150: Steps to Grow an 8 Figure Business with Shanda Sumpter

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. As a young adult, there was a time when Shanda sumpter had only $500 to her name. She was sitting in her apartment completely broke, unable to pay for her apartment, a car or anything she wanted to do. And she faced the prospect of moving back in with her parents, which made her feel like a failure. That's when it hit her. It was seriously time to make a change. In this case, making a change meant taking a big risk. Shanda hired a mentor without knowing how she'd pay for her. And that was the catalyst for a domino effect of miracles that set the stage for Hartford business to become an eight figure company today. Shanda Sumter is the Founder and CEO of Heartcore Business, an eight figure training company designed to empower driven entrepreneurs with business systems, mindset, leadership and all the support that they need to use their gifts to create a powerful world changing movement and make it profitable and a sustainable business and of course the freedom that they crave. Shanda has a proven track record of creating triumph from struggle for herself and for thousands of students that she's coached to financial freedom. Join in today and learn exactly how Shanda Sumpter leveled up and created everything from nothing. Today on Leveling Up, I'm with my good friend Shanda Sumpter and I am dying to jump in and talk with her today because she is the master at creating everything from nothing. She's done it over and over again. I've witnessed it, I've heard her stories, I've seen it and I've seen her help create others do this. And we were chatting before I hit record that Shanda is one of the few people that I know that literally loves working with startups and is able to take a startup person and bring them to seven figures in a few years. So thank you so much for being here today Shanda.

I'm so excited to be here. Not to mention I just enjoy spending time with you.

Yeah, I love doing this. Sometimes I just get to catch up with my friends that I feel like we haven't had this designated catch up time. So this is awesome.

Yeah.

So take us back, Shanda. Because you're so successful now, you know, people can Google you. They see you everywhere. You've helped so many people create these fascinating lives for themselves that they're able to thrive financially and just in life in general. But I know that's not always who you were. You didn't start, which is a golden spoon in your mouth and everything working for you. Can you take us back? Who were you before all this?

Yeah, I was the girl who sat in Starbucks. And I literally used to go to Starbucks every day and I would plug away on my computer and really having no direction, like, I didn't really know what I was working on. I was just trying to somehow make money and build this empire. I had a knowing. Like, I've met a lot of people who have built companies who. They have a knowing inside their gut that they. That they like, that they are supposed to be successful or they were supposed to speak on stages. Some people have a knowing that they're supposed to be an author, you know, like there's just a knowing, you know, And I had that knowing that I was supposed to be rich. As much as I hate the word rich, I had that knowing. I was like, gosh, I know I'm supposed to be rich. But like, the gap seems so far away. And every day when I'd leave Starbucks now, I literally would have nothing done.

What were you doing in there? Like, you said you were plugging away.

But I think I was searching the Internet. I don't even. It was so unmemorable because it was so unstructured, you know?

Okay.

But I used to go home and eventually the non production, meaning that like, not producing any real results, put me into a state where financially, I was really stressed out. I mean, home. And there were foreclosure notices on my condo, Vegas. And I never knew when they were gonna just padlock it and all my belongings were gonna be locked up in this house. And so stress level got really high. And I know you and I are both really big on personal development. And, you know, it wasn't a formula that got me out of that moment. It was in my mind.

So when you were in that spot, like, a lot of people would start getting really practical, like, okay, I just gotta get a job, I gotta wait tables, I gotta do these things. What stopped you from doing that?

Depression. Like, I was feeling depressed. Like, I didn't feel. I mean, I don't even know where to start. I mean, which is what got me in that position in the first place, it's like I just was like, I'm gonna just do stuff and throw spaghetti up against the wall, and maybe something will stick. I had no structure, no plan. So going out and getting a job, even though that seems logical, like, I didn't know where to start. And that was my problem. And this is why you and I both know that your habits are really what determine your success. Like, it wasn't. You could have put anything in front of me, and I would have failed at it because of the fact that I didn't know how to start anything. And so I was just, like, paralyzed. So I heard somebody say, like, why don't you do gratitude? Like, do a gratitude journal. And so I was willing. And so I sat down on my bed and in this little condo in Vegas, and I remember going to write in the journal. Like, I couldn't start that, and I couldn't start that because I wasn't authentically grateful for anything. I was getting foreclosure notices. I had no money in the bank. I wasn't in love with anybody. Like, nothing was really looking good for me. And nobody knew. Like, my parents didn't know, my friends didn't know. Nobody knew that I was living this internal devastation of, you know. And so I couldn't write what I was grateful for. But what I was able to grab for is what I'm proud of myself for. And I started writing what I'm proud of myself for and why. And I said, you know what? The structure that I was given was do this for a week, twice a day. So I did it twice a day for a week. And by the third day, my mind shifted. Sorry, there's like a. Like a helicopter going by.

Oh, that's okay.

I can't stop the air traffic controls.

She lives by the beach. Lucky her. So there's like, random noises, but that's okay. Yeah, it's beautiful. You guys can't see it, but she's got, like, the dream house with the ocean view. And it's amazing, and it's incredible. And what comes with that is sometimes train noises and beef noises. So we'll just have to. We'll suffer with you.

Exactly. So anyway, so literally, I went from what I am proud of myself for, and by day three, it was like the cloud lifted. And when the cloud lifted, I was able to leave my house. And I remember thinking to myself, like, I am good. Even if the worst case scenario happened, which was moving back to Canada. I am from Vancouver and living with my Mom, I am OK with that. I could live with that. That weightlifting, that pressure lifting put a different bounce in my step. Somebody invited me to a seminar. I went to a seminar. It was a real estate seminar. And the guy on the stage was not just good, he was excellent at his leadership, his presentation skills. And he landed the deal. He landed like I could do that thing he was teaching. And because that opening happened inside me, which I think is so powerful for motivational speakers, anybody who's out there creating content online, it's so important to learn how to land your communication. Because he was so good at it that it only took that for, like, something to open up inside me. I was like, oh, my gosh, I want what he's buying. Which was a mentorship to learn how to do real estate investing. But the deal was to get into that deal. It was a $21,000 investment. I think I was still foreclosing, closing on my property. I was still like, nothing changed in my bank account or my life or my love life or support. Nothing changed. But he did such a good job that I believed that I could do it. That. That knowing inside me of wanting to be rich and knowing that I was supposed to be rich, I was like, that is the door. And so I got resourceful only because I believe. It was only because I believe, like, I don't know if you can hack this. It's like, you got to change your attitude. You got to change. You just got to. You got to take the load off to be able to open up to this opportunity, because the human spirit can always find a solution, even if you don't see it right now. So I opened it up. I opened up and I called two guys. I text message one guy who wanted to take me out and asked him if he wanted to invest $5,000 and get 30, 30% back in a year. Because I gave myself enough time to pay it back. Okay, if he'd be interested in that. And he said, yeah, the banks don't even pay this great. So. So he sent me a check for that. And then the other guy was Dan. And I thought generously. I was like, daniel is a mortgage lender, and he wants to make more money, and he's super ambitious. And so I said, will you put this mentorship on your credit card? I'll pay you back half of it, and we'll do it together. And that's it. Like, in two months, I made that money back. But most of all, I gained the confidence that I can change. Things can change. I Am a finisher. I can start and finish. And the whole world changed for me. Now I see.

That's amazing because, you know, we hear that we're really a sum of our habits, but it's like, it literally was like just a three day habit shift, which opens that up. But what's so cool about that is you're one of the most enrolling people I know. And if you've ever, if any of you are lucky enough to ever watch Shanda from stage, like, she can enroll you in anything, like literally anything. When we hear that expression that good people, salespeople can sell snow to Eskimos, I mean, that's Shanda. And that's actually what happened with this real estate event you attended because you didn't even know you wanted to do that. So all of a sudden he's got you interested in it and that energy helped you raise that money.

Well, yeah. Sometimes you don't realize, like, and I've seen this a lot of times when people. I'm a big fan about doing like building something that you're passionate about. But. But passion only gets you started. It doesn't take you into scaling the life you want because the passion is all about. I almost think like, like God baits us, you know what I mean? Like baited with our passion and we get excited and we jump into something that we're passionate about. But to take anything the long haul, to take a marriage the long haul, I mean, it's not like just, oh my God, he's so hot. And then we have the same value system and let's get married. Like the passion gets you started, but it doesn't take you the long road to create the real relationship that went through the trials and the tribulations and like, nobody can replace you because you have been that. You've walked that road with your spouse, like, relationship everybody admires, not the one that's just super hot and like just starting because that's like, oh yeah, I love that energy. It's great. And it doesn't last.

Yeah. So how did you step into that? Because you go from being at Starbucks, not really knowing what you're doing, just doing the do and going through the motions. What made you not just go through the motions with the next thing? Because here you're going to find the money to invest. What made you follow that system?

So first and foremost, I think having a mentor made a big difference. And putting down that amount of money and the accountability of having to pay somebody back that was doing it with me. So I had a lot of risk. And I know a lot of people, like, I think all of us have failure stories, but I think the bigger the risk, the more accountability. And so for me, that time in my life, that big risk of owing somebody that amount of money and doing it with them, seeing them every day, I couldn't get away from seeing Daniel every day and doing that work. And he was my neighbor, too. So, like, you know, there was so much accountability in that that I was able to follow through with the mentor, with Daniel Financial, that I turned it all around now. I did. I did. My house did go into foreclosure, and I chose to let it go into foreclosure after I mentally let go of it. Mentally let go of the fact that, like, now I'm working with real estate investors, and I'm letting my property go into foreclosure. Like, what a loser. How do you. Credibility. Because you're like, you know, like, you should be that you. You do, right? And this is where vulnerability comes into play, because every great investor knows that if anybody's been in business for any length of time, you know, that you should trust the person who's had the failure, you know, like, yeah, like, I have a client I spoke to last week who is a great relationship coach, really great. And she's having a moment in her marriage where they're not having sex and where she's, you know, at an older age, like, has a hard time having an orgasm. I'm like, why don't you share this stuff? Do you know how many women are in their 40s who don't orgasm naturally or have a hard time getting out of their head? I'm like, this is the stuff that makes us human and the stuff that we like to hide because it's not perfect, but it's actually the stuff that when you start talking about it, it explodes. So when I talked about, you know, the things that, like the foreclosure and learning and the lessons that I've learned from that, then what happens is that, you know, my real estate career takes off. When I talk about the fact that, you know, I'm struggling in a certain area in my marriage or whatever, it's like the authority jumps, and then if authority jumps, then sales conversions are easier. So it's so interesting how we really want to h broken areas in our life, and it's like, there actually should be pushed up.

I think that's amazing. And you do it very well. How do you. You do it in a way that it's from a place of power, though I've note I've watched you do it. You share vulnerability, but it's from a place of power where some people will share vulnerably from a victim space. Can you speak into that a little bit? Because you really have mastered doing that well, where it's relatable and empowering.

So standing where I am today, like, I don't claim to have it all figured out, but what I can tell you is I'm okay with the areas that I'm not perfect. And so the other day I shared that like my mom and my stepmom both overpower their men. And especially if they're like, you know, on the fly, they overpower their men when they think it's important to overpower them. And I've done that with my husband. And so like three weeks ago, it's a surrender, you know, it's a, it's a. That word used to drive me crazy because like, as a doer, I want.

To figure know that it's tattooed on my arms.

That is the secret of the difference between victim and power is the surrender. Because when you surrender, you can admit. So I think if everybody could think about the word admit, like admit, admit it, like, pay it forward, right? So I had, I admitted to my husband that like, I think that relationships are hard. I think that being a great wife is hard. I think like currently where I was standing, you know, three weeks ago, just three weeks ago, I was like in the bathroom and I just started to cry and he hugged me and he was like, he's like so, like, he was so, like, you are so gorgeous. You are so beautiful. And our four year old, you know, Zach running up and he couldn't stand. But to be connected, we want to create bonds with our kids and we go and try and spend time with them or buy them things. That doesn't create bonds. It doesn't create any bonds. It's bullshit. What creates bonds is being vulnerable. That's what creates bonds. Like really. And so I could talk about hard times in my life. Like when I was a child, I was beat by my mom's boyfriend. I could talk about it out there because I dealt with it. Why don't you try talking about something you haven't dealt with yet? Why don't you talk about something right now that, that really, like, you're a little bit like, I don't want anybody to know about this, but it's like while I'm sharing online the other day about my moment in the Bathroom with my husband. I started to cry because I had just left downstairs and come up and I couldn't control it. Like it was like there was no controlling. And I, like, what would have made it strong, not vulnerable, is if I would have made up reasons why I was being that way online. But instead I just let people see me.

Yeah.

And you know, people appreciate that. Do you know how many messages I've gotten? And I didn't do it for that reason. I didn't want to do it. But I'm more committed to the fact of being someone that people are not idolizing. I don't want to be someone they idolize. I don't want, like, I know that my accomplishments are amazing at this point and I still haven't put 100% in. You know, I still stop, I stop work at 1:00 clock right now, you know, and we have an eight figure company that will definitely react again next year. And so. But it's not as hard as you think. There's just points in time, seasons that are hard. And imagine if I would have put it all, if I could put it all in. Well, so I shared like, like, I'm not putting it all in. Like, like my husband and I are reading like a marriage devotional for 90 days right now. You know, I just. Do you see what I'm saying?

Like, yeah, you're sharing real life, what you're really going through and it makes you very relatable to people. And I think I've done that along the way, which is incredible. How did you. So when, when you were doing the real estate and you got into like, you invested the money, you started doing the work, you started changing your habits, you had this belief. Did it ever get to be a point where like, wow, I mastered that, or like, how did, when did you get the confidence that like, I actually am good at business or I am good at this? Because you started in it thinking, I don't know what the heck I'm doing, I'm just gonna, I know I'm supposed to be something. Where did that confidence come from and how did you nurture and get that? Because I think a lot of people listening struggle with that piece. Like they're just not confident. They don't believe it.

Yeah. So let you all in a little secret. Confidence doesn't come until you're good at something and you're competent. And so there's areas about business I'm super uber competent in and confident in. And right now I'm studying email marketing like crazy I mean, I just talked to one of the top, top Instagram influencers on the platform. She's the first one that says that I could not do this again. You know what I mean? Not organically the way it's really been done. And she's like, I've pulled everything onto an email list and I have, like, quadrupled our sales, you know, and so, you know, where everybody's so focused on followers these days, I'm still focused on buyers. And I think that gave me confidence a lot sooner because I worked on the back end of making sure that I had my money taken care of versus the front end of looking good. And I've always kept that like, I'd rather be rich than famous. Yeah. Now I am working on being more famous now. And that's where, you know, New York Times bestseller. I'm working on our social media channels and things like that. But it's in a different order because my back ends already taken care of. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it's not. It's not ego driven. It's more. Now you want to get the message out to more people versus, like, I want to build my ego first.

Yeah. Well, and it's like, it makes sense to put authority next and celebrity next. Like, it makes a lot of sense because I've already got my back end figured out and I can scale as big as I want at this point. And so, but to answer your question, as soon as you, if you can focus on one thing long enough to get to get good at it, and you know that you've. You feel safety in it, then you're gonna have confidence in it. But, like, there's so much I've just learned about email marketing in the last couple months that I was like, oh, my gosh, I, like, I'm back. Like, humility and a superpower for. Never felt like I've wanted to stand up on a stage and tell people that, like, oh, yeah, like, when somebody comes in, you're the email marketing girl. It's like, oh my gosh, I just scrubbed 80,000 people off my list that are useless. You know what I mean? Meaning that it's dead because I screwed up for the last two years and it's like I'm just starting over again all the time.

Yeah. My observation of you is you go fully deep into whatever it is that you're studying and learning. Like, you almost get obsessive about that thing and then you master it before you. You're not trying to learn 20 things at one time. It's like going deep on one thing at a time.

Yeah. And now standing where I'm standing now, I want to go even deeper on the things that I went deep on. Because now I realize that I basically got a Bachelor of arts degree in business and I want to go get a PhD.

Okay.

Which means that I should go even deeper in the area that I went deeper, which is really hard because I want to, like, I just want to do it all. It's really hard. But I just bring it back to what monetizes. What monetizes. Because money to me is an indicator that it's transformation. And so if I'm willing to pay for something, it means that I'm committed and I'm up for the transformation. And if I'm not willing to pay for it and I'm only willing to listen to it, then that means that I'm really not that committed in it or I haven't met somebody who has been a strong enough leader for me to follow yet.

So good. So good. Why did you not stick in real estate? And where did the, the idea for hardcore come from? Because you were crushing in real estate. So why that pivot in that transition?

Maturity. I wanted to chase passion. I didn't understand that. Like, when I first started real estate, I was passionate about the deal and I was passionate about helping people invest and make money. I still do the same thing. I'm helping people make money. It was maturity. I thought that the secret to life was to be passionate. And I didn't. You know, I'd never been married. I didn't know I didn't have any relationship with long term growth. And now standing where I'm standing today, I'm so happy that I have heart core. But the truth is, is I would have been way farther ahead if I would have stayed there.

Wow.

Wow.

Where did the idea for Heartcore come about? How did that come about?

On a napkin at a restaurant called Brio in Las Vegas. I just was having a glass of chardonnay with a friend of mine and I was, you know, the good old conversation. I'm not passionate about what I'm doing. And, you know, I don't really want to do this anymore. And you know, I just, I was like. She goes, why don't you start a company? I'm like, well, how? Like, I wonder what I would do. I mean, I guess I could like help coach people and, and. But I don't know what I would really do. And so I just started thinking, well, the only way I ever. I Started reverse engineering it. Like the way I became successful in the nightclub industry and the real estate industry. As I was jumping around from career to career trying to chase passion, I found out that like, I would always go to the head person, the owner of the company, and I would just go get. I go help them. And every job I've ended up in wasn't because I tried to get the job. It was because I just provided so much value for free that they would ask to hire me. And so I was like, who's our boss now if I was going to do something? And I thought, God. And I heard a story that your heart, I don't know, I don't even know if this is true or not, but that there's nothing in your body or your brain that controls your heart. And so I said, that must be God. So I work for God now. And that's, that's how heart core business got named.

Oh, I love that. I never knew that story. That's incredible.

Yeah.

So how. I'm assuming it wasn't just all roses and unicorns starting hardcore. Like how did you. Because obviously you had the idea, you had the vision. How did you even start. Start that?

I had a friend that had a coaching company habit, you know, habits coaching company. And he had a really big like 200,000 person email list. And I phoned him and I asked him if he would do it, co create a program with me. And he said yes. And so he mailed his list, he put. They all got on a conference call back then.

Nobody did video before everyone's brains go through to. That's just lucky. Like that, that's not just lucky. That's. That was as simple as. She just asked. That's amazing. Like you just asked.

Well, I did. It's, it's, you know, I did his program, so I paid to be in his program. That's no different than how, you know, Russell Brunson ended up being partners with Dean Graziosi and Tony Robbins. He bought a domain for their program for 600,000 and sent it to him, donated it to him. And they were like, wow. Yeah, he's super generous. You know, he told them to buy it. They didn't want to spend a million dollars on the domain. Russell went and negotiated it and then got the domain and gave it to them because he thought it was really important for them to have it. And so obviously that transforms into we should make him part of this deal like this guy's doing. And so I paid somebody to be in their program. I did really well in their program. Everybody loves people who do the work. Of course, when you do the work, you get noticed by the influencer or the teacher or whoever it is. Yeah, I created a relationship with them because he started asking me to do testimonials and jump on calls and share my story. And so then when it came to me doing my thing, I just called him and said, would you be willing to do this? And he said, absolutely.

You rattle it off like, this is so simple, but this is actually really brilliant. And it's so many people don't get this. So I love that you're diving into that because Shanda talks frequently about leading with gratitude and generosity and you completely. And it's now making sense where that's coming from because that is truly how you built. And you saw that people gave back to you when you did that. I know that's not why you were doing it, but it does work out that way.

Yeah, no, it totally does. There's a book called the Go Giver that I think everybody on the planet should do.

I think you sent that to me. She orders it for everybody.

You did? Yeah.

It's a great book, the Go Giver. It's awesome. And you've posted about that a lot. Where have you. Okay. Somebody listening right now thinks that they get that or they understand. Can you talk a little bit into that? Because so many people with generosity, they think they're literally doing it to get something. And it really is that unattachment that I think is what has worked for you. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah. So first know that like my whole life has grown because of this. And I believe that any problem you're facing, I really believe that it can be solved with generosity. So if you want a promotion in your job. Okay, so I got all my promotions by literally giving away plans for. I would sit down and I would create plans, growth plans. And remember, like, I never finished school. I'm not particularly brilliant at anything. It just comes from when you think about somebody else, you think, well, what could this person really do? Or what could this organization really do to be able to go the next level? Whether I do it or not, they should go do this. And I spent the time articulating things like that and helping people. And then I would get the promotion and so even profit sharing in the company. But you are right. I always asked. I mean, I always asked. I worked for a company for five months with having a role and then I started hiring people for the division. I was Running. But I. And that's what I mean by generosity. Always in it for the right reasons. Just to give. When someone tells me that they over give and they get taken advantage of, I will. If I trace back your give, there was something in it that you were trying to get, whether it's approval, love, authority, you want somebody to promote you. There was. There was a get. And that. That get is a real dangerous thing because it just is dangerous because you'll. You. If you get resentful. Resent, yes, Your heart. You become an ugly person. And that just doesn't work. And people find out. I know when people talk behind my back, I always find out. I always do. And it creates distance in relationships because of it. So just allow that resent in your heart. Yeah, everywhere. So in the. In the. Where I got the promotion, where I worked for the company for five months, I became the VP of that company, of that division in. In the nightclub industry, I gave a whole. I sat in a barbecue when my friends are getting drunk in their 20s, and I asked them what they wanted in a nightclub, and I did market research for the club and I gave it to them. And I never expected a job. I became the general manager, and four months, four or five months later, somewhere in that neighborhood, I ended up getting profit sharing.

That's amazing.

And so you have to ask. But I believe that the give has to happen before the ask.

Which brings me to another question. Okay. There's two traits that you have completely nailed, or at least it appears that you've nailed it. And I have so many questions about this, because I believe that these two things hold so many people back, especially women. It holds them back, and that's people pleasing and the fear of judgment. So can you. Because Shanda is one of the most direct people I know, and her. When she gives direct advice. I'm sure you've heard this about yourself before. When she gives direct advice, it's like a laser. It's like it hurts and you don't want to hear it. But she's always right. That's the kind of advice she gives. But it's very direct. But how did you get to that point of being able to do that? Because, like, it's almost like you have no fear of people pleasing or fear of judgment or being judged around it. How did you get past that?

Yeah, and I'm getting better at that, Nat. Like, the next cut that I'm working on right now is not making anybody wrong. And so now when I deliver that laser coaching, it lands even Better now, because even if it hurts, it doesn't get directed at me of it hurting. Does that make sense?

Yeah, but how did you, like, Because I'm assuming at one point you cared what people thought or you worried about that.

I still do. And I. And I actually think there's an aspect of. You have to let go of what people think. Let go. The people pleasing to even get direct and honest. You can't really move anything forward if you can't have those conversations. Because, I mean, I don't trust somebody who's not gonna be direct and honest with me. Yeah, somebody's gonna talk behind my back. It's like, come on. Like, come to me. You know me. If you're a good person, come to me. So I put that back out. But the. But the flip side to just like, the passion part gets things started, but it doesn't scale. That gets things started. It gets you authority. It gets you deep relationships, and it keeps things clean in your life.

Sure.

But then there's the after that, which is not making anybody wrong. Sometimes when I would deliver direct feedback to someone, I had an element of judgment on it is what I like. When I saw it, I still judged it. Like, if someone stole from me, I would still have a judgment on the fact that they stole from me. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I think most people would. Yeah.

Right. So past that, like, I want to encourage people to even go past that. If you can get really clean on your delivery and have no attachment towards it, you can have so much more authority. It's like Joel Osteening, people. Joel Olsteen never met. You never feel like a crapola when you're doing something that is opposite of what he's teaching. Right. Carl Lentz with Hillsong Church. I got to spend some time with him, create a great friendship with him a few weeks ago or a few months ago, and he directly delivers feedback. And it doesn't hurt the same way. It hurts inside because you're transforming, but it doesn't hurt because you're blaming him for it, you know? And so there's this element of, you know, if you're getting started and you're like a people pleaser, just have to just go, you know what? I care more about being this type of person or that person. It's generosity. I care more about the person. Like, somebody sent to me the other day, they gave me feedback on my relationship. A really good friend of mine, okay. And I asked her for feedback because she does relationship stuff, and she gave it to me. And Then I said, why didn't you give that to me earlier? I didn't know if you would accept it. And I said, well, first of all, if you're gonna hold the space and that space and you want to be the friend that she's been to me for the last 17 years of my life, I said, I need you to step in, you know, like I need to rely on you to do that because we have blind spots. And if I get mad about something, I just hope that you'll love me enough to allow the space for me to get mad and work through that trigger and get to the other side of it. But stand on your point.

You know, you really do have, I don't even know if you realize how much of a talent you have with this, but it really is a talent, especially me being somebody who works with women constantly in the middle age space, like in middle age. And this people pleasing and fear of judgment is holding them back in so many areas of life. And they're not living authentic lives because they're so ruled by it. So it's really fascinating to watch. One other thing I want to mention that Shanda does very well is if something's happening, a situation's happening where some people are stuck on the situation, days later, hours later, Shanda's over it in like five minutes. It's like you have the conversation, you move on. You're not about that conversation anymore. And she said to me a number of times, in fact, we've had in our friendship where I circle back to something and she'll say, that was three days ago. And it's like she's moved on.

How did you learn to do that leadership? You know, the same work you and I have both done, you know, we've both done deep leadership work. And I never stop. You know, I just, I never stop. I go into the rooms all the time. You know, I'm actually thinking about going back in and staffing. So our leadership work, this leadership works all around the world. You know, I think that instead of focusing, instead of focusing on more formulas to learn in your life to get better at focus on your leadership. Even the 90 day devotional that my husband and I are doing, when you understand leadership, you realize that everything that moves the big dial is leadership. That devotional is all leadership. I mean, it's all leadership. Are you willing enough to have an open, honest conversation or are you going to keep. Or I even heard this thing like shutting down. Like if someone's having a hard time and they shut down because they're a people pleaser and they don't want someone to get mad at them or whatever that looks like or how somebody's going to react. Shutting down is actually a form of dishonesty, you know, and when you start to realize what you're choosing. Yeah. You know, it's like there's nobody worth my integrity. There's nobody. I mean, my relationship with my son, my husband, my friends, my colleagues, my company, you know, it's all based on my integrity. So if I shut down or I'm not honest about something, then I like or that's exactly it. I'm not being honest and I'm not going to live in that breakdown.

I believe that probably helps you with stress management too, because if you're constantly telling the truth and diving into what's real, there's nothing to stress about, I'd imagine.

I mean, 100%. We have somebody that just came onto our company that was working like 15 hours a day last week and missed a Broadway show with her family.

And.

And I have no idea any of this was going on. And so I'm going to phone with her today and I'm going to have a leadership conversation with her and show her how, like, she's super strong in leadership, but what she's not realizing is that she is allowing the inflow of the company to come in. And because she's got strong work ethic, which is a level of leadership, she's choosing to work to get through things. And now she's sacrificing her family, which is not what I believe. Like, I believe before profits. Right. And so, you know, I'm gonna show her how to deal with the new team that she's now inherited and how to lead them and just simply show her what's a priority and what's not. Because I never want somebody to miss something of their family. Like, I love her work ethic, but this is a leadership challenge.

Yeah. That's amazing. That's cool that you recognize that. And that'll be eye opening for her. Cause I think a lot of people would tend to be like her to. Especially someone trying to get ahead in business. They think that that's the way to.

Do it versus work, work, work, work, work.

So talk to me about who you help at hardcore, because this is actually. This is really incredible. I know a lot of people in the space that help entrepreneurs, but it's very rare that you meet somebody that helps that says, I help you start up and go to eight figures, which is. Or seven Figures. Which is incredible because I think I see these niches of, like, I just help you start up or I help you go from the six to seven. Why did you decide to focus there?

So I'll give you a quick backstory. We hired somebody onto our company that only wanted to deal with people who had money. And although we have a good amount of people who come in that already have money and not ever talk to people who didn't have money, Remember my foreclosure story? That's not how this company got built. It's not who I am. I think that companies are very much built on the experience of the leader, the person who's created. There's multiple leaders in my company, but the person who's created the vision and continues to create the vision. Somebody was so good from a stage that I. From their leadership and their role modeling that I believe that I could do it. And so I want my company focusing on being so good that people can see that this is a way. If they choose this way, then this is a way that they can actually get their financial freedom. But emotional freedom is a big piece of financial freedom. It's a big piece. So when I look at hardcore, I never wanted to be a tactic. I don't believe in tactics. I believe that there's people who have grown their companies on social media, have grown their companies with email lists, with speaking. The reason why I chose mine is because I was afraid of speaking. So that's why I didn't choose the speaking route. The reason why I chose mine and not originally the social media piece is because social media was very new. So that was that piece. But secondly, like, you know, remember, getting out there and influencing has been the biggest, hardest stretch for me because I am. I started as a wallflower. Yeah. And so it wasn't easy for me to get up in front of the camera and just go for it. Right. But also I wanted to own my asset. And coming from the. Coming from the real estate world and starting this company, when you own a piece of real estate, you own an asset. You know, when you own your home, you own an asset. We're now buying a building in Hartford. We've been looking for a year, but now we're like really buying a building. And we want the asset. Right. My family wants the asset. Yeah. And so I like assets. I don't like renting. I like assets because I don't like throwing money away. I'm a big fan. So my email list is an asset.

Yeah.

Even my. Even, like my social Media marketing. We take the who's opened my emails in the last 120 days and those opens go to our, go to our social media. And that's how we build audiences.

Yeah.

And so I have an asset. So that's why I teach what I teach. And the formula that I teach is because I'm asset driven. Some people are not asset driven. Frank Kern doesn't want to own anything. You know, like, it's like everybody has a different way of doing it. I want assets.

Yeah.

So that's why I build the way I do.

Sue. But you, I believe you also have something deeper in you. Like you have a real desire to work, want to help people that are feeling like they don't. They don't have another option or they, it's. It's interesting because it's something really different with business coaches. I have not seen this with another business coach where you take to that. Yeah, no, I see it all the time. Where they want to focus on the six figure and higher. It's not. But you, as successful as you've gotten, you have stayed focused on that person that is on that startup journey.

Well, if you're thinking that. So I think that's a leadership challenge. Nat. To be quite honest, they just don't want to deal with people that don't have money because people don't have money, have a certain leadership level. And so it's a pain in the ass. And so that's why they don't want to do it. But if you look at Russell Brunson's company, a lot of the companies. How did he build out his inner circle and all of that? They built it out his bread and butter. His bread and butter still is, you know, like big people who are launching a lot of them. I know this. They're not using click funnels. Yeah. I'm sitting in. Not one person's using it. And I, and I love Russell and I love who he's serving, but it's startups because it doesn't load fast enough. You lose a lot of sales. Right. It's startups. And so everybody else codes their pages. And so when you look at this, it's, it's like, I think people get in this. Like, it's, it comes down to the fact that they just, they don't. They couldn't be bothered. And there's nothing wrong with that because people have to, you know, work with the different groups of people that they want to work with.

Yeah.

There's. If you want to think, like just straight Strategy. I don't know, guys. Artificial intelligence is taking over. There's gonna be a hell of a lot of startups coming on the market, a heck of startups coming on the market over the next five to 10 years. That is a booming industry.

Staying focused on that, I'm sure.

Well. And like even developing the team. So the team got to serve them.

Something else. You do very well. I'm just going to point these out to you because I don't even. I'm sure you do see these on some level, but I really see it from the outside is what you do is you take. And this is important, people listening to see, because she takes a problem that somebody might be facing and she creates a solution within her business, even if it doesn't make her a profit. For example, I'll speak on this. She saw a problem with leadership, with this, with people maybe not believing in themselves, not healing things from their past. And instead of letting that be a reason to pivot, she created a program within Hart Corps where people can go in and get that training. That's not even. Wasn't even something that was meant to be profitable for you. It was just to help the person. You do that a lot. Can you speak into that? Is that part of your generosity and your leading that way?

It is. It does come from generosity. So, you know, I will either strategically partner or create it in house. Remember my asset though, like I do. I like assets. This is why I don't like to outsource my sales team. Because if I outsource my sales team and then I build the company, if that sales team goes away or that company goes away or they sell, then now I have all of the expenses and the lifestyle without control of the money. So I'm a big believer in assets. So we want to hire a bunch of interns. We're looking at building out an intern program inside of hartcore so that we can train them and mentor them inside of Hart Corps. And the leadership program you're talking about, you know, we launched it a couple years ago. We hired a trainer to coach the staff and now we have a full time trainer coming in. Lisa's coming in full time in January and she's building out the curriculum for the staff. Amazing. So I'm not worried about failing forward and being imperfect along the way. I'm more connected to the vision of generosity, of going imagine what it's like to staff for us with a curriculum that takes you to a whole different level. Yeah. But it's a build just like a Marriage, everything is a build. And what I find is most people don't, they don't focus on the long term. They're short term investors. They all like everybody wants to automate everything and step away. Just not a real, it's not real. And what happens is, you know, Brendan Burchard wrote that book, High Performance Habits. Great book. And the agenda is amazing with it. And one of the things in the book that he talked about when he did research to date, I believe still today, he's done the largest studies on entrepreneurs. And the number one reason why entrepreneurs have gone from successful to broke is this conversation of I already know it and they stop actually taking feedback, actually taking feedback in the areas that they already know. And that thought process, process was the reason why they've made bad decisions that set them back to zero again. It's fascinating. Right?

And I see it all the time. So I know exactly what you're talking about.

That's the short term investor mentality versus. But I'm okay with building long term and letting. We call it, My clients know this terminology. We call it let it bleed. Let it bleed, you know, like let certain things bleed. And you know that, you know, you can't get it to it, you know it's not perfect. You know that there's a big jump to make it amazing. But guess what? When you make it amazing, everybody will be talking to you about how you made it amazing. And it's like you went through the mental strength of being revealing, being imperfect, knowing that things aren't great. I have a program right now that I've had, I think for five years. And we just hired a director of that program to run it and build out curriculum and build out a board. And we're spending a lot of money on trainers and curriculum and all this stuff. And it's like this vision was five years ago and I haven't had the bandwidth or found the right person to run it and to build it out. And so it went along with one leg like broken wheel, you know, and it just. And like we'd have moments where 30 people wouldn't renew, you know, which is, you know, $700 gone like that. And people be like, $700,000, let it bleed, just let it bleed. And, and when, when you can, when it becomes a priority and which is usually you find somebody that can drive it, then it becomes something that you go after. So I guess my message is don't be afraid to build. Yeah.

You know, and that's, it's interesting saying that because Part of what I see in your personality is such a huge visionary. And what comes along a lot with visionaries is that quick start, like, I just want to throw my idea out there and then I want to move on, throw my idea out and move on. Did you find that you had to. How did you get yourself in that pattern of not doing that? Because that, I'm assuming that's something you might have had to fight this. Like, I did it, now I'm moving on.

Yeah. That's such a great question and a useful. You're a great question.

Thank you. You're a great questionnaire.

Thank you. But so I had to put blinders on and I probably don't talk about this enough anymore because I'm not in our entry level program as much. And so I would always tell people to put blinders on and just reminding them all year to put blinders on and just focus on this one thing. All. Like, I just caught somebody in one of our programs saying in our PACE program, building your email list, doing your webinar, learning how to do it. That's all we teach in that. She's like, now all of a sudden she's doing like this blog strategy, spending this money on her website. And I messaged her and I said, like, why are you, Are you done? Your list filled? Is your webinar done? Program filled? And she said, oh, no, God no, not even close. Then why are you spending money on the website?

Yeah.

And she said, I just saw her at one of our events and she goes, you know, I cried. I cried and cried and cried when you gave me that feedback, but I knew it was true. Yeah. She goes, I'm getting distracted because it's easier to get distracted and create than the result. And so I put blinders on and I still do next year. What I'm doing is I'm doing no meetings till 11am okay. And in our company, no meetings till 10. And so nobody's allowed to have meetings till 10. I'm not having meetings till 11. And then everybody in the company will have one major priority every morning that they're completing a result. Not a task, a result. What's the result? Because we want to be intention driven. And so what's the result? And then we can track, because we can track. Our COO is going to be collecting the results every day and we can track. I mean, if you had five intentions for the week and you only created one, and that's happened two weeks in a row, we have a leadership problem. You know, either you're taking on too much or you're not focused enough. Something's happen. That's all leadership. You're getting emotionally triggered. You're overwhelmed. I haven't been overwhelmed for. I don't even remember last time I was overwhelmed. And we have new things opening up inside the company, but they're new things, things in the same lane. Does that make sense?

Yeah. This is so cool. I could ask you questions for the next 10 hours, but I'm not going to do that because I have so many more questions. But what I am going to ask. I do want to ask you one more question. Then I'm going to circle back to what I want people to do to go find you, because you just have. First of all, these videos she's been creating lately, you all have to subscribe and follow because these videos will go viral because they already are starting to go viral because they're so great. What she's doing is taking some of what she's sharing here, but she teaches it in these little bite sizes, like shorter than a minute, really even chunks, and they really stick. I look for them each day now. They're really, really good. They're really good, Shanda. So, okay, here's my question. And I ask everybody this on the show, and that's why I want to ask you this. If somebody is listening right now and they're in their own personal rock bottom, whatever that is, it could be relationship. It could be their businesses falling apart. Maybe they're back where you were at Starbucks years ago. Whatever their own personal rock bottom is. If you were to right now give them like that laser advice on a few things that they could do right now to start shifting and changing and getting out of that and leveling up, what would you tell them?

You know, I would say, what are you feeding your mind right now? Because it's not going to be a formula. I was just with my friend Randy Garn, and he was telling me a story of you can take two Ferraris side by side. They're the same car. They go the same speed, the same car. They're built amazingly. Whoever the driver is in the car makes a difference on if that car is going to perform. Yeah. So we're the only drivers in our own life. So what are you feeding your mind? And I love. I love God. I love spirituality. I love that. But when I was, I studied. When I was stuck the most, I studied just spirituality.

Okay.

And, you know, spiritual. A course in miracles is not going to make you a million bucks. Just know that and so what you need to do is because it's confusing, it confuses us. And so you need to, I don't want you to be in the conversation of where you know where you're going wrong in your life. You don't have time for that. You don't have time. Like we are all going wrong in many areas. If we're honest in our life, we are all going wrong in a lot of areas. And so we can't, we're already aware of that. You can't spend time thinking about that. You need to, you need to feed your mind. Whatever you need to feed your mind to be able to get to the next level. So if you have no urgency, there's a book called Relentless. Go listen to Relentless. You might not want to be a Michael Jordan in the world. I don't watch any sports, but I believe Tim Grover is probably one of the best relentless coaches. To get your grit, your urgency and your follow through in the world probably is incredible. And so go listen to the book, go listen to the audiobook. Pay attention. If you get triggered, you probably will get triggered. If you have an urgency problem, you know, if you're not finishing, if you're not being at the highest level of excellence that you could be at, it's probably going to trigger you. You're probably going to get righteous somewhere. Like, I don't want to give up this for this. I don't want to give up my family for this. Like you're going to say things like that and just notice the conversation and listen to the book again and allow it to come in no matter how you feel. Because success has nothing to do with feelings. It has to do with commitment. So don't shut something down because you don't, you're not feeling it. Okay, so that's that. If you. So again with feeding your mind, if you feel really lost, then dive into scripture. You know, like, I'll take money for an example. A lot of people want to make money. When I wanted to make a lot of money, I started this is the reason why I know that scripture, it speaks about money 2,000 times. More than faith, more than prayer, more than anything. You know, so there's something in that. So start Googling, like, what are some scriptures about making money? What does the Bible say about making money? Go dive into that. I'm doing that right now with having another baby because I didn't know this until recently. The Bible says you can actually have as many babies as you want. It also says that God will meet you at the level of your faith. Wow. So when you start to study these things, like things quickly shift and when they shift, you get your mind right. As our friend Todd Durkin says, get your mind right. I believe that that is the solution to anything. It's get your mind right whether it's fitness, whether it's changing your lifestyle around your food. Nat, you know this. I mean we've been working on our food for quite some time. We've been friends for a while. I finally have a fridge like yours. I love it.

I saw it on Instagram. I was so proud.

Five years. But I never gave up on it. Yeah. Kept getting my mind right around this piece. And so that's the secret. What you feed your mind on a daily basis is what actually creates whatever you're going to go in that Ferrari and drive. Yeah.

So good. So I'm going to have you share where people, they can find you. But I'm going to, but I. What I want people to know is there's two main things I want you to know about Shanda and Hart Corps. One, if you are wanting more on this leadership, personal development, up, leveling your own life, getting past that, you have to check out Heartcore Leadership because that is the company she formed within her company where she addresses leadership. And I've been fortunate enough to be involved in that in quite a few classes and it's just, it's really life changing and eye opening and I believe it is the core of everything you say speak. So there's that. And then it's@heartcore.com for the business coaching and to learn more about that heartcore business. Heartcore business.com okay. Hardcorebusiness.com and you can find Shanda also on Instagram, Shandas, Humpter. Correct. And Facebook. And those videos, you've got to check them out. They're small bite sized chunks of information that are really, really amazing. I can't wait to see what you do with your company and yourself. And I'm sure that next baby is on its way. I just can't wait to see all the big things you've got coming.

Thanks Nat. Foreign.

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 on Instagram @nataliejill. Fit. I read all the direct messages and comments over there. Make it a great day. Creating everything from nothing.