I was kind of protecting myself. And I think people felt that. It was like, why can't we go super deep with this girl? It was such a protective layer. Which doesn't allow your absolute genius to come out, which will come out, you guys, because if you know it, you know it listening to us right now. You felt it, you know it when you heard her open with those first few minutes. You feel it, you know you need to, you know you're going to burst if you don't get that thing out. But the foundation is literally exactly what she's saying is that getting past that, and the only way I got past that was being vulnerable and being like, hey, I got to get this out there. I got to tell the story. And I had to believe— I loved what you said, I've never heard that trauma is the belief that it's happening to you, not for you. And I actually had to frame the story like, if I can do this without graduating, look at what you guys can do. I flipped the story. That's what gave me freedom. And so before that, no freedom. After I flipped the story, talked to a bunch of people, got vulnerable with girlfriends, you know, started letting that out one person by one person. That's when I freed myself and a whole other level came through. So I have a couple others, but I want to hear one for you that was like, what was your first foundational, like, oh shit, like this is shackling me?
Oh, I love that we all feel sometimes alone in our journeys until we see that there's— it's different content, but the same context. And I think that's really the path of transformation, why transformation is such a A spiritual journey is that you're so in your story, you're so— you take everything at face value. And that's really what I did. It's like someone tells me this is good, someone tells me this is bad, someone tells me this is how you get taken seriously. But even when we're talking about success, like, people are confused about what success is really about. It's like if we want to get a promotion, get a raise at a traditional job, or you want to get an A in school, like, then yes, follow the rules, play the part, look the part. But In real life, in love, in entrepreneurship, that's not how the world works. You're rewarded by creating something rare and valuable, like, right? Like, then the more rare and valuable it is, like, that's, that's how you gain success. And then having the right business model allows you to scale, right? So it's like, it has nothing to do with what you think it's about. And I think when you break free from the box and you realize you weren't even in a box, like, right now I feel like I have probably reached 1% of my capacity. Like, I don't know what kind of matrixes I'm still living inside of, right? But it's like that whole discovery process.
Mm-hmm.
For me, it was really the whole journey with— I was, gosh, what age? I was in my 20s and I was traveling. I had quit my job and I felt like this conditional sense of confidence on the outside. And I dove into some spiritual work like, oh my gosh, I'm more than my mind, my body. I am not Shoshana. I'm the unborn, undying self. Yes. Right. And like, I love that part of my journey, but what I did and how naive I was is I thought that meant I could just suppress my human story and I could just transcend it. And I was in Nepal and I got really sick and I had a 104 fever, nerve pain down my legs, thousands of miles away from family and friends, staying at this $5 a night guest house in Bhaktapur, this medieval city, huge New Year's celebration, thousands of people in the town square playing tug-of-war over a giant chariot. I'm trying to hold myself up on this Ganesha statue, like, where— what's going on? You know, the $1 antibiotics weren't working. I'm Shivering under piles of blankets. It's like the heat of the summer and it's really scary. Yeah. Finally go to the hospital, like, okay, you know, women sometimes just get stressed. I'm like, mm-hmm. That moment you just feel like, like angry, but really scared. And so I got back and I just had this feeling and I opened up my phone and my hands like start shaking as I'm typing. Like I, I just know. And the, all the anonymous threads come up full of pain, full of heartbreak, full of shame, isolation, accounts that don't even want you to know their name. Herpes. And I just know in a second my whole world crumbled. I actually saw a photo of myself and saw someone else. It was like that. It was a complete like identity ego death really moment of like, wow, my life is over. Like, I had it coming to me. I attracted this thing. No one's gonna love me. And it was like all of this like confidence that it looked like I had on the outside, like traveling the world, I'd quit my job. Like, you saw what was really underneath. You saw what I really felt about myself. You saw what I had inherited from women from generations and generations in our families, right? And so I didn't wanna get found out. And so I booked my flight home and I just felt like an absolute victim. And it didn't matter that people told me, you know, that I saw the stats that 1 in 2 women will have an STI before age 25. Didn't matter.
Why?
Because the shame was already there. It's unconscious for so many of us. We're like, I don't have shame. If you've ever hedged, if you've ever apologized, if you ever said yes when you wanna say no, like, There are reasons why you are not acting in alignment with your truth, right? There— it's, it's there.
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If you already maybe felt like, what if I'm not lovable? What if he leaves me? What if I end up alone? All of this, this is shame. And so it finally gave my shame something to grasp onto.
Yeah.
And I started running from myself again. This girl who had quit her job to go, you know, find enlightenment in India. I moved to Denver and I start going out all the time. I, I have no boundaries. I let everything in and out and I'm complete— I'm running from myself. And it isn't until I am crying myself to sleep one night after a party where I feel so alone in a big room. And I just hear that familiar voice, which is our highest self, like who lives in that little— when you're— sometimes she comes to you and it's just, there's nowhere else to go. It is so quiet. There's, you can't hide, you can't run. It's like, you know exactly what to do. You can keep doing this. You really can. And no one will make you wrong for that, but you know what to do. You can become your own best friend again, was the message. And this really starts with What's a good place to start on any journey? It's like loving, love yourself, love yourself back to wholeness. And not through really thinking so much about it, but through taking all the energy and focus back onto my life and back onto treating myself well. I ran a half marathon, I traveled across the country, learned how to pitch a tent. I was like elbow deep in like other people's dishes on the Blissware team at yoga festivals. Through that journey, I started to open up. I started to come back to myself and I started to talk to people. I had this feeling like maybe you're carrying some pain, like maybe you can heal yourself. It was just, we get these nudges, we get this guidance. I thought, what if I started playing with this, with this thing I'm carrying? And I think with the travel and with all the new adventures, I started to feel space. where there was once shame, started to just play. I didn't know this was energetics, but my focus shifted because there was new space. And then I started entering the field of energetics. Like, what if I didn't approach this, the sob story and this victim story? Because often when you're like, I have something to tell you, and you tell them in a lot of tears, people are like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. And they tell you a scary thing back. So it's like the world will match you. And I started kind of playing with it. So people would ask me like, can I have a sip of your water? I'd be like, yeah, I have herpes. Don't worry, you won't get it. Like, I just started playing. Like, I'd be like, flirty and funny, and I'd be like earnest and sincere and passionate and say like, yeah, I'm actually really passionate about this. And people started listening and I started to really stand out and I made a lot of new friends. And I knew that's when I had to share my story and I was going to go public about it. But I had this intuition like, before I do that, I'm going to prepare by doing the scariest thing that I could possibly think of. And I called it The Vulnerability Project. It's episode 1 of my podcast. You can listen to me like shaky voice talking about it. It's like, I'm going to tell the people I'm most terrified to tell who, like, including the person I was dishonest with, if I can meet them in person, better. I'm just going to do the thing that scares me the most because I have a feeling that'll just set me free. And then what can touch me if I share this with the people I'm most scared to share it with?
Well, so free.
Yep. And it was just the most I did not want it to end. It was the most liberating journey. Realized I'm the only one holding myself back. People are trying to make out with me as I tell them about my STI, doing herpes, you know, like, what did you hear me? Like, what's going on? And you're like, hey, like, I felt like love. I always thought that people loved me for who I was pretending to be. But when I had nothing to hide and people like, how can I support you? Like, can I help you with a website? This is so cool what you're doing. And then opening up about their stuff.
Yeah.
Like, I couldn't shut up about this. I was like, I found the magical elixir. I'm free. And I felt all this energy rush into my life. People always tell me how much energy I have. I'm like, I really feel like it's all this weight that you're holding. Every time I told the truth, I felt lighter. I felt like all this energy rushed back into me that I can just tap into. And I just did not want to shut up about it. And that's really how the Living Brave Started through that vulnerability story. So I love hearing about, you know, your journey of this thing that we think is such a big deal. And the crazy thing about that is that when we hide it to belong, it keeps us separate. But when we share it, it builds a bridge. Now we can connect. Now we actually feel like, I know you, I trust you, my defenses are lowered, which for anyone in business or sales, for any kind of relationship. I mean, that's the first step.
Yeah. I'm thinking about how every time we don't share something that is— and like you said, we're not saying like, go and share all of your stuff right away. This comes in levels for sure, you guys. Like, it comes in waves. You get to a place where, like, over time, when you do this enough, you actually do want to share the thing that might seem the craziest to you right now. Because what happens is every single one of those, it weighs something, like it's baggage. And picture like every time you go to do something even challenging, you're like, nope, you got to pick up every one of those shame suitcases and carry it with you. Like there's just no energy for that. And so as you put them down, you're like, oh my God, I had no idea that I'd feel more alive, awake, more connected to people, more willing. Like when I walk in the room, I don't feel as like scared. I don't have as much anxiety because you're just like, here I am.
Like, yeah, I outed myself.
Like you outed yourself.
Totally. It's It was realizing it's just content. And I think that's what putting it out there is. You see it for what it is. You see it's a story. You see it's a valid story. It's a real story, but it's just a story. Like, oh, I'm doing this thing, Lori. I was feeling this thing, right? Like that. This is what was happening for me. It's like I can observe myself. I'm in the context of my thoughts and feelings. I don't get wrapped up and just live as a reaction to my life and to circumstance. I see that I'm I'm co-creating with life and the material that it's giving me. Mm-hmm.
I love this because you're flipping even so much of what is happening in my life right now. Like, I'm in a fundraise. There's some normal challenges of being in a startup, but if I were to look at them as, wow, there's a lot of challenges right now, I can actually flip it and say, how could this be happening for me? And truly, it's directing me if I really dig into each one. Of what's working, what's not, who's actually working, who's a lot of talk. I need to move quicker because success loves speed. And it's making me very clear. So there's a lot of challenges that if we looked at them that way, they're actually just trying to get you more clear faster. If there's a whole bunch of shit in your life, it's probably asking for you to sit, get some more clarity, and move a little quicker on the things that you know are not for you anymore. And so I know that there's 4 limits.
Yeah.
So we've talked about the shame being number 1 as like the foundation. I really, like, I really deeply feel that the only way to go to a level 2 in your life is to start confronting these things. So I love your vulnerability project. Before we go to number 2, I just want you to share like what's a mini vulnerability project that we could do for ourselves?
Like, honestly, what I always share with people, like, the practices are so simple that sometimes we don't allow them because they're too simple, because that means we have to do them. Amen.
Amen.
Yeah. For like the really getting through the main limit, us and shame being the number one thing that holds us back, it's like exploring it. And you can do that through talking about it. You do that with yourself. You start even just through this podcast, you're probably starting to go, hmm. You know, what are some, some of the things that I tell myself? What are some? And you're just looking at the content of like what comes up for you, what you tell yourself. And so I always say explore it and then name it. So you're like, oh, this is what's happening. This is the shame. This is the story. And then speak it out loud. And so I didn't go and publish my podcast the first thing. I started telling like Uber drivers, nail artists, like that per— like not my friends or someone who I thought would say, don't share that. Right. But somebody who I was like, I trust this person. I'm going to share my story. And then I went and I told the people that Would be most frightening to tell, you know? And I've had, I remember I had a client start to work with me who she signed up for business support, and obviously we are the bottleneck most of the time. When we dug in, she had a lot of, she had postpartum depression really that she hadn't looked at, and a lot of feelings that she didn't want first to be found out about at all. She was very afraid that people would know the truth about her. She had read this blog article that made her feel really connected, and then at the end it said, But I don't regret motherhood. I'm not a monster. And it was like the second she read that, she's like, oh, never mind. I, I'm a monster and I'm having— I'm that. I can't tell people how I'm really feeling. And so she started opening up to me and I started to like really hear her and started to see what was going on for her. And she just started a conversation with her community, right? It wasn't even about what she did for business, but it was just like, hey, why are moms like real experiences? You know, and she started to see that people actually felt— had similar experiences as her. And when you integrate that part of yourself, you realize it's not all of you. You realize it's just a part. You realize that it's just a shadow. You realize it's just fear. You realize the more you try to suppress it, the more you feel like, that's what I am, and it takes over your whole life, rather than like accept, embrace your, your whole self. So these are just little like The many vulnerability projects that people can do.
I love that. And what I, what I wanna say, that's like such— the thing that shame does is it keeps you quiet. The thing that you need the most in a lot of those times is someone to say, oh my gosh, me too. And then also to get support. So everything really large in my life that has been one of the largest challenges, I haven't gotten through alone. It's been because someone says, me too, here's what I did. And so holding all that shame and holding all of those secrets is keeping you blocked from the support that somebody who went through the thing now feels like, you know, it's their life purpose. They came out with whatever it is that was shameful that they feel bad about it. And it now is like, you know, you came out about your herpes. Now I can't imagine how many women are being freed of feeling the shame because it is now part of your life purpose, not only to free women who have that, but so many other women that you're freeing from other things. But it becomes like, it's like this thing that's a deep shame to you becomes your purpose, and someone is waiting to help you. Like, someone is actually waiting to feel their life purpose and fulfillment for you to speak up and say, I need this help. Like, this is where I'm at. And they're waiting to help you, and that's going to give them purpose, and it's going to help you through the process. And it is like undeniable how I see this in every scenario. You know, I know that you've You've probably heard this before, but truly when we're in our purpose, it's that we're helping the people who are 3 or 5 years behind us. We're just helping a former version of ourself.
Yeah.
And we don't get to do that until we literally share the biggest thing that we need to get through. And so it can be small to start, but I'm telling you, once you start this game, I know it's unbelievable to think that you're going to be sharing the thing you feel most ashamed about or dumb about, or if people found that out, they wouldn't take me seriously, or whatever it is. But that might just be like the pivotal portal to this life that you dream of.
Well, there's so much I want to say about this because there's on the personal side of things, like, get help, get support. There's also on like, people still think of vulnerability as weakness, that I need help, I need support. But when I look at this, like, you're not asking people to co-sign collapse because then people just start dumping everywhere and they're like, we can bond on this horrible thing that happened to us. Like, that's not the point. It's like, this thing happened to me and it happened for me, and I'm sharing this, and here's who I am, and here's the truth of who I am, and here's how— oh my gosh, you're a— you help people in relationships. You say, I, I got mad at my partner yesterday and I said something I didn't want to say, and then I used the tools in my toolbox, and here's how I led myself. And you're being a real-ass person. Like, you're inspiring, you know? You're not just like saying, I'm in a lot of pain, right? Like, no, you get support, you heal, but then you get to actually Yeah. From a space of leadership, from a space of like, I'm human, I'm a person, and I lead. Because people don't need leaders when it's like sunshine and rainbows, right? Like, for me, I've grown my audience, and my— it has not a huge community, but it's like, it's been, you know, 5, 6 years. And I remember showing up in the middle of my heartbreak, and I wasn't like, I need help, help me. But I was just like, it's been 3 weeks, and I could not walk on day 1, and I'm like, I'm going through it, but here's what I have used to help myself through this. And I was shaky and I wasn't the most confident. I was in it, but I was sharing from a space of leadership. And I showed up during my heartbreak and I showed up with tears and in the realness of it. And people remember that so that on the right day, when I have an offer, when I have an invitation, they're like, I know who you are and I trust you. And that's really what intimacy is. And intimacy, if you're a community leader, if you're a movement maker, It's built on intimacy even at scale. And so if we want to build like real intimate relationships with people, how do we do that? It takes time, but it also takes collapsing time through like authentic connection, through going through shit together and showing people who you are under pressure. I think like that's, that's what reveals true character is pressure. So when you're under pressure and you can lead through that and you don't say, well, it's all perfect and I'm in pressure and it's perfect, because no one learns from that. But you're like, They're like, wow, that was so helpful. You like do a podcast of here are some of the challenges that we're navigating during this fundraising round, and here's some mistakes that we made, and here's what we would do better, and here's what we nailed, and here's how I led myself because I felt, I felt angry at myself for this part. But if you like, that's, you know, that's leadership. So yeah, I'm so passionate about that because I feel like, you know, so many people, it's like they look like stock image of successful women, and it's like Yes, we need aspiration, but leadership builds a bridge where I'm like, now I feel like I can go have that too.
Right.
And so that's, that's the bridge that we walk over.
I love that. Okay. Number 2, let's get into it.
Oh my gosh. Well, good part. Like the first part of the book is all about life, artistry, magic, and inspiration. And then it's all the shame slayers. So part 2 is where I think things get really fun. And I love playing here. And I already saw some of this come up in our conversation. So you are the first limit, and shame slaying is the tool to, to move through that. The second one is circumstance. So it's like life lifing. So when you said like things are challenging right now in the fundraising round, like events are, are expensive, like those kinds of things, like, oh my gosh, my tech broke, the Zoom link isn't there, they sent the wrong link, I bombed the speech, like, I wanted it to be sunny outside, it's raining, those kinds of things. Like, That's often what holds us back. And so the tool is the chill rocket ship. It's all about the chill rocket ship, how we can like expand our capacity, how we can get out of this dualistic world of like good and bad, and we can be in a state of active surrender and we can be in a little bit more of a flow. And then the third is social. So we had internal, external, and now it's Social relationships. And this is really the realm of emotion, like energy between 2 things, right? Energy flowing is energy in motion. Emotion. So how we relate to not just other people, but also our relationship with money, because our attachment styles show up with everything, our avoidance patterns. Like, how do I play with energy? How do I shapeshift outcomes in my favor and not of the highest good? And how do I learn skills of influence and leadership? Like, This is where it gets really fun. And that's the Jedi, the Jedi training school. And then the 4th limit is systemic. So I call it rules. And the tool to overcome that is the rockstar. And this is like, they all kind of came through every year or 2 in my business as I was growing. And so the rockstar is really like my whole, probably since motherhood, but I've always had threads of Of the rockstar, but it really coming out and saying, oh, this is a thing, is breaking through the old systems of success and wealth and the way that you're supposed to do things and allowing yourself to stop trying to be taken seriously and innovate and play and do the work. And I think rockstars prove that all you need to be successful is to create stuff that you love, that other people want, and hang out with other rockstars. It does not matter. Even though all of these amazing books on habits and making your bed is great and journaling, all these things are great, but it's like, don't get distracted. Don't let your work prevent you from the work. Make great art that you love and other people want, and what they want, they will pay for it, and just hang out with other rock stars. And everything else you can just strip away and have some freaking fun and innovate. So that's the fourth thing.
Oh my gosh, I love this. So podcasts allow you to talk to hundreds and hundreds of people. I think I've done, maybe it's like 1,450 podcasts now. With that, I want to point out some of the most successful people that I have interviewed and things that have gone well in my life is because we've started to turn these things that look like challenges and problems into, how could I play with this? Or it's treating life more like something that we get to interact with in a playful way. And that, that has been a life-changing thing for me. So I love that in, in all of your languaging through this whole podcast, it's been like, hmm, how can I play with this? Like, maybe it's not what I think it is. Like, maybe it's not happening to me. If it, you know, how could this be happening for me? And if so, how could I play with this and use it for something else? It's like, Life is offering us. Yes, life is lifing, but you just pointed out something that is so important for people to realize. Like life will reflect back to you whatever you need for like your highest evolution in that thing that you want. So if it's if it's fucking lifing hard for you right now, which there's certain areas for me that are like I am on the brink of a next level, and everything if I it is confronting some patterns that are not gone for me yet. Like, I have an avoidant pattern that even if I, even if I like, you know, think I've gotten better at it, it'll be like, no, but I hid that one avoidant one in the closet. Like, I have been avoiding knowing that I have to empower myself with certain skill sets. And that is like blaring me in the face because I'm handing my power over To people in certain ways. So with that, like, it's, it's, it's being able to go, okay, but where am I really actually like a lot having that thing still show up? If you're running your own business, your money story is rarely one clean spreadsheet.
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That's beautiful. And self-forgiveness, just forgiveness in general, it's like that's one of the bags that you're carrying. And so it's like, can you— healing is bringing dignity to a past version of yourself and saying, I did the best that I could, and I'm moving forward. And it all, like, it all comes back. So it's like, really, are we back here to Self-love, but it's like, that's a good, that's a good starting ground. That's a good place to be. And then from there moving forward, I love what you said about like, you're starting, it's just asking you like, what if, what if, what if, what if? And when I talk about life artistry and living brave being like one of my paths of life artistry, there are many different paths. It always starts at plane 1. There's 3 planes. It's focus. And that's usually where transformation starts is just what if? It's like you turn the disco ball and you see actually there's like infinite fractals of reality. And then comes the energetic, and then comes the action material plane. But it's like, it really does usually, you know, start there. And one thing that, that I'll bring forward— I want to hear more about your story with Gloki— is like, when you were talking, and just for everybody, like, about some things that are going on for you, a part of the book I speak about is called Part of the Game. And like you said, like, this is a game that we're playing, and people don't realize that, like, part of the game of being human is this stuff. Part of the game of being a leader is that people are going to— and having a really strong message, people are going to love you and people aren't going to like it. That's all part of the game. Part of the game of being in a relationship long-term and coming up against edges of each other's stuff and it's hard. And that's part of the game. Part of the game of having products and services and having some people, I don't know, maybe they even, they don't like you. Maybe they even charge back. Maybe they write lies about you on the internet. That's part of the game. And it has just eliminated the charge on so many things. It's like what we think sometimes is a mistake or we did this wrong or this isn't supposed to be happening or this negotiation went sideways, it's like once you're in the game long enough, you're like, oh, this is just kind of what happens. Of course I can mitigate this, but these are part of the taxes that I pay and I will happily pay the taxes. This is it. And I don't have to be so I try to overcompensate or control or fold back, I can be with this that's, that's happening. So it's really cool. You know, that's something that I find so inspiring about you and all your businesses is you're constantly— you like can always make anything successful, and then you're constantly like going into a new industry and new market and new connections and like learning so much. So, so cool.
I hope—
thank you.
Like, can you share with us more about where you're at with Glossy? And even though we're calling it Glocky, that's the big mystery.
Everyone's like, how do you say this? I'm like, Glossy. But you know, well, Glochy, Glocky, whatever you're calling it, we'll figure it out with Glossy. And I, I love, you know, I, I think the journey of Glossy, because it's a physical product, you guys, I started in The fitness world, first of all. Then I had a big online fitness membership for years, and then I did digital products, I did books, I did women's events, and then we're doing entrepreneurial events and masterminds. So I've been in this game for like, oh gosh, 17 years now, and also did network marketing. So people are like, whoa, you did a lot. I'm like, that's 17 years of stuff. Like, you will blow your mind of what you can do in 17 years. So with that said, it's like every single thing that I just mentioned Had a massive 1 through 4 of everything you're saying, Shosh, that I had to go through. And I think the reason why I've been able to be successful in most of those— there's been giant failures within there as well, and those were incredible learnings that helped me be successful in the next one. But the reason that I've been able to pivot in that way is because I know that at every new venture, you're starting from the beginning. And I'm not too ashamed, and I've never let ego be my biggest overhead. I've always gone right back to beginner mode and been like, Grace, you're a beginner. You start over. Vulnerability has been my literal default of like, hey, I don't know what that means. Like, you can, you can imagine someone who did not graduate high school, then going and trying to fundraise and learn the language of fundraising. They're trying to explain to you things. It'd be like trying to learn Greek, except they're explaining it to you in Italian and you know neither language. And that is actually what it feels like. So when you enter into these new spaces, if you do not get vulnerable from the very get-go of, I don't know what that word means, could you explain? Could you actually dumb this down to someone? Treat me like I don't know anything because I kind of don't. You know, oh, I'm not sure I'm understanding that. Could you re-say it again? Like, this is how my first 6 months looked. And this was on calls where people, you feel like you're supposed to know everything and you just— You literally know nothing, and they kind of treat you like you do because maybe you've had success in one other thing. And if I walked into these spaces and and pre was pretending in any way, you cannot get to where you want to go. Like you cannot get to where you want to go pretending to be somebody else. You can't get to where you want to go pretending to know what you don't know. Like that is the fastest way to stay stuck. And so I would say that Glossy is kind of like the epitome of all of the lessons that I've learned together, and teaching me that even after fifteen years, like you're a I'm a big. I had to change the network of people that I was hanging out with. I completely changed it, meaning I still have those friends, of course, but where I'm spending most of my time is I have to be with people who know this industry and who can feed me words of life during this time. People who understand that even though some of these challenges that I'll explain to someone who's never been in it, like you said, they'll kind of match like, oh, this is bad. When you go to people who have been through this before, they go, oh, I know. Oh, what did you say?
That's normal.
That's part of the game. That's part of the game. And immediately, oh, okay. Exactly. And so instead of my comeback rate going into, like, instead of me going into shame, oh, I screwed up. Oh my God, what am I gonna tell my investors? This is so bad. You feel like such a fool. Instead they go, yeah, that's part of the game. What are you gonna do about it? Here's our next steps. Like, here's what you have to go do. Like, you only fail in this if you quit. Like, you only fail if you don't stay in the game and learn from your failures. And so this has been such like a collective moment for me of like all of the bravery and all of the grace lessons that I've learned moving so quickly. There's no time in this type of industry, there's like no time to feel bad, feel shame, to get stuck. It literally reminds me, I'm really into like big sports analogies right now because Mm-hmm. All NFL football players, all of those people, they have to have something called a short memory. You can't get stuck on the last play. It's like you could fail so bad, you could completely literally just lose what was handed to you at a game time score. You could absolutely have just completely fucked up that catch. The whole team is pissed, the whole audience is booing you, and you literally have to go, Doesn't matter, next play. You cannot get stuck there. And so I think the bigger, like, the risk and the challenge and, you know, other people's exterior money and everything that comes with holding that capacity has just taught me that you have to get even better and better with this. So what it's taught me is that the bigger the blessing, the sharper your toolkit has to be, and the quicker you have to tap into them. So Glossier is like the— It's It's just like the whole collection of the learnings. And I know there's only going to be more learnings for me as I move into different phases.
I love this. There's a chapter in the book that I call Champion Strategy, and it really is like— and part of it, it's like why it's the end of the shame-slaying part. It's like once you've nailed shame-slaying and now you can actually live bravely and start approaching, it's like to be a champion, if you've got your eye on the gold, you've got your eye on winning, like the highest possible level. You cannot be in an internal war. You can't be asking, should I be playing? Am I good enough to be playing the game? Like, you've got— you've got to— you're literally like, you have to play the game. There's literally no time. Am I on the right path? Am I meant to be on it? Stop. Like, I literally— it's like, you should be playing with so much, like, intensity. I don't mean burning yourself out. I mean, like, Mm-hmm. a good level of intensity. Like, I am present, like I am locked in, I am honoring the miracle of my life, that you don't even have time to ask those questions. You don't have time to be at war with yourself. And so I love this, like, you know, there's a Michael Jordan quote about he's, he's missed more shots than like most people have ever taken. Like, he's fine, you know. But that's— You have to, you have to keep going. And that's part of the rock star as well. It's like less Less thought, more action. It's always a mantra of mine. Less thought, more action. Less thought, more action. Yes, we use our mind, but then it starts to sabotage. Just go. Because in business and entrepreneurship, there is such a benefit of fast action. It's like you can spend more time on something and get it from 80% to 98%, but the person who puts it out 80%, it's like by the time you did the 98%, they've put out 10 different iterations.
Yeah.
So they're not looking at an 18% difference. They're literally in a whole different league because they got feedback, they got data, They've got embodied experience, and that is just so much more than just sitting there at the drawing board. So I love that Glossier is like, just like that, just at a whole new level. And so, and obviously we'll talk about in the intro, like what Glossier is and how it came to be, but what's your vision for Glossier? And like, you could talk to us a little bit about like what it is, how it came to be, and yeah, how you see this growing. And what it could do for, for women.
I, you know, a big, a big reason I feel really tied to your messaging when I saw some in the beginning, some things that you were chatting about is because Glossier is the embodiment of permission for women. I knew that the category that I was in of just, not just, it's insanely amazing, but digital marketing, writing books, there, there was sort of, there can be a limit on some of the money you can earn. Not necessarily, but back in the day I felt there was a limit. Now, obviously, Shosh, you're teaching a lot about no limits, and you are blowing the lid off of a lot of things. But a big conversation with a lot of my girlfriends was like, it's hard to keep 7 figures and beyond. Like, I'm getting really burnt out. Now, this was, this was back before 2020. This was like 2018. And there wasn't— there weren't a ton of other ways figured out yet of how to really, really scale a digital company. Now there's like a lot of different things that are being, being learned. But with that That said, there felt like a cap on where we were at. It felt like a cap on your book deals. It felt like a kind of a cap on the earnings that you could do. And simultaneously, we were kind of freshly moved to LA within the first few years, and I was from the Midwest. And so the conversations were very— they were much smaller there in terms of what was possible for you. So when I moved to LA, you know, the conversations got bigger, which was exciting. But in my female conversations, they were still having this, like, very much felt like a cap on our income earnings, and we much were starting to feel that we knew money in the hands of women was really important, not just a little money, but a fuck ton of money, hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars. And I was like, okay. And at the time, it was really only Sara Blakely who was like, and maybe Ali Webb was just exiting some of her company at the time, and there wasn't a whole lot of people, which is so crazy to say just a little while ago. And so my husband came home from a few of these dinners with some guys that he went to dinner with who were like guys who were ahead of him. And he was like, Lori, oh my God, this dinner table, like these conversations, they've sold their companies for hundreds of millions of dollars and they're helping each other do these deals and they're like doing like almost these masterminds, but in like this different way with this large products companies. And I was like, so interesting. And he goes, do you wanna come to one of these dinners with me? And I was like, yes. And so I went and I was vulnerable enough to ask questions and say, I don't know what that means. Can you explain that to me? piped up at a dinner where I felt like the dumbest person. And I was like, you guys, I was, I was like, women are not talking about this. Can you take a second and explain it to me? Because I'm getting like some major hits here. Like, I need to learn this. And so I had a couple of those dinners and I was walking around my house one day, like thinking about something that I wanted to create. I'm such a consumer. I love products. I just have always been that way. And I literally fell to my knees. This doesn't happen very often, but once in a while. My body gave out in a good way. I fell to my knees, got full body chills, and it was a message like, you have to be the permission, and the only way to do that is to do it. And so I was like, oh, fuck, I have to go do this scary thing. And so that unlocked that I wanted to do a products company, and that went down the rabbit hole of figuring out what is that product, What is something that a problem that I really want to solve? What is something that could be a bit of a white space in the industry, but not so much so that I have to do like so much education? It just sent me down this rabbit hole. And so Glossy is a daily beauty supplement. It's skin and gut, and it's really true, like truly beauty from the inside out. When I was in the fitness industry and I would do cover photo shoots, they would always write me an email before I'd go fly up there, like two weeks before, and they would say. Make sure you're eating for your skin because we don't want to have to airbrush too much. And so then they would write what eating for your skin meant. They're like, you know, when women diet down or a lot of times they don't take care of their skin, you need this nutrient, this, this, this in order for you to look good, for the makeup to go on, for your tan to look good. And I was like, of course, it's like impacted by your gut, your like everything you're eating. So I also wanted this in a very easy deliverable package because guess what? You're busy, I'm busy. There's so much overwhelm out there. I just wanted something that I knew if you only did one thing for yourself a day and you did this, that you would feel good, you would feel accomplished, and it would be this beautiful— I call them domino rituals— that if you do this one thing, it says to you, it tips the domino for the day that says, I take care of myself because I did this thing and I deserve it. And so, that says so much to yourself and your psyche unconsciously that I am a person who takes care of herself, shows up for herself because I did this one ritual. And that one baby ritual tips the domino for the day of you doing other good things for yourself, which then adds up day after day. And in a year, you're like, wow, I'm a person who takes care of herself. And you've got beautiful results on your skin, on your body, and your mind, and all the things. So that is really like what, what Glossier is. And it's permit— it is like permission to say, if I can do it with No education and this background, that you can do it too. So I really love like slaying shame through the, the whole story for another time. That's really what it is for me.
It's permission, permission, like self-love, everything that we've talked about like in this product, which for you, I know you shared with me, you, you're like, I was, oh, if you were saying like This has been the through line is like health and fitness and wellness, and to actually specifically do that for female entrepreneurs, for people who are sometimes yeah, you're you're putting your dreams first, but are you putting like your body first and creating that domino? And it makes such a difference. Like oh my gosh, having like your morning like that, and you're like okay, I just got all my nutrients, I got all my vitamins. It just shifts things. And so I'm so excited for more people to like access it and for it to keep growing because there's really nothing like it. And thank you for starting it. That's just such a beautiful story of when it comes to you. And I think just a little tap for anybody listening that that's, that's how it comes, you know, sometimes that's, you'll know, you feel it, like that's the calling and to just say yes and go on this journey. I'm, I'm so happy to be, you know, in this. I feel like you're really at an inflection point with, with Glossier right now and to like be getting really great partners on board. And so I'm excited to share with my community and see, you know, where it goes. So exciting.
I'm so excited. I'm, I'm really excited that we've gotten to have this conversation, that you're excited about the product. I'm excited about your book. Just tell me 3 and 4 quick because we want to just leave them with a little, you know, they just got an appetizer today because this book is like a freaking buffet. It's gonna like— I, my brain felt so excited and like stimulated and like I literally cannot wait for this book, literally, because if it's anything like the way that you're speaking, it's gonna be like decadent through the whole thing. So tell me 3 and 4. And then we're going to talk about how to make sure that they get the book.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, the 3 limits. So really the book starts and the premise is that we're all life artists, right? We are all co-creating our reality. And we talked about the 3 planes, like our focus, our energy, and our action. And so there are different art forms, just like there's contemporary music and there's electronic music. And so the form of life artistry I teach is the art of living brave. We have like 4 tools, main tools that coincide with 4 limits. Because when you embrace the art of living brave, the limit does not exist. We exit the 1+ 1= 2 world into 1+ 1= limit does not exist. And those are you, and so the tool is the Shame Slayer, circumstance, and the tool is the Chill Rocket Ship, relationships, and the tool is the Jedi, and then rules, and the tool is the Rockstar. Hmm. So the book kind of takes you through all of that. With story and with— it's just, to me, it's like this stuff matters to me so much. I've been going through every line. I just spent the whole day on this chapter that I had already written. And it's crazy. I did not know how much it would take because I'm a writer. I was a writer before I was a coach. And I just like, to me, it's like I want this book to be something that I go back to and like, listen, I study this stuff. That I need to hear. And I just know that, like, if I— if this were my last year on earth, that I'd be like, I want this. Like, this is what I need to be doing. Everything can stop and this is it. So I'm so excited to get it out. Thanks, Theresa.
Okay, where can we find it? Where can we get it? Because I'll put it in the show notes. So what should we do right now?
So right now there's a— there's a link on my website so you can get it directly through us. The website will just shoshanaraven.com, but it's also on Amazon. So The Limit Does Not Exist, Shoshana Raven. So you'll find it there. Amazing.
Well, I'm so incredibly excited and I'm grateful for you and we're going to pump this book out. I'm so excited and thanks for doing this work and being brave so we can, you know, have a piece of that in our life that's going to help propel us into everything that we are meant for too. So I'm so grateful for you and I will put everything in the show notes below. You guys go check it out. You can go grab the book. You can go follow her from there. And until next time, earn your happy.
Bye everyone.
