Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Sydney, what an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. I feel like we're going to have such a great conversation. There's so many things I want to ask you.
With your permission, I would like to start with a difficult question.
Would you be so kind humbly to share with your our audience what was the most difficult moment in your life?
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Well, there's been a lot, you know, it's been a constant awakening journey and being a human alive on earth at this time.
And yeah, this is actually a question I get asked a lot because I'm pretty open about sharing my journey and transformational kind of experience and sometimes the answer is different.
What's coming up now isn't actually, you know, the usual story will be about, you know, getting sober from drugs and alcohol when I was 24 years old, which is really, you know, big spiritual awakening for me to get on my purpose path as a healer, coach, leader.
But what's coming up now to share more about is the moment where I quit my last full time job to start my business as an entrepreneur. That was one of the hardest things I've ever gone through because I was faced with so much self doubt and fear and just fear of the unknown. You know, leaving this incredible job with this team and company I had helped build and just choosing to really take the leap off this cliff of the unknown of entrepreneurship. This was in 2016. I was living in New York City and one of the most terrifying days of my life was putting my notice in to the founder of the agency. I worked at a PR agency called Pray Tell and I was terrified and I really didn't have a plan B. I just fully jumped off the cliff and just knew I'm ready, I want to go out on my own. And it was the best thing I've ever done.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: What are the thoughts and feelings that were going through your head in those few moments before you gave your notice?
[00:02:12] Speaker B: I remember feeling paralyzing anxiety. I had to check in with a lot of my support team, community. Thank God I couldn't have done that alone. I had so much support. I had a coach, I had of support, friends helping me kind of bookend. So it was really, you know, the thoughts going through, if I could remember were just things like, you know, am I making the right decision? Am I? Is this crazy? Who am I to think I can. So even to this day I have a, you know, the fraud complex, imposter syndrome can be strong for me. Even with everything I've gone through, it can still be a prominent aspect. You know of my self doubt or inner criticism or really a driver and a motivator to also create, you know, and really innovate. But at that time, I mean, it was just, it was very overwhelming and I had so much self doubt and really this feeling of I'm, you know, I'm not enough. I don't know if I can really do what I say I want to do.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: As a serial entrepreneur, I've, I feel deeply what you're sharing because I've gone through this process myself multiple times.
Paralyzing, I think is a great word that you used.
Let me just start by saying something very simple and I'm quoting one of my favorite guests. I asked him, well, what would you tell your 20 year old self? And he said the following thing and let me say that to you now. You are enough.
You are absolutely enough. I thought that was such a powerful thing and I feel people don't get told that enough because we don't, we tell ourselves the opposite so very often.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: Thank you. Yeah, it's been a journey with that. And I even find the word itself is quite strange. This word enough is quite an odd word that we have in our collective consciousness. It implies that there is such a thing as scarcity. And it's interesting, I think about that. Does this even mean anything really? But it tends to be. I work through this with clients as well and especially like visionaries and people here to create the future. This imposter syndrome thing, it's very real and I think it's a part of entrepreneurship.
And you can learn to actually relate to this energy in a different way, where it can be motivating, it can be a driver and you can also just get to know yourself and that if this is something that you have that you can learn to be in conversation with it almost like you would with a child that's kind of acting out, you know, and it actually just wants comfort and it wants support and it wants acknowledgement. And that's really been my experience, is learning how to hold myself with a lot of compassion and understanding and love and care to like soothe that aspect that can be so insecure and really because it just cares, it cares so much, maybe too much. And it wants permission to just take a break, rest, take it easy, don't worry, it's going to be okay.
[00:05:12] Speaker A: You know, the, the best way I've been able to describe this to, let's call it Muggles, right? Non entrepreneurs, if that's hopefully not, not offensive to anybody.
But if you become an entrepreneur, you're almost self electing to be bipolar because there are days, and when I say bipolar, what I really mean is manic depressive. There are days that you feel the world is falling on your shoulders, on your head, and there are days that you feel you are on top of the Everest and sometimes it's the same day, which is the ridiculous thing. So it's really a difficult journey to go.
Let me ask you another question.
After you stepped into this entrepreneurial journey and we'll jump into what you're doing and what you're focused on nowadays in a bit, but what was your hardest day and what were you thinking and asking yourselves, were you, how many times have you said, oh, I'm going to stop, I'm going to quit since you started.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: I had some pretty tough days earlier this week, honestly. And I mean to your point, what you just said, so powerful. I would, I would say yes. There's like slight, there's manic.
I mean really, anybody that's here to create something new that's never existed before, you got to be a little insane. You have to see a little bit outside of the status quo. You're a black sheep, right? It's like one of my favorite images is like the flock of sheep and there's like the one black one that's just standing out that sees the different possibilities. And you have to get used to people not understanding you because you speak a different language. And it's almost like you have to be comfortable with being a little bit crazy at first. But that's how, that's how we shift. That's how we create the new. And I'm fascinated by this because, you know, I'm a visionary myself and I get to support people along that path. And it, there's so many complex emotional, you know, threads as visionaries that we get to work with, that we sign up to work with honestly by choosing this path because it's, it's not chart, it's not a charted course. We're charting our own course. And so actually, to your point, it can be manic, it can be, you know, a crazy journey, but also not as, not so much if you learn to cultivate more energetic stability, which is what I've learned the hard way. But now I can really, you know, I can help others with that. It's like when we can cultivate more presence and calm and resource and heal our nervous systems to just be more peaceful, it's not so manic and we can actually be more creative and really harness our potential and Capacity in even more new ways and more innovative ways, and we don't burn out. It's probably the number one thing I've experienced in my own path and with others I've helped is just this burnout of getting caught up in almost the hypnotism that frankly we're celebrated for in some ways in our society. Just work, work overwork, you're a machine and just hustle harder and all of these things that are actually not healthy and. But these burnout periods can often be great awakenings for people to realize, wait a minute. Yes, I have a vision, yes, I have a higher purpose. I meant to create something new, but I need to learn how to do it sustainably. So this is something that I regularly am refining in myself as an energy healer, as a guide, as a coach. You know, I got to walk the talk if I'm helping people with embodiment and conscious leadership. You know, I'm constantly refining how I'm showing up in those ways in my life. So even just earlier this week, I was having a tough time getting letting my mind, letting some of the self criticism or really the ways I will make the ways I can take care of myself conditional upon an external achievement. I was playing this game with myself. Like, you know, I want to do these things to take care of myself. Like get a really, really cool manicure.
[00:09:01] Speaker A: Right now I gotta stop you for a second. You said such a, such a fundamentally important thing. I just want to stop and have you explain that. You talked about having your self worth be dependent on an external thing.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: That's it. That's my game that I play sometimes.
[00:09:19] Speaker A: Okay, explain. Okay, you say that and I'm like, I am right there with you, sister. But bring our audience along on this journey. What does that mean? What is examples of that and how does it go so terribly, awfully wrong? And why is that a wrong decision to make?
[00:09:36] Speaker B: I mean, it's, it's. Well, actually I'm just. Rather than making it wrong, I'm trying to really love myself even more and be more compassionate and more accepting and just more present. For me, this pattern comes from childhood. It comes from what I would call a wound around abandonment and not feeling affirmed and really valued so that I could build a very healthy sense of wholeness as a child. Coming from a long line of ancestors and parents that were just really neglected and had addiction and you know, alcoholism, things like this that really create challenges with one's nervous system and ability to resource and develop healthy coping mechanisms and a healthy sense of a Differentiated self. And so these are all things I had to learn and grow through, through trauma and through addict of my own. And, and so this worthiness piece, it's, it continues to be. And I think it's something it's, I continue to work on as long as I'm alive. I don't think that there's any end. I think we can continue refining and growing and learning as long as we're here. Maybe that's the point. And for me it really will arise. Now this is something, you know, I've worked on for some, spent over a decade of conscious awareness of these patterns. And the answer continues to be, you know, to cultivate more love and acceptance and compassion and to take the right action when everything in my system or my mind will want me to, you know, beat myself up. Not enough like the inner drill sergeant or inner critic. That again was really good at getting a lot done, being a high achiever, being very high functioning, having a lot of success, being celebrated by many people, getting a lot of attention, you know, getting a lot of like money or clients or whatever it is. But all of these external achievements, they're like a moving target. It's never enough. It's never enough to fill this sense of a void or a God sized hole, whatever you want to call it that, you know, at the end of the day it's what I'm really wanting is my own unconditional love and support. And so I was saying, I was, you know, I was wanting to do all these self care things just because I know they feel good for me to do. And as a spaceholder and facilitator, my priority is to feel really good so I'm serving from overflow and I can be fully present with people. But I was making these self care things conditional upon, you know, an achievement or a milestone, like a checklist. You know, I have to do all this stuff before I can go take a break and really do something kind for my body and my soul. And, and that was on, you know, earlier this week. I was doing that and then I, I snapped out of it after kind of having enough pain. Frankly. Pain can be an awakening ally even now. And I'm like, you know what? Nope, I'm gonna not listen to the mental tape anymore and I'm gonna go do the opposite action anyway and act my way into right thinking.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: I love that. You know, I have three kids and they, I feel like, I feel like I'm making this mistake with them and it's almost worse like when you make A mistake with yourself, it's like, okay, but when you make it with somebody else, it almost feels like a sin. So I caught myself and I told my son, you know what? Actually that doesn't matter. He. He got a bad grade at school. And I said, that doesn't matter. What matters more is what you've learned from that. Was there any process, was there any thing that you did that contributed to this bad outcome that you would like to change and do differently? So we went through this whole exercise and I said, did you sleep enough? You know, did you, you know, have a meal? Were you hungry? Were there loud noises in class? Were you distracted? And we're. And he's like, no, no, no, no, no. We go through this whole exercise and I was like, o test, it's a math test. Like, oh, where's your work?
And he's like, oh, I didn't write the work I did in my head. Now he's incredibly bright, so he can do that most of the time. Well.
And I said, oh, that's your mistake. Right? Your process was, you know, incomplete in that way that you should show your work. And that's all. And next time that allows you to check your work, that allows you to do better. And I said to him, Liam, like, I don't care that you got a good grade or a bad grade or you fail or whatever, but this ability to just put your bar compared to yourself, not to an achievement, not to anybody else, just say, I'm going to be a teeny bit better tomorrow. That's the only thing that matters. I felt that that was my, like, counter to my own mistakes of measuring myself to all these bars by saying, no, no, just, just make it. I'm sorry, I'm going to do something terrible. I'm going to quote Zootopia, the children's movie, make new mistakes every day. So I find myself giving him this like thing. I'm like, just make new mistakes every day. That's all. Don't make the same mistakes. Just make new mistakes every day.
And you should have seen his face. It's like him realizing that it just gave him all this relief. It's like, no, I'm not angry at you because your grade wasn't perfect. That's totally fine. Just be better tomorrow in some small way.
And then my 5 year old and suddenly this has been this big thing in the house. New mistakes every day. So that's kind of my interpretation of, you know, give yourself a frickin break, basically. So I love your story. Thank you. So much for sharing it.
[00:14:59] Speaker B: Thank you for sharing yours. That's such an amazing example and model.
[00:15:03] Speaker A: This is recent. This is like, this is like yesterday I got so many of these. It feels like being a parent like arms you of news stories every day. My 5 year old is a whole different thing. But anyway, he's not a kid, he's a raptor, basically. But anyway, you started this new journey. I'm going to try to keep on track. You started this new journey. Tell us about what you're doing today and what you're excited about.
[00:15:28] Speaker B: Thank you. I'm excited about everything I just shared. Just honestly approaching every day, moment by moment, how can I be more present and real and embodied and listen to what is the impulse to create, to share, to feel connected. And so I was guided to, after a long journey with my own startups and kind of in my own entrepreneurial echo chamber, always with different ventures and working with amazing leaders, I closed a company I had been building for three and a half years, about this time last year actually. And it was in the social media space called Ascend. And it was for anyone that's gone through a closure, it was like a death, you know, and it was really. Yeah, yeah, it was a grieving process, but I still wanted to build something to implement.
[00:16:16] Speaker A: Hold on, you also wrote a book with that name? More or less.
[00:16:20] Speaker B: That came out last year too. Right. There's a lot going on last year, but I feel like I always have a lot happening and I'm just going.
[00:16:27] Speaker A: To name drop the book for you.
[00:16:28] Speaker B: Right.
[00:16:28] Speaker A: It's called I'm Ascending. What now? We'll come back to that later.
[00:16:33] Speaker B: Thank you. That was a big deal. That was like a four year writing process and that came out last June. I'm Ascending now. What? And that is a manual for embodied ascension, leadership, authenticity. And. And so that had come out, that was also a bit of a death process as well. Because when you spend four years working on something and then it's out in the world and it's done, there's like this strange transition that. And then, you know, months later, closing the other company, a lot of endings in a short period of time. And I still had this drive to be a part of creating a systems change level, you know, company or technology. And so then I was connected to Mattermore, which is the company I'm helping grow in New York. And that's an AI startup that's supporting leaders to better communicate, better collaborate and really create a different culture of trust within organization. So I'm the Head of strategic partnerships there, and I'm doing fun things like fundraising and planning events and supporting product development. It's been a blast.
[00:17:31] Speaker A: That is absolutely wonderful.
I want to talk more about. Matter more, but before we get there, what were the three, let's say, biggest pains and takeaways that you shared in your book? I'm ascending now.
[00:17:47] Speaker B: Thank you for bringing that up, by the way. You can even tell by the way I talk about it that I'm like, oh, it's. It was such a big.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: There is. I've never, like, I speak to a lot of authors. There is not one author that I ask there about the book. And they're like, man, I don't care about that. When you write a book, it's like, you know, I don't know, birthing a child, but you're. You're definitely giving something of yourself. You definitely are doing that.
[00:18:08] Speaker B: It's like that. And I. It was such a long journey, though, writing it. I really feel it bears my soul. I tell more about my story with addiction, and I've had a really wild life. I've lived a lot of life for somebody my age. I've been through a lot. And I wrote about it, and I really wrote it as a manual. My first book came out in 2018 that's called the Empath, what to do when you feel everything. And I wrote that really as a resource for all the people I was healing, you know, through energy, healing through coaching. And I was telling them all the same different things. And I thought, you know, what if I just put this in an article? The article went viral, then it expanded into a bigger book, and then that's an international bestseller because really help people with the different tools and practices, practical application for ways they. For ways they can optimize their energy and feel more present and develop healthier boundaries, things like this. And so that was in 2018. And then I'm ascending now. What is really a deeper dive into all the things I've learned, you know, since then and practiced and a lot of different actual instruction for things you can do now. Immediate resources to heal your nervous system, to feel more connected to your purpose, to feel more open to your intuitive insight, things like this and go very deep into shame and healing. We talked a little bit about it. Worthiness, shame, guilt, the different shadows. I call these, you know, the universal wounds that really connect us all, that we all share. We're really not so different at all. Most people, we have so much more in common than we have apart or different.
[00:19:40] Speaker A: And Unless we're on the Internet flaming each other, then, then it feels like we're miles apart. But when you meet a person face to face, it's like, oh, that's a fellow human being.
[00:19:49] Speaker B: Exactly, yes.
So, yeah, it's, it's, it's a manual, it's, it's long, it's very long. I read the audiobook, it's a 15 hour long audiobook.
But my intention is, you know, I created this, I was guided to create this time capsule, this resource that, I mean it really is like an encyclopedia of everything that I've come across that someone can immediately do to heal their nervous system from even complex trauma, which has been my experience from, you know, transform addictions, etc. And really empower yourself to live an authentic, purposeful, and I would hope, really joyful life.
[00:20:31] Speaker A: Can you describe for me a very specific example from yourself or another person where they're in this moment of pain? What is that moment of pain that they were experiencing and what is the tool or technique or approach that helped them from the book to get through it? I kind of want to make this very real and tangible.
[00:20:52] Speaker B: Well, there's so many. I mean it honestly, it also feels like it's been lifetime since that. I'm such a different person from who wrote that book. I had to like get it out. Actually at the time I had to get out before I went through another big evolution. Like the version of me, who I am now, I couldn't write. I'm already writing a new book now, so it's just different. But I'll give a very live example from someone as a student in my facilitator training right now and very, you know, an hour ago messaged me and was just sharing that she's going through a really challenging time of kind of, to your point, of the manic journey of entrepreneurship, having been on a lot of high highs and feeling magnetic and a lot of abundance and gratitude, service. And then the last few days just feeling really down and having some things in the physical reality reflecting just some big challenges, you know, kind of materially and then also being physically sick, like just not feeling well. And you're asking me, you know, what, what can I do? I need some support. Right now I'm feeling really down physically, emotionally, energetically, you know, what do I, what do I do? And I immediately reflected to her, you know, it sounds like you need some connection. And so thank you for reaching out to me for help and support and really demonstrating to yourself that you're worthy of receiving Help and support and that you don't have to figure anything out alone. And then I referred her to listen to our group training call, which was last night, which really provides a lot of healing, resource and affirmation practices that she can play with to help support her system to heal. And, and then I also suggested that she get into the practice of receiving receptivity. You know, where she expressed to me, you know, oh, I feel like I'm behind in the training, I haven't been able to stay caught up on the assignments. And I said to her, you're exactly where you're supposed to be, otherwise you'd be somewhere else. You're exactly.
[00:22:43] Speaker A: Tell me, tell me more about that. What's the practice of receiving?
[00:22:46] Speaker B: Sure. So for her in this particular context, I said, you know, because she had. And so many of us I think have this assumed expectation, especially as leaders, as entrepreneurs, if we're facilitators, this is with leaders, I think across the board there can be an assumed expectation that we always have to be on, we always have to be ready to give. You know, where can we support other people? Where can we give before we even think about giving to ourselves? Always thinking about other people first, even if we're burnt out and really need help. And so for her in the context of our training, I said, you know, just drop all that and focus on receiving. So go and message our group and say, you know, I'm open to receiving sessions from everyone else and I'm not in a position to give right now. I'm actually not feeling well. But I'd love to receive help. I'd love for other people to give me sessions where I can just really receive. And so that is such a powerful act. And you know, leaders, outside of that specific context, you know, where can we receive more? Where can we. It's also like what I shared, you know, where can we dedicate more of our energy to self care and resourcing and prioritizing that, you know, as. And we know that that's actually a very efficient way to enhance our ultimate service and the way that we show.
[00:23:58] Speaker A: Up in the world, that's such a, that's such a powerful concept.
I found that managing Siemens consulting division and I found out that there's almost this expectation for you to be on point, perfect, always have the answers. It's almost like everything around you is driving you to that. But this concept that you can reject that and you can say, no, I need help.
And you can say this to colleagues, you can say this to employees, you can say this to your manager. And I was in shock to find out that when you ask for help, you get it.
And no, it doesn't show that you're weak. On the contrary, it shows that you are human, that you are humble, that, that you don't think you know all things about everything. And you always have the right answer. Actually, that people will perceive you negatively. Sure. If you're in the meeting with the CEO and he's, you know, you had to work on presentation for three months. They're expecting you to have answers and do your research. But you don't have to be like that all the time. So I tremendously, tremendously appreciate your perspective.
I'd like to, to ask you a very, very difficult question.
If you had to go back to 20 year old Sydney and give her some advice, what would it be?
[00:25:25] Speaker B: Wow, I haven't thought about that in a while. 20 years old, I was living in. Where was I? I was in UC Santa Cruz, I think.
UC Santa Cruz in college. And I would tell her, you're really needed here. You're needed here on this planet. You matter.
You're loved. Even if it feels like you're alone and that you don't matter, you do. You're really valuable.
A lot of people are going to count on you someday.
And you are so loved and you are supported. Even if you don't feel like it, you are.
[00:26:13] Speaker A: Sydney, what an inspiration. Thank you so much. I appreciate you joining the show today.
[00:26:18] Speaker B: Thank you.
