384. James Wedmore: My $14M Lesson, “This Is The End of Everything I’ve Built” & Navigating Fear!
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what am I going to have to owe here? And he said between 14 and $16 million. For me, I was like, f***.

This is the end of everything that I've built. In my career, we've done over 80 million in sales. And I think if I hadn't had all those years of experience of training and distinction already, I think it would have killed me. The inner work that I'm doing is directly reflected on the external. I feel like that keeps people stuck and keeps people making decisions that has them burned out and exhausted. You got to have a burning desire. You have to want it.

so fricking bad that you are willing to look at the things that you've been unwilling to look at. This is the secret sauce. - I was so busy, but was I doing what I love? No. - You didn't get the memo from your soul. You're not supposed to do that anymore. So you need to be doing million dollar activities. - That for me has been the single biggest unlock.

Welcome back to the Boss Babe Podcast. Oh my goodness, you guys, I am freaking lit up about this episode today. It is one of my favorites that I've recorded in a long time, which is saying a lot because I have been enjoying this podcast so much in the last few months. So we had the amazing James Wedmore back on the podcast for brand new content. And you guys, he

He went so deep on this one. I actually cried during the episode. He is one of my all-time favorite podcast guests because he's just really real. He's so transparent, honest, and shows up truly wanting to give as much value as he possibly can. So in today's episode, we go into so many topics from his divorce, which he had,

hasn't actually spoken about publicly to dark nights of the soul in business, using your pain as a blessing, working through fear, the different phases of business, elevating your role, creating your vision and what he distills as to his biggest secret for generating over $80 million in revenue in his business.

$80 million. Whatever he's sharing, I'm listening to. This episode, I know is going to blow you away. So without any further ado, let's dive in.

So James, our last two podcasts, I feel like they were a masterclass people would pay thousands of dollars for. They were so tactical. This time I want to go down a slightly different path because this quote that I've heard so many times came to me this morning when I was thinking about our interview. And it was, it's something like the results you're looking for, the magic you're looking for is found in the work you're avoiding. And I know myself, the way that my business journey has unfolded, especially over the last couple of years,

the inner work that I'm doing is directly reflected on the external. 1000%. So can we go deep on that? Do you agree? It's like, I don't even want to say I agree because that's like, you don't agree about truths. It's just like, is that true? Yes, it is true. It's not my opinion anymore. And I have 17 years of my own experience where I look back and I can measure it. I can track it. We can see the biggest jumps in revenue, in sales, in profit, in

were preceded by jumps in my own growth. And so yes, emphatically, it's beyond, I agree, it is true that your business is a reflection of you because every day here you are as the owner or the CEO of your business, the amount of decisions that we have to make on a daily basis, not just the actions we take, people saying, tell me what to do, but how we do that.

Even just with the type of business that you and I run today, how much of it is our content like this podcast? So a version of Natalie that was, you know, probably never existed, but in her shell and not in all of her glory today, that version couldn't share at the level that you share and resonate with an audience at the level she does today and show up as a leader for so many people out there. And so especially, especially in this line of work,

there is such a correlation causation from our own inner work and our own growth. And if anyone out there listening is in a business model where you're a teacher, a mentor, a coach, you're selling content,

I like to look at that today as in you're a healer. Maybe you're healing someone's gut to their business or their dog training, you know, but it's, I look at that as you're helping people heal. And it's really, really hard to heal somebody else if you haven't healed within yourself. I think especially, I've been saying these things for years, but I actually look at like, if we pause

and we look at like the state of the world and where everything is and where people are collectively, I think this is becoming more prevalent and more important than ever before because I think people are out there and they're hurting and they're struggling. And so the first thing they're doing is they're looking for their lighthouse. They're looking for their leader, somebody who has endured and gone through that dark night of the soul and that challenging, what we call shamanic deaths, right?

where that is inevitable. And I think it's beautiful. And when you are that person, you will notice how much more you are magnetic, magnetizing people to you. So-

It's true. Yeah. I'm glad that you mentioned and referenced Dark Night of the Soul. I definitely went through my own one of those a couple of years ago. And where I am now, I would never have had this level of joy and peace in my life had I not gone through that. It was definitely longer than a night. At least two nights. But here's the thing. I feel like as business owners, the tactics, they're kind of not easy.

not easy to execute on, but it's easy to find them and implement. Okay, I need to do more content. I need to do more of this. The inner work, it's not as pretty as sitting journaling and doing your meditation practice. When we talk about personal growth, oftentimes it's very challenging times that really stretch you as a person. And it's the least sexy work. And it's probably the work that we avoid the most because none of us want to go through that much emotional discomfort. And at the time, I mean, speaking for myself,

during that, you never feel like you're going to get out of it and see that it's going to turn into something amazing. For me, I was like, fuck, this is the end of everything that I've built. Can you talk about maybe one or a couple of those times you've been through, how it felt in the moment and then what it's transpired to after the fact? Absolutely. And a couple of things came up I want to share, which is it's the last place people look is in the mirror. And ironically, that's the first place we need to look.

And so when you hear all these like quotes, like from Napoleon Hill and just all this, like a hundred plus years of personal development, you got to have a burning desire. It's so true because you have to want it so fricking bad that you are willing to look at the things that you've been unwilling to look at. And so I have a, I have a hack for myself today. Cause once you go down that path, you actually desire that more than the, you know, pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. You know, we can sit there and,

And say in my career, we've done over 80 million in sales over the years. And that just sounds, that's crazy to me. Like I still am like not caught up with that. But what I love the most, what I honor the most is my own growth and what has been integrated within me, what I have let go and what I've endured. So here's how the universe works. And this is, this is just also just truth. And it's based on like one of these little fables or quotes that you hear. I don't know where you hear this, but I heard it. And I was like, this is how it,

It's really simple. You know, you've heard that phrase like success is a crappy teacher, right? And I kind of change and say like success is a quiet teacher. So we're probably not paying attention. So that's what pain is for us. Pain is a blessing. Our problems are actually a blessing because pain and problems force us to pay attention. And if you really actually started there and flipped it, so it's like I'm going to stop avoiding what's painful and actually go, that's just trying to get my attention. If your hand touches a hot stove, it hurts.

That is something on a divine intelligent within us to say right now, this is the most important thing is that you move your hand away from this, that you solve this. Otherwise your skin's going to melt off. So pain is a blessing for us. And so this little quote, this little axiom is, is first God throws a pebble. You've heard this before, but we don't, we don't pay attention to the pebble. So then God throws the rock. And if we're still not paying attention, if we still not face this, then we get the big old boulder.

And this dark night of the soul. Yes, I've had some big boulders in my life. The most recent one was the biggest one of all, which was going through a really challenging, really painful divorce. And that was a two-year, seven-month process. There was something that I had to face, which was really what I would come down to is like, what's more important to you, kid?

Because here I was with a business that had become wildly successful. And when something's really successful, it's easier to enjoy it. But then on top of that, it's really fulfilling. This work can be just so incredible. Every day someone's telling you how their life has changed. Like if you ever question what you're doing and then you get a message like, don't ever stop doing your podcast because it's changing my life. You know, it's just like that...

that drives you, that fuels you. So I found myself, and this is especially true for dudes. You have, you ever heard that phrase? Um, men are waffles. Uh, women are spaghetti. No men can compartmentalize a lot, a lot better. So we can sit there and be like, um, I'll just put that over there in that closet. And women, everything is so much more, they can see so much more and perceive so much more intuitively. That's like, I can see the correlations and causations and it's all connected. And so it's easy for, it was easy for me to, uh,

go everything else in your life works except this one little area. So let's just, it's fine. It's fine. Like just put that over there and get back to work kid.

And it was like, you're not getting the pebble. You're not getting the rock. So it's time for a big ass boulder. Long story short, I had to decide, do you continue to stuff something up an aspect of your life in a closet, which the aspect comes down to one thing, which is just love and having love in your life? Or do you deal with it and run the risk of knowing that dealing with it may result in a very expensive decision, especially if you're in the state of California and you want to know about the laws of

of divorce and everything, I got to that point where I needed to make that decision. And the way I looked at that decision I was so proud of was because it was simply a matter of pick one, which more important to you, love or money? What's more important that you live the rest of your life where you have an opportunity and a shot at true love and being in love and experiencing and receiving and giving love?

or that you make a bunch of money and you're just alone and miserable. When you choose right, right comes to you. And it was really hard, you know, but that's what was on the other side of that dark tunnel was it was like a little glimmer of light knowing that,

This is temporary. Like everything challenging that we go through, it's temporary and you just keep going. And it was, it was very long. It tested me in every way, but every one of those tests were like, what was the hardest about it was like, Oh, this is going to cost money. This is going to happen here. This is going to happen there. I was, I,

I had so much clarity to say, but it doesn't matter because if what I get is more love in my life or at least open myself up to it, that's what I want in my life now. I had to conquer fears. That's one of the big themes.

For all business owners, fear is we look at like an enemy. You know, it's someone we do battle with and we it's our job to conquer it and conquer it means we don't let it drive our behaviors and our decisions. It doesn't inform what we do or how we do it.

And that's what courage is, is facing it and not giving our power away to it. So I had to really go through that. And there was a call, on the call, it was my forensic CPA. And I said, just shoot me straight. Like, what am I gonna have to owe here? And he said, our estimates are showing between 14 and $16 million.

And it took about three, yeah, we're recording the video. So it was weird because in the moment I was just like, okay, yeah. And then it was about three hours later where like that information hit me. And I remember I took like a chair from our dining room and I just had to go outside and I just like smashed it. And I like just dropped to my knees and oh, it was such a moment where I was like,

It was like a, it was a moment, you know? And it was, it was tough. Like it was, it was a dark place. And I was like, I was angry. I was afraid. There was like this, like, this is not fair. Like, this is something I, I started this business when I'm doing today in 2007. I've been doing this a really long time. And you're like,

The thought, there's these certain thoughts that just start to pop up in your brain and it's like, it's our choice whether we feed them or not. And it was like, I've worked so hard for this and it's all going away.

And what will, you know, what will I be without this? What will I do after this? Like I'm 40 now. I don't want to start over. And I think today in all my growth is the simple conclusion is, is like life will always be the good, bad and the ugly and life will always present its challenges. And,

I see today that our personal growth, our spiritual growth, our evolution, our raising and awakening of our own consciousness is not so that you don't have those things happen in your life. It's just so...

assist you in how you move through those things. And so that was just a moment. It was, it was a moment. And then, and then it was like, all right, kid, get out of your self-pity, shake yourself off. Everything's going to be fine. Remind yourself of why you made the decision that you did not. Cause I made the decision to get in that marriage in the first place. And so I, I also say that like one of the things that's really helped me is to the degree in which you

can accept what is, is the degree in which you have the power to do something about it. And so I could continue to resist it. They say, you know, what you resist persists. I could continue to play victim to my own life and I could continue to get into my own self pity, or I could just sit here and say like, Hey, this is, this is what you chose. And like, either way,

you're going to learn something out of this kid. You're going to, and if you learn something and you gain something, you're going to have a lot more to give. And, um,

It is so true on so many levels. What I dealt with through like any type of remaining attachment or importance, which if you want to go there with money, gone. Any level of fear that was still driving my life. And just for all your listeners to know, most people listening are still dealing with fear and you have no freaking clue how much it is playing a role in your results. You have no clue because I also had another experience where I went through fear and

This was several years earlier where I had an ex-freelancer that we had fired. I said, we don't want to work with you anymore. And they sued me. And it was a total like extortion case, technicality. We had miscategorized them. They were doing more like employee work and we'd categorize them. It was like nasty, but they were upset. And I was overcome, struck in by so much fear. So I had this theme in my life. And ironically, there's another one that goes even further back.

It's beautiful. When you start to look back and recapitulate in your life, it's like one of the greatest stories that you didn't realize like you couldn't even write. There's so many. My spiritual mentor, my shaman says the law of synchronicity is the greatest law in the universe. It's this divine perfection to things that even when you can't see it, that's why hindsight is 20-20. So we go back even further before this lawsuit. And I used to have this reoccurring dream.

The reoccurring dream was of me standing on a balcony or looking out at a beautiful view and watching a plane come crashing down. And night after night, I'd wake up in a panic and I would be running towards this plane. And it took me a while to realize that the plane was my business and I was being driven by a fear of it coming crashing down. So there's a lot of people out there that have a fear of what if this business doesn't work? What if I'm going in the wrong direction? What if I'm just wasting my life? And...

Then you think, foolishly like me, that once you make it, once you have some money, that the fear just goes away. Oh, thank you. Walt Disney was right. Happily ever after. Everything's going to be fine now.

And no, it just changes. The fear gets replaced. It gets replaced from what if this doesn't work to what if it fails tomorrow? What if you lose everything? And I realized no matter what, all those years, I was still being driven by fear and I was still giving my power away to fear. What's crazy then was that when I saw that and I worked through that fear of the business coming down is that's when I had one of the biggest catapults in my business. That was the year we took the business from two to 10. It

It was also that same time that that, you know, converged with this lawsuit thing. And I was afraid that was going to take me down and resulted in, you know, just a barely a blip on the radar. And then here I am just a year and a half ago and I'm faced with a divorce and it's the same thing. And I said, you know, it's kind of just like Luke Skywalker, like remember your training. And, you know, long story short to get to the end of it, it was not nearly at that number.

And our business actually grew. I think we increased revenue by like 25% the very next year. And it was like the opposite happened. And I think if I hadn't had all those years of experience of training and distinction already, I think it would have killed me. And it was the opposite. It was one of the greatest things ever.

It was absolutely the greatest gift in gaining and growth that I've had in my life. And then manifested wise on the external, tons of growth. And then the beautiful thing too is,

was the amount of people that have come to me, which I feel like honored, like I feel like a servant of the universe in that way, that have come to me and said, now I'm going through a divorce or I'm going through something challenging like that. And for me to be there for somebody else feels like what a blessing. And to be like, I can speak to you. You know, I'm not an attorney and I'm not giving legal advice, but as a friend, as a shoulder to cry on, to someone to tell you it's going to be okay. And here's how I mentally and emotionally navigated it.

What an honor that is because I can come from that place of experience. And so to just full circle it for a moment of how you started our conversation today,

The people that I tend to work with that are coaches and course creators, they're people that a huge deep part of them feels a burning desire to help. We all have that experience and we've heard that phrase like you're never a guru in your hometown. So you give advice to your family and friends. They don't listen. Right. And then there's that person on the Internet that starts following you and they pay you money.

And you're like, yes, I'm doing the work. I'm here to help people. You can give to others only to the degree in which you have gained within yourself. And where we gain, how we gain is through those experiences. And so it really helped me create this like quote for my own life.

which is as simple as saying I'm here for all of it, the good, the bad, and the ugly, because I'm going to gain from all of it. That has now been my truth. It has been like,

all I see is that I'm gaining through the good, the bad and the ugly. And then that means I have more to give to others. Wow. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. Just fun times. Yeah. Listening through all of that. I mean, I relate on so many levels, so much of that. I was like, yes, yes, yes. And I, and I totally see it. And as I was listening to, I think it's really interesting whenever I look at like Maslow's hierarchy, which is alarmingly similar to the chakra system. I always look at the two of them very similarly. Um,

But we get into business often and we're in the lower quadrants, you know, we are survival. Yeah, we're in survival. And for a lot of us, you know, there's a lot on the line. We've got food to put on the table. We've got a roof to keep over our heads. But at some point, we

We move from that place to a place where actually, you know, we're not worried about those things anymore. We have money in the bank to cover the basic needs. Often we're employing other people and actually paying for their basic needs and we start leveling up. But what I noticed in myself and I see with a lot of other business owners is even as you do level up in that way, your business levels up and matures in that way.

If you don't do the inner work, you get stuck at those levels and you act as if, as if you're still in fear and you act as if you're still worried about putting food on the table. And it's really interesting because I feel like that keeps people stuck and keeps people making decisions that almost has them playing small, but has them burned out and exhausted and

Often, I ask myself this question, I come back to it, when's enough enough? Let's remember that when is enough enough? Because I went through, you know, a business divorce. And so much of what you said, very, very similar. And there were so many times I had to ask myself,

Take a step back. Take a look at what you have. You have so much love and abundance in your life. What more do you want? Like, is the business doubling or is you not owning the business going to change how happy you are? And I had to really sit with that. And what I realized was,

Fundamentally, no, because what matters to me when I'm not fighting for my safety is my love, my growth, the people around me, the connections that I have. You know, am I fulfilling my potential as a human being? And it might be with this business, it might be with a different. But it was only in that moment where I felt like my back was up against the wall that I had that level of introspection. Yes. And what I will say is even from a business standpoint, negotiating from that place,

is powerful. Yes. Because I was so willing to walk away at every stage because I had everything I ever wanted and I wasn't willing to get into messy fights and all of that stuff. I was willing to walk away and pay that price as you're talking about. Have you noticed a similarity in moving up those levels and how do you...

One, sit with the question, when's enough enough? And how do you balance that with your business growth? Beautiful. Okay. So 1000%, the thing I've been telling students for years is business growth happens in stages. And so we really need to understand that.

And within each stage of growth, there is a way in which you need to show up. Like where your value goes in that business is different at every stage. The vision of the business. And that's, I talk, I mean, it's like vision, I say is like the forgotten stepchild of business. And it's like the most important part. People want to talk about manifesting, but they don't want to talk about their vision. It's like, those are the same thing.

And that evolves and it's required for it to evolve if you want your business to continue to evolve. The 3D strategies of each stage evolve. And so there's a lot of different stages. And I could then just like really chunk it up to oversimplify and say, let's say at the very least that there's two stages of business. First of all, there's a stage where you're building it and then there's a stage where you're running it. And so...

When you're building, like I use the metaphor of like you decided you wanted to build your own car, right? Which I would not recommend that. I've restored a car and even that was hellish. So building one from scratch would be something you never want to do, but we can at least use it as a metaphor that will like really ground this concept. If you decided to start building a car yourself in your garage until the engine's in, until the carburetors hooked up and you got wheels and brakes, you can't use it.

And so we have to understand that there is a phase in which you are building something. If you don't want to go through that phase, you really should. And I don't mean any disrespect at all. Just go get a job because that phase is a prerequisite. You have to build it unless you're buying a franchise or you're already buying a business. But then instead of

Paying with your time to build it you're paying with your money. And so we're always get to get what we want It's always an exchange of our time and energy or our money Which is also just another form of energy that we probably acquired from previous time and energy, right? So we're just looking at it as exchanges. It's like an ROI So while you're building this car, you can't really use it at all. So

And so while you're building your business, you can't really use it. If you started your business today, it's not making you enough money to live off of. And it's easy to, it's easy. And we get into our 3d logical mind of like, but I can't live off of this bubble. And it keeps us in that lowest state.

level of hierarchy of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which is your lowest frequency, which is a state of total fear, which ironically from a frequency step point, like dialing the, or changing the dial on the radio to that frequency just keeps you there. But if we at least step back a little bit and said, but this is the phase I'm in, I'm putting in the work and this is required. You start to, you start to grow beyond that. And a lot of my students come to me

And like the way I teach is like two really core philosophies right at the beginning, which is do everything in 90 day segments, 90 day increments so that there's some kind of outcome that is

correlated and connected to revenue in 90 days. Like, how do I say this? Like building it is more important than what it does. So we have students that will build their first like sales machine or launch or promotion and then run it in 90 days. And they'll be like really disappointed with the results. They'll say like, oh, I only made like $4,000. And then when you look into the numbers, which is like a huge piece of philosophy is like, know that numbers, right?

Well, you only made $4,000 or $3,000, but your conversion rates are through the roof. So you just built a machine and you're looking at the output right now, but you're not looking at how well it produces. And now it's just a matter of keep, you built the machine, you did the hard part. Now put more people in it.

Now, what happens? Okay, you only had 50 people join that webinar. What happens if you get 500 people? And now they start to see, oh, this, I just built it. Now I got to run it. And if you just...

realize now I'm in a new stage. And this new stage is like audience growth, reach, expansion, scale, then the game starts to change. And so the quicker we can understand like what phase am I really in and what do I need to do to graduate the next stage? I think the easier it is for us to elevate through that levels, those levels. Now let's talk about this. When is enough enough? Okay. The way we want to check in with that is the vision. What am I? And I would just change it to say, what is driving me now?

And if you are being driven by, well, I need it to be enough or it's not enough. I think, I think you got the parking brake on.

And because the moment you had life experiences to show you, look at the abundance I already have around me, you just access more truth. And so the not enough is a complete distortion of the ego. The ego will, if I say, look for all the things that you don't have enough of in your life, you're like, how much time you got? And you will always find. But if I said in the next breath, look for evidence of all there is to be grateful for you.

what you have in your life and the abundance of things like just the abundance of health or love and relationships, you also have a very large list. And so vision to me is everything. And I'll explain why

Most people when they get started in a business, it's an away from strategy. It's like I hate my job. I hate my life. I feel unfulfilled and I need to do something to get away from that. And then it evolves. So like you'll notice with business growth happens in stages. The stages are correlated to the to the vision that we have. So first it's like I just need to change.

And then the next is we start to move towards a towards strategy, which is like, wouldn't it be amazing if I could replace my income or my salary? And then it's like, wouldn't it be amazing if I could like retire my spouse or like we could just have our whole house paid off or we could like take a really nice vacation every year. And.

Those are awesome visions. And I'm so for that. Like there is no shame in saying I want the brand new Tesla Cybertruck. I want us to buy our new home. I want payoff. There's nothing wrong with that. And then a business that you want to grow even beyond that requires a newer vision that it will outgrow that vision. And that was a big phase I had to go through.

And I worked through all of this. This was probably 2014. It seems like so long ago. It was 10 years ago. And I found myself, I was making $2 million a year.

And which was awesome. And I was selling 90s. I was the YouTube guy. So I don't know if you knew that about me. I was like, I built my business teaching YouTube because I went to film school, huge passion for video, and I wanted to bring it to businesses. And I was doing that very early on. And so it was like, right place, right time helping a lot of people with it. And my day consisted of I lived a three minute walk from the beach. So every day, I would do about an hour and a half of work. And I'd

I had to time it with the swells, right? So the tides and everything. So I'd go to the beach, I'd go surfing, I'd come back, do a little bit more work, and then I would do a sunset surf sesh. And that was my life. And that was beautiful. Something started happening. And what started happening was I'd get testimonials, I'd get feedback, and the biggest results that were coming in were like, I made my first video.

And I watched the video and I'm like, oh, they got some work to do. You know, like, oh, first video I can tell. And there was something that was like a feeling of not enough, but a different type that was coming in, which is I feel like I could be doing more for people. I was kind of like rotating that thought all around and looking at it from every way. I was like, is that all I'm here to do? Just help people make a YouTube video?

And then I was looking at what I had created and I was like, everything that got me here has a lot more to do than just putting out a YouTube video. And so the seed of a new vision got created, which was not from a place of like, when's enough enough? Or I just want X and then I'm fine.

And I'm telling you, this is for anyone really picking up what I'm putting down. This is your secret weapon. Like this is the secret sauce. The vision started to go from a micro level of my environment, of what I wanted in my life to something beyond me, macro level. And it was like, what if I could just make this about myself?

how I could help other people in a bigger way. And that was just like the seed of it. I'll never forget. I had a guy who was, I was joking, teasing that he was like courting me to, to like hire me. Cause I wasn't doing any one-on-one clients or anything. I just had $97 courses and,

And I had an assistant at the time and she's like, "Oh, he sent another email. He still wants you now." He's getting really aggressive. And I said, "This will scare him off. Just tell him 10K for like the day." And I thought that would work. It didn't. He's like, "Okay, done. I'm in." And so, oh, dang. Okay, well, hey, I'll do it for 10K. Let's go. And, you know, short version, this is someone who came in and he was like, "I don't want to learn YouTube from you. I want to learn how you did what you did."

And I said, okay, let's go. And he had been in business for about a year and hadn't made a dollar. And he had this like countdown timer of savings. It was like, I got about six to seven months before I got to go back to corporate.

I said, okay, so let's get to work. He made his first 30K in 30 days. I think it was 40. It was either 30K in 45 days or 40K in 30 days. You know, some number like that. Hit six figures that year and he was at a million in two years. But what was cool was we went to a New Year's party

that end of that year and the hug that his wife gave me changed my life. She's like, "Thank you. I got my husband back and you've changed his life." And I was just kind of like went to the universe, more of that please. And so when I went through,

those battles with fear, they were easy for me to battle because I replaced the fear with this new vision. And when the purpose and the vision is more clear and powerful than the fear, it wins because fear is a form of faith. All fear is, and all of us get to go through this in this lifetime, have an opportunity to, is it's an internal response we feel

when we place our attention on an unwanted future that we actually think is going to happen. So it's another vision. And I'm going to share like a really great hack, which really hopefully connects us all together. It's a vision of what you don't want. That's all it is. What if, and then fill in the blank. What if I lose everything? What if this never, what if I waste? That is a vision for your future.

And getting all weird and like quantum physics, we exist in this like illusion of time where we can really step into any probable future, you know, and it is a fact the future is anything but certain. And so why put so much faith, conviction, I mean, the level of hubris to believe so much in something that hasn't happened, right?

when you could do the same thing towards what you actually want. But here's why this isn't just positive thinking. This isn't just like feel good, even though that's everything because that's our frequency. But if you look at this, it's so like, it becomes so simple. The future that you decide to live into, which is either a fear or a purpose, the future that you live into is actually creating you.

So when you live into something unwanted, like what if all of everyone cancels? What if I lose everything? Then who are you generated as in that moment? You're out of your power. You're just crippled, powerlessness, worry and anxiety. Who does that person, what do they create?

What type of actions does that person take? And what kind of decisions does that person take? It literally leads, that's why people say things like self-fulfilling prophecy. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy because the future that you decide to live into creates who you are and you then become correlated to that. So the moment you get that, you start to give your power or live into the thing that you actually want.

and it shifts and re-creates who you are completely. And so, yes, boom, someone sues me. And then, oh my gosh, this recurring dream, a business dog, and then boom, divorce.

And all I kept my attention on is what is the, reminding myself, what is the purpose? What's the work I'm here to do? What matters? And what's something that matters that is beyond me? And I continued to live into that future and put my attention there. My shaman has always said one of the most simple and like profound things, which is you are where your attention is. So you are where your attention, where are you giving your attention to? When we're in fear, we don't even realize we're putting our attention on what we don't want. And we're literally driving our life in that direction.

And so there's something great about, hey, I got to start business. I got to pay the bills. I got to get scrappy. I'm in a bit of a survival mode. And you just want to make your goal to get out of that as soon as possible, because the true afterburners, the true rocket fuel is when what is driving you has nothing to do with enough.

but how big of an impact can I make in this life? How can I make a difference in someone's life? Because there will never be enough of that. There will never be a feeling of, I have helped enough people. It is a completely different feeling when it's done in the right way. It's not so you can be validated. It's not so you can get self-worth. It's simply because that's what we're all here to do. There's such a beautiful synchronicity to that, that every single one of us

can never do anything truly on her own,

It's like, we're all wired to support each other. And we're all like coming back together to like realize that and, and, and lift each other up. And it's like, wow, could I play a role in that? Could I choose to opt in instead of opt out? I could just make my work about helping more people. Yes. Get paid. That's a whole nother conversation. Cause you know, people don't value free. So yes, we put out free stuff, but paid stuff as well so that I don't have to go get another job. And yeah,

That changed everything for us is that simple, simple, simple focus. Because I'm either feeding the fear or my faith. And when the faith is in something bigger than you, that will be your strongest pull. I don't look at it as I want more today. I need more. I have to have more. I look at it as like, how can I actually continue to live more of a simple life?

and still make a bigger impact and just really help anybody that wants help. That to me has felt so freeing and so powerful because anything else happens externally, it really doesn't matter because I could still help someone, if that makes sense. Yeah, that really, really landed for me. And I also really loved when you talked about it not being that you want more validation, more self-worth, because I really see it as when people

People talk about burnout and being depleted and just giving, giving, giving and feeling empty. I feel like when you're pouring from empty, you're doing it for more validation, more self-worth because you need that to fill you up. There's like this hungry ghost that you're just constantly trying to feed. Whereas...

the way I feel is when you are doing that work to feel fully worthy fully validated beyond anything else you're creating I think that's when you truly can pull from overflow yeah and we hear a lot about put your mask on first self-care all of that's great listen it's great and it's

It's way deeper than that. It's about where are you sourcing all of your validation from? Where are you sourcing your worth from? Is it correlated to your bank balance or is it inherent so that you can just continue making more impact and pouring from that place? And I think that's a big conversation because if we don't do that in our work, if we don't fill ourselves up, we will always be pouring from depletion. And at some point that dam is going to break.

And I know so many people listening to this are probably on that verge and might not even be realizing that they are executing from a place of fear or giving from a place of, of fill me up, approve of me. I know for me, I've been through that myself with people pleasing. I didn't realize I was saying yes to everything.

Because I felt like I needed to say yes to be liked. Therefore, I was so busy. But was I doing what I love? No. Was my busyness directly impacting how many people I was helping? Not really. But when you take a step back and you look at that and you ask, okay, where is my yes coming from? Or why am I doing these things? I think everything changes. Yeah. That whole validation self-worth piece has become such a tricky trap because...

If we look external for that, that validation, we know conceptually that, come on, that we shouldn't be doing that. So the only place we should ever seek to get that, you know, is, is when we look in the mirror and we see who's looking back at us and, you know, we can put a spiritual context in there and, and, and God, you know, the universe. When we're in that, we don't even validate our own

personal experience of ourselves reflecting back at ourselves because we believe we're unworthy enough to even offer ourselves our own opinion of ourselves. So does that make sense? It's like a trap and you're just stuck in it. And so what you were saying about the self-worth piece is like, we can't even perceive it through our own eyes. And that's like, the work can be so simple, but it's so tricky because you're in it. It's like, I always think of that metaphor and that story of the two fish are swimming and they pass another fish and

It says the water's warm. Well, nice water today. The water's warm. And the two fish are like, what the heck is water? Right? Because they're in it. So they know nothing else. It's still an illusion if we're trying to do something to get worth. It's still an illusion if we're trying to do something

to become enough. That's, that's the illusion. So it's like, yeah, yeah. If I learn these skills, if I build the business, once we get a certain amount, this is what we call conditional living, right? Once this happens, if I get this, then I will be one of two things happens. Either you spend years doing that and, and you don't get the result because you're still operating from a belief in a story that you're not enough. So you're not deserving it. So you'll sabotage it and push it away, which happens all the time, or you will hit it.

And you'll feel empty inside. And that was like a huge thing for me is like when I first had my first successful launch, I had all of a sudden I had $100,000 in my bank account. And I'm like, this is it. My life's changed, but it didn't. And I still felt like the worthless, like self-loathing kind of like insecure loser. And I fell into like a really dark depression because I thought up into that point in my life. This was about 15 years ago.

that everything would change once I had the money. People would like me, I'd be good enough, and it didn't. So you could have that experience. And all of that was not to spoil the like sixth sense ending, is to lead you down a path to see that you already were the whole time and that we all are. And what we're doing is trying to either put on a mask to hide actually what is like our favorite, best parts about ourselves or hide

Do something that isn't actually us to be that. And it's like, when you shut all that away, like there you are just who you were the whole time. And that's, that's so beautiful. Nothing to prove, nothing to get validated, nothing to accomplish in order to be. And from that place, what you can do is unlimited.

From that place is like the sky is the limit. And that's the journey that I think we're all on. So to speak about the burnout piece, my take on burnout is really simple. Burnout occurs when we are not listening to our soul. That's it. So there is a little saying that says that 17 inches from the heart to the head, and it's the greatest journey we'll ever take in our lives. Mm-hmm.

And so there is, and science tells us today, right? There's over 40,000 neurons on the heart that it is a second brain. And it's a more divine intelligent brain.

And the brain that we have in our head is made up of two hemispheres. So left brain, right brain, right? And so people use this polarity, this dichotomy in many different ways, the masculine and feminine, the left brain, right brain, the logical and the creative side. So wouldn't it make sense that if there's these two aspects with us between our ears, that it does feel like a game of

ping pong in our mind all the time. Like, like we're going back and forth with things. We overthink because the two sides of our brains can kind of be at odds. Like I want to play, but I need to work, you know, like I want to be, I want to relax, but you need to be responsible. And it's just this back and forth. And we're just kind of sitting there on either end. Like what the fuck am I supposed to be doing? And then your, your heart doesn't have that.

It's not like odds. You don't say I over heart things all the time. We don't do that. So the more that there can be a coherence and a synchronicity with our heart and our brain, the more of our own inner wisdom comes through, the more truth and the more clarity.

And so I have been always of the ilk that there is that. And again, like however people bracket it or categorize it in their life that make it work. That's all that matters is that it works. Is that there's an aspect of you that always knows. And people could call that soul or higher self. You can call it God, higher power. And that's like, you know, always trying to give you a little nudge.

you know, just like with your kids, you don't want to do their homework for them. So you let them learn their lessons, but just very gentle little nudges and they go, well, they'll learn one way or another. And so when you're not learning the lesson, when you're not following that nudge, when you're not operating from here, that heart coherence, well, the further you deviate away from that, the more painful it's going to get. And so, um,

a lot of times burnout is just not doing what you're supposed to be doing it's not doing what's in your highest good it's not doing what your heart or higher self is telling you to do and this happens in so many ways one of the most common ways is when people say they're burning out in their business it's like you're stuck this is where we can kind of think tie some some loose ends if it was still loose and like full circle moments

You've graduated to a new phase in your business. Growth happens in stages. So I'm in a new stage. It's like getting a promotion and a job where now you're like got the corner office, but you're still going down to the mail room and checking the mail. It's like you didn't get the memo from your soul. You're not supposed to do that anymore. And you're still doing that. So you want to be operating at a million.

So you need to be doing million dollar activities. You need to act and operate like the things that only the million dollar CEO would do. And you're still checking customer support and you're still doing this. You didn't get the memo. And that was something I picked up on really fast. It was like, oh, if I felt like I was approaching burnout, it's like, that's just telling me I'm not supposed to be doing that anymore.

And you look at what a business is, and I'm sure I said this the last time we chatted, but a business is not a job. A business is this entity with multiple jobs. And within those multiple roles or jobs are multiple tasks. But not all tasks and not all role are created equal.

And so as we go up this growth, our own growth is occurring with the business growth. It's about elevating our tasks and where we spend our time on. And it becomes, I mean, the math maths on this, but the more you make the process of your growth is not doing more.

It that's what people think. This is not a job. So if I want to make more, I got to do more. If I want to make more, I got to work more. I got to work harder. I got to push. Give me another cup of coffee. Let's go. It's the opposite. If you want to grow your business, it's as simple as keep promoting yourself.

Because if you kept promoting yourself or you kept getting promotions in another company, you would no longer do the job that you used to do because you're doing a new job. So you have to get things off of your plate and upgrade and do higher things. And if you found yourself doing that,

you probably wouldn't feel the burnout anymore. Where a lot of times the burnout is I'm doing things that my soul has already agreed. You need not be doing that anymore. You're not supposed to be doing that anymore. Of course, the logical brain goes, how, how, how do we, how these don't need to be get done and you can fight for your limitations all you want. That's another conversation, but I can do this for, and I do think the only place I really toot my horn, my own horn, Natalie, because I think it is a significant thing

is not the sales or the money or anything like that, is that I can do the same thing for 17 years. And that is, if you're like, how are you able to do the same thing for 17 years? Well, I just gave you the answer, is I just continued to make it a process of getting everything else off my plate that started to feel heavy, that started to feel like it was killing my soul, like it was extinguishing the flame of passion and purpose within me. I said, it's no longer in my job description to do this, so I need to either

delegate it, processize it, you know, find a new person or just delete it altogether. And today it's 90% of what I do is what we're doing is I'm never going to get burnt out by being on a great podcast. And I don't think your listeners would either. So how do we get everything else off our plate so we can spend 80 to 90% of our day doing the things that still light us up? And it's because I'm paying attention to that. I'm paying attention to that feeling. It's saying yes to this and no to something else. And I listen to it.

You know, you're going back into the logical mind was like, no, no, no, but it has to get done. And no one can do it as good as you. Those are just stories. I just don't buy that stuff anymore. No one can do it as good as you. That's such ego. That's such your pride kicking in. You're deriving significance still from a work ethic and a true form of mastery today. This is part of my philosophy is can you get someone to do something better than you?

If I can train someone to do something better than I can, then that's when I've mastered it. So why am I trying to hoard the glory and hoard the credit and say, look at what I can do. I do it all myself. Your vision needs an upgrade because at our level, it's not about look at me. And that's where I think a lot of entrepreneurs are getting stuck, by the way.

is what drives the entrepreneur, the temperament of the entrepreneur has a lot to do around their values pretty early on around accomplishment. Well, that's a really tricky thing because when it's about accomplishment, it's all about you and it's about showing the world what you can do. And

If you want to grow to a certain level, as you know, it must grow beyond you. You must start to attract a team and great a players do not want to work for somebody and says, why do you work so hard for Natalie? Oh, because I just want her to have a great life. Like I just want her being more successful. No, it's they're doing it for the same vision that you stepped into yourself. And, uh,

Hopefully this is all making sense and starting to connect dots because today I've surrounded myself with some incredible people and they know, and I know that they're not doing it for me. You know, I'm just an instrument. I'm a, I'm a player on the team and we're here to win Superbowls, but it's no one person above the others. We all play a role and we, who we do it for is the people that we put in a room together. And we just, we just had an event last week and it's like,

We do it for those people and who they're becoming and the growth that they're having, which is ironically the same journey and experience I went on as they were just like, now it's your turn. And that's who we do it for. So that's how I've been able to do it for 17 years. And it's just as fun today as it was. So actually it's more fun today. It's more fun. And, um, and we need to, we need to have that, like the, the phrase we use, and this is, this is from my, my spiritual mentor is to be the warrior, right?

It's not like a warrior, like what people traditionally think, like you're not a fighter or lovers, right? That's beautiful. But you're a warrior, your attention, because you are where your attention is, is on a 360 degree swivel 24 seven. And when we decide, yeah, I'm going to do something more with my life than just a nine to five, well, you're signing up for more. And so it's more growth. It's more purpose. It's more responsibility. And so to be a warrior,

It means in our life, the first thing we're doing is our head is on a swivel, aware of wherever our next battle is, the next challenge, 360 degrees, ready at all times in like warrior stance, ready for the next thing so that you catch it. Because I think burnout would occur like where you actually have, and I hit a burnout. It was like that depression like really early on. And so I was like, never again. That would only occur if you weren't paying attention.

If you didn't see the pebbles, if you didn't notice the rocks, you just decided, oh, it's fine. I'll just throw that under the rug here. And if we're aware of that and we develop that sensory acuity, you catch it early. And that's what I want for people so that you don't just wake up one day and say, how do I wind up here?

Every time you find yourself in that place, if you recapitulate and look back, the writing was on the wall. You didn't pay attention. We're all guilty of that. That's fine. There's no shame in that, but we get better at it. So we catch it sooner because I don't want anybody having those big boulders. You'll learn your lesson, but it's so painful. You can avoid that. You don't have to wait until it gets really bad before you fix something and grow. I almost burst into tears when you were talking about dropping from your brain into your heart.

Because I feel like that for me has been the single biggest unlock across life, across business, across all of it. And although it sounds so simple, it's one of the hardest things I think that we do as human beings. We do everything we can to protect ourselves from the fear, from the loss, from all of it.

But when you're able to do that, for me, when I'm able to do that, everything changes. Yeah. So it just brought me to tears because I just, I want people to deeply hear that of how life-changing that can be. Yeah. And that's coming from a dude. Like, I mean...

You know, I was a very different person when I started this journey. My heart was completely closed off. And have you ever heard that phrase, your strengths become your weaknesses and your weaknesses become your strengths? So I got really good grades in school. So I had an identity of being smart, which means that kept me in my head. And I said, I'm smart enough and I can work hard enough. I can figure this all out. And I didn't. In fact, my beginning journey was,

was and which derived a lot of the why and purpose that we have today for the vision for the company was I struggled for four and a half straight years. I got addicted to Adderall.

which is no bueno. Um, that's like a legalized form of speed. And I would pop 20 milligrams a day. I get out of bed, pop, pop my 20 milligrams. And I would, I would work 12 to 14 hours a day in front of a laptop. And I was like, this is it. I'm the hardest working person on the planet right now. I will be successful. And I had nothing to show for it for four and a half years. I realized, I mean, I would tried everything else. I'd exhausted everything. I was like, I'm

I thought I was smart. I thought I could figure this out. I thought I was a hard worker. I thought I could figure this out. And things didn't really change until I started dropping into that and stopped putting so much importance on my logic because it goes beyond that. Like the decisions that I made, you know, the synchronicities that led to opportunities and kind of trusting your gut more and being surrendering to be led by that more has worked out in ways that I could have never have planned for.

So that's a really, that's faith right there. And that's a very hard thing to do. It's a very humbling thing to do. It takes a ton of courage, but I was already at a rock bottom. So I had nothing else to lose at that point. And my life began very, very slowly at first, but completely transformed the more I opened my heart up. Yeah, what a blessing. Mm-hmm.

James, thank you so much for being here. Yeah, thanks for having me back. This is awesome. I feel like I could talk to you for another 10 hours, but I also just want to say too, it's such a gift learning from someone who has been doing this for 17 years without getting distracted and who has been able to really commit and dedicate for something

such a length of time to graduate into mastery because I'm sure when you're working with your students, there's very few things that they can throw at you that you have not seen before or experienced. And I think that is such a gift. So I just want to say thank you for doing what you do. Your work's impacted me and I know so many of my audience. So yeah, I just really want to say thank you. No, thank you. It's a pleasure and a joy. And it really is like, wow, like I get to talk about these things for a living. I think professionally,

probably a lot of your listeners out there, it's like, that's their dream too. It's like, wow, I could make my career like helping people. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. So it's, it's, that's part of how you do it for 17 years is you never, you never get jaded. Like I, every day it's like a blessing that there would be someone out there on the internet that wants to listen to something I have to say, and that could help somebody because you have a lot of, they have a lot of options out there. So I'm always very grateful. So thank you, Natalie.

And this is what happens too when you put the work in to build a business so that you can run it in a way that we're talking about feels soul aligned.

So where can everyone find you? Well, I have a podcast as well. It's called the Mind Your Business Podcast. And I like to say kind of in jest that it's like the first non-business business podcast because the conversation that we got to have today and thank you for opening that door is the type of conversation I like to have the most on there. And it really is...

as obviously a lived experience for you, it's, it's a huge theme of what my life has been is the more, the more inner growth I've had, the more outer business growth I've experienced. And when, when I made that so much of the focus of the more I can grow, the more I can give it, it helped explode our business. So we talk about all that on the mind your business podcast, have a listen. We go down all kinds of rabbit holes and have wonderful convos there. So that's the best place for people. Yeah.

Amazing. Everyone go and subscribe. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. Okay, I hope you loved this episode with James. I know I did. And before you go, there's something I want to share. You know that I love helping women grow their businesses while working fewer hours.

If this is something you're ready to do for your own life, I have got the perfect thing for you. I recently shared a podcast episode featuring my friend James Wedmore and we talked about this in detail. It was really powerful. And now we're taking it 10 levels deeper. I'm so excited to share that James is hosting an epic training back by popular demand and it is completely free to attend.

It's actually a powerful three-day training that is not just fluffy little bits of value and then a sell at the end. That's not what this is. This is three solid days of business training with homework, with action items, just so much value. So if you're ready to take your business to the next level,

or you're just starting your business and want to make sure you're focused on what's going to move the needle so you don't waste time, you're going to want to be there. This training only happens once a year. It gets better every single year. It is truly iconic. And so I personally make a priority to be there every single time it happens. I block out my entire calendar for the three days

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