091: Committing to Your Unfamiliar Possibilities with Lisa Nichols

Hi, I'm Natalie Jill, fat loss expert turned high performance coach. When odds are stacked against us, how do we shift and create everything from nothing? How do we level up when we aren't feeling it yet or we've had a big setback? On this podcast, I'll be talking to some of the most inspiring and courageous men and women on this planet who at their worst, learned how to achieve success greater than they ever dreamed possible. Leveling up and creating Everything from Nothing Years ago, Lisa Nichols hit a rock bottom. She describes the date to me as being a struggling single mom on public assistance and remembering that she could not even afford a box of Pampers for her baby. Having to wrap him in a towel and watch him closely to be able to change it right away was a devastating rock bottom place for her. It was from that place that she decided that she had been more committed to her familiar discomfort than to unfamiliar new possibilities. Today, Lisa Nichols is one of the most requested motivational speakers, as well as a media personality and corporate CEO whose global platform has reached and served nearly 3030 million people. As founder and CEO of motivating the Masses, she has helped develop workshops and programs that have transformed the lives of many. Her extraordinary story of transforming her own life from public assistance for her family to leading a multi million dollar enterprise is the inspiration behind her bold mission to teach others that it is always possible to do the same. As a media personality who has appeared on Oprah, the Today show, the Dr. Phil show, the Steve Harvey show, and Extra, just to name a few, she is also celebrated for the impact she has on the lives of teens. Through her non profit foundation, she has touched the lives of over 270,000 teens, prevented over 3,800 teen suicides, supported 2,500 dropouts and returning to school and she's helped thousands reunite with families. Join in today and meet Lisa Nichols and learn exactly how she had leveled up and created everything from nothing. Today I'm so excited on leveling up because I'm talking to Lisa Nichols who motivates the masses and today we have her today here with us and she before we got started she was just telling me this fabulous story and I was already drawn to her and I wish I had already been recording because as I'm listening to her I'm thinking, well no wonder she's so successful and amazing. Just how she goes about everything is so inspiring and powerful and enrolling. So Lisa, I'm so excited to talk with you today because I know who you are now is not who you Always were.

Oh, thank you so much, Natalie. I am super, super excited of our time together, and I'm excited to talk about, you know, the journey, because so many times people just see where I am today. But the journey is where the strength, the resiliency, the faith. It's where it lives. So I'm excited for this conversation.

Yes, I am. Gosh, I'm so excited for it. So looking at you, like, looking at you online, Googling you, or just looking at your social media, it does feel like, gosh, she has us so together. She's so powerful. She has this empire, how she create that, so. But I know that's not who you always were. Like, take us back. Who were you before all that?

Wow. It's a big question.

I know.

Yeah. Yeah. I was a woman who. I saw my. And I don't use this word often. I saw my potential.

Okay.

But I didn't know how to get to her. I knew who I could become. I lived more in questioning myself than I lived in knowing who I was. I compared myself not in a place of competition, but it was that, well, if they could do it, why could I not do it? Just a lot of insecurity. A lot of insecurity, A lot of self doubt, particularly around I'm functionally dyslexic. A lot of people don't know that, but I transpose words. That's just who I am. It was my kryptonite. At one time, if Superman has a kryptonite, my kryptonite was being functionally dyslexic. Now. Now it's my superpower. But, you know, I was someone who. I always had the ability to communicate. I struggled with the ability to comprehend. And so. And then here I am in this mocha skin and this full lips and round hips and kinky hair. So I question completely about my beauty. And does anyone that looks like me ever be seen as someone beautiful? You know, it wasn't until I graduated from high school that the first woman to look like me was a Miss America. So I went all these years kind of going, where's. Where is my beauty? And so there was this combination. Then I found out in middle school that my family qualified for free lunch, which meant we were under the poverty line. So if you put all that stuff together, I ended up with a conversation, a question that. That said, am I enough?

Oh, okay. Gosh. So a lot of things that come up for a lot of girls, I think, but where yours might feel a little different to me is that you were real. You had this idea inside that you had the potential. And did you have that as a little girl?

I did, because I kept hearing it. People will say, oh, you have so much potential. Oh, you have so much potential. And I would go, where is potential? Where did. Where does it sleep at night so I can go pick it up? Where is potential? Because on the other side of potential was all the great things that I wanted to be right then. You have the potential of being really smart, Lisa. You have the potential of being really powerful. And I didn't understand that. So if you ask me, Natalie, who am I? I'm a woman who wanted to bring to life my potential in my now. I wanted to go get my potential and bring it back into my now. I didn't want to wait for it. I didn't want to wonder about it, and I didn't want to wonder, who can I become in the future. I wanted to know, who can I create myself as now? And I think a lot of it really got serious when my son turned 1 years old. Okay, he's 20. He'll be 25 this year. But when he turned 1 years old, a lot happened in that year. And that same year is the year that, as many people know, I went to the bank to get the ATM to get $20 out to buying Pampers. And I didn't have $20 in. I had $11. I had $11.42 in. And I had to wrap my son Jelani in a towel for two days. And. And it was a very dark moment. It was a. It was what felt like rock bottom. You kind of feel yourself hit rock bottom. I could feel my rock bottom as I sat there and looked at Jelani on the couch wrapped in a towel, because I wanted to make sure as soon as the towel got damp, I could change the towel. That was the only thing I could do. So that was one rock bottom. And I thought this. I gotta change things. And then within eight months of that, his father called me and said the words that I never thought that I would hear from the other side of the phone. And it says, lisa, hello. Hi, Lisa. I know you don't want to hear this, but I've gotten locked up. Locked up. What does locked up mean? I didn't even know what locked up meant. Though I was born and raised in Los Angeles, my family nor I ever dealt with anything that had to do with being dishonest and unlawful. So here was my worst nightmare. First of all, I had a child before I got married. Secondly, I can't afford to put Pampers on this child. And now my son's father is incarcerated. That was a turnaround year for me, and I didn't turn around. Nothing happened that year. All I knew was that I had to change something so powerful.

Super powerful. Thank you for sharing that. I have so many questions that are coming up for me. Like, as a kid, knowing that you had the potential and all that, how did you get to that point where it was so rough that we couldn't. We were struggling with Pampers, we were struggling with the money, all that. What was happening there was it. And what was your. What was the belief system that you were raised with? Because I know you're mentioning. You mentioned that, like, everyone always would tell you have potential, but was there also followed up. But people like us don't achieve things.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think some of it was direct, Natalie, and some of it was indirect. Yeah. I think. I think that the mindset that I was raised in was making money and moving forward is hard.

Okay.

It's hard to live life, you gotta work hard. It was all suffering is an honor. You know, no one ever said it like that, but it was like this badge of martyr, you know, this. Don't worry about me. I'll be okay. Don't worry about us. We'll be fine. Like, let's make a dime going 20 different directions versus let's make 21 dimes, you know, for 20. So there was never that conversation. So there was a conversation of scarcity and lack and hustle and survival.

Okay.

I'm sure that it had to do with my geographical origin to some degree. I'm sure it had to do with my spiritual background. I'm sure that it had to do with. I'm sure that it had to do with a cultural conversation and mindset. I teach now about all the different isms around your money mindset, your prosperity mindset. And I'm sure it's geographical, it's cultural, it was spiritual, and it was an undercurrent. No one knew. You know, in church, when I would go to church on Sundays, they'd say, only make enough of what you need. Don't be greedy. You know, I felt like it was.

The right thing to not be.

Oh, my God. Not only the right thing, but if I were abundant and had financial prosperity, Am I being selfish? Oh, am I being selfish? And am I being irregardless for those around me who are suffering more than I. Wow. Now, let me tell you something, and I'll go back to the Mindset that was huge because when my life started turning around. And we can touch this later if you want, but when I start, I remember the first year I was on track to make a million dollars, I stopped working.

Why was that?

Because my. My unconscious conversation was, if I make a million dollars, then I must not be kind. I must not be spiritual. I can't be godly and have a million dollars.

Wow.

But it was a. It was a. It was an unconscious conversation.

Yeah. It's those thoughts that we hear, that voice in our head, but it's popping up and telling you that. Yeah.

And it's really low. It's not a screaming voice, like, get out of the way, the car's gonna hit you voice. It's a low voice, like the elevator music.

Yeah.

And so you don't even know it's playing. So to talk about how I got to the place where I didn't have money. I wasn't taught how to manage money, so I didn't know how to manage money. I was. There was some kind of badge of honor and suffering. True or not true. And I had learned how to live in struggle. Matter of fact, struggle was more familiar to me, Natalie, than prosperity and abundance was.

It was comfortable.

Yeah. Yeah. It was familiar. It was familiar. So one of the things I say to my students is, are you more committed to a familiar discomfort than you are to an unfamiliar new possibility? I'll say that again. Are you more committed to a familiar discomfort? Key word is familiar. Underline and circle familiar. Then you are to an unfamiliar. Underline and circle unfamiliar new possibility. Because many of us. And I was at this time, I was more comfortable with the familiar discomfort. So it wasn't necessarily comfortable. It was just familiar.

Yes, that makes sense.

And so what I saw in my house, what I saw in my family was, what I saw in my community was all of us recycling a familiar discomfort. And so the way that I began to turn that around, because I was interviewed 155 times when I wrote the book, no matter what. And I was interviewed that many times because I got seven figures to write a book. And that was unheard of, you know, African American woman, seven figures.

Yeah. She said seven, not six.

Seven, not six. Seven figures to write one book. And so there was a lot of changes, you know, that broke a lot of barriers.

Yes.

And so I was interviewed a lot, and they said, what happened? What'd you do? What'd you do? And I said, I became committed to experience the discomfort so that I can experience the unfamiliar. I became Committed to. To experience the discomfort. I tell people, don't choose a goal. The goal is easy to choose. Can you choose the discomfort to get to the goal?

Yeah. Can you just. I would love to hear more about how you define discomfort. Like, is there an example of something you can give? Like how you chose that and what.

You thought that was? Absolutely. Get up earlier than you want to get up.

Simple but true. Yeah.

It's so simple. It is so simple, Natalie. It's so simple. Get up earlier than you want to get up. Make some financial sacrifices. I stopped getting my. I knew I needed to buy my own freedom. I worked for LA Unified School District. I worked for LA Unified School District, and I wanted to go. Go off and speak and inspire. But I needed to buy my freedom, as I call it.

Okay.

I needed to relinquish my investor. That's what I call my job, my investor. But I needed to make sure my investor was investing in my dream and my freedom. So I stopped getting my nails done. I stopped getting my hair done. I stopped going out to dinner. I sold my car with a nice car note attached to it. I bought an older car that didn't have a car note attached to it. That's the discomfort. For three and a half years, I would not take my son to any fast food places. McDonald's and the places that he loved. For three, Natalie. Three and a half years, I would go to Costco and I would buy bulk and I would cook on Sundays, three bulk meals, and I would break them down into three meals each, and I would put nine meals in the freezer, and we had a three meal option for seven days. That's so unlike, incredibly uncomfortable.

Yeah, but you did it because you had. I'm assuming you had a bigger vision for what you wanted.

Listen, every two weeks on that plan, every two weeks, Natalie, I wrote myself a check. I had never seen a check written to me, by me, for me, before. I never even seen that. It was foreign to me. So I wrote myself a check every two weeks. And in the memo line, listen to this. In the memo line, I wrote, funding my dream.

I love that. Yeah.

And guess what? But look at this. I mailed the check. I didn't even go to the bank. I mailed the check in. Just as I mailed in my rent. Just as I mailed in my light bill, I mailed the check in. I mailed the check to the same Wells Fargo bank for three and a half years. Three and a half years later, I go into the bank, get this. You're gonna love this. I go into the bank. Jelani, my son Jelani was three years old when I started. I go into the bank. He's like six or something, six and a half. And I said, hi, my name is Lisa Nichols, and I'm here. And she goes, oh, my God. Oh, my God. You're the funding. My dream lady. And all the tellers begin to run around her table. And I was like, yeah. She goes, you mail checks in? I said, yeah, twice a year, twice a month. I said, yeah. She goes, we all have one question for you. I said, what's that? What's the dream? And I said, oh, I'm not quite sure. It has to do with inspiring people, but whatever it is, I know it's going to cost me. So I thought I'd write the first check to myself. So then I said, I just came in to see how much money I have in the bank. Now, get this. I had been writing myself a check every two weeks for three and a half years. I got a second job, and I wrote that entire check to myself because I didn't need it, right? And then I had a competition with myself that I had to make every check at least 5% more than the previous check.

Okay?

So I was crazy. I was just. And I made this up. Made this up. The woman writes down a number to me, Natalie. She turns the number around, she slides it across the table. I look at the number. I said, oh, I'm sorry, ma', am, that's not my account. No one in my family has ever had that much money in their account. And all of a sudden, the teller's eyes begin to tear up, and the person behind her eyes begin to tear up because they knew that it was real. She pushed it back over to me and said, Ms. Nichols, you saved $62,500 to fund your dream. And so when I say the little things, I moved out of my three bedroom house and I moved in with a roommate who smoked. I put towels at the base of the door so the smoke wouldn't come in the room where I slept with my baby in the same room when I could afford my own place. That's the discomfort.

Gosh, that's so good, Lisa. I just love how you share this because you're right. People get so caught on these. The big things or the one thing. But like, you're right, it's these little simple things like that you. That added up and wow, what an incredible. Everyone could do that. Everyone.

That's the beauty of it, is that my Students, when they step on my campus, I go, what are we buying and how are we funding it? What are we buying? We're buying something. You are always your first investor. If you are willing to invest in you, then money follows money. If you believe that you're a great investor investment, then I'm going to believe you're a great investment. But if you're not, you're. If you're not investing in you first, how can you ask someone else to buy your product, to sign up for your program, to invest in your business? So I had to believe in me enough. And I took that $62,100. I divided it, get this, put it in two accounts with $31,000 in each. And I lived off $31,000 a year for two years. Every dime I made in those two years, I put it in a third account. Do you see? I did it.

Yeah, you kept going.

You just kept going. And I did it. So simple. I simplified it. Your success is not in the complexity. Your success, your joy, your peace of mind, it's in simplicity. It's in small needle point, bite size, palatable, digestible, changes, modifications or commitments. Mine was, I didn't get my hair done for almost four years. I didn't get my nails done for four years. I did my own hair. I did my own nails. But what I did was the $40 I spent on nails I put in the account.

Yeah. And that's the difference that I want people. And also, I think so many people, they go for the immediate comfort. So get my nails done. They're not thinking of the long term, but look at the security and changes and everything that you created by making those little decisions.

And I think one of the things, the biggest thing that I did was I began to think long term. I stopped thinking immediate. I stopped thinking month to month. I stopped even thinking every six months. I said, where do I want to be in five years? I had never before in my life, Natalie, thought out beyond a year. So then when I did five years, I saw myself living in a different community. I wanted to get out of Los Angeles. I saw myself focused on my career. My career, not for someone else. And I said, okay, how do I reverse engineer? Reverse engineer a strategy to make five years from now happen. And everything I did in my now was only to make what I saw five years from now happening. And I became so adamant about it.

So you were always focused ahead and on vision and what you wanted to create.

Now I got distracted. Let me be clear with you. I set the Vision, and I set the gps, and then I got off track. But at least I had a vision and a gps, so I had something to get back on track, too. So, no, I got distracted many times, you know, when my son's father. What happened to him, happened to him. I went into a shell. I gained a lot of weight. I was over 220 pounds. It wasn't who I was. I was an athlete for 13 years. So my body was incongruent with my mind. What I saw showing up did not represent who I was. And so my body had begun to morph into something unrecognizable. Now, I would find out later that I had many health challenges that required some medical help. But without that knowledge, I just blamed myself. I didn't know to ask for help. I lived in shame. And so there were times when no one else had to beat me up because I was beating Lisa up enough. On the outside, I smiled on the outside, it looked good, but on the inside, I was a blender. I was beating myself up. So I'd love to tell you, Natalie, that I never got off track. I got off track many a times. You know, I fell in love. And what I realized later was that I wasn't in love. I was lonely. And that got me off track. And so the thing that I kept doing was I kept stopping and pressing reset. I'd stop and I press reset, and I'd start before I press reset, I'd ask myself, what is your birthright? What is your birthright? Because sometimes we forget what we deserve. And so I had to ask myself a better question. Lisa, what's your birthright? Lisa, what have you earned? Lisa, what do you have a right to? Whether you're experiencing it or not? Now, what do you have a right to? And it was always greater than what I was experiencing. Yeah, always. Always. Even if I said, you have a right to say no, sometimes you have a right to not always say yes. And so the path to get to this place today, when I look at when I got interviewed 155 times and they said, what'd you do? What'd you do? I did a few things and not a lot. May I share a couple with you?

Yeah, I'd love to hear them. Hear them.

One of the things I did was I kept reminding myself that, Lisa, your past does not equal your future. So that's, number one, to remind yourself that your past does not equal your future. And I kept reminding myself that, number two, I understood the distinction between something that I wanted being Optional or being non negotiable? See, I had been living like certain things were optional. I really, really, really wanted them, but I still lived like they were optional. Meaning when it got too exhausting, when it got too lonely, when it got too frustrating, or when it got too expensive, I stopped. I was living like it was optional, when in fact, I shouldn't care how long it takes, I shouldn't care how much it costs, I shouldn't care how lonely I get, because that is not an option in my life. Does that make sense? Yeah.

So it's like. It's just non negotiable. You'd have to make.

Exactly. But you got to make a distinction. Like, literally make a list of the things you want and then highlight that that's non negotiable. Everything isn't non negotiable. Everything isn't. None. Some things are negotiable.

Yeah.

Like I really, really, really want to learn Spanish or Spanish, but it's negotiable.

Yeah, that's. I would say I'm the same way about Spanish. It's not non negotiable.

Yes, I would love to learn it, but if I don't, I don't feel like I haven't fulfilled the thing that's placed on my life. Yes. And so the second thing I did was I made a distinction and made an. I indicated what was non negotiable in my life. And I want you to know that some of the things that I said was non negotiable weren't things for me to go get Natalie. Some of those things were. I said, when my son was an adult, I want him to choose me as a friend. I said, I want to be a change agent, not just for women, not just for black people, and not just for Christians. I want to serve humanity. Now, mind you, Natalie, I was saying this stuff back in 2003. Okay, okay. This is what I. This is what started the path in about 2003. The third thing I said, now this is gonna sound maybe a little. I don't know, maybe a little. I don't know. I said, I can't bring everybody with me.

What do you mean by that?

That means I'm not going to. Not going to try to save everyone while I'm trying to save myself. I'm not. I can't. I can't sometimes. And I see this all the time in my students, my friends. You slow down because you want to bring 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 people with you. You want to bring your sister with you. You want to bring your husband with you, you want to bring your sibling with you, want to bring your friend with you. And I'm not saying leave them, but I am saying you have to go on your own journey on your own, and then you come back and invite people to join you.

That's good advice because I do think a lot of people, people pleasing is a strong thing. So they're looking for approval the whole way. And that's what's holding them back then.

And we're codependent. We're all codependent wanting to save everyone else. And here's what I realized. The door is narrow. Sometimes the higher the opportunity, the more narrow the door is. And I didn't get through a lot of doors because I didn't realize I was locked arm left and right with five people on my left and five people on my right trying to get everyone through this little narrow door. Then I realized, let me walk through the door myself, then hold the door open. And that's what I do now. I hold the door open and I give the best instructions I know how to give for people to walk through. And so that was big for me because coming from a big family, coming from a spiritually connected community, coming from my culture, the black culture is the culture of family. I was trying to bring everyone and save everyone. I was spending more time trying to convince people that this was a really great path versus just take the path yourself. Yeah, you don't. You don't love them any less. I then turn around and go, hey, guys, here's my path. If you want to know about it, then I'm happy to share with you. Otherwise, I'm gonna come back and visit you every chance I get.

Now, doing it that way, did you find people ended up coming along with you?

Eventually.

Eventually.

Eventually.

Did they try to talk you out of it at the beginning?

They questioned it. And I could have easily allowed their questioning to talk me out of it. They didn't try to talk me out, they just questioned it. And here's. And I'm going to say this. And. And I. I don't know any other way to say it.

Okay.

People won't get your vision. Not always. And if people don't get your vision, it's because. And I call them God. Call them whatever you choose. It's because God didn't give your vision to them. God gave your vision to you. And I spent years trying to get people to get the vision that was only given to me. So when you say if you don't get my vision. I understand. It's because God, the divine, whatever you want to call it, gave this vision to me and not anybody else. And it's your job to birth the vision so that the vision can be visible.

Yes. And Lisa, that's you to me, are such a leader and a change maker with that. Because I, you know, you look at any famous leader, any of them, not everyone approved. Not everyone wanted to go along. I mean, but they stood in their vision and they created change.

They made it non negotiable. They made it non negotiable. And they had. They agreed to the discomfort.

Yes.

Of more lonely nights than kumbayas.

You're right.

Yeah. When I tell you, if you ask me, Natalie, tell me the price you've paid, Lisa, because I think that we should have healthy conversations about the cost of success, the cost of being a pioneer, the cost of being a leader. That's a healthy conversation.

Yeah.

You know the cost. I spent more lonely nights even at home, not just in my hotel room at home. When people said, I don't get your vision, I don't get what you're doing, I go, I get it, I get it. It doesn't change my vision.

Yeah. And I want people to also, you know, I. The countless people, especially with the world of social media now, which has really evolved. Like the one hater comment or the one. And that throws people off course. It's like that's. I'm hearing you, though. Like, if you're in your vision, stick to it. It doesn't matter what the others are saying. It's your job to lead that vision.

It's your job to birth it. Not just lead it, birth it. Like, I love your question, you know, did they come along initially? I just had a conference not a month ago. It was a month ago. A month ago I had 14 people from my family there. Of the 14 people from my family, at least 11 of them had just stepped on my campus in the last 18 months. This year celebrates my 20th year anniversary. I've been in business for 20 years, 18 months. And they're very close family members to me. I just learned how to celebrate family with them and not try to bring them along.

Yeah.

And so people won't get your vision. Find the community like this community. Find the community that can be the midwives to your vision. I found beautiful people that could be the midwife to my vision. Other visioneers, other entrepreneurs, other change agents, other gladiators, other servant leaders, and oh, other unicorns. I found my tribe. I believe you have two communities. You have the community you're born into, and then you have the community that you choose to help birth your vision.

I love that. So now you know. That brings me back to one of the very first things you said when we started chatting today about you were always looking for your potential. Do you feel you found it now?

I did. I did. But let me just say, before I found my potential, I found. Lisa. Before I found who I was becoming, I just got settled and found my peace with who I am. I stepped into a love relationship with my creative side. I stepped into a love relationship with my dyslexia. I stepped into an acceptance relationship with my full lips, my round hips, my kinky hair. I stepped into a relationship that said, hold on. There's nothing for me to hide. There's nothing for me to defend. There's nothing for me to pretend about. I am enough. It had nothing to do with anyone else. And when I tell you I did a lot of mirror work, and can I tell you the work I did in the mirror? May I share that with you?

I'd love to hear that.

I shared some work in the mirror. I shared some work in the mirror. Can you hear me okay?

Yes.

Okay. Let me just go up. I had to plug in a little bit. I got into the mirror, And I completed three sentences. I completed three sentences that I. I still do. It was 20. It was 20, 21 years ago. It was 21 years ago. And I started doing this mirror work, and I complete three sentences in the mirror.

Okay.

The first sentence is Lisa. And so you complete. You say your name first. You look at yourself as if you were your best friend, because you'll always look at your best friend with more love and appreciation. Thank you. Right. We get into judgment.

Yeah.

But look at yourself as if you were your best friend. And you complete three sentences. The first sentence, and at the beginning of every sentence, you say your name first.

Okay.

So you would say Natalie. I would say Lisa. You would say. Everyone will say their name. Lisa, I'm proud that you. And you find seven different endings to be proud of yourself. So, Lisa, I'm proud. Lisa, I'm proud that you. I'm proud that you got up this morning. Well, let me just say this. When I was doing this, I was clinically depressed when I first started doing this exercise. It was one of my low points. And I just gotten out of an abusive relationship, and I needed to get back up again, and so I began to do this exercise. Lisa, I'm proud that you. I'M proud that you got out of bed today. I'm proud that you. I'm proud that you were willing to get in the mirror and celebrate yourself, find seven different endings, go back 10 years, go back 20 years. Because there are things that you did in your 20s, in your teens, that no one has ever celebrated. I'm proud that you were under celebrated. The second sentence. The second sentence, Natalie. Now, this one might feel like a gut punk, but this one is so cleansing. The second sentence is. Say your name first. You would say, natalie, I forgive you for. And you cut the shackles to blame, shame, guilt, and regret from seven different things. Girl, when I tell you this one now, you couldn't understand me when I was saying it the first time because my cry was the ugly cry, like, lisa, I forgive you for. And I mean, I went back 20 years. I forgave myself for something I did when I was a teenager.

Wow.

I didn't even recognize that I was still unconsciously holding myself hostage to that.

Yeah.

So you want to make more of you available to your future. The way you do that is you cut the chains to get shame, blame, guilt, regret.

Yeah.

Oh, my God, yeah.

Because carrying that around, even if you're not talking about it, you're not thinking, it's just heavy.

You don't even know you have it. The stuff. The stuff that came up blew my mind. So the sentence is, lisa, I forgive you for. And it's seven different endings. And again, go back and forgive yourself for something that happened 20 years ago. Then go back and forgive yourself for something happened 10 years ago.

Now, why did you choose seven?

Because that's. Oh, my God, I love your question. So I found my spiritual growth in three cycles of seven. So I had a spiritual mentor, okay. Asked me to take a spiritual journey with her for six months, and I refused. I told her it was too long. But I agreed to do it for seven days. And then in seven days, she came back and she asked me what I do it now. Would I do it for six months? I said, no, but I'll do it for seven more days.

Okay.

And I did it for seven more days. Then the third seven days, cycle of seven days was after that, it was 21 days. And I felt like it was in my system. So I say seven because it's a. It's a palatable number.

Yeah.

And so seven different endings. Seven different endings. The first is what I'm proud of you for. Say your name. The second is, I forgive you for seven different things to forgive yourself for. And the third sentence is say your name. And I commit to you that seven different commitments to yourself first. Why? Because we are committing to everybody else around us. We rarely give ourselves seven commitments in a day.

You're right. You're right.

And you do this in the morning. I know exactly when you do it. You brush your teeth. Ok. You wash your face, and you do it before makeup.

Yeah.

Oh. So I did that. That was one of the first things I did. Now, I did it for six months. I recommend you do it for at least 28 days. But I did it because my doctor diagnosed me being clinically depressed. She had prescribed me Prozac. And I asked, can I try something else? And I'm not recommending you do this exercise over taking your medication. I came with my doctor, and in 30 days, I did this for 30 days. The first 30 days I did it, I went back to the doctor and she asked me a series of questions and she said, wow. She goes, I have two questions for you. What have you been doing these last 30 days? And can you tell me? And I never needed to take the medication. I was able to climb out of it. And it was the beginning of catching my breath and turning my crawl into my walk. And then I turned my walk into my run. And then I turn my run into my soar.

And I love how you just went through that because I noticed that you're talking about putting one foot in front of the other, one step, one step forward. Not like go leap and do all these things. Because that I feel does stop people.

It just feels. Yeah. Well, what you said about social media, you hit the nail on the head. What we see on social media is the sore. But you never told me about your crawl, and you never told me about your walk, and you never told me about your run. You just showed me a picture of your sore.

Yes.

And now I'm comparing my crawl to your sore. Exactly. So whenever I speak, I absolutely want us all to get to the sore, but I will never cut out the crawl. Walk and run.

I love this.

There's a crawl, there's a walk, and there's a run before there's a soar. And be okay with that. And don't compare your walk to my run. Don't compare your crawl to my walk. Benjamin Franklin says, comparison is and will always be the thief of all of your joy.

Yes. Oh, this is so powerful. Oh, my gosh. I feel like you've answered my next question in a lot of ways. But I'm curious your three things, because this whole theme has been this. But if somebody is listening right now and they're in their own personal rock bottom, whatever that means, maybe they are the place with you and your son in the diapers when you had the $11, not the 20. Maybe it's a lost business, whatever it is. Their own personal ro.

Bottom.

If you were to give them three pieces of advice that they could start implementing right now to shift things and start leveling up and creating everything from nothing, what would you say?

Okay, so three things to implement. I want to proceed it with the mindset.

Okay?

So first, the mindset is don't put a period where there should only be a comma, meaning this is not the end. Don't put a period where there should only be a comma.

Okay, that's great.

So this is the way it is. But this is a comma. There's something more to come, Right? So don't put a period where there should be a comma. So the three things to implement. So under the guise that you want to be stable before you can make any major moves. Normally, when people are at a rock bottom, it normally has something to do with finances. I'm not going to imply that that's everyone, but that's 70, 80% of people. So number one is to stabilize your finances. If you, like, literally sit with the numbers and realize that numbers are masculine. Money is masculine. Money has a masculine energy, which is why we don't. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to touch it. But money is. Write this down if you're listening to me. Money is a tool, and money is a team member. Money is a tool, and money is a team member. You have to tell the team member how you need it to play. You have to tell the tool what you want the tool to do. Don't just leave it to work itself out. It doesn't. Don't make frivolous. So, number one, streamline. My students are always so shocked that I say, let's talk about your money first, so that that worry is out of your way so you can be creative.

Mm.

You cannot be creative in a financial deficit.

Mmm, that's so true.

It sucks up all your creativity because worry and creativity can't occupy the same space. Mm, That's.

Oh, yeah.

So if you're worrying, you can't be creative because your brain is filled with working. It's like, sorry, come back later, we're worried. Back later, we're worried. You're right, you know, and so you need to Remove worry. So the first thing I would say is, is make a list of what your is what your. Your in the red pain points are. So what's your in the red pain points like these are in danger, danger, danger. If it's finances, then let's set up and budgets aren't meant to restrict you. Budgets are meant so that you don't you stop guessing. So let's stabilize your money. If you need to go out and make more money. Make more money. Entrepreneurs suffer because their egos get engaged and they don't want to get a job.

You're right.

I'm gonna be honest. If you need to become a consultant for six months so you can stabilize your revenue, then do that. Become a consultant for six months.

Do whatever it takes.

It's not forever. It's for now. Don't mistake a for now with the forever.

That goes back to what you said earlier about the familiar discomfort versus the unfamiliar new possibility.

Yay. She gave me example. Exactly that. So stabilize that because there is a solution in that if go make more money or cut down your cost. It's real simple. It's one of the other make more money or cut down your cost, but stabilize that. Number two. Number two, I would say get an accountability buddy that's playing, that's playing a little bigger than you.

Okay.

Don't get anyone who's suffering with you. Don't get anyone who's behind you and don't get anyone and don't get anyone who's afraid of you. Right. Get an accountability that buddy that's two to ten steps ahead of you. Now with that buddy, this is still number two. Set a 90 day goal for that accountability buddy to hold you accountable to and then meet with them every two weeks for 30 minutes to report on your action.

I like it. And I like that you said pick the person steps ahead to 2 to.

10 steps, 2 to 10 steps ahead of you and set the dates in advance. Don't go one date by one date. Set all the dates. Set all the dates now so there's no reason why you can't make the call. Set them for 30 minutes only. So don't do 31 minutes.

Okay.

It has to be quick. It has to be clear.

Yeah.

Here the three things you speak on the call, what are you in action around, what are you stuck on and what do you want to be celebrated for? Real simple.

Laser to the point.

Laser to the point. Number three. Number three is set micro wins. Set small, digestible palatable micro wins. Natalie, our achievements are too Big. And because they're macro wins, it takes us too long to get to them. So we're under celebrated. And we go too long. We go too long before we celebrate. Set micro wins, micro, bi weekly, every other week. What's the win in two weeks, I have this little thing done. Little thing done. And the second part to that micro win, setting micro wins is to celebrate every micro win. We're under celebrated and we're all like three year olds. What gets celebrated gets repeated.

Totally true.

What gets celebrated gets repeated. You want a man to start like oozing over you and doing whatever. You let him give you a smidget of that and you stop and you look him in his eyes and say, oh, my God, that makes me so happy. He'll beat his chest.

You're right.

And do it again and again and again. We're the same way.

Oh, my gosh. Now I feel like I need to call my husband as soon as we're off this call. Yeah, you're right.

We make a habit of telling the men in our lives, this is what I need. And I need you to do this. This is what you do wrong, right versus reversing it. And when they give you a slither of something, you stop, pause, expand. That's what I call it. Stop, pause, expand, expand the moment, celebrate, and expand the moment.

Yeah, you know what? You just shifted me. I'll tell you, my husband's doing a lot of stuff to be really supportive lately. Like a lot of little things. And he's. I've noticed it. And I don't believe that I verbalize it the way that you're saying, stop.

Looking in his eyes. And you. And if you really want to be impactful, move away from the moment so that he knows. Wow, she went back to the moment and stop and say, you know what, sweetheart? Earlier tonight you took my notepads and put them in the office for me because, you know, this is where I like to write. I want to let you know that I am so grateful every time you think about the things that will make life easier. Like stop him away from that moment, look him in his eyes, have a pregnant pause, let it pause for a moment. I promise you it will feel like foreplay. He won't even know. He'll be like, is this a moment? Are we going somewhere here? Like, it feels so good, but that's just because it feels so good, it starts releasing endorphins and you and in him. Yeah, it's beautiful.

It's that acknowledgement that we don't yeah, you're right. It's these little things, and we don't do it. We complain about what we don't have, what people are doing wrong, what's we look at all that. But we're not celebrating each other, ourselves, our spouses, anyone with this right now.

Going back to point three to your question. What are the three things? If you did that same thing for yourself? And what that looks like is simply calling a girlfriend and saying, hey, I want to be celebrated for this. But you gotta exercise the act of asking. Asking for your celebration. Okay, see, we're under celebrated because we want people to read our minds. We want people to just impromptu celebrate us. We haven't exercised asking for what we want. Love is an open book test. Love is an open book test. We just keep closing the book on ourselves and on others. Love is an open book test. Ask for what you need. Honey, I want to be celebrated because today I did this. They'll celebrate you. Oh, yeah. You. Because you asked for it. Yeah.

Lisa, this is so powerful. So I'm like, I want to join the church of Lisa right now. I'm like, this is awesome. I can listen to you for hours.

I love it.

Oh, my gosh. Where can people learn more about you? Because they all need you in their life right now. Where do you want, where do they. Where should they go? Where do you want them to find you?

My company is motivating the masses. Motivating.

Let's do that.

Themasses.com and you go there. And I would love to serve. I mean, this is, you know, I was able to find rescue for myself, oxygen for myself, and then possibility for myself. And so there is a path. There's rescue, there's oxygen, and then there's possibility, and then there's prosperity. And what I know is that abundance is all of our birthright. It's all of our birthright. There's no one person that shouldn't have abundance. Every one of us should have it. And I know it comes with simply having some people come into our lives and help navigate us that way. I am a neglected piece of work. I am here because people thought enough to share with me pieces of information. And so I'd love to serve. I give a lot away. Yeah. Just. Just content, if any. If you want to pick it up. Motivating the masses. Dot com. And I'm with you.

Follow her on Instagram. Lisa to motivate.

Yeah. Number two. Yeah.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate you. I appreciate you. Says thank you for what you do.

Thank you. Thanks for leveling up with us today. Please share this episode if you found it helpful so others can join in. And don't forget to hit that subscribe so you don't miss out on future shows. And if you would leave me a five star review. I appreciate those so much. I read all of them and it's how I know that I'm giving you information that you find valuable. And come interact with me over on Instagram @nataliejofit. I read all the direct messages and comments over there. Make it a great day. Creating everything from nothing Sam.