Birth to Net Worth with Susan Hansted

Join us as we unravel our deep-rooted relationship with money, from earliest memories to eureka moments and building wealth. Birth to Net Worth with me, Trystan Trenberth. Hi and welcome to another edition of Birth to Net Worth. Today I've got a very special friend, uh, met her through Bethany, who was on a few weeks ago. Um, her name is Susan Hamstead. She runs the Institute of Possibility Thinking, where she teaches wealth consciousness, which is also the name of her podcast. I'm going to bring into the studio right now, the lovely Susan Handstead. Susan, thank you for joining us on Birth to Net Worth. I'm so grateful for you sharing your time with me. We met through Bethany a few months ago. And you generously spent some time with me looking at my, my purpose and Goals along the way. Since then, you've done a lot of things that I've been seeing on social media, including buying a small property in the ocean somewhere. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came across Bethany and where you are in your journey right now.

Okay, great. Well, first, thank you so much for having me. It's such a pleasure to be here, and I've listened to your previous episodes. And I hope I can live up to— I hope I can live up to the energy. Um, so a little bit—

whoever shows up in the beautiful way they show up, thank you.

Perfect, perfect. Good. Um, so a little bit about me. I'm the founder of the Institute of Possibility Thinking, where we create— help create the minds that create the experience that you want to live in your life, to be an extraordinary life. And, um, how I met Bethany was many, many years ago. We were both sitting on a board, um, and it was, uh, I'm trying to remember the name right now— Team Kids. So we were both on a board, uh, for a nonprofit and, um, we just immediately just clicked. We just immediately clicked and had some really similar values and a really similar vision for ourselves. And we started one of many businesses at the time. So I have been in business and had a great friend in Bethany for many, many years. In fact, I think my son was 4 at the time when she built tents in the living room with sheets and chairs with my son. He was 4 and he's now 22. So for a lot of years we have been great friends and kindred spirits and then also been in business together as well. And then Bethany came into one of our programs years ago. We were actually not doing business at the time. Still having Thanksgiving together because we always have Thanksgiving at Auntie Bethany's house. Um, but we, um, she came into, um, our entry-level program that's called Personal Transformation. Then she went on to do Mindset Mastery, and now, um, she's been in Ascension for a couple of years.

That's awesome. That's a lovely history and very warm. I know your kids are similar ages and I'm sure that, you know, helps the deeper connection as well.

Yes, yes. Yeah, we both have daughters that are teenagers. Next year they'll be seniors. And so our plan is to, you know, continue to purchase retreat locations and boutique hotels and other retreat locations and then live, you know, in different parts of the world during the year. We know once our girls are launched off to school, so pretty exciting.

I know that feeling of being close to being an empty nester. I pretty much am now. One of my kids lives across town with their mom. The other moved out, you know, as soon as she got to 18. She's finding her independence and the ups and downs of being independent herself. And it's just a joy to see them flourish. And I'm also within 12 months looking to straddle the European continent and the United States just to be able to have that duality of of where I live at least, and then travel further, further afield.

So sounds good.

Well, fantastic. Well, Birth to Net Worth is, as you know, is really talking about people's relationship with money, how they source their original understanding of money, what it meant, what it meant to people around them, and, you know, how they formed the, the opinion and the way that they relate to money through the rest of their lives. Can, can you remember your first memory of money? Tell us about that.

Yes. And it was so significant when you were having the conversation with your podcast with Bethany. It was as if I contributed to that conversation. I think that's what I texted you. I was like, I was right in that conversation with you guys. Um, and my first experience with money was that my parents had both had very low resources and, uh, so not a lot of money in our family, although my father had come from a lot of money. And so it was interesting to me that although he'd come from a lot of money and we had a relationship to that side of the family that helped, you know, pay for things and had some encouragement, you know, for college and where we went and that sort of thing. But at the same time, my father had, well, with all due respect to my father, a big chip on his shoulder. About people who had money. So, uh, so it was a really conflicting message, I guess, is my answer to that, is that I could see that there were a lot of possibilities in the world, um, that money did provide for. Um, and at the same time, I had parents that had very, very constricted thinking.

I just feel there's probably a relationship to your company name Institute of Possibility Thinking that may have sourced around that time as well.

Yeah, yeah. You know, I've always said, uh, I don't know if you would have, uh, read the book many years ago. It's an old book now, but, uh, Clarissa Estés Pincolla— I hope I said that right— wrote a book, and she talked about the idea that, um, that the zygote sometimes gets dropped in the wrong basket. That's me. I was the zygote that got trapped in the wrong basket.

Yeah.

Yeah. Because, you know, I have 3 sisters and they all have a different way of looking at wealth than I do. And I seem to be, at least in my experience, sort of odd person out. So I've always said, oh, that must have been so true. I got dropped in the wrong basket. So I started really young thinking about how I was getting out of there, quite frankly. Yeah, I did.

Yeah. So from that start, the conflict of, you know, understanding there's wealth around and looking at the possibilities, what was the next distinctive decision in your life and/or experience that caused a change of perspective around money that had you find that direction that you knew there are other possibilities? What was the first kind of path that you, you went? Down in your escape from, or your journey towards escaping that kind of thing?

Um, you know, well, a, as you asked that question, it does seem there like there was this sort of beautiful path that came out of that. And I hadn't really thought about it that way before, but I think the thing that I did really in common with my sisters is a faith tradition where we felt very, very supported. Um, and so. What it— what sort of changed was I was always looking for sort of my way in the world, uh, that seemed a little different than my family. I worked really young. I started, you know, paying for things really young. Um, my sisters actually provided a car for me when I turned 16 so that I could work. So it's, it's not like our kids today where it's just so they can go hang out with your friends. Uh, that car was to go to work. So I went to work right away and had the experience of having my own money really quickly. But also I was really taught through our faith experience that God provides for us and that there's really everything that we need, we have access to. And so I kind of ran with that actually. And I went to a small private school in Santa Barbara for college. And it was actually at the time very wealthy environment, but it wasn't— it was old money. So it was sort of as if people behaved as if everyone had money, you know. So I had roommates that, you know, if I would say that I liked something that they had, they were happy to give it to me, um, because they had enough, right? Like, they always had enough or more, right? And so my experience was, um, not only that in college, in that small environment, did I have extended family, but I started to learn that, um, that my knowingness that the people with money weren't bad, like my dad had said, uh, really was like in real life walking around That's very eye-opening and great to experience.

How old are you? Kind of late teens, college, you said?

Yeah, 18. So when I went into college, yeah. So yeah, so I started working at 15 and then at 18. And this is also kind of another interesting point is that I applied to school, not a lot of help from my parents necessarily. So it was really my sisters and I sort of helping me to figure out where I could apply to, where I could go to. I'm not sure how I thought I was going to get into Westmont, actually, um, because it was an expensive school at the time. I'm sure it is still expensive, but, um, someone had paid forward. So half of my college experience and, and my undergraduate degree, um, was paid for by someone else. Incredible.

Yeah. And what a, what a perfect age to experience that because, you know, you think of normal kids when they leave home, there's an isolation, there's a great disconnect from family, and often there's struggle at that age because they haven't preparation, they may not have the resources, college. But having been around those other students and having that paying for benefit you in the sense that that gave you not just college, but it gave you a new perspective on abundance that, oh, this is, this is okay and normal to do. And this is an attraction of finances in the sense that it's an exchange of energy rather than just the resistance to, oh, I'm never going to get in there.

Right.

No. And I think the resistance to the things that we have, whether it's being in poverty and resisting those things that could get us out of poverty, that's what holds people in that place. But it also attracts people in the same way when they enable the abundance mindset and even understanding what abundance is. It's not just giving away because you got something and then having nothing left. It's giving from a full cup and being able to provide an excess instead of just giving away what you have, which is destructive to ourselves.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, Edwin, it was an interesting experience for me because the family that I was raised with, the parents I was raised with, they weren't really too involved in this. So they were there to kind of drop me off in Santa Barbara. But beyond that, they were not involved. And so this new family now had taken me in and didn't really ask if I had come from a wealthy family or not. You know, that wasn't really a question in our dorms. Hey, what does your dad do? It didn't really come up. And so people assumed that I came from the same kind of wealth that they did, even though that absolutely wasn't, wasn't true.

And that's a lovely equalizer as well, isn't it? Because it's, you know, so many conversations that we go to, you know, whether, you know, I haven't been to a bar for a little while, but it's, oh, Susan, what do you do? They're trying to kind of judge you based on what do you drive, where do you live, what do you And then this is a, an isolator, a separator for people, and resistance to what somebody wants out rather than just accepting people. And it may not have been thought in their mind because their first experience of money was, was abundant. It didn't, it wasn't an important question to understand where you stood in the social, social scale, I suppose.

Right, right, right. Yeah. And that's the interesting thing is that. When we understand that it is just our beingness, right? And whatever our beingness is attracted— is attracting, or what we see as our deservedness. I mean, that— I think that's— and I don't mean deserving, I want to qualify with deservedness, um, because, you know, I was a little bit in shock when I first got there because I didn't come from their kind of wealth, um, and that was clear to me pretty quickly. But at the same time, when I could understand that I was the same person, whether I was in my parents' home, or whether I was in, you know, visiting with one of my roommates' homes that was, you know, a beautiful estate, or even just the beautiful campus that we went to school on, I was the same.

Yeah. I think, certainly looking back from the work that I've done in, in recent years and beyond, when we acknowledge that we are the source of you is the source of me and the source of everyone and everything, and we're one thing expressing itself in infinite ways. It's a beautiful way to look at things that the being is the being, the oneness rather than just a, an, a separator, a divisiveness. Right. And I think with, with society is at the moment it's, it's dividing people. Separating people, making them think that there's something different or worse or better about people. Social media certainly giving the showreel of the, the highlight reel of what people want people to see. And if we can embrace the authenticity of who we are, it doesn't matter if we come from a little or a lot. We can just be and contribute equally to, to what there is from the journey that we've had.

Right. And it seemed to start to make more sense to me how expansive I thought about my faith in the world and then how our resources show up for us.

Yeah.

Like it started to seem like the two were interwoven to me.

Did, did you ever see a, a, a perspective of, and, and I, maybe this is just my projection of something on the situation, but when I look at a lot of people with faith and I say in the religious context, There's a lot of people that have faith that things are just gonna happen. They don't need to lift a finger or do anything to create the conditions for those things to come to them. And it tends to be those sort of people that don't necessarily have much or a lot because they're, you know, God's gonna save me or whatever their, um, situation is. But it doesn't lend them to creating the conditions for things to happen and being abundant of themselves. They're just waiting. Bleeding on something else. You're speaking of something which is very different, I feel, which is the faith in it's around you and just creating the awareness of those conditions that are already there. It's just attracting those and being aware that they're there to find.

Yes, yes, yes. I think I was lucky, you know, and I, again, I referenced back to your conversation with Bethany and how you guys talked about traditional faith backgrounds. I think I was really, really lucky, and I've always thought that I had maybe angels. I think we all do, right? But that I, I've always felt really well taken care of. I mean, especially in that environment when other students had, you know, a lot of money. I, I didn't. I actually worked at the school as a part of my, um, student loans. But I always knew, and I think my sisters were really helpful with this for me. I always knew of, you know, and I'm careful in our work at the Institute to not use words where people have a lot of negative energy on it, right? So I use the word God for myself. I'm careful to use that word with other people that have a negative opinion of that word. But what I learned so young was that we, you know, are provided for because we are well loved. But well loved also means that you sort of have the responsibility of being who you came here to be. So it's not my experience to have people around me that believe that God is going to drop something in their lap. At least I don't see that. It might be around me, but I, I don't see that. Uh, what I see is that we forget who we are when we come into this broken world. Unfortunately, um, we forget who we are. We forget to be exactly who we are. And so the work that I do, and we do at the Institute of Possibility Thinking, is really return to that original divinity. Um, in other words, being fully expressed in your gifts and talents and what you came here to do and be. Um, but that, that is love right there, that, that, that's all encompassed in love. In fact, the more you are that, the more you actually, you know, sort of resonate with that love. Um, and that the more you're clear about that, the more you can stay, you know, attuned to it, the more everything, yes, works out because you are in your purpose, not because you've been sitting in the closet envisioning what, you know, a, what a Tesla smells like.

Yeah. Yeah. And isn't it interesting how we can look at the word God which I had a lot of resistance to. I was raised Church of England until I was about 12, told my parents I didn't believe in that, went very atheistic for a number of years, and then, you know, understood energy and understood there was something more. And how we could look at the same perspective— I'm gonna ask Princess to leave, she'll be back, she's persistent— um, but how we make the money word mean something other than other possibilities of the context. And it's the same with God. God could mean to somebody killing millions of people in the name of God, killing somebody else that was trying to kill them in the name of God in the Crusades. Or it could mean just a higher power, a unity, and an alignment of energy in a positive way. The same with money. Money could mean scarcity, not enough. I need more of it and I can't let go of it. But unless there's the abundance for money to flow through, it's never gonna catch you. You're only gonna run out of money. And by the same token, just things aren't going to fall in your lap. But you have to, you know, the opportunity to create the conditions for abundance to be more abundant and more aware of the abundance that's already there. That's what connects us as authentic people. I've looked at myself the last 2 or 3 years in, in the context of leadership, the perspective or the, the, um, identity of leader that I've created. It wasn't serving me, it wasn't helpful. It had evolved over time, and it's time to recreate that identity. And if we could recreate the identity of, of words, the meaning we attach to things, because we are meaning-making machines. Somebody cut you off on the, off the freeway, dammit, why did they cut me off? They weren't cutting you off. You just happened to be the car that was in the way. It was nothing personal. But we put that story to it. And then if they think that you cut them off, you can feel this intense energy. And I wasn't aware until I realized I was an empath that it wasn't my stuff. It was somebody else's. And I can just, you know, command emotional release and let go of it and understand it's not mine, but I can be aware of it. And, and reject that. So how, from college to, you know, whether you were employed full-time after college or you became an entrepreneur immediately, how then did that help you in your next few years of the outset of your business career and, and your, your life past college?

Um, if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to take one step backward on what you just—

Absolutely.

To sort of expand on what you just said, you know, the, the model possibility thinking that I developed, you know, works from that premise that there is no inherent meaning in any situation, event, conversation. There's only the meaning we place on it. But then when we place a meaning on it, that then that evokes an emotion. Like you just said, somebody cuts me off on the freeway and now I'm mad at them, right? And then that emotion then typically drives behavior. Now, luckily, you just interrupted it, right? And that's what the goal of possibility thinking is. It's a model and a practice that interrupts that constant need I think all humans have to place meaning on things. And that especially if they're working from their survival mode, like a sort of a low level of awareness, like you just talked about, that it's not about you actually, then working from that survival mode typically looks at life through fear and constriction. But what I found in our programs is that it's those same eyes through which we see everything in every area of our life. And so in other words, if we're working from the premise, or we're working from a place of fear and survival, then we don't see a benevolent God, we don't see a mind of God or spirit or source, whichever works, you know, or your listeners. Yeah, we don't see it that way. We typically project onto that being or that understanding our brokenness, and then that brokenness sort of creates an exhausting lifestyle, right? Like you just said, because when we can't receive even the gifts and resources that are all around us, then we sort of reinforce our own story.

Yeah. I, I put it into the perspective a few years ago that, you know, I got divorced. I wanted a barrier between me and my ex-wife. And if you imagine a Lego man on the table, it was almost like putting a toilet roll holder over the top of me that kind of isolated me from everything because I withdrew in certain ways from connection with others or allowing connection with myself. It was a survival tactic that I used successfully in some ways, unsuccessfully in others, but it got me to where I am today in the very present. So it was successful in certain ways and I've, I've gained a lot of lessons from that, but sure. Really?

Yeah.

When we, yeah, when we look at everything that we, when you, you know, how you do one thing is how you do everything and how we think about one thing is probably how we think about everything.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. But when we change that around, you know, when we start to see the world as a benevolent place, like we start to see the world as resources. And that we have guides and we have our own wisdom, and that when we can return to our original self that came here with a purpose, then life can be wonderful. But again, however I see the world, right? We jokingly call it our pink sunglasses, right? However you see life through your pink sunglasses, right, is exactly how life is. So it's that shift though. And some people might say, well, that seems like a nice concept, but you know, how do you get through a divorce? Like you just said. Yeah. And I think that it's an opportunity, actually. Um, the obstacle is the way.

Yeah. Yeah, it's funny, I had a dream. I, I was— did a sound bath a week and a half ago with a couple of friends we met at Abraham Hicks who came through town. And, um, she was talking about a wall we were walking into the woods or somewhere and talking about a wall, and there was a window, and we could see through the window, we could see the life we were looking to live into. And, you know, part of the thing was to break the wall down and break through it. And I was aware it was only a piece of wall, like you'd see on a building that they tore down except a piece of wall, so they could call it renovation instead of a complete rebuild.. And I was aware that I could go around the wall, but that wasn't the path that I need to take. It's going through and, you know, working with the obstacle that you have, taking it down in whatever way is appropriate and working through it because going around it, it's just a shortcut that's never going to reset and remove the obstacle that was there. It's going to show up again and again and again.

Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. I think that that's absolutely true. And I think we learn about it sort of at deeper and deeper levels when we have to do it that way. Right. Cause we've all loved to do it that way. Uh, but, but moving through it takes a certain amount of courage, but I do think that that's the shorter path.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we've all seen David Blaine or, you know, these other people. What was the guy? David Copperfield, wasn't it? He walked through the Chinese wall.

Right.

Still couldn't figure that out, but you know, it's I mean, there are similarities in that it's possible. It's just how we go about it. Some may need to climb over it and leave it behind because it's there and it was a reminder of what they've left behind and it helps them remember what they chose for their future. Or in the fact that tearing it down is the right way to make sure it never shows up again. And I guess that's just a choice within ourselves. It's like, try to give up smoking several times. I did for a while, and then I went back to it. But it was a mental switch that until I chose whatever I chose on that one day, I never picked a cigarette up again. That was, that was the shift. It was almost going round it the previous times and then, you know, taking it on, you know.

Right.

That was 20 years ago now.

Wow. Well, good for you. Yeah, I think that, you know, we talk about this a lot in our programs that, you know, you're one thought away from changing the trajectory.

Way. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, um, the, the, the place you, you got to past college, you had this great experience of abundance and, and people, um, helping you, supporting you. But it wasn't just you, it was the way they were with everybody. They were each other. It was a collaboration rather than a, a competition, right? In, in maybe other backgrounds in life. How did that help you set up? Did you start your own business? Did you work with somebody else? Tell me about the next few years and how that set you, set the foundation for those years.

Yeah, there's so many lessons that came with those years for sure. Um, you know, actually, uh, my college had a great alumni support, and so I, um, was able to, through alumni, get a job in advertising And what I noticed immediately was there wasn't enough room for me to move quickly. I'm a fast mover. So I found my way into sales, advertising sales, and then into technology sales. So I spent about 10 years in technology sales. And the interesting thing was that it created an opportunity to heal a lot of those early family wounds around money, because in sales, I was able to make as much money as I wanted to. But I got a lot of negative feedback from my father. He had a phrase when I would show up driving whatever car I was driving or dressed in a way that he didn't feel comfortable with. He liked to use the phrase, no daughter of mine, which I can laugh about right now because I don't even know what that means. But the more that I was successful, the more that there was a lot of family kind of constriction. But at the same time, I would say that I, you know, I'm a recovering driven personality. I'm always working on slowing that down. I had a long list of things that I wanted to get done. So So I sort of pushed through that and had to in many ways heal a lot of those father wounds, quite frankly, because also technology at that time, you know, was mostly men. And a salesperson in technology is sort of an odd person out to begin with, right? Because usually technologists see themselves as being very, very, you know, smart that they can write code and be engineers, right? What do we need a person for the studio. But then they also noticed that I brought them a lot of business. So, so it was just an interesting time because, and maybe other people have had this experience where it's like, you know, pulling against a rubber band sort of in that I was making a lot of money, I was successful, I bought my own home, I then turned it into a rental. Like, like, you know, a lot of things were going really well, but how I felt about myself was, it was difficult. I felt that I didn't have my father's blessing at all. And I felt like it was always really a hard push in technology. And although I was able to access, you know, a lot of very interesting, smart people in that process, I had to get out of it because it was so hard on me to be in an environment that didn't support me. But as I see now, and even in this conversation, I see that it's again where we take our wound and we project it on, or we bring it to the next experience. So it was a really healing time for me. And then I became an entrepreneur. Then I started— well, I went to grad school while I was in when I was in technology and got my master's in marriage and family counseling. I never wanted to do therapy. I really just wanted to help people change the way they think. And what I had found was, you know, sort of this culmination, quite frankly, of my entire life when I became an entrepreneur, because A, I'd had these limiting beliefs in my original home. Um, that I sort of pushed through but probably hadn't healed. Then when I started making my own money and sort of creating my own life, I had to actually accept myself instead of the feedback of others. And that's where I became an entrepreneur.

That's incredible. That was very, very, very helpful for a lot of people, I'm sure. I mean, I picked up a lot there. I mean, but the culmination of accepting yourself and not having to rely on the validation externally is critical. And how many kids at an early age don't get that? They don't understand that. I mean, some kids do, but how can we, how can we bring more of that to the younger generation, especially with the social media? And again, not to, you know, dwell on that too much, but that is such a, such a challenge in removing the validation that they have to have likes, they have to have comments, they have to have followers, and you know, it's, it's a popularity contest, and that's manifesting itself in life now. Yeah, again, more shallow relationships, less depth and connection we were talking about earlier. Um, you know, I'd rather have a few very meaningful relationships than, you know, a thousand shallow relationships, you know.

Yeah, yeah. And I definitely think that's an inside job, you know. I, I have teenagers and I understand what you just said. But I want to take us back to that idea of pink sunglasses, right? Like, we really have to— because social media is not going to go away, right? This— the disparity in corporate America for women and men, no matter what your role is, is not going away anytime soon, right? So we have to learn to move through the obstacle, right? And we need to look at it as a source of information for us.

Yes.

So, you know, I think that that it kind of takes us back to that idea that we have to look at where are the survival beliefs in that that are really bogging me down right now, right? When we look at social media as our validation, or even if it's, you know, not conscious necessarily, but with— if you're scrolling and you just feel badly, right? Like, I've noticed that where I'm just exhausted from it. Then we have to look at, you know, what is the unmet need, right?

Yeah, yeah. And I think with, with so much around us, you know, isolation and loneliness is, is one of those things. And that could be from one or multiple different backgrounds and experiences as child, as traumas that we've had through life, whether it was a boss shouting at us or parents calling us out on something, or, you know, siblings, cousins, friends, all of those things. They can just create— it's like a seed growing inside until you pull it out by the root, then it's not going anywhere.

Yeah. And this is where I really love to talk about the idea of like returning to our authentic self, right? Being able to trust and have that internal onus, right? Our internal compass that says, this is who I am, right? This is who I am. This is what I like or don't like. Just as that simple, like, right? And this is who I am regardless of anything that goes on outside of me. And I realize that that's a practice that takes time and, you know, takes commitment and it takes developing that muscle, um, that allows us to understand that, like, we the person are the hub of the wheel, right? Like, the characteristics of who I am are in that hub of the wheel. The external part of the wheel, the rim of the wheel, yes, those are the things that go on in my life. Those are, you know, my relationship to money or to my work or the personal relationships in my life or my clients, right? But they're all on the outside. They're not me. And I am not them, right? So it's kind of that idea of understanding that I'm the same whether my environment changes or not. And how do I return to that? In those times, right, where, you know, where we have conflict with the world, right? Whether it's, you know, with like the things you mentioned, loneliness or conflict or, you know, all the political upheaval or, you know, the sadness in the world right now. And so my, I guess my word of encouragement would be to pay attention to returning to self. And nurture that part of yourself, right? You know, when we were in Belize recently, it dawned on me almost the second I got on the plane that I was so much happier. And I was like, and even my daughter was like, well, we're in the airport, you're already happy. And it was because I was really, I needed that, right? I needed to get on an airplane. I didn't really need to go to LAX necessarily. Although I have to tell you that environment didn't really bother me because I really needed to go. Like, I needed a new change of pace and, you know, different company. And, you know, of course I always love being with Bethany, but knowing what we need and what we want and then getting that for ourselves, right? And just in that kind of comfort, it doesn't necessarily mean having to get on a plane necessarily, right? But, you know, I really needed silence too. And so when I got there, I had never been in a hammock before, which was weird. I don't know, they seem so— right? But I laid in this hammock and just allowed myself to go to a really silent place. It didn't mean that there weren't things going on around me. I mean, I was upstairs and people were down below, but I, I, I longed for that silence and I got it for myself. Out. And when we did that, then, and, and we sort of fill that hub, right, of the wheel, then the things on the outside don't look quite as hard.

Yeah, yeah. I think there's a, you know, speaking from my own experiences, I mentioned really connecting back to that deep authenticity and identifying what's you, what isn't you, and what's people pleasing, and what's, you know, pleasing within yourself, just by being accepting of who you are. Yes. That's, that can be quite difficult when you got the fog of everything going on around you.

Yes.

With the world at, at odds, which you're projecting on the outside. But it, it is a challenge. How, how would you really suggest somebody created that awareness of what's really them and what seems like them because they're familiar with being, living into, or leaning into those things? On an ongoing basis, habitual?

It's such a good question. Such a good question. And, you know, really, especially since, you know, in our programs, we typically work with, you know, the overachievers and, you know, the highly anxious. I giggle only because it's just so common. You know, we have all this high-functioning anxiety everywhere, and it just looks so socially acceptable, right? I mean, You know, I work a lot with entrepreneurs and a lot of syndicators. And, you know, that hustle and grind, like, looks so sexy, right? And yet I see it a little differently. I see a lot of high-functioning anxiety, actually. And the funny thing is, it's kind of like you said, in some ways the world gives us positive feedback for that. And so that kind of keeps you on that habit trail. But that habit trail is not very sustainable. And then you could also look, if you look a little bit more deeply within yourself, or you may I see it in your environment as well, is that people aren't very happy. High-functioning anxiety is not a happy place, right? I mean, you might have a lot of lists and you can check off boxes, but I love your question because I do think it's more difficult than some, you know, perhaps trite phrase that I use, right? I think it's very difficult. And so where, where I encourage people to start is 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes of night, at night, of any kind of quiet. That you are willing to do. You know, there's apps that will count for you. You can breathe if you'd like to. There's all kinds of guided meditations. Um, uh, there, you know, there's all kinds of resources that you can use, but 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes at night of silence is a place to start. But then I also sort of suggest a game, and, um, and just to make it fun— I like fun— So to make it fun, to just throughout the day, and also to keep your mind busy on one thing instead of 20 things, right? Um, is to literally have a conversation with yourself while you're out in the day. So perhaps, um, you know, you're walking to your car and you notice the sunshine. And so then what I encourage people to say is, I like this. And then perhaps there might be another incidence during your day. You're sitting in traffic, or you're on Zoom for too long, you're tired of sitting, whatever that be, then we actually, like, literally in the conversation say to ourselves, I don't like this. So what we're doing is we're just starting to identify those characteristics, those things, right, that feed our soul, that are food for our soul, and those things that sort of drain us. Now, it doesn't mean that throughout the day that we're not going to do things that we don't necessarily like, although, although we can start to bring boundaries, containment, and also a shift in perspective, right? So if we have really, really clean boundaries, one measurement of that would be you actually don't do a lot of stuff you don't want to do.

I love it.

So it's a simple game, right? It's just yes or no, yes or no. I like this, I don't like this. You know, I'm funny because I do like, like organization and I'm sort of a minimalist by nature. And so when my car is clean, I'll say, I love this. I love how yummy a clean car is. Or, or I like folding laundry, right? Or, or I actually do have to-do lists, and when they get checked off, I say, I love this so much, right? Um, but what it does is it starts to get us to pay attention to ourselves as opposed to just continuing throughout the day to make yourself do the things that you do consciously or unconsciously that, um, become create this numbness for us.

It comes back to awareness, it sounds like, creating the conscious awareness within yourself that someone brings you joy, it makes you happy, or it's acceptable, or it's tolerable, or it's something that you— it grazes you. And I think that's key because I'm not a grinder. I'm not a grinder. I'm not, you know, one to sacrifice my life for something in the future. I want the essence of what it is right now, and it's available to us. You know, I'd love to own an Aston Martin, but I can go and rent one if I want to a couple of days a year before I really want to have the cost and the everything else that goes along with running a fast, expensive car. That can bring me the essence right now. Jumping out of a plane can give me a thrill. I can go and do some of these things, but it also balances with the other things where you can't don't have $250 grand sitting in the bank to go and buy one and $30 grand a year to run the thing versus, you know, doing the things that you are financially benefited from doing at this time, but also identifying the things that give you joy that may well be a higher leverage of your time at a higher value. So once you start identifying those, you can do less of the things that take you longer, more more anxiety or more stress in doing those things to be able to then leverage your gifts and the joy that you get from these things and earn a lot more money from doing a lot less things. And it's not necessarily just financially, but just leveraging your time to bring you more abundance and joy and fun. Because being fun is so important. We forget that. But you just sitting on the plane, that shifted the energy. And suddenly there was something that came across you that just released everything that was on you, the outside of the airplane, you know, he's right there and you're in a different place, right? Well, everyone on the plane was in a similar position that was going there for release and joy and relaxing. They were also able to, and that also collectively generated a greater response.

Yes, yes, that's such a good point. Yeah, that is such a good point. It is such a good point because, you know, I noticed that when I'm in that place, I notice that people respond sort of accordingly too. But I also notice, you know, that some people, like, you know, have the ability to do all those things that you just mentioned, but they still are unhappy. Now, I'm not saying it's like black or white, you know, some, you know, some some higher thought that it's not good to have things. I love things, so, so there's no problem with things. Uh, but I think that what you mentioned earlier is that conscious awareness, bringing your attention to the present moment, because you then can actually be in that moment and not another one, you know. So it may be the car that would be more fun, or even the airplane, right? Um, but practicing to being in that awareness could mean that just the silence in my car sometimes is the thing that can make me feel really happy or tap into my happiness. Because I believe it's always there. It's just that we get so, uh, you know, in our, um, you know, back on the habit trail that we forget to notice and we forget to tap into our own.

I can refer back to a meditation I did about 5 weeks ago. I meditated for an hour, seemed like 15 minutes, but it was the first time I'd really heard my inner voice in that setting. And I haven't done it since, been busy in time and all these other things, but the awareness of that was incredible. I'm going to do it again. Even, you know, half an hour, 45 minutes over time may well bring that sooner. The awareness is there and the listening And the quietening of everything else around in your mind. I think that it, it's, it's a similar thing where you, whether you're meditating or just being conscious in what you're doing, right? That's, that's also bringing the awareness and the gratitude for identifying that, hey, I love this. This is a great feeling to be in. How lovely I can do this after I've done these other things and found somebody else that can take these things off my hands. I can have more of this.

And, and I think also what you've just described is when we bring our awareness to the present moment, we move out of that unconscious mind, we move out of that reptilian— I can never say that word— brain that is just working from survival. And when we bring that from our unconscious mind to our conscious mind, then we actually now are working from our higher functioning. Right? We're working for— from more awareness, more insight. But when we are unconscious, you know, when we're just working from our survival place, that tends to be sort of low energy, right? It tends to be not insightful or creative energy. And so when we look at the idea that by bringing our awareness to, we actually are getting more clear on actually who we actually are. Um, because when we're just in our unconscious mind and when we're in our just basic, uh, you know, the, the basic gray matter of the brain, that's very, you know, get fed, get enough sleep, run from, you know, the tiger. It's pretty, you know, it's pretty low level. Um, it's not enlightened thinking, it's not creative thinking, it's not the thinking that then gets us to the next level. I mean, basically, that is our conditioned self that is based in survival, you know. And, and so since that's not really necessary for us in this day and age, we actually have to practice getting out from under that.

Absolutely. It's— Matthew calls it the drunk monkey. It's the same exact thing. There's no bears chasing us. If a bear does chase me, I'd like to be able to run, but You know, it's not necessarily to be always looking around you for a bear if you don't live in bear country.

Right. But unless you— Right. And then unless you bring your awareness to that, most people are living in that anxious place. And they look, you know, really presentable, right? And they look like they're making a ton of money or whatever else. They look great. Although that kind of anxiety is not sustainable because we were never meant to run from the tiger all day long, right? But also, I think what you said earlier was so important is that when you have that experience of the meditation and then you can borrow from that again, you're actually rewiring your brain now out of survival mode and creating a new neural pathway that says, I know how to take myself to this relaxed place or this, you know, open place, whatever it was that, that meditation you know, benefited, whatever the benefit was, that you can borrow that again and again. And the more often you do, whether you're actually in that hour or just borrowing from the feeling of it, then you are now, you know, bringing your attention to rewiring the brain, literally, so that more times than not, you could be in that really mindful place like you are in meditation, as opposed to being in that really unconscious place.

Absolutely. Yeah. So, so since you worked in the sales and now you, now you're running the Institute of Possibility Thinking, you've got your podcast and you, you're on, um, Conscious Wealth, um, or Wealth Consciousness program. What have you taken and have you shared a lot of it along the way? What are the key things where we can recontextualize what people learn in a shorter space of time to boil down our, you know, yours and mine, 35, maybe 40 years of life experience into, into, you know, a few minutes or a few hours of what you convey to other people? And how do you get them into the space of, of that peace to be willing to look at something from a different perspective where there may have been fear, there may have been trauma from their their, their past that they're holding on to. And they, you know, they say, you know, people that have been abused, they find other abusers because that's the way they relate to love. In the same way with money and finances and awareness, gratitude— what tools do you use to help people relate to it in a positive way where they can touch it, feel it, and then recontextualize it in a way that then serves them moving forward? Something they used to do and that they can see a new future in what they, what they live into?

Yeah, that's such a good question and we could probably talk all day on that. But to be like concrete, like you were asking, you know, we have very specific tools. The reason that I created the methodology that's called Possibility Thinking is because when I was trained as a therapist, no disrespect to therapists, But what I learned was that we're still going to keep blaming somebody. And we're going to keep, like, we're going to keep thinking this through. And because, you know, I'm a recovering ruminator, you know, we could think things through till the cows come home, right? But I got to a place where I said, I don't believe this. I don't believe that we have to— this can't be what we're meant to do. We can't be meant to come into this world Yes, broken. Yes, you know, people have experiences that are difficult, like you just mentioned. It can't be that you spend the rest of your life repeating that. That just can't be. And that doesn't tie into a loving creator in my mind either. You know, I was taught that, you know, every hair on my head was counted and that the color of my eyes was specific to me. So how can that kind of loving creator say, hey, I'm going to drop you off on the planet now and, you know, bad things are going to happen to you, you're gonna have to work this out for the rest of your life. That sucks. Don't sign me up for that So, so I, as I got a lot of training in grad school, I then looked for more training. In fact, I studied with many, many, many authors and PhDs and people who had looked at the combination of thought and, uh, spirituality. And I came up with, uh, this methodology, possibility thinking. And what it's— the premise of it is, is that when we work from neutral, just like your cellular system works better from neutral when just like the body works better when it's at a place of rest, right? Our thinking, when we can get to neutral, allows us to actually even be open to seeing what's possible. So the idea of possibility thinking allows us to see that there's no inherent meaning. And, you know, this is a tough one. Like, you know, this is not a concept that's easy to grasp in, you know, even an hour. It's a tough one. Because we want to think that there is meaning placed on things, especially difficult things like the things that you've mentioned. Um, but at the same time, I, I don't believe that we are to carry those wounds throughout our life and continue to, you know, bump up against everyone else as if it's a pinball game, right, of just bumping up against people that have— are wounded the same or, or, or have wounded people. Um, so possibility thinking, I developed it so that there's an understanding that we can get to neutral. And from neutral, you know, anything's possible. So when I think about, you know, how could someone be benefited from this conversation today, we can start at the very minimum, and that is that we're all working from thought models, and those thought models give us the same results every day, right? So those thought models create what we call Groundhog Day, where we just keep doing the same thing over and over and over, right? And maybe we've done it in a couple different relationships. Or a couple different businesses. But when you start to see those patterns, that's where we can really start to break it down. So most times people come into our programs thinking that it is a thing outside of them, that it is a, you know, an experience with trauma, or it is, you know, an experience at work, or it's an experience with money. Um, but the key to all of that is going to those survival level beliefs And then learning the practice of getting to neutral. And then what would you like to do with that going forward? So, you know, really basic things that we can do since we can't do possibility thinking today, uh, but really basic things that we can do is we can start to just question when we see ourselves in those Groundhog Days. Um, if you have that awareness, we can start to question, you know, really what does this mean? And if it means this, Is this my definition, right? I think earlier you said the person cut you off on the freeway, they're a jerk or whatever, they're selfish, they're all those things. Could it mean anything else? Now, that's not how simple possibility thinking is, but that's like a simple place to start. Because if it could mean something else, does it really mean anything about me personally? It's a good place to start. But also a good place to start is just that 10 minutes again, 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes of the night. Learn how to get off the habit trail because we're just reinforcing those neural pathways, right? When we stay in our behavior that is, you know, very, uh, you know, habitual ruminating behavior, we are literally reinforcing those groups in our, in our brain, like literally recreating over and over, reinforcing, excuse me, those neural pathways. And what that's going to do is get us the same result every time. So we need to break that pattern. And so 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes at night of any kind of silence, or if your mind is too busy, you know, grab it, grab an app. There's so many of them there. Many of them are free, where it'll just count for you or count for yourself, or, you know, decide that you're going to count on the inhale and the exhale. It's really starting to go to that inward place where you can actually start to pay attention to whatever it is that needs to be healed because we are constantly working it out in the world and we have to stop working it out. We actually have to put a stop to that. I'm not sure if that answers your question.

It really does. I mean, it's so, so critical. They, they call it, um, pattern interrupt, don't they? And this is on a, on a daily basis or a regular basis that we're interrupting the pattern that we've created because You know, you see a bump in the road and you drive around it once, but if there's bumps along the road and it's always kind of jarring you and making you think, oh, Paul's on the road, I'm going to take a different street. Probably a better analogy. I'm going to take a better— I don't need to experience these potholes every day, time after time. I know where they are and I have to swerve around them, and then that puts me in danger of something else. It's holding on to something that we attach comfort to because it's familiar to us.

Familiar. Exactly. Exactly. But that creates that Groundhog Day, and I think we're, we're made for more than that. I believe wholeheartedly that we're made for more than that, and that, that, you know, is, uh, exhausting soulfully for most of us to keep, you know, doing all the workarounds. Um, the interesting thing about the work that we do at Institute of Possibility Thinking is that You know, each time that people come through our programs, we'll ask them concretely, what did you get from these programs, right? Like, what was the thing that you got? And it is, it's really interesting because we, it's so difficult to get like a concrete answer. Instead, they'll say, oh, decision-making becomes so much more easy for me. I feel less in upset or overwhelmed. I feel better able to relate to others. You know, they're these really ethereal things. So, so it's difficult to say, but I, but I want to say though that most people say they return to home. They feel like they're at home now within themselves. And so whatever one can do, you know, to start to return to those, you know, in those small practices, return to home, you know, playing the game of what do I like and what do I not like, you know, and then also taking the, the idea of any relaxed moment and then borrowing it from it, you know, when you need to. And, and then also, you know, in that idea, when we find ourselves in a Groundhog Day, a question that I like to present to a lot of our members is be in the habit of asking yourself, what is it I need right now? Because there's an unmet need that keeps us in that highly anxious place. But, you know, we can figure those things out for ourselves. I mean, And you could keep the list even short at first, like, do I need a nap? Do I need to feed myself? Do I need to go outside in the sunshine? Uh, do I need to call a friend? You know, do I need to get a few things done so I feel like, you know, I don't know, I had my place in the world today? But most of us are walking around with these very clear unmet needs, and then we are projecting them onto everyone that we interact with. Um, and, and that, that sort of unconscious behavior is what keeps the Groundhog Day in place.

I love it. That was wonderful. It's wonderful. Thank you so much. Is there anything else you want to share about yourself or your programs that the listeners can take on? I'd love them to be, you know, those we're going to share, share some links with the listeners and closing titles.

The one thing that I can offer is you know, is the podcast. It's Wealth Consciousness. It's on most of the podcast platforms. And that, you know, though the episodes are not videoed like this, because my hope is to be out of someone's scroll and in their ear. And so, and they're pretty short because it's geared towards, you know, our member base, our high achievers. They typically want to move through things pretty quickly. But it'll give us— it'll give your listeners a chance to also breathe. We always start that podcast with a little breathwork so that you can bring your attention to the present moment. So that's something that I can offer. You know, also on my bio link, we have retreats that are available. Of course, we've invited you, Trystan Trenberth, to come to retreat. And, um, uh, we have retreats. And then the Institute of Possibility Thinking has two main programs. There's Mindset Mastery and then Ascension Wealth Consciousness. Um, and so those programs are available. They're also on that link for application and to get on the waitlist. So, um, those are the ways that, uh, that I personally serve our community.

Well, that's wonderful. I know it's impacted so many people. I know Bethany introduced us, as we said at the beginning, and you've done so much for so many people. Thank you so much for joining us, Susan. I really, really appreciate it. Thank you, guys. I hope you've enjoyed the episode. Um, we'll be back in 2 weeks with the next episode. Have a great day. Thank you. Bye-bye. Follow Susan and the Institute of Possibility Thinking. Check her out on socials. Don't forget to subscribe to her podcast, her YouTube channels, and let us know what you think below. See you next week on the next edition of Birth to Net Worth.