Speakers:
SPEAKERS
Vanessa Loder, Clint Murphy
Clint Murphy 00:00
Vanessa, welcome to the growth guide podcast, we’re going to have a fun conversation talking about your book, The soul solution. But before we dive into it, can you give our audience a brief bio and background on you and then we’ll dive into the book?
Vanessa Loder 00:15
Sure, yeah. Well, I joke that I’m a recovering perfectionist. I’ve been an overachiever, you know, my entire life, I got good grades, went to a good school, got a good job on Wall Street and finance, and then got my MBA from Stanford and got to this point in my career where I was, quote, unquote, successful in air quotes. You know, everything on paper looked great. And yet inside, I just felt like there was there was more in life for me that if I knew in my bones, I was meant for something more, but I didn’t know what it was. And I felt like I followed this formula for success in life. Like I just said, get good grades, climb to the top of the ladder, and then realized, Oh, crap, I think this is the wrong ladder for me. So I started studying mindfulness, the neuroscience behind behavior change, I got trained in hypnosis, past life regression, healing, all kinds of things. And I ended up transforming myself so dramatically that I quit my traditional corporate job to start my own business, bringing those tools to other people, particularly to women. So that’s what I’ve been doing for the last 10 plus years.
Clint Murphy 01:16
Oh, I love it. And so as we go through the book, we’re going to wind our way front back. And so we’re going to start towards the back. And then we’ll come to the front, and people will will see why. Because you just talked about that idea that air quotes the successful life. And so this question I’ll throw at you will be a three parter. And they’re not all going to be that way, I promise. So what is the success myth? How can we unwind our beliefs around it and what are the old versus the way you see it? Which I really aligned with, the new paradigms of success?
Vanessa Loder 01:54
Yeah, so the old success myth is what our culture, our dominant culture, at least here in the United States in the western world tells us is successful, which is primarily focused around money, prestige, power over people. And those things don’t bring lasting happiness and joy and fulfillment, not that there’s anything wrong with them. I mean, a lot of money is great. I love abundance. But if that’s the only thing you’re chasing, it’s going to end up feeling hollow.
Clint Murphy 02:20
So how does that shift into what you view as the new paradigm of success? Which is a much more holistic view and then how do we shift our belief system from old to new?
Vanessa Loder 02:34
Yeah, such good questions. Okay. So the new paradigm of success, I actually think we each might want to define that for ourselves. What does success mean for me, so for example, for me, if I’m spending a lot of time with my kids, if I’m spending time in nature, if I’m moving my body, if I’m pursuing hobbies, if I have a thriving, intimate partnership with my husband, if I have a tremendous impact with my work, if I’m receiving abundant compensation for my work, if I’m helping change the consciousness on the planet, like these are all in my definition of success. And so I think it’s up to each of us to redefine what success means to us. And you know, I have a lot of my clients write out their own definition. And then to really measure ourselves against those metrics, rather than just the myopic definition that’s more traditional. How do we do that? Well, I mean, it can be very scary and hard, because you’re kind of swimming upstream against the collective culture and mindset and beliefs that many people are living by. And so one way is to find role models, I talk about that a lot in the book, to gather and community with other people who are wanting to create this kind of change for themselves. So we can reinforce for each other, okay, if you felt really good, when you had that more balanced day, remember how good that felt, rather, and then I have a lot of belief shifting tools in the book, but starting to just identify to source your beliefs. Because often, it’s not just that we got it from our broader culture, but we each have our own unique programming from our childhood, messages we got from our parents, or mentors, or teachers that really might have imprinted deeply. And so when you start to name those and bring them to the surface, then you can work with those unconscious beliefs and shift them. So for example, I had a client who with immigrant parents, and she said, you know, Vanessa, it was like, I can be a doctor or a lawyer or go into finance. Those are the only three options. And she loves fitness. But she had completely forgotten how much she loved fitness in high school. She had this whole memory that resurfaced during some of our work, where that she remembered how much she had loved it and told her mom about her mom was like, well, you can never make a living out of that, you know? And so it got kind of sublimated. So one thing I recommend is to source your beliefs by just writing out what does my dad say about success? What does my mom say about success? What did some of my teachers say about success? What does our culture say? Or what does my dad or my mom say about being a working mom, or a working dad, or whatever the thing is. And once you start to write those on paper, you bring some of the unconscious beliefs that you’ve been operating under to the surface. And then you can ask yourself, is this something I want to choose to believe going forward? And if not, what is the new belief I want to reprogram my mindset to instead.
Clint Murphy 05:23
I love that. And you reminded me partway through when you were mentioning with immigrant parents early in my relationship, my wife back then girlfriend, I was a psychology and English major. And she suggested that I should change majors to something that would get me a job. And so before we jumped on the call, you found out I was a CFO. So I did change, I became an accountant, which was totally the opposite. So practical, and I’ve spent 25 years being practical. And now as I shift over the next few years to my soul solution, it’s very interesting that it’s basically going back to psychology and English. So getting back to it. And this is part of what we’ll talk about. Because when you look at you bring up the idea of the soul whispers and the energetic breadcrumbs, and we’ll dive into those is, is we already know, deep down inside what we want to do,. what we’re meant to do,. what our purpose is, it’s really listening to intuition. And sometimes we can let it sleep for most of our lives. So we’re going to share how not to do that.
Vanessa Loder 06:36
Great, yeah, it is amazing how often people, it’s like a cliche, well, what did you like to do as a child, and yet, when we’re so sucked into the routine, or like, on that hamster wheel of life, we are so out of touch with those original passions that we kind of, we don’t remember them, or we dismiss them, or we think they’re insignificant, or we think, Well, how am I going to turn that into a career? You know, I used to get all my friends in my basement, and I would take like, the extra handouts from school, and I would make a fake school and I would give them a homework. And they would do it. That’s a really weird thing. They would do it. But I remember sometimes I also think we might, we might remember what we like to do as a child, but then we don’t see how that translates into a job that we would love. And so then we don’t follow it. So I would think things like, well, I don’t want to be a teacher. I don’t want to be like a high school teacher. Because I, for me teacher was a very narrow box of college, high school, elementary school. I am a teacher. Now. That’s what I do. I make up classes for my students all the time, the same way I did as a kid. But it’s so different than what anything my mind could have anticipated. There was nothing, there was no model of it that I saw that excited me I had to kind of let it emerge from the inside out.
Clint Murphy 07:48
And it’s crazy how much it matches what you did love.
Vanessa Loder 07:53
Yeah, yes. And what’s really cool is like it, this journey never ends. I mean, everything I wrote about in the book I wrote, because I’m nowhere near mastering any of it. I’m just obsessed with the idea of mastering it. And in the last 10 years, even doing this work I love, I’ve had so many iterations. And then right now I’m stepping into something totally new, which is I’ve just realized I want to be like a spiritual comedian, which is, so what, and I had a memory that oh, my gosh, when I was a kid, I used to say one of the careers I would want to do is stand up comedy. So it’s all it’s like, and I’d forgotten about that, or I just never thought, because I don’t I don’t want to be a stand up comic. But I want to make my writing be a little bit funnier. So there’s these ways that it can, we weave this tapestry of all the things we love. And our mind wants it to be like in a box, it wants it to be understood, it wants it to be something that you can already see in the real world as an example. And that’s just not how it works when you’re following your soul.
Clint Murphy 08:52
It’s not even just your mind, society wants you in a box, society wants to say this is Vanessa, this is what Vanessa does. And Vanessa will do this until she dies, and or retires and then shortly dies. But you look at it and given the book you’ve written, given your childhood and the path you’ve been on. When you’re on a path of self development, and you’re on a path of change. Every few years, you’re a completely different person. So the fact that you’re saying well, hey, my solution, that was my solution isn’t my full solution. And five years from now, if you and I have another chat on the next book, you’ll be doing something completely different. And that’s yeah, that’s fun.
Vanessa Loder 09:38
Yes, yeah. And that’s why you know, the book for me my intention with it was to write a roadmap for people to come home to themselves again and again and again and to learn how to trust those impulses, learn how to access them, learn how to, you know, hear them, trust them, act on them, because, yeah, it really is never ending if you’re on a soul centric path because you’re always is evolving.
Clint Murphy 10:01
And so we’ll share a powerful conversation you had with one of your clients, and get you to talk a bit about that. And then we’ll dive into to some of the roadmap ideas that you’re talking about. So you had taught your client to pay attention to her emotional cues, her soul whispers, the inner voices that she heard, and her energetic breadcrumbs, those moments she felt energized and alive. And then you asked her, if you were to tune into your heart, and your intuition, rather than your ego. And I really want to focus on ego, because I think for most people, the definition of success is very ego driven, not soul driven. So that’s powerful. Mind or wallet, what would your heart tell you it needs right now. So can you take us through how that conversation went, and the power of her being able to tap into that, and then what she ultimately was going to do X and then decided why?
Vanessa Loder 11:03
Yeah, I mean, I have a, there’s so many examples of this that are coming to mind. I’m not sure if you’re referencing a specific one from the book. But, you know, so the story that I started to tell about the woman in finance with the immigrant parents, when she started to tune into her heart, what she heard was like, I just love fitness, and I want to teach other people how to get in really good shape. But then her mind and her ego would come in and go well, that’s not you’re not going to turn that into a career are you? And so she just started giving yourself permission to follow those breadcrumbs. And so she started taking all these fitness classes, she got certified as a fitness coach, not thinking she was going to turn it into a business. And then what happened, this is what’s so beautiful the universe will conspire to co create with you when you start following your heart and your energetic breadcrumbs. So she’d taken all these fitness classes as a coach, she could train other people, but she wasn’t doing anything with it. She was just doing it for fun. And then she was changing in the locker room at her office building. She works in finance at this big company, and like three other women saw her changing, and we’re like, you are so toned. What are you doing, we want to and we want to train with you. And so that’s how she got her first clients was through her old job. And from there, she started building a fitness business. Now she has a whole fitness empire. She’s a bodybuilder, she’s like, competing. But I swear it’s the craziest story. She sent me pictures of herself and, and a picture of her when she’s mailing back her computer after her last day of work. And she’s like, look at me, it’s done. But it all started with just following a little breadcrumb of, Oh, I really liked fitness and I want to do a lot of it. I want to teach some of it. And that was just listening to her heart.
Clint Murphy 12:41
And an important thing that she did there that that’s really relevant for our listeners is she didn’t take the vikings on the beach, I’m going to burn the boats. And I’m going all in on this fitness journey. She kept her job. She got her certification, she started the journey. She had a few clients. And when she felt ready, she made the jump, and of oh my gosh, I can’t do it because x y z.
Vanessa Loder 13:13
Yes. I think that’s the other thing that the sort of the lie that the mind or the ego will tell you is like, you know, you can’t make that big of a change. How are you going to support yourself all the yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but all those come up, and then they scare us from taking action.
Clint Murphy 13:28
And the other thing that you talk about, super relevant for me on even my journey. So I’m a few years away from pivoting away from being a full time CFO to I’ll call it a content creator and coach. And at first, even my wife was a little iffy on this journey. And all family and friends, you get it, you work with people that everyone tells them, they can’t do it. Are you sure? And then one day, she finally said to my parents, she’s like, well, the worst that will happen is he’ll go be a CFO somewhere else. Like it’s not like he’s unemployable. And so you really highlight that point, what really is the worst case scenario if you take a bet on yourself?
Vanessa Loder 14:17
Yeah, I tell that story in the book as someone who had for years didn’t take action because they were so scared of what if it doesn’t work out, did it and then they took action and moved to a job that they liked more and everything that could possibly go wrong, went wrong, like the CEO got fired. Their boss was terrible, like the company was underperforming. I mean, everything went wrong. And my friend was fine. That was what was crazy. He was actually thriving because he was doing work that he was much more happy to be doing. And it was such a good lesson and a reminder and we can future pace to all the worst case scenarios again to scare ourselves out of taking the first step. But when you’re actually in it, and the shit hits the fan, you figure it out. It’s not gonna like, you know, so and one of the things that has helped me that I was just talking to a client about today, I think this has been magical for me twice now. First, when I quit my career in finance, and actually, just a month ago, I did it again, where I made a six month commitment, where for six months as an experiment, all I’m gonna do is follow my heart and my intuition of what really lights me up. And for me, I did quit my job, made more of a dramatic change before I had the next thing all figured out. But I decided if at the end of the six months, I haven’t, you know, started to build this business, I can always go back to the safe job, you know, similar to you. And there’s something about the six month mark, I think, as and treating as an experiment, it does a couple of things. If you only did one month or two months, the ego would be looking for results really quick. But because it’s six months, the ego kind of calms down, because it doesn’t expect instant results. But it’s not so far away that it feels too scary to the ego. So it’s like a good chunk of time, where it puts some boundaries around the new behavior that you want to try out to help your critter brain, your ego, the part of you that scared about safety and survival, it helps it calm down a little bit to just tell that part. We’re just going to do this as an experiment for six months. And if it doesn’t work, we can always…go back to the old, what have you.
Clint Murphy 16:16
it’s almost like a little sabbatical. The brains just saying, Oh, well, I’m on sabbatical. If it doesn’t work, I go back to work.
Vanessa Loder 16:23
Yeah, it’s sort of like you’re tricking the part of you that can be on high alert.
Clint Murphy 16:27
Okay, yeah. So you talked about the fact that you primarily coach women, and something that jumped out is really important to highlight as part of that, in our conversation, you had some statistics that were pretty alarming when you said, women, particularly in the West are reaching record levels of burnout. 39% of them report doing most or all of the housework, compared to just 11% of men. And as employees become more senior, the disparity between women and men grow. 72% of senior level women have a partner who also works compared to only 37% of men. Women, and men want more, but we want a different kind of more, we want to fulfill our true potential and have a meaningful impact with our work without sacrificing our sanity in the process. So what does that look like for you that whole paragraph and what that means for writing this book?
Vanessa Loder 17:23
Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of structural issues and how we’re set up, we still live in patriarchy. And so women really are holding a tremendous burden, and they’re doing so much more and the research, the data shows that. And so you know, one of the reasons that’s important to mention is I think some self help books that are designed for women can cause women to go well, I guess, I guess I’m the problem. And I gotta fix this. It’s all me and, and so it’s important to really understand the context we’re in. If as a woman, or anyone born in a female body, or a marginalized body, if you are overwhelmed and burned out, it’s not your fault. And it’s not because you didn’t figure something out, the system is set up for you to carry an extra load. So it’s just important to name and recognize that so that we as women don’t go into shame or self judgment or blaming ourselves, for feeling the way we do. And it’s also important because if we want to create a new solution, I mean, the reason I’m so passionate about this book, I don’t think we can create enough radical change within the structures and the systems that are already in existence. And we need people who are so in the center, in the core of themselves living from their heart living from their soul, to either stand up and live differently within those structures, or to create totally new structures. It takes such self trust to do that. And that’s why I think the journey really starts from the inside out. And once you start to embody these changes in yourself, then you can go out into the world, and that will have a ripple effect. You know, I kind of consider myself like a feminist spiritual teacher, where I really think this is how we’re going to have greater equality because we need more women leaders, but we don’t need more women leaders who are acting like men. You know, so many of my clients have said, I used to just push through exhaustion and the pain and do it all and take it all on and that’s I can’t do that anymore. I’ve hit a wall, I’ve hit a breaking point. And we need to work in a new way without, you know, the effort and all the hustle culture and all these things that are kind of toxic. And when you say that the first thing you realize that you had to work on was the self awareness as step one. So what does that look like? And what are some of the signs that we are being called to wake up to our own truth that we should be paying attention to and looking for? Yeah, yeah. Well, I say in the book that women are like the canaries in the coal mine that showing us how these systems are really not supporting the thriving of us as individuals. So some of the signs I talked about in the book, one of them is physical illnes. A lot of my clients, you know, the body never lies. So a lot of my clients will have unexplainable migraines or back pain or chronic fatigue or hypertension, high cholesterol, you know, stress related, you know, bodily, like body’s not functioning, they’re sleeping poorly, they have insomnia. Those are often signs that you are not aligned with your soul on some level, you’re out of alignment. Mental spinning is another sign where you’re like, just spinning in your head, and you’re constantly analyzing the pros and the cons, but you’re not really taking action or moving anything forward. You know, one of the things I said in the book is I’ve realized in my own life, anytime, I can’t decide between something and like, even something small, like should I go take a road trip and visit my sister this weekend? It’s a maybe it’s usually maybe is actually usually because it’s a no, and I don’t want to admit it. And that’s been really interesting to observe in myself. And because sometimes it’s a no, not because I don’t want to do the thing. But just because the timing is not right. So my I have a hard time believing that it’s a no because I’m like, Well, of course I want to go see my sister. But maybe this week is not the week. So I’ve just started if I can’t decide something or I’m a maybe then I just go that’s a no, if it’s not a whole body, yes, then it’s a no. So these are the ways that we override our intuition, our body wisdom, we try to like make sheets of pros and cons to understand that you know, and so mental spinning is another sign that we’re out of alignment. There’s more in the book I can go into if you want.
Clint Murphy 21:31
No, no, no, no, let’s start there. That’s good. And the second part of that is, you say that the soul speaks to us in whispers. During little slivers of silence we create in our minds, and in fairness, a lot of us never create silence in our minds. So that may be why it’s hard to listen to the whispers. The ego, in contrast, shouts at us constantly and helps us understand how we can follow the quiet whispers of our souls. So that’s the next thing we want to be aware of. How do we tune into that? How do we quiet your mind and say, Hey, what’s really here for me?
Vanessa Loder 22:10
Yes, yeah. So I mean, it does start with quieting the mind. And meditation is a great way to do that. And I have, you know, a free 30 day meditation challenge, it’s just five minutes for people who are like, Oh, I don’t know if I can sit still for that long. So I try to make it really easy for beginners. But also, frankly, I’m constantly shocked by how easily people can access the wisdom of their soul. It will speak to you in dreams and synchronicities. But even just asking a person, just close your eyes, and maybe put your hand on your heart right now. And just tune in to the center of your heart or tune into the space around your heart and float a question in your awareness to your heart center, like, you know, what do I most need to know right now? And just tune into the space around your heart and let your heart answer that question. Hmmm, what do I most need to know right now? About myself or my life?And I’m just curious for you, Clint, when you just float that question into your heart space, what do you hear or sense.
Clint Murphy 23:19
You know, my heart was telling me I’m ready. You know, I always think, you know, I need more years, I need this, I need that. And it’s like, no, you’re ready. You’re ready. You know, you know, you are you’re just, you’re still scared. So it’s I know, and I know that I think it’s close. And there’s a level of fear.
Vanessa Loder 23:40
Yeah, but so you just did that. And that took like, 20 seconds, you know, and I heard just relax. It’s all coming to me. And my heart was like, just relax. It’s all coming. Yeah. So, you know, It really is that easy. And that’s the other thing I sometimes maybe we build it up like it should be some lightning bolt coming down from the sky that’s going to change my whole life. No. It’s a little subtle whisper or a little impulse or a little, you know, nudge in the right direction for us. And it really can be that that symbol, but that’s also why I talk about the concept of energetic breadcrumbs. I think that’s another way for people to start to tune into the wisdom of their, their soul, their heart, and in a way that’s kind of accessible.
Clint Murphy 24:23
Yeah, let’s dive into that. Because absolutely, exactly as you say, the breadcrumbs that lead us home so how are we listening to them? How are we feeling them? You know, even just this conversation, me talking to you as an author, like I just get giddy and excited to be jumping, even if I’m exhausted after a day of work, right? It’s seven o’clock Pacific time here just finished a long day at work. But the conversation it’s like, oh, this is energizing. So is that a breadcrumb for me?
Vanessa Loder 24:58
That’s a breadcrumb. Yeah, that’s like it’s literally, that’s how, you know, oh, I want to do more of this, this is the thing you know. And so the bread, your energetic breadcrumbs, I mean, as the name suggests, are those little moments when you feel energized or alive or curious about something, and I call them breadcrumbs, because they can seem kind of small or insignificant, especially the ego, and the mind will tell you well, that’s, that’s trivial, or that’s insignificant, or that’s weird, or that’s random. Anything that the ego in the mind judges is weird or random, I’ve now learned to like really pay attention to because that’s probably something that’s going to be really good for my soul on some level. And so examples of energetic breadcrumbs, I had a client who is, you know, walking by an art gallery, and she’s like, I just don’t really want to go inside. So she felt called, you know, pulled inside. So she went inside, ran into a mom friend, ended up having this deep conversation about art, that client had worked in an art gallery, 15 years before it was now working in finance, and had this whole, oh, my gosh, I miss art, you know, and it just like really helped her expand and reconnect with that part of herself. I had another client whose daughter had an energetic breadcrumbs, she just loved dancing, and ballet, and came to her parents and wanted to go to this special school starting in seventh grade for dance. And my client was like, I don’t know, I don’t know if I want her to specialize that young and, and then she sat with her and goes, you know what, Vanessa, my daughter is following her own breadcrumbs. And if I don’t mess this up for her as a parent, she’s gonna naturally follow her breadcrumbs. It’s just that as parents and as society, we kind of like beat that out of people. Like, that’s not practical. Why are you doing that?
Clint Murphy 26:38
And so why, and that you do talk about that, right? It’s and we talked about the fact that it’s usually friends, it’s usually family who don’t see you making the changes the safe route. And so the people that most seem to want to keep you in the box, are those closest to you. And as part of that, that they never, you know, crabs in a bucket, they never got out of the bucket. And you’re not allowed, like, why is it that they’re the ones that pull us back?
Vanessa Loder 27:07
Yeah, it’s so common. And I went through this a lot with my husband as well, and was like, oh, gosh, like, can we stay married, if he’s not supporting my new thing? So part of it is that when you’re really enmeshed with someone and you start to change, it’s very scary for them. Because they’re like, well, I don’t know, are we, is this still going to work, we have a good thing going, I don’t know who you’re becoming, or what its gonna look like. And I personally did a horrible job of bringing my husband along on my journey. And it’s kind of amazing that we’re still married because I was very much like, my soul is waking up, I’m doing this with or without you, you know, and I’m like, I’m gone, buddy, and you can join me or not, he was very, it was not super inclusive. And in hindsight, I, you know, I think what would have been better is if I could have sat him down and said, like, I’m feeling so called to do this. And I know that I can understand that that might feel really scary for you, because I’m changing. And I really, I want you to be part of this, like, let me know how much of this whole journey and what I’m going through, you want to be a part of or not, and I want to find a way for us to, you know, still be close. And as I navigate all of this expansion, I had none of those conversations with him. So I kind of botched it myself, which is why I went to one of my Stanford Business School professors who teaches interpersonal dynamics. And I got all the language from her that I put in the book, what you should say to your partner, when you’re going through a big period of change. But yeah, the people closest to us are often the ones that tug us back the most, because they’re like, don’t change, we have a good thing going, stay here with me.
Clint Murphy 28:39
Yeah. And if you change, that’s an indication we can change. And I don’t know if I want to change.
Vanessa Loder 28:45
There’s that as a whole. Yeah. And, and the other thing I’ve learned is, when you’re in the real nebulous phase, where you have, you’re leaving the old thing behind, but you’re not yet standing on the new thing with two solid feet. People hate it, when you’re in that space, they hate it, because they don’t want to be in that space, they are terrified of being in that space. That is why most people stay in safe jobs, because it is so vulnerable to be in the unknown. So when you’re in the unknown, everyone around you is uncomfortable with that, because they’re uncomfortable with their unknown. It has nothing to do with you. It’s a total projection. But it’s really hard because it’s hard enough for you to be in the unknown. And then they’re coming up to you like, well, what are you going to do next? Do you have a plan? What’s your plan? And it’s like, oh, I’m barely treading water and you want me to like, tell you what size rock I’m gonna sit on next, like, I don’t know.
Clint Murphy 29:37
And with the work you’re doing in the past year on, sometimes you may be in the unknown forever.
Vanessa Loder 29:46
Yeah, I mean, in some ways, I think that might be the ultimate destination is the no destination of, you know, really letting the ego and the certainty go entirely and just I don’t even know because who am I if I’m not the things that I think I am, when you strip all of that away, that’s really when you get to the essence of who you really are.
Clint Murphy 30:08
Oh, I love that. So as you talk about that you talked about this idea that whether you’re searching for meaningful work, recovering from a divorce or a major loss or wondering what’s next. Those are the moments of upheaval. And they can be very scary. And a key step in overcoming those fears is gaining clarity on your strengths and unique abilities so you have something to tether yourself to, as you seek the soul solution. So what I wanted to know about that is what is the importance of playing to our strengths? And being in our zone of genius and for someone who, I don’t know what my zone of genius is, I thought it was interesting that you said, well, what is your zone of incompetence? And how can you use that to find your zone of genius?
Vanessa Loder 31:00
Yeah, so this is somewhat based on the work of Gay Hendricks in his book, The Big Leap, which I’m a huge fan of, highly recommend that book. And basically, it suggests that we have these four quadrants, our zone of incompetence, things we’re not good at, don’t like, zone of competence, things we’re good at, don’t like, think zone of excellence, things we’re very good at, but don’t make us feel alive. And then your zone of genius, which is the things that you’re really good at, and that make you come alive. So for a lot of people, they get stuck in their zone of excellence, because they get accolades and praise and material rewards when they do things well, but it doesn’t really speak to their soul or make them come alive. And so one of the keys to creating a really deeply satisfying fulfilling life is to spend as much time as possible in your zone of genius. And, you know, if you don’t know what that is, that’s okay. One of the best ways to find out is to survey your friends, family and colleagues and ask them, I have a whole list of questions in the book. But ask them some of that, like, what are the things that I do really well, that I’m uniquely suited to do or that you get from me that you don’t get from anyone else? Those kinds of things. But I’ve also found over the years studying zone of genius that I actually think our genius is also a, a quality of beingness that we uniquely bring to everything that we do, and I tell this story in the book of my sister who’s a professional photographer, and we went around a table at this one women’s retreat saying, giving appreciating her. There was this common theme where people said, I feel really safe with you, Alexis, I feel safe when you’re taking my picture. I feel safe when I’m talking about my problems. And my sister is now getting her PhD in depth psychology. And again, she’s going to be an amazing, you know, therapists healer because people feel safe with her. And she gets really good pictures as a photographer because people feel safe with her. So there’s something she’s doing with her presence of being that she’s not even aware of. She’s not efforting, she’s not trying, just helps makes people feel safe. versus me, I have something with my presence of being where I people say that I believe them. I help them feel uplifted and energized when they’re around me. They see new possibilities. They feel inspired. That’s very different than people feel unsafe, you know, so you could see how, when I bring that quality of beingness, to whatever I’m doing, I feel really alive and really satisfied.
Clint Murphy 33:21
And in your sister’s situation, did she go on a soul solution journey of her own, to switch from a photographer to now doing a PhD in depth psychology?
Vanessa Loder 33:34
Yeah, well, even before that, before a photographer, she was going to medical school. I was like so unhappy, because it was so far removed, and had always been was an art major, but also a pre med major was trying to please our parents and be the good girl. And she went through a whole journey in claiming herself as an artist and a photographer. And then yeah, about five, seven years ago, and she went through another journey as a photographer, where she was sort of looking down. She was a wedding photographer, and she loved it. She loved capturing the special day. But because it wasn’t like high fashion, she sort of felt embarrassed that she liked it because she was also doing lifestyle photography. So even within photography, there was a definition of success. Yes, like, oh, you need to be in New York shooting fashion models, or you’re like a joke, right? Versus a wedding photographer is kind of looked down on compared to some other types of photography. She had to do some work around owning that and owning what she really enjoyed.
Clint Murphy 33:35
the And then what what prompted the depth psychology?
Vanessa Loder 33:43
A lot of it was her own journey. And you know, she had been, you know, working through her own, like depression and anxiety and she just loves learning these. And now what’s really cool is her thesis. She’s actually weaving together and she’s gotten really into the Native American traditions and gone on vision quests. And so she’s weaving together a lot of what she’s learned from the Native American tradition with photography, with the depth psychology and she’s doing a whole master’s thesis on, like, images and like selfies and Instagram and how that relates to union work. And it’s she’s like, created this crazy tapestry that’s so unique to who she is as a being.
Clint Murphy 35:14
This is phenomenal. So excited to learn this, that these things. So then a little bit of a pivot when it comes to chasing gold standards versus our True North Stars, you wrote that something that really stood out for me on that one, which was advancement without alignment does not feel good, eventually. So and I say that because often it can feel good in the moment, we think it can feel good. And we think getting ahead in our career feels good. And your son stopped saying I love you stops looking you in the eye. And he’s like, Well, you’re never home. And you’re like, oh, that doesn’t feel good. But I got promoted. So what does that look like? Why does it eventually come back to, hey, it doesn’t feel good.
Vanessa Loder 36:15
Because if you’re not in alignment, like you’re eventually going to hit some sort of a wall, you know, where you get all the accolades, you get all the things maybe, and then there’s still this hollowness inside of you. And so you realize, wait a minute, I thought that would fill it, I thought that would fill it. And now I got all those things. And it’s still there. And so it’s just, you know, and people talk about also, I’ve heard these questions like resume building versus eulogy building. So if you imagine people at the end of your life giving your eulogy, what is going to matter the most? Is it going to be like, well, he grew revenue 30%, when he was in product marketing, you know, not to take away from that goal. That’s a great goal. But the things that you’re going to remember or that people are really going to remember you for are often very different than the metrics that we’re chasing on a daily basis.
Clint Murphy 37:07
And that eulogy one is so strong, because do you want, are your kids going to remember that extra 50 grand you made that year because you didn’t see them? Or are they going to remember you being at the basketball game, picking them up after school, and spending time with them. Such an important one that a lot of us don’t learn soon enough.
Vanessa Loder 37:32
Yeah. And I teach all this stuff. And I still forget, you know, and I, I have work that I absolutely love. But I have to remind myself, I tell myself, often my work is a marathon and my kids are a sprint. Because I love what I do. I want to do it till I’m 85. And my kids are only in the house for a limited amount of time. And so, you know, it’s reminding yourself of what really matters
Clint Murphy 37:53
And how old are your kids now?
Vanessa Loder 37:55
Six and 10.
Clint Murphy 37:56
Six and 10? Yes, and it goes so fast, minor, 14, and 11. And there’s a there’s a writer who I read a fair bit online, any highlighted one of those gosh, darn charts that has all the little squares, and it was your time with your kids.
Vanessa Loder 38:13
Oh, I saw that same chart. And I was like, Oh, it’s so depressing as they get older.
Clint Murphy 38:18
Only one square out of the entire chart of squares was above the age of 19. And I was like what? Like, one of them’s only four years away from that it seems like I’ll never see him again. I was traumatized. I was like, I have to end things. I gotta see this kid, every day, and he’s like get lost date, like you’re already too late. But yeah, stuff like that really puts it in perspective that in the way you said that is your work as a marathon, your kids are a sprint. I love that wording choice. And you think of the North Star, what are the things that can get us into a challenge. We talked a fair bit about being in the box. And when you look at start putting that all together, it makes me think of the example you gave about plant in a pot. And how the pot will determine the size of the plant or the tree. How do you tie that analogy into us in our North Star and the fact that we may need to find a new pot?
Vanessa Loder 39:28
Get a bigger pot. Yeah, yeah. So you know, the gold standards are the things that our culture tells us we should chase and then your Northstar is what’s more aligned with your heart and your soul. And, and often we have put ourselves well, people around us and put us in a box but we’ve put ourselves in a box and really the only one who can take you out of the box is you. Getting a bigger pot is very useful. And one of the things that I think helps the most when you’re in that period of like I want more but how do I make it happen? I mentioned this a little bit earlier and in the book, finding role models. So imagine your plant in a tiny little pot, but then you see the same kind of plant as you in a bigger pot, and its leaves are like spreading out really wide. And you’d go, oh, wait a minute, that’s the same plant as me. Maybe it’s that one goes bigger in a bigger pot, like I can, too. And so finding role models of people who are out there doing some version of the thing that you want to be doing more of, and spending time around them, that’s a way you start to stretch your mindset, you start to get yourself in a new pot. If you aren’t, they say you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with. So, you know, if you want to be fulfilled by your work, how fulfilled by their work are the five people you spend the most time with? If you want to thrive a romantic partnership, how much are the five people you spend the most time with in a thriving romantic partnership? And if the answer is zero on either of those, well maybe try to go find some people who are. I mean, my husband and I went through a real rough patch in our marriage a couple of years ago. And I found a friend of the neighborhood who had just what I thought was like one of the best marriages and I took her out to lunch. And we hung out with them as couples and was like, What is your secret? How are you doing it with two small kids, you seem really kind to each other? And there’s no snarky comments and passive aggressiveness and bickering. Like how the heck are you doing that, you know, and I picked her brain. Of course, one thing that didn’t help us, she’s like, well, when we got married, we filled out the surveys with like, our pastor or whoever. He said, like we were the most compatible couple he’d ever seen. I mean, I can’t compete with that. But I like, but I actually study her, I really do. And I watch her. And one of the things I’ve learned is, when she’s doing way more than her husband with something. She doesn’t complain, she doesn’t snap at him. She just, you know, and so I, I really do watch how she moves through the world in relationship. And I will think about her sometimes when I’m going to my lower self, and I want to snap at my husband, I’ll think about what would she do like, she wouldn’t do that right now. And it kind of helps me elevate myself and my mindset and my behavior.
Clint Murphy 42:06
Something I often say to people is that is a beautiful strategy to employ with anything we want in life. So you may look around a room of people that you admire certain aspects of them. And there’s nothing wrong with saying, Oh, wait, I’m just going to borrow that behavior or that trait. And I’m going to copy it until it’s my own. And then I’m going to move over to Tina. And I’m going to borrow from her. And then I’m going to take that from Ted, so that you can become the best person you want by taking those behaviors and traits from all of those people you admire.
Vanessa Loder 42:47
Yeah, completely. And if you start to go into real envy or jealousy, which happens to me all the time, what I’ve learned is that is a sign of a repressed desire of a very important desire that you are not acknowledging or you are not fulfilling. So anytime you start to get really jealous or envious of someone, it’s a good time to go, Oh, what are they expressing in the world that’s a desire that I have not allowed myself or I have not, I’m not yet expressing in the same way, that really matters to me.
Clint Murphy 43:17
Before we can do that step is we need to focus on the next thing that you talk about. Which interestingly, we both use different words for it. But I have on my on my website, I say, Oh, here’s the rules for people who want to work with me, and my number one rule is own your shit. Which ties to your idea of radical responsibility. So for our listeners, how do you define radical responsibility? And what is your framework, you have a wonderful framework for making sure that we are exercising radical responsibility in our lives.
Vanessa Loder 43:58
Yeah. So I define radical responsibility is taking 100% responsibility for your life, for your circumstances, for the results you’re producing, not less than 100%, which is often in victim mode, and not more than 100% which is the Hero mode. And I talked about, you know, one of the things I learned from Gay and Katy Hendricks is when we’re not taking 100% responsibility. We’re often stuck in victim, villain or hero mode. And there’s a series of questions you can ask yourself that I walk through in the book, to start taking responsibility. So for example, anything that you’re complaining about, anything you’re complaining about is an area where you’re not taking responsibility. Yeah. So I have a series of questions you can take yourself through to go from a complaint to taking responsibility.
Clint Murphy 44:46
And when you think about a relationship, one of the one of the best lines ever heard and this may resonate when you in your husband started to do some work on your relationship is you may only be 50%. and responsible for the relationship. But you’re 100% responsible for your 50%.
Vanessa Loder 45:07
Yeah, yes, this is true.
Clint Murphy 45:11
And how many yet?
Vanessa Loder 45:13
I love the question, How am I contributing to this? That’s just a great question to start to take responsibility. How am I contributing to this? And let’s say like your, your boss is a complete jerk, and you don’t ever do anything, and they come and yell at you. And it’s abusive, toxic relationship. And you think you’re not doing anything, no matter what, you’re contributing in some way. And maybe you’re contributing by staying in that environment rather than leaving, that’s an example, somewhat, because other people will say, well, all these other people are being terrible to me. It’s like, well, maybe you’re staying, that’s actually a way that you might be contributing.
Clint Murphy 45:47
Well in what’s that saying where if one of them is being a jerk to you, they’re a jerk. But if they’re all being a jerk to you, you’re a jerk. Is that?
Vanessa Loder 45:57
Yeah, that’s the common denominator.
Clint Murphy 46:00
Yeah, yeah. So another area that you write about is something I’ve spent probably the last 10 plus years of my life focused on, when it comes to doing the deep work that you talked about, the journey that I’ve been on, a lot of it’s been about two things, one, increasing the gap between stimulus and response, and then two, making better choices in that gap. And so I thought the formula that you had, which was events plus mindful pause, plus healthier response, equals better outcomes. Can you talk to the listeners a bit about what you and I like, who are these two spiritual crazies? What are they talking about? Event, stimulus response. Right, can you bring them up to speed on what we’re talking about?
Vanessa Loder 46:50
Sure. So Jack Canfield has that equation in his book, The Success Principles, E + R = O, events, plus your response equals your outcome. And you don’t have control often over the E. But you always have control over the R, which is your response or your reaction. And that can give you a totally different outcome. And, you know, the way that neuroplasticity works with our mind, like the first time you’re in traffic, and you get angry, you’re building like a new neural pathway in your brain between traffic and anger. As you continue to have that same habitual response, that neural pathway gets strengthened such that it’s almost automatic, like traffic, anger. And the response happens so quickly after the event of traffic, that it almost doesn’t feel like a choice. And what I’ve learned is if you can create a mindful pause before your response, or even after your third response, but before your 17th response. Right, that you can start to shift and have a different outcome. And it this can feel like really hard work in the beginning, because you are rewiring your brain, it is hard work. But it’s also in my opinion, the most important work because once you do it, it becomes easier and easier. So the next time you’re in traffic, you think of three things you’re grateful for, or you look around at the sky, and you decide to notice something pleasant or beautiful to look at in your environment. I started doing this on my drives, where I’ll say I’m gonna see something pleasantly surprising on my drive. And I, I always notice things that I’ve never seen before. And it’s just a fun game to play. And so as you redirect your attention to more joyful positive things, you’re actually strengthening those neural pathways, and making it easier and easier to have those experiences going forward. Which is, in my opinion, like the best investment we can make of our attention and our focus, because it literally makes it easier to be happier in the future.
Clint Murphy 48:36
Yeah, and the more you can do it, the easier it is to exercise it. At first, it can be very hard. But if you’re doing it more often, then you can be calmer and less angry. Now, what do you tell your clients, let’s say, um, it’s something I’m working on. But we all inevitably have the miss, and it’s like, oh, I snapped at my son or I snapped at my wife. Like, how do we hold ourselves with compassion, so that we can come back and do it better next time?
Vanessa Loder 49:15
Yeah, well, my favorite self compassion hack comes from Jensen Zero. And what it is, is you save yourself. I’m just a little bunny doing my best. And it sounds kind of like, the first time I heard it. I was like, That’s stupid, or that’s silly. But then I tried it. And it really, really works. And here’s why I think it works so well. It pops you into humor. And when you’re in humor, you can’t be in self criticism at the same time. And so I use that one all the time, because it’s one sentence and it’s a super quick shift, yell at my son in the car because he’s like, not listening. And I’m just a little bunny doing my best. Well, the other quick thing that works really well is imagine like your best friend that they just did whatever you did, that you’re beating yourself up about. What would you say to your best friend? Sometimes I’ll even write it down what I would say to her, and then read that or say that to yourself, or imagine your best friend saying that to you. Like, I know you’re, you know, some days, I’ll be like, I’m not a good mom. And I’m a terrible businesswoman. And I’m a failure. And my best friend would be like, Are you kidding me? You’re amazing. Look at all these things you’re doing. It’s incredible. And so you just, that’s a great way to to access a more kind and gentle voice.
Clint Murphy 50:24
Oh, and so that’s exactly where I want to go with you right now. Because we talked a little bit about people putting us in a box and discouraging us. And we also talked a bit about that voice and being able to shut it off. And so what I’m referring to here, because to me, this is one of the most important things people can fix to live the life they dream about is, you know, in this is a bit of a longer one, sorry, it’s, I’m giving a TED talk from your book, we come into this world with an intrinsic belief in our own worthiness and beauty. We don’t question it. Then as we get older, the adults around us praise us when we excel in ways they deem important. And offer a veil or unbridled judgment when we don’t meet expectations. They don’t believe they are enough. And so they tell us we aren’t enough, which creates this never ending not enough mislead. It’s natural that we start to wonder, Am I enough? This self doubt lodgeds itself in the back of our psyche and manifests as self criticism compounded, and this is huge, by media advertising, social media, and more. So why don’t we need that voice? And how can our listeners shut it off? Or even as you say, convert it from a critic to a coach?
Vanessa Loder 51:51
Yeah. Well, I was surprised when I looked at some of the research because I think like myself, a lot of overachievers assume, well, I probably I need some of that voice to push me or I’ll lose my edge, you know, or I’ll just be kind of too lazy if I don’t have that voice. The research shows the opposite is true, so Kristin Neff, who is the leading PhD researcher on self compassion, has found that self compassion actually increases willpower. And there was one study that I love where they, they gave people a piece of chocolate cake, and then they gave them different messages around like, that they should feel guilty for eating it or no message is the control or self compassionate message. And the people who got the self compassionate message, they ate less of the dessert, which you would think if you’re like, oh, it’s no big deal that you would eat, you would just keep eating, but they didn’t, they ate less. So you know, the research shows that when we’re kind to ourselves, we actually have more willpower, more resilience, more joy, more satisfaction, and predict to coach you’re having a shift. I mean, there’s a lot of different tools, many of which I share in the book. Some of it, as with all change, I think it starts with awareness. And so you just have to begin to hear first you have to separate yourself from that voice, rather than believing you are that voice. So you have to catch it, when you’re when you hear it in your own head being like, Oh, you’re an idiot, or, Oh, you shouldn’t have done that. Or, Oh, that was stupid, or you have no friends. So sometimes my voice will be like, you have no good friends. You know, like these dramatic statements that we make, right? That’s not true. I have friends. Somehow the voice in my head will be like, you have no friends. After some awkward social interaction. You know, where all these, like, people are hanging out. And I feel like I’m on the outside. I’ll go home and be like, you have no friends. And so we have to catch it and notice it. And this is again, where meditation comes in. Because you get used to being in the seat of the observer, observing the voice as it passes through rather than believing in stories. If you haven’t meditated or you don’t want to, you can also just catch yourself when you start to feel really bad. And then go What was I just thinking? What was I just saying to myself, right, as I started to feel really bad, right as I wanted to reach for the pint of ice cream, right as I wanted to, like, go get a chocolate bar out of the pantry. What was I thinking? Or what was I going through emotionally? Because often you can kind of backtrack to notice, you know, when you’re in self criticism, well, then and then the key is to start to cultivate a more compassionate voice. And I gave a couple of ways to do that, like imagining your best friend, and what would they say to you in that moment? There’s a whole process outlined in the book based on the research and how to kind of expand your ability to be more self compassionate.
Clint Murphy 54:22
And have you ever tested out yourself thought auditing and journaling on those thoughts? And so like, for example, I have the negative thoughts, write it down. Then on the other side of the page, write three to five more logical thoughts to learn Hey, wait, I’m almost always wrong at what I think.
Vanessa Loder 54:43
Yeah, journaling is a really powerful way to bring that voice to the surface. And also to see kind of the ridiculousness of it. Sometimes and you down those critical thoughts. You go, that’s insane. That’s not true at all. Why am I saying that about myself? There’s something about it that makes it like more you see the ridiculousness of it on the page, you know?
Clint Murphy 55:02
Absolutely. And when I first started doing it, then I was able to, after a period of time be like, Okay, well, I can do this in my head, I can listen. And then I would start giggling almost out loud, because it’d be like, Oh, that was so outlandish. Like, oh, how did that even that’s amazing.
Vanessa Loder 55:19
That’s for you journaling helped you really get clear on that voice?
Clint Murphy 55:23
The paper didn’t take long. It was this happened when I was probably 35. And it was cognitive behavioral therapy. It was a book called Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. So I often say, and that section is all I really remember. But I say that that book changed my life by far more than that, because it was that book that allowed me to go from my brain or my mind, being the master, to my mind being a tool. And that was the first 35 years of my life, just this spinning mind. ADHD, that’s just always and then it now it’s largely gone. It’s Oh, hey, if I want to use it, I use it. And it was just doing that exercise for maybe half a month, a month.
Vanessa Loder 56:11
Wow. And what would you do is you write down like, throughout the day, when you notice the voice? Or would you write down like at night? Or, you know, what was your practice?
Clint Murphy 56:19
Anytime it talked to me, I would write down what it said.
Vanessa Loder 56:23
But how would you even begin to catch it when it was talking to you.
Clint Murphy 56:28
That’s just the intention, right? Because the the books kind of saying, hey, to your point, the books – self awareness, number one, so you’re just listening for it. Okay, it just said something. I’m just gonna write that down. And then it didn’t take long similar to meditation when you’re having thoughts. Misconception, listeners is a lot of you think when we talk about meditation, the idea is to have zero thoughts. No, it’s to be able to bring our attention back, not grasp and dive into the thought. And so that’s similar concept and I hadn’t started meditating yet. But now that I think about it, it was really that concept of, hey, don’t grasp these thoughts. Just recognize them, write them down. So teaching yourself that focus part, that awareness part of oh, I just had a thought, what was it? And then and then the fun part, Vanessa was, because where a lot of it comes out, is you’re at work, and someone says something to you. And you may say to me, Oh, my boss just said this, this must be what they meant. And whenever you say, this must be what they meant. Immediately you realize that person, just monkey mind, minded themselves. Because that’s not what their boss said. Their boss said, this sentence. Any meaning thereafter that’s being ascribed to that sentence is them and you would, I don’t do it anymore. But because it was new, I would laugh when I caught like a crazy monkey mind from, you know, my boss and I were going through a hard time at work at the time. And so he would have a lot of crazy monkey mind statements. And I would just start to chuckle because I’m like, Oh, he just made that up, thats not at all what the person on the other side of the shop meant, or it’s just our mind telling us. And so it was. That’s why I love this section. And because I think for me personally, shutting that off, and learning to shut those thoughts off was was the biggest life change.
Vanessa Loder 58:37
Yeah, it’s life changing. When you start to read. And there’s that expression in Buddhism, they talk about in the book of the second arrow, you know that the first arrow is like, you say the thing in the meeting, and then you go, I can’t believe I said that. Or your boss says the thing to you and you feel what, but then the second arrow is like you repeating it back in your head. And again, and again and again. So they say, you know, pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. Yes, what we do is we just like replay it. I joke in the book, but I’m kind of serious. I think I’m shooting between 17 and 37 arrows. I don’t think it’s two. No, I don’t. I don’t catch myself until the 39th arrow. Yeah. And then I’m like, Oh, wait, oh, I feel really bad. Oh, what if I’ve been saying to myself, now that I’m on Arrow 39. And I’m like, Oh, God, what just happened?
Clint Murphy 59:22
Yeah, I gotta let this go in. Sometimes it’s hard. Right? It’s it’s like a simple example, our youngest son came in this weekend and said his brother threw him down on the basketball court. And we just pull up the nest camera and we’re like, you pull that you pulled a Lionel Messi like you don’t like there was no, there was no throw down. But now he’s committed, right? He’s committed. He’s like, No, that’s what I told myself. So for the next hour, he just cried and kept trying to get us to, I don’t know. Ground his brother like it’s like no will we just watched the video, he didn’t do anything.
Vanessa Loder 1:00:03
Technology to even check and confirm that your story is actually not in fact, true.
Clint Murphy 1:00:07
I am telling you as your kids get older, those cameras are magical, magical. In every room, it’s like I did not have the remote control that went missing. Well, let us just rewind the video because we know it went missing the day we went on vacation. And hey, it looks like it’s in your hand. Look at the video. This is right before we leave the house. And he’s like, I did have it. So anyway, a way that you can have fun with that. So one last question on the book. And then we’ll fire some rapid fire ones on you is you talk about this idea of agreements we make with ourselves and others. And then there was the concept to recognize that we can change those agreements, they don’t have to stay the same but what must be honored is having clear agreements and upholding them. But that doesn’t preclude us from updating what’s no longer working. And what matters most is that we are in integrity with ourselves. So what does that look like for people? And like, how did they get in trouble with that? And how can they get a little more free by recognizing that?
Vanessa Loder 1:01:22
Yeah, and often we don’t want to disappoint other people. And so we lie to ourselves to make them happy. And I went through this with my business where, you know, gosh, five or six years ago, I had another business I had co founded that was still mindfulness based and me and my co founder wanted to go different directions. And I kind of realized at first I just was not enjoying the work and that and I went on a walk with my girlfriends, but I can’t, I can’t leave this business, it’d be betraying her. My friend said, Vanessa, you’re betraying yourself. And if you’re betraying yourself, you’re ultimately you’re betraying her, because you’re lying to her. And that was a real aha moment for me because I thought I was doing the loyal thing, doing the right thing, stay the course, don’t give up on something. But if everything in you is like constricted and tight and heavy, then you’re ultimately betraying yourself. And that actually means you’re betraying others too, because you’re living a lie. And, you know, it was very radical for me to realize that we can always make new agreements with people. And that actually where it gets really sticky, where most people get themselves in trouble is they don’t they just go around the agreement, because they take the backdoor out, because they don’t want to acknowledge that the agreement isn’t working. And so then they, they start showing up late, or they sabotage or they do these weird, passive aggressive things, rather than just have a face to face conversation around like, hey, how I’m feeling today, is this working. And maybe we need a new agreement about this. So it’s actually easier to go through the front door. But because we’re so conflict avoidant, and we’re so scared of upsetting people, we often don’t do that. And then we do get into a mess. And then we think, Oh, great. I can’t ever change an agreement. But it’s not that you can’t change the agreement. It’s just that you did it in a really subversive way that left the person feeling betrayed.
Clint Murphy 1:03:09
And that’s so you know, if you take the workplace as an example, and you’re having a situation on the team, and you never bring all the cards out into the open and say, Hey, here’s what’s happening. Here’s the issue here. Here’s what we haven’t done about it that we could have. Here’s what we should do, or what we will do, like really having that fierce conversation and just here’s the brutal facts. Let’s talk about it. Let’s all get on the same page. You may have thought we said this, you may have thought we meant this, but here’s reality today. Can we all get around that together? Like create the new agreement and be open about it?
Vanessa Loder 1:03:49
Yeah, and I also think that’s where taking responsibility comes in. Because when you want to make a new agreement, it’s good to lead by taking responsibility for how you’ve contributed to the current situation that isn’t working you know, so in that situation maybe it’s here’s how we can take responsibility for how we did not communicate this well and why there’s been so much confusion and you know, whatever the situation may be.
Clint Murphy 1:04:10
So some rapid fire questions we throw at all our authors what is one book that’s really had an oversized impact on changing your life?
Vanessa Loder 1:04:21
I would probably have to say Many Lives Many Masters by Brian Weiss, it’s all about past lives. And I’ve read that book and was blown away did not even believe in reincarnation did not even think it was something I cared about. And it really radically changed my worldview.
Clint Murphy 1:04:38
Okay, I have to understand that a bit more. What are you reading right now? What’s what’s on the bookshelf that has you enjoying it?
Vanessa Loder 1:04:44
Oh, enjoying. While enjoying you know, fiction. I am reading what is it? The Cloud Cuckoo book right now is the same person who wrote All the Light We Cannot See. It’s like Cloud Cuckoo Nest .I think that’s the only issue with reading on my Kindle is I never see book covers anymore so I never know the name of this book, and then another book I was looking at today, I love this oracle deck. The mine Oracle is doing this today for a client and actually have these symbols in Bible journaling. Yes. And I’ve also been enjoying this book. You are a badass at making money by Jen Sincero. It’s just she’s very irreverent. And but it’s got some just wonderful basic tools for calling in more abundance.
Clint Murphy 1:05:26
I like it. Abundance is good. What’s one thing that Vanessa has spent under $1,000 on in the last 1218 months, that you think, Ah, I should have bought this sooner?
Vanessa Loder 1:05:41
Oh, that I wish I bought sooner. Hmm. Actually, this vase. Okay, I know it sounds silly. But it’s by Heath ceramics, which is this really beautiful, you know, like handmade ceramics company. And I love fresh flowers. And I’ve been doing so many. I’m just realizing there’s water under it. So many podcast interviews since the book came out. And you know, TV news appearances. And I just realized, like, I really love having flowers behind me and I get to see it while I’m on screen. And it brings me joy. So I wish I had that many months ago.
Clint Murphy 1:06:16
And because the shows about growth. What’s a mindset shift, a behavior change or a habit adoption, that has had an oversize impact on improving your life?
Vanessa Loder 1:06:30
Well, one of the ones I’ve been doing recently is I realized that I had a limiting belief that if I make a ton of money with my work, I’m gonna, as a keynote speaker, I’m going to be flown all over and it’s going to take me away from my kids more than I want. And so I’ve been reprogramming that one lately to money supports me spending even more time with my kids, and feeling the truth of that and feeling that and feeling the real. The truth of that is the old model of success is like, Oh, I’m gonna get busier if I make more money, I’m gonna get busier. And then I can’t have all the freedom and the flexibility and the time with my kids is like, No, I make a lot of money. It’s going to support me and having even more time with my kids
Clint Murphy 1:07:06
That really resonates. I’m maybe writing a book on money, and financial independence topic. And, you know, chapter one is money isn’t evil. And it’s all the stories we’ve learned growing up and in the myths and it’s a tool. More money to do more of what you want. If you want to be philanthropic. You want to spend time with your kids. If you’re fantastically wealthy, you can spend every minute of every day with them. Okay, yeah. So we went pretty wide and deep in the book. Is there anything that we didn’t cover, though, that you want to make sure the listeners hear before we wrap up?
Vanessa Loder 1:07:53
Let me just tune into my heart on that one. I think I would just want people to know that they have all the answers inside of them. And it really is about doing what I just did it. Just taking a minute to get still in quiet and just to not tune in and go what do I need right now? What is my heart telling me right now? And trusting that trusting that wisdom and that guidance that it’s always available to you?
Clint Murphy 1:08:18
I love it a great way to end it and where can they find you?
Vanessa Loder 1:08:22
Well, you can find my book, anywhere where you buy books, Barnes and Noble Amazon, but if you get it through my website, there’s a page Vanessaloder/soulsolution, just click on the big book, the top of the website VanessaLoder.com. Anyway, I have a whole resource vault of audios with guided meditations, visualizations to connect with your future self. It’s a whole companion thing for the book with tons of audios and downloadable PDFs. So I would definitely check that page out and then you can also join the free 30 day meditation challenge from my website if you want it’s just Vanessa loader/30-day
Clint Murphy 1:09:02
Awesome. We will have all of that in the show notes with the link so people will be able to find you. Thank you for joining me today. That was wonderful.
Vanessa Loder 1:09:09
Thanks for having me. It’s been a joy.
Clint Murphy 1:09:11
Cheers.