Collective Gain Podcast: tips and real-life stories to find your purpose and live your truth.

In this week’s episode, I’m taking a look at what has unfolded for me over the past few years, both professionally and personally. I know that many people who are motivated and striving for a good life alternate between feeling fulfilled and settled, and feeling that they desire more, and are driven to figure out what that “more” means in their life. 

Growth, and personal growth, is the inside work that we do to unpack the stories, messages, beliefs, and the lack of freedom that we give ourselves. I often see these as containers that we put ourselves in: they are the standards we hold ourselves to and the way we talk to ourselves.

Coaching, for me, and for many of my colleagues has assisted in working through this terrain. The feeling that you desire more, and are curious about what is beyond your current reality is an invitation to dig in and take a deep look at your interior landscape. 

Coaching helps us work through these messages and stories, and to become more loving, softer, accepting, and more open. Through coaching, we develop a bigger sense of freedom and of what’s possible. And when that happens, it’s almost like your desire for what life can be gets even bigger than what it was before. 

If you are in that place of questioning and feeling unsettled, do yourself a favor and pull back a little bit on the yearning. Lean into the appreciation of where you’ve come from, and embrace the daydreaming inside of what’s possible. Put less effort on you having to make your dreams come true, and put more energy into finding or creating an experience that makes your heart warm, and that makes your toes tingle.

When you’ve found those moments of bliss, allow yourself to be fully in that experience, soaking in the gratitude of where you’ve come from and then let it go. That’s what I’ve been practicing, and just reminding myself how far I’ve come, especially in looking at Collective Gain.

This week on the podcast, I’m reflecting on the meaning of life, as the world sits with two extremes on the same day: from heartbreaking devastation of Kobe and Gigi  Bryant’s deaths to the soaring accomplishment and joy of Billie Eilish’s winning five Grammy awards. 

These two events, book-ended on the same day gave me pause to slow down and reflect. Both of these amazing humans lived a life where they followed their hearts. Kobe played basketball with great joy. He inspired millions to follow their hearts and do what they love to do. He created Mamba so that children could play the sport he loved. 

Billie Eilish started creating music with her brother. They didn’t stop and question what they were doing, didn’t look to others to see if it was “right” or “wrong,” or get caught up on if they were influencers on social media. Their music, and their creativity came from a place deep inside. And, it took them saying yes to the wholeness of who they are to then create music that spoke to others in a deep way.

Last night I had a dream and the dream was about how easy joy is, and how all we have to do in life is to say yes to what makes you happy. Do what brings you joy: real soul filling joy, not surface joy, not temporary joy, not coping joy, but real soul level joy. 

Kobe Bryant talked about following your dreams, after the All Star Game in 2016:

“‘I think you have to believe that they’re possible. It’s easier said than done, because I think we all have dreams. But once you go through the process of trying to make those dreams a reality, you hit obstacles. And I think unfortunately because of pressure or anxiety or responsibilities, things, whatever, you kind of give up on those dreams and somewhere along the line you lose that imagination. I think it’s important that you never lose that. You have to keep that. That’s the most important thing. I never gave up my dream.”

Taking inspiration from the lives of Kobe Bryant and Billie Eilish, I urge you to listen to the dream that is calling to you. To listen to the moment in time when there’s some deep truth to what you are feeling, right now. What dream is on your heart? What are you sensing is your purpose here on the Earth?

I want you to notice that thing and take steps to get closer to it, starting now. Set the baby steps in motion so that your dream can become a part of your every day life . It takes courage to follow that dream. I want you to have faith, because the path might not always be easy or obvious to you. It takes courage to navigate change. In my experience, saying yes to your dream if often enough as a first step, and you’ll find that everything else will flow from your willingness to engage with it.

In this podcast episode, I’m taking a deep look at what process means, and how embracing process in life can be a game changer for you as a Type-A, go-getter professional. I’ll be exploring how you can say yes to your own process, and how to embrace that the process is non-linear, and how you can have a bigger understanding of the process that occurs in your life.

There’s an interesting thing that I’ve noticed about life, when you say yes to something in any given moment  (a job, a partner, a habit), you say yes to a whole process, without having an idea of what’s to come. It takes time to fully see how a job, a relationship, or your life will unfold. 

Just like anything in life, we like to believe that the moment something starts, that it is set in stone, that we have an idea or we get married to someone or we start a job, and the way it is in that moment when we said yes is the way it’s going to be, and that really just isn’t true.

This is because life is a process, and everything and everyone in life is also in their own process of growth and change. 

I want us to look at our lives, our work, our relationships as an unfolding process that’s going to lead us to different types of experiences. When we have that desire to rush the process and we get impatient, it’s often not because we so badly want the result, it is because we’re in some sort of fear.  We’re in fear that what we want is never going to happen: a relationship, a habit, a life event. 

The solution to breaking free from that fear is to allow for self-compassion if you’re in a place of wishing things would happen right now (instead of allowing them to unfold in your life). Another way to step aside from the grips of fear is to look to the natural world for an example of how change and process happen: fruit on a tree doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a whole process of things to create fruit, first a seed, then a sapling, then a tree, then flowers, bees, and growth. 

It’s difficult to see where you are on the path of growth. Sometimes the thing you most desire is just one step away, and sometimes you have several experiences you need to go through before you arrive at the thing you hope will happen. 

My invitation for you, if you are questioning where you are in your process, is to lean into the experiences and the events that are happening right now. Have faith that they are leading you right to where you should be, and that you are in process right now.  While nothing can help rush a process along (which can be so frustrating for Type A people), fighting, procrastinating or delaying your process can slow it down. 

If you take away anything from this podcast today, embrace self-compassion for yourself while you’re in the process, and have faith that life is unfolding for you. When there’s an opening, you have a choice to step forward into the processes, knowing that life has been there helping you all along.

This week’s episode is all about reframing our perspective of success. We’ll be looking at two amazing books that I began reading over the recent winter break:  “A Course in Miracles,” and “Peace is Every Step” by Thich Nhat Hahn. Together, I have found that they offer powerful insights for an ambitious professional who wants to have success paired with peace, freedom, and ease. 

A Course in Miracles

My “aha” moment came on page 383 of “A Course in Miracles,”

“some of your greatest advances, you have judged as failures and some of your deepest retreats you have evaluated as success.”

Reading this filled me with a sense of freedom. During much of your career, you likely look back and reflect on how well you did in a job based on the accomplishments and milestones you hit in any given role. I love that A Course in Miracles is suggesting that we can reframe this for ourselves, sharing that true success, and your day to day reality, is less defined on achievements and more defined on feelings, or what is called the ‘happy dream’ in this book. 

A Course in Miracles also talks about the freedom that comes from basing how you measure success based on how you feel, or want to feel. It offers us the freedom to revisit some of what we may have found to be “failures” based on traditional standards, and re-evaluate them. By using the emotional guidance scale (which we also talked about in a recent past episode), you can begin to develop career plans and milestones based on your own internal desired emotions and feelings, which frees you from striving to keep up with others. 

These two ideas, of the emotional guidance scale and the quote from A Course in Miracles underscore the same idea: that it is not the outside accomplishment or the way that society deems you successful, but rather how you feel when you wake up in the morning, and how you feel about where you are in life. You’re on a path that is bigger than what you see right now and you are stepping into that every single day. We all have a desire for fulfillment, for purpose, and a need for a deeper connection to ourselves.

“Peace is Every Step” by Thich Nhat Hahn

Vietnamese Buddhist Monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hahn is the author of a beautiful and easy to read book: “Peace is Every Step.” On page 79, he shares about understanding and love in a way that really caught my attention, and helped me look at self-awareness differently. 

Thich Nhat Hahn says understanding and love are not two things, but instead, they are one and the same. Reading this helped me see that self-awareness is understanding, and understanding is love, and therefore, self-awareness is love, too. Imagine having such love and acceptance for yourself that you can be completely self-aware. Imagine having so much compassion for another person that you can understand them, and be completely aware of them, and respectful of who they are. This kind of deep understanding and compassion opens your heart to universally loving others, and can shift how you approach people and situations. 

I find that this insight is extremely applicable for your professional life. Think about every meeting, every difficult conversation, every person you manage, every time you talk to your boss. What could be possible if you approached each of these with a sense of understanding? What if your only goal for conversations was to reach a deeper understanding of where someone is coming from, to understand their pain points, to understand their needs?

This week on the podcast, I’m honored to have astrologer Mimi Troung join me as a guest. As the year and decade closes, it’s an interesting time to pause and take a moment to consider our strengths and purpose, and Mimi is so good at helping people leverage the wisdom found in their astrological chart to take a deeper look at their inner landscape. By sharing your date of birth, Mimi reads charts that reveal information about your intrinsic strengths, weaknesses, and about your purpose in this life.

In this podcast episode, Mimi explains how astrology works, why it’s a valuable tool, and how to integrate the information into your life. We also dive into my chart as an example of how a reading works, which I hope you will find insightful.

As Mimi explains, “Having an astrology reading is a personalized experience where I pull out your charts so that you can see where the positions of the planets were at the time you were born. And the layout of this map shows all the energy that lives in you. It shows your strengths, the challenges that you are here to learn, and the dynamics of these planets shows up, not only in your personality, but also giving you clarity on your past, what you’ve chosen to do in this lifetime, and living your gifts.”

It was interesting to see how my astrological reading aligned with the creation of Collective Gain, and how it’s creation and direction both play to to my strengths. It’s my hope that it gives you some insights on what astrology can teach each of us, and why I feel it’s a great tool to leverage in your life’s journey – either along side your existing coaching or all on it’s own.

In this episode, Mimi and I talk about

* Why Astrology is a powerful tool, and how it works* How our soul chooses a path for this life time* The archetypes for the astrological signs, and how it relates to psychology* The role of gravitation pull on each of us* How the different houses align with different aspects of our lives* Your sun sign and what it means* Your Nodal return, which happens between age 36-38* The shifts that can occur during the Nodal Return* How the name of Collective Gain aligns with my own astrological chart* Finding balance in your life leveraging the wisdom in astrological chart

This week, we’re going to be talking about the voices in your head and identifying which ones are on your side and which ones try to keep you small. 

If you’ve seen the movie Inside Out, it’s kind of like that. Who’s in the control tower? There are all these different emotions in your mind, but replace those little characters of emotions with these voices. Each with a past, a story, point of view of how they want you to feel. These voices are trying to help you, and often they do, but without context sometimes we can take what we hear quite literally instead of understanding, in context, how they’re trying to help us.

The Three Voices

The first is the ego voice, which is the voice that helps us move forward towards things that are going to make us feel big, important and recognized. This voice is often not as much connected to the heart, to our vulnerability, but instead connected to safety (physical, emotional, mental). What’s going to keep us safe? What’s going to make us feel successful and protected? What’s going to keep us from showing who we really are in front of people we trust and respect? That’s the ego voice. It’s persistent, especially as you start to try not to listen to it, it gets louder trying to keep you protected. But sometimes, being right or being protected is not what is going to serve our growth or our overall happiness.

The second is the voice of fear. It could also be called the voice of reason, and it is often the one that tries to keep us small.  It’s the one that’s about settling, it’s about pleasing, and not asking for what you want. It wants to hide in the corner and stay small and let life go by to avoid feeling discomfort or rejection, because it’s easier to not be seen. What if someone judges me? What if I was wrong… and I fail? What if I can never find something/someone better?

The third voice is of love. It’s confident, succinct and clear. It’s unwaiver and yet isn’t the loudest one, usually.  It doesn’t need to impress anybody. That voice is the voice of your true self, your higher self: full faith and trust and it’s there to lead you in the right direction. The voice of clarity that comes in when you need it the most, and it’s just a few words.  For many people, they sound something like this:

* Yes, that’s a good idea. * Call that person.* It’s going to be okay. * Try again. Look again.* That’s not a good idea. * Stop.* Wait. * Go back. * You don’t have to worry.

All of these tiny little messages are powerful and unattached to anything except what’s best for you. It’s a whisper and sometimes it gets loud when the stakes are really high.

When you can connect to that inner voice that’s on your side, you unlock so much confidence and faith in yourself, and you don’t have to make any drastic commitments or drastic changes, just start noticing it. Simply listen to it, hear it. Start discerning the different voices in your head that are coming from different parts of you, and when you make a decision, be really clear on where you’re making that decision from. Which voice are you listening to? Are you making that decision from a place of faith and trust and pure alignment with who you are? Or from a place of fear, from a place of not wanting to be too big or too speak to seen or ask for too much? Become aware of what voice you’re listening to and how you’re acting. 

When you’re quiet in your mind and you’re asking for the voice of truth, your inner council, listen for it and see if you can hear it. This voice does not yell at you.

This week, we’re talking about the power of letting go. So many of us have things we want to let go of; things that have happened in our life, whether that be a relationship, or something that was said to us, or an experience we wish had gone differently,  or dreams we’ve had for ourself that didn’t come true or haven’t come true yet. It’s difficult to fully let go of these things, as there’s often some part of us that’s still holding on to a belief, or a story, that something was right or wrong. 

We all Desire Freedom

The key to letting go and discovering freedom is to let go of the things that have happened to you in the past, and to mindfully release anything you’re holding onto in this moment. The unwanted thoughts and concerns about past events are resistance that you’re creating around what you actually desire to experience. By letting go, really letting go of those lingering thoughts, you can give yourself the freedom that you so desire.

And, by letting go of things you’re holding on to, you’ll be more open to experience freedom and abundance. I spoke about abundance in a recent episode.

In my experience, freedom is what each of us is really desiring, at a deep level. We desire the freedom to find the best partner and falling in love is freedom to bare ourselves, and be loved and to be accepted. Freedom of creative expression is the freedom to be ourselves, to be accepted and heard as we are.

What would happen if you give yourself that freedom by creating a belief that you are, right now in this moment, perfectly on time, perfectly whole, and perfectly complete just as you are? That nothing has to be different from the past? That everything you’ve experienced in the past or everything you’re wanting for the future is what has helped you get to where you are in this moment, and that it is leading you toward the journey that you really want to experience?

Taking the First Steps

In speaking with other coaches, and specifically Laura Greenberg (who was on the show to talk about letting go of attachments, I’ve come to believe that letting go of your attachment to any outcome is the first step to feeling truly “on purpose” in life. When you can get to a state of believing that you are perfectly whole as you are right in this moment, and that nothing needs to be different than where you are right now, this is the way to feeling centered, and whole, and present. This kind of acceptance of “what is” allows you to create new things, to live without concern about the future, and to dive deeper into your creativity.

Your Practice for This Week

If after listening to this episode, you find yourself realizing that you’re holding onto a lot of stuff (that perhaps you didn’t even realize you were holding on to), I’d like for you to try this exercise. Pull out a piece of paper and a pen and write down all the things you’re holding onto, that you wish were different, that you are beating yourself up about, that you are really desiring or any outcome you’re feeling needs to be a certain way. 

Spend ten minutes writing it all down. And then I invite you to tear it up, or burn it in a metal bowl, or put it in the fire, and very mindfully, let it completely go.

In this week’s episode, I’m talking about the Emotional Guidance Scale and how being aware of our emotional set point can help us thrive. You may not realize how your thoughts and mood have great power over you and affect your day, your life, and what opportunities you see are in front of you. Your mood, which is often correlated to your thoughts, can help you bring to fruition what you want or send you down a path towards what you don’t want.

I learned about the Emotional Guidance Scale and emotional set point from Esther and Jerry Hick’s book Ask and It is Given which deeply resonated with me. The Emotional Guidance Scale is a range of 22 emotions with 1 being the highest on the emotional scale and 22 being the lowest. Your emotional set point is where you are on the scale at any moment in time, and I invite you to feel empowered and curious of what your emotional set point is at this moment in your life.

 In this episode, I explore:

* How we can turn our mood around by examining our thoughts and choosing to see things from a different perspective* The top third, middle, and bottom third of the Emotional Guidance Scale* My experiences examining my emotional set point at different times in my life* How our emotions are information for us and can help us thrive

Your Practice for the Week: 

For this week, I invite you to become inquisitive about how you are really feeling. How do you feel when you first wake up in the morning? Do you feel energized and ready to take on the day? How do you feel while you’re going through your day and nothing spectacular nor terrible is happening? I’d like you to think about the emotions you have when it comes to this period of your life. Are you in a place where you feel empowered and excited, or do you feel bored and are looking for something more? I encourage you to explore your emotions and be conscious of your thoughts. Talk yourself through the emotions you are feeling to get you to gratitude, compassion, and joy. Life is always working for you.

In this episode, I am diving into abundance. Abundance is very popular in the self-help world, and it is often associated with money or financial gains. Abundance is not just money. I believe that our desire for abundance is, in truth, a desire to relax and a desire to rest. 

Abundance is really an inner calling to want to get off the hamster wheel. It’s an underlying feeling of not enough. It is embedded in our desire to feel as though we have found our place.

What if you look at abundance as the desire to rest, or slow down? What if abundance is actually what happens when we allow ourselves to feel the goodness of our lives, and make room for more of what we desire? Sometimes when we over plan and overthink, we cut off the miracles that could be. The whole point is to live in a place where you don’t feel like you’re constantly striving. This is easier said than done.

In some ways, our only job in life is to be present, and aware of our thoughts and emotions. Think about the way your mind is thinking and what you’re are striving for, and then try to get under it and go deeper. What is the underlying feeling that you are wanting, that’s sitting just below the surface?

Your Practice for the Week:

Instead of thinking about the things you feel are missing in your life, turn your attention to what you could do now, to experience it today. If you want ease and rest, do more of that now. Think about how you can bring in what you really want. When you focus on what’s possible in your mind, you make room what’s possible in your life.

 Grab your journal and write about what you would like to bring into your life, now.

 What ‘a-ha’ moments are coming up for you while journaling?

About a year ago, I joined a fitness challenge in which I was challenged to create a strong morning routine. I personalized this routine and started calling it my “morning power hour”. Exercise was part of it, but it also started with some journaling, stretching, and tea.

It was so life-changing for me that I might have changed or dropped the workouts, but I kept the morning routine Power Hour and it always gets me set up for success.

The question is, what can we create in our life that is non-negotiable? What nourishes us from the inside? The way we get to work and get to our goals with ease and grace and flow is connecting to ourselves. 

Imagine if you’re that leader that goes in totally tapped in, tuned up, and ready for the day because you did your morning routine. What would happen to all the people you manage?

As a leader, your morning routine is a way to be magnetic and inspirational without having to do anything other than being you. That energy you created in the morning for yourself is incredibly productive toward meeting your own goals, your company’s goals, and to show up as a leader for other generations.

The ripple effect of our actions when we step into the present, calm and aware- THAT is what the morning routine is about! It’s just for us so that we can step from surviving to thriving, so we feel better in our day, and send that ripple out around us. 

Join Me: I’ll be posting on Instagram Live every day this week at 5:30 am PST!

In this episode I share:

-How I started my morning power hour

-A peek into my current morning routine

-The three components of a morning routine: mind, body, spirit

-Ideas for creating your own routine

– Being an inspirational leader

-The ripple effect of starting our day in a way that feels good

Resources

Dr. Joe Dispenza Morning and Evening Meditations