EP089: Feng Shui 101 for 2021 with Cyd Alper-Sedgwick

Welcome to the Perfect Practice podcast where we share the most innovative strategies to help you build a successful functional medicine business, attract your ideal patients, serve your community, and get paid what you're worth. Each episode is packed with practical steps that you can take to immediately grow your influence and serve more people. Our mission is to share golden nuggets from successful practitioners, technology experts and innovators from around the world. Your host, Sachin Patel is a functional medicine and success coach, international speaker and best selling author. He's calling in all his favors to bring this information to you so you can create your perfect practice.

Welcome to Perfect Practice. Today I have a very special friend and very special guest that's joining us today. Somebody who's had a immense impact in my life, personally and professionally. She's been a great mentor to me from an energetic standpoint and she's just been an excellent role model for myself and Deepa and even other members of our team. And I'm excited to share her knowledge and infinite wisdom with you today in the hopes that it helps you expand yourself in a positive way, in the hopes that it allows you to maximize your workflow and your energy on a daily basis and. And in the hopes that it helps you improve and optimize your health, your wellness, and of course, your prosperity. We're in this group, we're in this tribe because our goal and objective is to grow. And as you've all learned over the years or even the months or even the days that you've been working with us, that it all boils down to us and we are essentially our success and or lack of success, however you want to look at it is a function of who we are and the energy that we surround ourselves in. And we all know how important that is. So with all that being said, please welcome Sid. If we can give a living proof. Welcome to Sid, you can type in into the chat. I have been looking forward to this call for quite some time. So, Sid, welcome. Thanks for joining us today.

Thank you. Lovely to be here. Hello everybody. How many people do we have?

We have 55 people that are tuned in right now.

Oh my gosh. Hello. This is the biggest audience since yesterday.

Awesome. Well, Sid has been very influential. She's helped us when we lived in Cincinnati, she's helped us when we moved to Toronto, and she's also helped us when we moved from our condo into our new home in order to help us maximize our flow state in order to maximize our energy using the principles of Feng shui. So Sid and I have been friends for probably eight or nine years now, it's been quite some time that we've been connected with each other. And I really am grateful for how much she's contributed to my own personal knowledge on this topic. And I know that she's going to definitely blow our minds today in the hopes that it allows you to maximize your energy and your contribution as well. So with that being said, Sid, why don't you tell us where this all started for you? How did you get into this?

I was actually born into it. I'm a second generation Feng Shui master. My mother was also a Feng Shui master. And we were very fortunate. When I was a very small child, we lived in Asia. And so the influences that we learned and developed, my mother learned and developed and passed on to me are based very much on a very strong intuitive practice. And I just want to throw in here because as Sachin knows, we're going to do three little examples of Feng Shui, of offices that people have sent in to us. I worked on those this morning. But there are eight different schools of Feng shui and seven of them do not work very well in the West. And so the Feng Shui that I practice, you can of course, choose your own form of Feng shui. This is not saying this is good and that is bad, because there is nothing bad in Feng shui, no matter what. It's just that this form of Feng shui is very, very powerful. It's very, very intuitive, and it's very, very healing. So, you know, we have to go, go back to what is Feng shui. And Feng shui would you believe is functional medicine. It's as simple as that. You know, it's preventive. It goes to the very root cause of emotional health, and it's very nurturing. There you go. Functional medicine in all its glory. So there we go.

How would you define Feng shui? So for somebody who's new to this concept, who's never heard of it, what would you say is a good operating definition for a newbie?

Feng shui? A lot of people have a great misunderstanding of Feng shui. Feng shui is a science. It's a very ancient science. It's not new age, it's not religious in any way. It is a science and it is an art. It's very environmental. So feng shui itself means wind and water. We need the wind to carry the seeds across the planet, and we need the water for nurturing. So water is about flow and wind is about grasping and creating. So wind and water is Simply what feng shui is. I like to describe feng shui as hold onto your hats, a very, very deep chocolate gateau cake. Because there are many, many, many, many, many layers of feng shui. It's not just placement of furniture. It really is a very exclusive way of you getting the very best out of your space, whether it's your home or your office. And each should be treated in the same respectful way. Your office, you probably spend more time in your office. Even in today's pandemic, you probably spend more time in your office than you do. Hopefully not. But with your family in your own home. A lot of us are working from home and it sort of amused me to think that, I think Sachin, we met when Devon was a baby who's very small. He was still in his little car seat, baby seat. But all those years ago, even though Satchin and I worked together on creating a really wonderful space for him, and I think it was two others at that time working in Cincinnati, he had the idea and the foresight to know that one day most of us will be working from home. And so your home is your sacred space. Your place of business is your sacred space. And we need to treat them accordingly with great respect.

I love that. And yes, we've known each other for many years and everything that's happening right now is making the work that you do even more relevant. So sometimes we'll feng shui our office and we might forget about our home, or we might feng shui our office in our home and we might forget about our bedroom, which is where we spend about a third of our lifetime. You taught me some really foundational things from the very beginning, which are low hanging fruit. And I know we're going to get into that as we continue this conversation, but it's, you know, I love that you said it's a science and an art and it's not a religion. Because sometimes when people hear certain words and they have a misconception, they automatically stop and they don't pursue it any further. In some countries, they won't even build a building. You won't even get the building permit approval unless the building has been Feng shui. In India, they won't build. You know, it's actually very critical. And there's a different terminology that we use is called vastu shastra. And there's probably some similarities and there's probably some differences, but you know, how you sit in your office, the direction that you face when you're sleeping, all of these things, they're subtle. But they matter. And it's something that's so easy to do in many cases, but that also makes it easy not to do. So today, what I hope to help each and every one of you with is finding opportunities that allow you to increase your energy, whether it's by 10% or whether it's by 100% in some cases. I know Sid and I were talking before this call started. And as we get into doing some of the workthroughs with those of you that submitted your cases, there are some of you that are energetically being sabotaged. And it's not allowing you to fully express yourself and show up the way you want to show up, the way you know you can show up. And you might think it's something else. You might think it's your marketing, you might think it's, you know, your funnel, you might think it's the color of the button on your funnel. But it could be something as simple as some of the things that we're going to talk about today. In fact, when I recently, when I bought my house, it was two years ago, because of my knowledge of Feng shui and my awareness of it, I was immediately able to identify that this was the right home for me because of where the rooms were placed, because of the way the house was set up. It was immediate to me. And not only did I feel really good walking into the home, but I realized immediately why I felt really good walking to the room, because the home was arranged perfectly, as if a Feng Shui master planner designed it for me. And so it's pretty cool to be able to walk into a space. And just from a show of hands, how many of you walk into a space and you feel better by simply walking into that space? Has that ever happened to you? Raise your hands. How many times have you experienced the opposite of that? Where you walk into a room and the exact opposite happens. You feel drained. You feel like your energy or your vibration goes downwards instead of going upwards or staying neutral. And so for some of us, that could be our home. It could be our office, it could be our kitchen, it could be our living room, it could be our bedroom. So we have to identify through what Sid's going to teach us today how we can address some of this low hanging fruit. And what I'll tell you is, where there is a will, there is a way. So when we first hired Sid in Cincinnati, we were working in an office building. And the rule for the office building is that you can't paint the office. You can't paint the office because we were subleasing the space. So the solution for me was quite simple is I will pay for it to be painted, but I will also pay for it to be painted back to the ugly color that the wall was when it's done right. So when there's a will, there is a way. And guess what? When we painted the office, they didn't want us to paint it back to the original color. They wanted us to keep it the new color that we painted it. That's color that Sid suggested because it totally changed and up leveled the space. So something as subtle as the color of your paint, something as subtle as the direction that you're facing right now, something as subtle as, you know, what's underneath your bed. I mean, these are the things that can make a huge difference. And you know, Sid, I don't want to steal any of your thunder because I know you're bringing.

No, you've been a good student. So I'm happy to sit and listen. You're refreshing me. That's really good. Yes. And that was an interesting point about the paint color, you know, because then afterwards everybody said, oh, it feels so good in here. And the landlord wanted to keep the paint color. So that again, was passing on the knowledge of feng shui. Excuse me. Let's pass this on as much as we possibly can to make lives for everybody much, much nicer.

Awesome. So just in light of the pandemic, how has this impacted you? Are people wanting more of this? Are they leaning into it more because they're spending more time in their homes? How's that working out for you?

It's actually really fascinating because as Sachin, you probably know, I'm also a certified enneagram teacher in the narrative, and we have part of the full circle Feng shui is called conversations. And people have been calling in to talk about how they're managing and how they're not managing. People that I have, they're not even my clients, which has been wonderful. But at the same time, in that process, I'm able to say to them, you know, there are certain things that you're doing in your home. It was wonderful that everybody was clearing out their closets and throwing away all the clutter. But that's just the very tip of the iceberg because, you know, we don't feel good. And this is why feng shui is so environmental. We don't feel good because our surroundings don't feel good. And I think it's given to go back to your question. It actually has given people an opportunity to stop and look around their homes and go, oh, this has annoyed me for years and years and years. But I'm always rushing out the door, and then I rush back in. I dump all my stuff just by the kitchen, back door, whatever it is that people use. And now they're realizing that with a lot more organization and a lot more clearing of stuff, not just clutter, but stuff, their lives are simpler. And there are so many. I'm sorry to say this, there are so many advantages that the pandemic has brought to us, and that's the realization that we're wasting our lives just running around in and out of our homes. And I always felt I live in the states of. Those of you that don't know this, I've always thought, particularly American people, they use their houses only for getting a shower, grabbing breakfast, and then they leave. And now with the pandemic, they're beginning to go, oh, hang on. I think I need to paint this wall a different color. What do I paint it? So, again, using the Bagua map, which we will get to in a moment. And if any of you can do this while we're talking, if you can look up a Bagua map on the Internet, we actually designed that 20 years ago, but that will just give you some basis. And I'll show you my scribble in a moment. But it might help you when we start to go to the various areas of the Bagua map to help you understand it better.

So how about I pull that up, Sid? I'll pull up a Bagua map so people can see it, so they have.

An awareness, and I will correct it. So I want everybody to grab a piece of paper and a piece of blank. A piece of blank paper. Okay. Now if you can make it a little bit bigger, I'm actually. You've got nine. Should have nine boxes.

Yep.

Yes. You got nine boxes. I want you to draw nine boxes. What I do is that I don't do straight lines. I do wiggly lines because we're dealing with energy. And energy has a habit of bending and twisting and getting into corners. So if you can create nine boxes on that one piece of paper and don't worry about what it looks like, this is just a guide for you. And it will help you look at your own space, because, as I said, there are so many levels of feng shui, but it will help you look at your own space and start to be critical of it on your own account. Feng shui is not about hurting feng shui is about nurturing. And I always say there's no such thing as a problem. Just as Sachin said recently, just a few moments ago, you know that if there's a will, there's a way, and it's the same thing. There's no such thing as a problem. If there's something we don't understand, let's look at it from a feng shui point of view and see if we can't get into that deep, deep emotional space inside of us. You can also, you know, part of the beauty of this is feng shui. Feng shui. You can feng shui your body, you can feng shui your desk in feng shui your car, you can feng shui anything. Well, maybe not a doughnut, but anyway, you can feng shui that. But, you know, I want you to know that feng shui is huge. But it's also really helpful and it helps you in your business and it helps you in your home on so many levels. So if you can sort of indicate that you've written this down, you don't have to do the. The writing. I just want you to actually have the. Because I'm going to correct this a little bit to make it easier so that if you and I talk at a later date, I'll talk to you about different things.

Okay, so if you've completed that, if you've drawn the squares, then just indicate by putting a thumbs up and then Sid can speak to it.

Okay, that's great. I'm not sure I can get you all on this.

All right, so looks like most people have drawn those nine squares, so I'm going to stop sharing this. So that. Or should I keep it up? Sid, what do you prefer?

No, I would take it down because if you've got it drawn down, it was really basically just to get the nine boxes down. Okay, so we can come back to this. But as we were talking about it, I wanted to get this down for you. I just want to show you very, very quickly. I don't know if I can show it to you. Can you see how I've done the bagua map?

Yep. Squiggly lines.

Just squiggly lines.

Like tic tac toe.

Tic tac toe is great. Okay, so, Sachin, do you have more questions or should we go on to the bagua map?

Well, what I would love to know is some people are asking this, which I think is relevant and maybe I'm pretty certain that you're going to get to this. But how do they orient themselves to that map. So the bottom is the entrance of the space they're walking into. Correct.

That's exactly where we're going to go now. So maybe this is a good segue into the bagua map. The ideal shape of your home and or your office or your place of business is a rectangular shape. That's the ideal. But the reason why a lot of other schools of feng shui do not work very well in the east in the west is because all our houses in the west go in different directions. So a couple of people sent me their floor plans and they were busy talking about northwest, south, east. Ignore all of that because I want you to look at where the door is in relation to your space. And this is where it gets very, very tricky. Now, ideally, the door into your space should be slap bang in the middle of the bottom of that rectangular. Right? I'm going to draw a big triangle and see if I can put it up here. Ideally, that's where can you see it? That's where your door should be. If it's over here or over here, which on most of what I saw this morning, half your bagua map is missing. Now, when I say that to people and I go to their homes and I say parts of your bagua map are missing, they immediately fly into a panic. No, you don't need to fly into a panic because we can fix it and it's called a cure. C U R E We can cure the missing part of your bagua map. So if you can draw where your front door is to your space. So if you're sitting in your office, if it's your office door, it'll give you an indication as to whether or not you're leaning more to the left or meant leaning more to the right. If you're leaning more to the left as I'm facing the page, then you are missing wealth, family and wisdom. It sounds very complicated. Maybe I should back up a little bit. So do your front door. Inside your front door, which is your mouth of qi, which is where all energy enters the building, where all energy enters your office, or where all energy enters your home, is your front door. Behind your front door, in your hallway or in your reception area, et cetera, is your career. So if you have, you don't use your front door very often and you probably come in through the garage, if you live in a house, through the kitchen, garage doors, et cetera, et cetera, then you need to look very carefully at your front door because all qi energy comes through the front door. No matter what. Okay. In your box to the left is Wisdom. And the Wisdom. The color for wisdom is blue. And again, the shades of blue are your choice. A very, very deep blue is a very powerful energy. A very light blue is a very subtle, gentle energy. The box above Wisdom should be in the middle of this left hand column is family, and the color for family is green. This is a really good place for you to put your tree of life. It's also a very good place for you to put your plants if you have live plants. Above Family is wealth. That's your wealth in the Bagua map. What is really important in wealth is that you do not put any plants, because trees, plants take out from the soil. So you'll lose money if you have plants in your wealth area. And I did actually have a situation in my house a couple of years back where a friend wanted to bring her plants into my house because she didn't have room in her house during the winter. I said, yes, of course. So she dragged these huge, giant plants into my dining room, which actually was my wealth area. And I couldn't understand why business was going down. You know, it just wasn't generating anything. And I suddenly realized that I just said, yes, it's fine. Just put your plants in my. In my house. But it was draining all my wealth, so I had to drag all these big plants that she had and actually put them into another area. Okay, so that's wealth. If you move to the left. Now, at the top, in the middle is fame. Now, fame, the color for fame is red. But it's not about you being famous. But we're all very, very famous. It's not about fame. It's about integrity. And it's not about how we view integrity. It's about how the cosmos, how God, how the universe views your level of integrity. And our integrity determines what we do in our life and our success, or lack of it. Everybody with me so far?

Yeah. If I could just bring everyone up to speed. So I put the Bagua map up just for reference, Sid. And I know we're correcting it or modifying it, but imagine yourself standing at the bottom of the Bagua map where it says career or front door, and walking into that. So you're coming off of the map. That's outside of your home, and you're walking into that black square. And then when you walk into your home, that's the front door. That's the section for career. And as is listed here, that's the mouth of Qi. That's the Energy coming into the space to the left of that is wisdom. Above that is family. And then in the back left of the space would be your wealth and prosperity. So just to orient everybody, I'm just going to keep this up here, and then you can course correct and adjust it as we need to. Is that helpful for everyone? Does that bring you up to speed? If you just type in the chat, that'd be great. Okay, perfect.

All right. Okay, so now we're going to go over to relationship. Relationship is clearly it has many, many levels. Again, this is relationship is about not only being in a relationship with another person, but it's also your relationship with your patients, your friends, your family. And it's very, very important part of the Bagua map. So the color for relationship is pink and red. Please eliminate the white. You never put red and white together. And the reason for that is that red and white symbolizes a final ending. So pink and. Or red, but not pink, red and white. And this is why we sort of get. This is why I needed to amend this background map for you. So now we're going to go down. We're going to answer questions a little bit later, but please keep your questions coming. Then we go down to children. And the color for that is white. Now, that's about your inner child. It's not about having children, although I have feng shui houses at request for couples that have not been able to have children. And we have had success. But it wasn't anything to do with me being a miracle worker or me working some magic is because I cleared the negative energy, the block of negative energy in each of those houses. You can tell when you think about your patients, you think about yourself, just how much of these blockages hold us up and don't give us the opportunity to move forward. I'm going to go further down to where it says travel. That's actually helpful people. And that is a very, very powerful. In business, that's a very, very powerful place for you. That's where we honor our ancestors, and that's where we honor our mentors. So we are all who we are today because of our ancestors and our mentors. And the color for helpful people is gray, white, and blue. This is a good place to show your accolades. This is a good place to show how you got to where you got to. Maybe if you have a grandparent or a professor, or for me, it was my music teacher, my piano teacher, then you have something in that area that represents her, and that's to the right of the Front door. If the front door is in the middle of the bagua map, okay, we go into Korea now, which we've stepped into the front door where your Korea area is. And the colors for Korea are red and black, blue and black. And this is why it's ideal to have a black mat outside your front door and another black mat inside your front door. Now, I have a lot of, I wear a lot of black and red when I'm seeing clients, and my mini is a black and red car. So, you know, I'm using all these color schemes to enable me to be as productive as I can be for my clients. Then right in the very, very center of the bagua map is health. And the earth tones are actually red, orange, yellow, brown and green. So if we take that from our bodies, your health center is your gut. So that's the very, very center of your body bagua map. And if everything's the way it should be, then everything's going to be good and you're going to be productive. Okay. So that's your basic bagua map and the reason why I wanted to do this. We can go down the road and talk about all the wonderful things that feng shui does, but it starts with your bagua map. And you can use that bagua map. When I do seminars, I give these out and they're already printed up, but it's to help people take them home and play with them. Stand outside your house, stand outside your apartment and go in through the main front entrance. Now, somebody put up a question that they're confused and it is very confusing. This is why feng shui is a science. But it's really confusing simply because it's hard to imagine that if my front door is way over to the left that I have lost a big part of my bagua map. I have lived in several houses. I just moved to this house in April, but I have lived in several houses with no relationship, no children, and no helpful people. But that's fine. We can put things into place. So as I said, there is no such thing as a problem with feng shui. Okay.

These would be referred to as remedies, correct?

Yes. Or cures. We call them cures. And that's my funny accent. That's C U R E S. You can call it remedies or cures, whichever you want to do.

So before we go into the individuals who've submitted their cases, what are some low hanging fruit? So I know there were some tips like the tips of the icebergs or iceberg Rather that you gave me. And one of them was, make sure there's nothing underneath your bed.

Yes. And this is where we go down to clutter and storage. It's sort of very interesting. I'm very, very fortunate because I've traveled the world as a small child and at each place my mother just abandoned furniture and belongings. She gave them all away. So wherever we went, we started fresh. I hate to say that she also gave the dog away. Every time we had a dog, dog was found a new home. And that was heartbreaking, however. But I know that there are people that accumulate a lot of stuff. Stuff, because it belonged to grandma and it belonged to my mother. And, you know, somebody gave this to me and it brings back memories and that's really not going to be helpful to you. By all means, keep them, but don't display them all over the space. Don't display them all over the house. Try to. Sorry, go ahead.

No, and another thing that you taught me, and I didn't mean to interrupt you, but another thing that you taught me was to pull all the furniture at least 3 inches away from the wall. Can you speak to that?

Yes. Yes. And that's because energy gets trapped if we pull furniture a little away from the wall and particularly the bed. You know, I've been into some homes where the bed is actually up against the wall. And that is not good because as Satchin touched on earlier, your sleep patterns will be greatly affected. Things underneath the bed will greatly affect your sleep. But energy flows. It has to flow. And if it doesn't flow and it gets trapped, it dies. And that's what creates negative energy. So you can be living in a space that has a lot of negative energy trapped behind cupboards, behind doors, behind beds, behind chairs. So go into your spaces and stop, close your eyes and just like with a meditation, close your eyes and just feel. Put your hand on your heart if you want to, but just feel. Feel the energy in that space and know. Use your intuition. We're born with it and we very often we don't use it the way we should. Use your intuition. Walk into a space and listen to the building. Listen to the room. Some other. Some other low. I like that, that phrase, that low slung fruit. Is that what you said?

Slow hanging fruit?

Low hanging fruit is. There are lots and lots of things that you can do that will immediately alter the energy in your space. The most important thing is your artwork is. The way your artwork is put up in the room is how you hang it on the wall. It needs to Have a straight line underneath at the very bottom. All your artwork should be in a straight line. Also, if you can hang your artwork in relationship to where the bagua map is. For example, in the wealth area, if you have a seascape, in the wisdom area, if you have something in a very soft pale blue can be an accessory. So, you know, those are little things that you can do. The black mats by the front door, the brightly colored plant pots either side of the front door to draw the energy in all kinds of things. Perhaps you can remember some. You can remember some satchen.

Yeah. Another thing that you told me was not to put something like a shelf in the corner of the. A space where there's a triangular void behind it. So sometimes we'll angle things in the corner.

Yeah, that's the same reason for that, is that energy gets down behind and it dies. And you want live, fun energy in your space, whether it's your office or your home. This lifts you up. This gives you the opportunity to be very creative. So if you do have something that's at an angle, I'm working with somebody at the moment. Would you believe they have six bagua maps in this particular house? The only place the bed can go and be in the command position that is facing the door is at an angle. So behind the bed we're going to put a tree, and on that tree we're going to put some little white lights. I'm also an interior designer. We're going to put some little white lights. And that is actually going to be the night light for the master bedroom. Now, the master bedroom and your kitchen are two sacred spaces. Super sacred spaces. The idea is that in the master bedroom, you create new life. And if you can feed your children in the kitchen, then you're very wealthy. So those are two sacred spaces. So think about. I know most of you in your offices right now, but think about your homes. If your bedroom is in your. If your master bedroom is in relationship, there's a whole load of things that can be done about that. If it's in wealth or children or family or helpful people or wisdom, then there are other things that can be done. Making the bed on a daily basis is also very good feng shui. When we get out of the bed, you've got out of bed, you've had a good night's sleep. You may have dreamed, you may not have dreamed, but you're leaving that negative energy in an unmade bed. If you work all day, then go back to that unmade bed, you're climbing Back into that negative energy, and you're going to sleep again in negative energy, which I'm sure none of you want to do. Mirrors. There should be no mirrors in the bedroom. There's another very powerful fruit for you. New mirrors in the bedroom. If you have a mirror and you really cannot do without the mirror or it's attached to a piece of furniture, cover it at nighttime. Now, all of these things, you can try them and see what, how they work for you. But I ask you to feel how the energy shifts when you do these things. Sorry, Sachin, I interrupted you.

No, no, not at all. So one other thing that you taught me, which was kind of a shock for plant lovers, was not to have pointy plants in the house.

Really good. Yes, because they cut the qi energy. Chi is energy. That's what it means. So if you have cacti or spiky plants, they're going to cut the energy. They're going to cut the positive energy and break it up. And that's not going to be something that you want to do. So if you can do away with your really spiky plants, I hate to say donate them, because then you're going to give them to somebody that's going to have their qi energy cut. However, there are. I have clients that love cacti. And so, you know, it is what it is. This is your sacred space. It's not mine. And it has to be what you want. Fake plants. Yes, you can certainly use fake plants, but not spiky. No spikes. That's going to cut. That's going to cut the qi energy. So round leaves, as much as possible, will create wealth. But do not put plants, even a jade, do not put those in your wealth area. Because even though wealth, the element for wealth, is wood. That will drain your energy out, will drain your money out of your wealth area. So a really good place for plants are in your wisdom area. Family, relationship, children, helpful people, fame and health, but not wealth. Colors. Let's go to colors. Colors are very, very important for the natural flow of energy. So if you look at your Bagua map, yesterday, somebody. I was a keynote speaker and somebody said to me, do I have to do all these colors? Paint my walls, all these different colors? No, please don't. I don't want to be responsible for that. Choose the color that you want that makes you happy. If it's. If it's a. Whatever it is. But then take those colors from the Bagua map and accessorize with those colors. So it could be a vase. It could be pillows, it could be a throw, it could be a piece of art.

And one other thing that I love that was so simple that you taught me was the directionality that you face with relationship to the mouth of Qi in the room that you're in. And even now, when I have a meeting with somebody, if it's in person, I try to position myself so that I'm facing the door of the room that I'm in. If I'm at a restaurant or in a cafe or wherever I'm meeting them, even in my office, I make sure that I'm facing the door that I enter the room itself in. Maybe you could speak to that a little bit as well.

Yes, that's called being in the command position. If you're going to a meeting, if you can maybe get there a little bit early and make sure that you are in the command position when you're talking to somebody. The reason behind this is basically psychological. It's the unconscious mind that is on alert. Our ancestors, when they were cavemen, they never sat with their backs to the cave door. They always sat facing the cave door. Why is that? Because they don't want the element of surprise, of attack, whether from an animal or another tribe member. Okay. So if you're in the command position, the same with your bed, your desk, if you can face the door of that particular room, even if it means it being slightly at an angle. And another really good thing with your desk is that you might have it in a certain place and you don't want to be facing a door or a window. You don't want to be looking out. You do want your desk to be facing the door. If you really cannot do that, then put a mirror up or something reflective so that you know that somebody's coming up behind you. We did this at P and G and GE in that all their desks were in these little cubbyholes and these little horrible little booth things that they were all working in. So we created mirrors in each of those cubbyholes so that people could see who was coming up behind them when they were busy doing their work. Because then they had the sense of, I'm in control. I don't have to worry about somebody coming up behind me and startling me.

Okay, thank you. I love that. So those are some low hanging fruits. And then one more that I really appreciate and I think it's relevant for a lot of us is getting rid of old magazines, newspapers, paper products that we're no longer using. Anything you want to add to that yes.

And books. I know there is a tendency to hoard magazines. I've done it myself in the past. But if you can get rid of your magazines, the reason is that a magazine and newspapers and even filing is creating negative energy. And you're breathing that in, you're breathing it into your system. You're breathing negative energy. It's becoming oppressive. So. And the same goes for books. I mean, I'm a huge book lover, and I had cases and cases and cases of books that went out to, were donated simply because I became aware of the fact that I could not take those bookshelves to pieces twice a year, dust them and clean the books, clean the shelving and put them all back again. And for what purpose? Just because I was attached to these books. So passing things on means that you're passing on the wardship, you're passing on what you have learned to somebody else. So it's not that you're giving away something really special. It's that power of control that we all have. That I read this book, it really helped me. But now let somebody else be helped by it, especially somebody that perhaps can't afford to buy that particular book.

Okay, awesome. And what about old clothing that you're not wearing?

Same thing. I have a sideline that my. That somebody runs for me and she goes in and she'll clear out your closet. She'll work with you. It's not that you're doing it by yourself, because that's hard. There's another little trick there that if you're working with someone and somebody that you're actually paying, then you're more inclined to go, oh, okay, I'm paying you and you can help me fix this. So as soon as you get rid of old clothes, put them straight into the bags, take them straight out and put them into the car, or give them to the person that's helping you so she can take them to Goodwill. I'm saying Goodwill because that's a genetic word, but people that you can donate to on any level, just for success, all of those kinds of things. But don't clear out your closet and then decide, oh, I will do that next time I go past Goodwill. Just put it in the back of your car and do it. Get it out of the house as quickly as you can.

All right, I love your no nonsense attitude. All right, so let's do this. Since we're at the top of the hour, why don't we go over those case studies and I think this will be really helpful as a learning experience. So we can see how your mind works, how you look at the space. And then, you know, we'll definitely have some. We'll leave some time for some questions. And then for those of you that want to work with Sid, we'll let you know how to do that as well. Because I know there's lots of questions. And when I first learned this, I mean, the thing I like about love about feng shui is that it really livens up the space. It energizes the space. It's one of those things you do once and. And then your space is set up. And of course, if you move and as time goes on, you might tweak things or change them, or it could be an ongoing process if you want to do one room at a time or one aspect of your home at a time. But it's one of those things that once you have an awareness of, you take that awareness with you everywhere you go. Like I said, Sid's been working with us for quite some time, and I've picked up these little tidbits, and I can walk into any space. And when I look at that space, I don't look at it as a room. I look at it as the energy or the bagua map. So I reflect on the bagua map. So if I walk into my office and I see that it's cluttered or it's messy, I don't see a cluttered office because my office is in wealth and prosperity. I see that as negatively affecting my wealth and prosperity. If my wife and I are getting into unnecessary or seemingly minute disagreements, for example, then I'll walk into the bedroom, which is where our relationships falls into, and I'll be like, okay, what do I need to declutter here? So instead of just looking at the problem, I look for the solution. And I usually start with my space. So just some food for thought for all of you. This is a great skill set to develop. And by working with somebody like Sid, who has this lifetime of experience, you're going to be able to get to those answers so much faster. So any words of wisdom before we wrap up the call?

Sid, any words of wisdom? No, I think just always make sure your front door is clear of any garbage. Make sure that you don't just drop all your belongings inside any kind of door onto the floor. And always get rid of the clutter, and then you're good. Way to having a healthy home and office. And be safe.

Okay, Beautiful. Thank you so much. Thank you, everyone, for tuning in today. I hope you found that valuable. Carol, if we could share something in the mentorship, just asking people what their one thing was or maybe a few things that they learned from today and that way they can share collectively as a community. And yeah, Sid has made herself available to help and support you and you know, of course she'll work with you in whatever capacity she can for an energy exchange and she'll discuss that with you when you get on a call with her. It's been a beautiful friendship and professional relationship. I appreciate you, Sid and I'm so glad that we got to do this today, especially since people are spending more and more time in their homes. It's relevant now more than ever before. So thank you.

Yes. Yeah. As having that awareness. That's really, really fantastic. So thank you. Thank you everybody. I really enjoyed this. But then I can talk feng shui forever and ever. So bless you all. Take care. Bye Bye.