into, I was like, Okay, what do I do now? Well, I have an MBA and
you always go back to the what you should do. What are you
certified to do? So I started doing like branding consulting
and business stuff. I've been an entrepreneur for 18 years. I'm
like, how old am I 40? So since I was 22, and I started doing it
and realized so many people really didn't know what they
were trying to say to their people. They they had no idea
what their ideal audience look like. All right, welcome in to
vision pros live with Jackson Calame. I'm your show host, we
will be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and
guest leaders who are building fantastic visions out there.
Hey, what's up, vision pros, Jackson Calame, founder and CEO
of first class business here. And we're going to be diving into
a super awesome vision of Mandy shoeless, who is a Oh, my, I have
to read this title. It's awesome. Certified integrated
trauma informed story coach. Okay, now unpack that a little
bit, right? We got somebody who knows a lot about trauma and
life and what it's like to go through trauma, somebody who
knows how to tell her story super well, somebody who worked
with the NFL, and players in the NFL as a massage therapist,
somebody who has her MBA, there's a lot of depth to Mandy.
So I'm really excited to have her on the show. I'll do
another brief introduction before I pull her on. But first,
let's talk about our sponsors real quick. I come maker live,
we just finished that conference, we had an excellent
time there. Tom Matson did an amazing job of running a
mastermind that allowed people to extract their dream 100s
together in a room of other amazing thought leaders and
connect people together. He then went on to teach a number of
concepts about business and growth that align very much with
how I like to do business, which certainly made it feel good for
me. But if you're the type of person who, you know, wants to
work with dolphins, as they're called in the market versus
sharks, you know, you want that pod of people who are there to
support you and help you grow. We received amazing support and
learned a lot at this particular conference. And we were
empowered as well to share our stories and share who we were
and dive in and share if we felt we could help people with
things. They made a lot of room for great leadership in that
conference. So pretty cool. It was amazing to have all these
great leaders come together to share all ploof as well share
pluff. I say ploof, that's the Spanish accent and me. So
Cheryl pluff, she did an excellent job as well of
orchestrating and organizing and pulling the people together.
Danella, who's also one of the business partners there is an
event coordinator and that woman had everything accounted for
every T was crossed, every I was dotted, everything we could have
thought of that we wanted or needed was done. I was super
impressed by how well this team pulled together. This was a
conference, the first conference for I can make her live and not
only that it was the first conference where all of us were
any of us had come together and work together for a conference
and pulling one together. And it was the smoothest conference
that I've ever I've ever been a part of. So that that's hard to
do. Kajabi was right up there with it, by the way. And that's
a company that's been doing conferences multiple times, they
have 60,000 course members. So shout out to Kajabi as well for
running an amazing conference. And this took it even to the
next notch. So very impressed with what they've what they've
built with that and looking forward to the future of I can
make it live. Cap show as well cap show.com. If you haven't
tried it yet, that's cap sh o.com. They were ranked by
digital marketer as the number one resource AI content creator
for podcasts. I don't want to get that wrong either and
misstate here what digital marketers said about them. Now
it's important because while they're an amazing content
creator for podcasters, capture wants to be known for more than
that because really any video or audio file that you have, where
you're teaching a concept or interview interviewing somebody
and you want to extract that information in the form of long
form content, and short social media posts, cap show is the
platform to do that on all you have to do is upload your file.
It can be a file, it's a few minutes long, you're going to
get more out of it. It's a files longer, let's say 10 minutes to
45 minutes long. And it's going to the AI is going to act like a
copywriter would a storyteller and it's going to take out of
your content, the great pieces, the pieces that would belong in
a blog post of like a how to for instance, or a listicle blog
post, if you happen to be teaching multiple, multiple
components, and whatever it is that you're delivering. It can
also grab sound bites from their grab sound, let's just click a
button and it gets a bunch of soundbites generated for you.
And you can approve those you can just trim those down
however you want to. It is absolutely amazing what you can
do with AI we hear that over and over. It's amazing what you can
do with AI. This is here's what you can do with AI. Here's why
you should do it. And by the way, here's a community of
support to help you do just that. Jaime is going to drop our
affiliate link in the comments that will give you I believe
it's three total credits. What I would do is I would take one of
your existing episodes or Facebook lives or something
where you've taught in the past, upload it and click, click,
click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click,
just click just put your AI to the test and see how it works.
That way you can get a fresh taste and look of like, oh my
gosh, this is how this would help me and my marketing
efforts or me get off of my content hamster wheel, as it's
often called or my content treadmill, whatever analogy you
want to take. Producing content can be very hard. This makes
the production process easy and then allows you to focus on
editing that and then of course, posting it. So definitely check
out what CAP shows up to and last and my constant favorite is
the water project. The water project is a great opportunity
to give back and help people who have dire needs far beyond our
own. Yeah, we're all suffering. We're all passed through COVID
economics. We've all got things that that we you know, we really
need help with, but most of us don't have to find a clean glass
of drinking water. You know, most of us have a place where we
can find one. The communities that are affected by the water
project, they don't they don't have that at all. They don't
have a place where they can get it. They have to take a risk of
death every time they go, they go and get water. So consider
giving back to the water project, you don't have to give
60,000 COP, whatever that is, at Colombian pesos, you can give
just a dollar. For instance, I'm just picking on you a little bit.
So you can obviously change the currency as well if you're in
Canada listening in if you are tuning in from Colombia, then
you can give in in your own currency. And you know, at the
end of the day, the cool thing is you also get to choose which
community you want to support. And then they're going to give
you social media updates on what's going on in that community.
And the you know, the opportunity to see the smiles
that you've affected of the people that you've been able to
help with this is awesome. And I'm certainly not discouraging
you from going out in your local community and giving back this
is just an opportunity to do an and then some. And thank you,
Jaime, for showing all those great projects. So without
further ado, Mandy, thank you so much for being on our show. And
let's dive into your vision. Welcome to vision pros live.
Thanks for being here.
There. Glad to be here.
Absolutely. So Mandy, go ahead and give us I give a little bit
of a rundown of physical therapy or rather massage therapy to
the NFL, the NBA and all the way to story coach and and trauma
tied into that. So tell us in your own words, who are you and
let's go right into the first question. Who are you? Who should
be listening to you? Why should they listen? And what are they
going to get out today? Show? Do you think?
Well, I'm hoping that they get something out of the show about
listening to your own story and believing in your own story. And
who should listen anyone that wants to build a business and
have an impact and why because I've been through enough stuff,
I like to believe it has a purpose. That's why. So we were
kind of chatting a little bit behind the scenes about my my
background as a massage therapist. And I have a heavy
business background as well, just because I really I love the
business. I love what it can do for people. And I love really
entrepreneurship in general, because there's the great thing
is there's no box, the bad things that there's no box, no
there's no big framework for what works and what doesn't. So
it's a lot like shooting the dark, but when it works, it
really works. So how I got to be a story coach was, I would, you
know, after I had retired from massage therapy, after dealing
with neuromuscular therapy, and I don't know how much you know
about the theory of trauma getting stuck in the brain, I
think trauma getting stuck in the body. Well, part of the
thing with neuromuscular, I dealt with a lot of fibromyalgia
clients, a lot of autoimmune clients, a lot of high
performing entrepreneurs, I mean, big, big, big people that
are very successful, but had a lot of issues because of the
constant stress. Well, I think that's also why I ended up with
the NFL because what sort of I mean, these guys have lots of
trauma, both coming from maybe not so great backgrounds, but
also getting that heck beat out of them every day on the field
practically. So I didn't really realize that the universe was
setting me up to be where I am now for all those years, because
I did it for 16 years. But when I retired, I realized, okay, I'm
gonna I'm gonna go into copywriting, I'm going to
branding the things that I knew how to do. Well, the issue that I
kept running into both with my male and my female clients was
they would hit a certain level. And then there would be
something that would happen that they wouldn't be able to identify
where they wanted to go, or they wouldn't be able to really
get an authentic brand or audience. And it was because
they were scared of their own stories. Every single time, the
one thing that they didn't want to talk about was the thing that
they was going to explode their business. So I'm essentially a
storyteller strategist, I help them unpack it, get comfortable
with it, maybe not make friends with it, but at least get it to
where they can be in the same room, kind of like, you know,
parents that are divorced at a wedding. And, you know, just,
I'm a jokester, it's part of what I do. And then also learn
to just leverage it and love it. And part of that is I am a
domestic abuse survivor, I talk about it loudly and proudly. And
it is something that led me to leading by example, because of
the fact that I'm able to do these things and let people
know it's okay to own your story. You have to own your
story. If you want to do what you're saying you want to do.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I could just let you soapbox for
a while. I really could. I think it's very well said, it's very
well talked about. And it, how do you be authentic, you know,
if you're not telling your story, you know, you're not
able to own that. So let's dive in. Let's dive into your vision
for those that you serve in 30 seconds, you've, you've talked
a lot about it, you've alluded to it. But what's your vision for
those that you serve moving forward?
For imposter syndrome, not to be a thing anymore. You can't be an
imposter of yourself if you're here to make an impact.
Nice. Well, you nailed that. Yeah, I love that. You gave me 10
second version. That's great. And so is it possible to
completely eliminate imposter syndrome, in your opinion? I
think so. I really, I really believe it is. It doesn't mean
you don't ever get little little tinglies occasionally, but that
frees that that scarcity mindset that the things that keep you
really stuck. Once you really it's like looking at the boogeyman
once you really identify what that's truly about, and it's
very rarely what you think it's about. You learn how to deal
with that and navigate it instead of just letting it stop
you. See, I think it's a healthy thing to debate and talk about
because one I'm fascinated by the amount of successful people
that it sounds like you've been able to work with, right? I
don't know names yet. So it's hard to know like, is this Joe
Schmoe? Or is this Johnny Mansell? I mean, or is this LeBron
James? That that helps quantify the theory, right? But I'm gonna
I'm gonna pick on another coach that I really like. I like a
lot of his concepts. And it's dawned on me more recent in the
more recent year that when he talks about imposter syndrome,
Taylor Welch talks about Michael Phelps. And he says, you know,
it's impossible not to feel imposter syndrome as a as an
elite as an elite competitor, because you're constantly
trying to accomplish what has never been accomplished before.
And therefore, like you're going to have a sense of doubt,
you're going to have something that comes at you. And it's how
you deal with that and how you overcome that, you know, it's
it's what you tell yourself that, you know, like, but if you
think you're gonna you're gonna get rid of it, then you're
wrong. Well, don't get me wrong. Taylor Welch, I don't think
talk to Michael Phelps to develop that theory, right? It's
easy to be like, oh, cool, like he must know. But it's also
important to step back and say, like, does Michael Phelps
agree with this? Or does he not? Because he might be like,
yeah, right, dude. I don't know. I haven't thought about
imposter syndrome in in 20 years. We don't I don't know. I've
knocked him about it. So you have a different theory in that
it may not like you might be able to just crush it and put it
behind you. Do you mind expanding upon that? I don't
remember what book it was in. But I actually read about
Michael Phelps and how he visualized himself winning and
himself overcoming and there was a specific time and I think
it was in the Olympics. It might have been when he broke
the record. I don't remember where he couldn't see through
his goggles, but he had swam that pool so many times and
relived it in his head so many times. It didn't matter that
he couldn't see and imposter syndrome is a result of the
things that you can't see. Okay. So for me, if you truly
believe you're here to make an impact and you're brave enough
to stand on a stage, essentially naked and talk about
all the things that maybe people don't talk about in front
of potentially thousands of people, if you truly believe
you're here to make an impact, then it doesn't matter whether
you're quote unquote an imposter. You are here to do
something that nobody else is here to do. Wow. Well said.
Okay. All right. So continuing on, let's talk about your
vision for a minute. So your vision for yourself in 10, 15,
20 years, where do you see yourself? What do you see
yourself accomplishing? I would love to have a following like
Gabby Bernstein, Tony Robbins. I believe that if more people
believed things like this, it wouldn't be so scary. The best
thing that I've ever heard is the people at the top aren't
competing. They're collabing and it's the truth. And I loved
what you were talking about. I wrote it down, dolphins versus
sharks. It is not a man eat man world out there and they can't
be anymore. Their globalization is too real. We have to be in
this together and swim together because we're all going to get
further. Yes. And I think it's important to recognize too, it
can be like that exists out there. But that's the
importance of having a pod. Right? Once you do, then you
have the protection that you need, the safety that you need.
And ideally, we turn the world more into that than the
opposite. I mean, the negativity that's out there. So let's
dive into your worst, your worst business experience ever.
Which one? Right? Oh, my gosh. It depends on your definition
of worst. I, oh my gosh, I would say being screamed at
because I asked a client to be on time for an appointment
because I had a fully booked day. That's right. That's the
first one that comes to mind. And she was supposedly a friend
that that definitely ranks up there. I would say a close
second was when I did work for the NFL. And no, I'm not going
to mention names on this one because he is still a friend.
But he I told his wife how much he actually paid me because
she was paying for a massage session and she didn't normally
pay. And I thought he was going to lose his absolute ever
loving mind. And I was like, I didn't know I was in my 20s. I
had no idea. I thought I was going to lose a client. I didn't
we're still friends. But so both situations had to do with
with somebody yelling at you. Correct. Yeah. Interesting.
Okay. And so that's a that's an area of trauma. I would say
that you've had to deal with and that you've been working on
overcoming. Let's skip the next question. We'll come back to
it. Specifically, we're going to talk about a couple of power
lessons because you are able to get your very, very brief,
which is great. There's a lot of clarity to what you say. So
it'll give us a chance to go through more subjects than most
people. So with the power lesson related to trauma related
to especially trauma and association with people who
yell, is that still something that you carry or is that
something that that you you have surpassed and no longer deal
with? What does that look like? You know, I've learned to not
make it about me because the hardest lesson I think I ever
learned. It's been a long time since somebody screamed at me
like that. So I honestly don't know. To be perfectly honest,
I think I would still be upset, but it wouldn't be as
crippling for me as it was before. My husband and I were
recently talking like he comes up behind me and hugs me from
behind. I he couldn't have done that when we met five years
ago because trauma constantly tells you you're not safe. And
whether it's client and client, you know, whether it's to be
honest, whether it's sex or money, both are kind of
intertwined and it's a very intimate relationship. So
whether you're married and sleeping with a person or
exchanging money, it's it's hard for people to to overcome
that that type of behavior. So absolutely. Well, thank you
for leading the way and being willing to talk about sensitive
subjects. I think this is super I know I've got an audience
of people who you know are are nurture in nature healers in
nature, which typically means that they come from some type
of of sense of feelings to overcome as well. Have you ever
heard of the book Feelings Buried Alive Never Die? I I feel
like yes, I've never read it. I feel like I have heard of it,
but I don't I've never read it. I have to say I've I've not
skimmed it. I've used a good portion of it and I need to get
through the whole thing because it is phenomenal about dealing
with trauma and and going and it did it helped me center
myself as well and realize like oh wow, that's the the sadness,
the depression, the darkness that I've dealt with in life is
what's deprived me of being able to understand happiness and
associate with there's a correlation between your
negative sentiments that you you feel and are attached to or
have been affected by and the positives that you get as well.
So what's what are some of the resources you recommend people
turn to who are overcoming trauma and striving to also be
an authentic leader in the world? I apologize. Give me two
seconds. That's okay. Yeah, I really greatly apologize. We
hear Fido. That's alright. So if you have a dog, drop it in
the comments, drop a picture of your of your puppy in the
comments and in the meantime, we'll dive in a little bit
deeper on the story concept. So you know, telling your story
and getting it out there, there's this there's this
important factor like you you know, and I'm I'm a big
proponent of this reverse class business. We believe that
vision and culture and leadership are what people need
to be marketing. You're not marketing a product. You're
marketing your brand and your story and that's what people
want to belong to and that's ultimately what decides what
helps them decide who they want to purchase from. It's not
the product. There's a million people in the world they could
buy from. They're choosing you. They're choosing your
culture. They're choosing. They want to be supported and
belong by your side. So this is why Mandy's subjects are so
important and why we're going to be diving deep in the story
because your brand's not going to succeed until as a as a
scalable brand until you start moving towards your vision and
clarifying it for your audience. So Mandy, let's pick
up where we left off. Which was your trauma resources. So I
actually have done Caroline's program, which it it does talk
about codependency, narcissistic abuse and it also
teaches you how to coach people through healing with those
kind of things. My other it's not meant to be a trauma book
but have you ever heard of Gay Hendrix, The Big Leap? Oh,
heard of passively. It is hands down my favorite book and it
talks about not from a trauma perspective necessarily, but
identifying the things that happen when you are keeping
yourself stuck. So like when you're avoiding the work that'll
get you to where you want to be. So for me, ironically, I
don't know how much detail you want to get into it with me,
but I had something happen, which was the impetus behind
my my marriage dissolving to where I couldn't I couldn't use
my voice and I speak. So now when I get really scared, I
literally lose my voice. It's not as bad as it used to be,
but for a while it would happen every single time I was
leveling up. It's just again that trauma getting stuck in
the body, but I identified that's what it was. I want you
to be free as well to share as much of your vision as you
want to. This is this is your platform today. So don't
hesitate. Okay. So my ex-husband was an addict and
the we actually got married twice because I believe in
making the wrong decision many many times, but it's never the
wrong decision if it leads you to where you're supposed to be
and there was a night that he had mixed medications and
attacked me and choked me till I blacked out and I had a
swelling and bruising all around my neck. So for several
days afterwards, I could not speak. Geez. Yeah, my six
year old daughter saved my life literally and that is
something I do talk about a lot. And and that and then
coming back from that how long were you you said you were a
speaker at that time? No, ironically, this is something
that happened later and I I joked recently on a summit that
I was on for survivors of domestic violence because it
happened that day. I was like it's not lost on me. We're on
a you know summit about breaking breaking the silence and I'm
losing my voice but you know you have to I have dark humor.
It's part of how I deal with things but the first time it
happened was I was about to get on a I was about to teach a
class to about 150 women and I woke up that morning and
couldn't speak couldn't and it took me like another two or
three times of getting online and doing speaking events
before I realized that's what it was. Wow. Okay. So what
happened in that moment where you couldn't speak? Did you
just cancel the event or how did you handle that? I actually
went on a swim which funny because we were talking about
Michael Phelps and I went and I made myself some tea and I did
like honey and I sucked about probably an unhealthy amount of
throat lozenges. What? Throat lozenges. Yes. Yes. You know.
Cough drops type things. Yeah cough drops and then I took a
shot of whiskey and I prayed. That's that's a first. I
haven't heard that combination. I took a shot of whiskey and I
prayed but I like it. It worked for you. So you got up on
stage at that point and and spoke. Yeah, I did. I actually
talked about my my presentation that day was supposed to be on
social media strategy and I scrapped the whole thing. I I
you know whether you're universe, you know, believe in
the universe, god, whatever you believe in. I just was like,
alright, what do these women need from me? Cuz it was a
female conference and all I heard was you and I was like,
oh crap. Alright, here we go. So, I got up there and I said,
I know what you guys came to hear today and you are gonna
hear it but there's gonna be a different different value and
it was talking about how this is actually how all the story
strategy stuff started talking about how you have to be able
to give your audience something to be able to connect you with
you and maybe it's not the big, hairy, scary boogeyman at
first cuz for me, it wasn't always domestic violence. It
was being a divorced single mom. I didn't always talk about
the other part and you but you have to give your audience
something. Everything is an exchange and you don't want
people that buy from you and then turn around and whatever.
You want people that are invested in you because you're
investing in them. Yes. Okay. So, you gave that speech and
you I love that you share that you got this message is
prompting that it was supposed to be about you and your
response was crap. You know, like dang it and but you did it
anyway, right? You followed your intuition and you said,
you know what? I I know I gotta own this and do this and so
did you talk about trauma and abuse and all that or or okay,
you did. So, you dove right into the depths of that forsaking
the social media strategy plan you had and what was the
outcome and what what happened? I signed seven clients that day
for my one on one coaching and I had almost every woman come
up and hug me and tell me stories. It was actually very
overwhelming. My husband was with me and we joke that he's
my handler at situations like that and it was humbling. That
is the best word I can use and I sometimes I hate it when
people say that because well, yeah, it's you know, whatever
but that was the first time I was like this is what I was
meant to do. This is you know, yes, I have a huge business
background. I have all these fancy certifications. I have
all these things but nobody talks about yeah, people talk
about like hashtag authentic but nobody tells you how to be
authentic or what that even means. Right. It it can be very
hard to to find that that entity that's that's willing to
dive in deep into those worlds. I think a lot of it has to do
with a lot of business folk or scared of feelings, you know,
and and you know, they don't want you know, I've I was
talking to a great leader the other day and I was I was
crying and I was starting to cry as I shared with him about
an experience and he's like, oh, don't cry. Don't cry. I mean,
I'm like, bro, you're like you're interrupting the movie.
You know, like like let it go. Like let me go and he's like
he's like he's like you don't have to cry. You don't have to
cry and I'm like like did I did I ask you permission to cry?
Like this is my moment, not yours, but I mean, I didn't say
that but that's kind of I was like, man, he's like really
ruining this this opportunity to get into the depth of what
matters most. It wasn't there's no transaction by the way
about this. It just it was but it was an opportunity for a
leader to better understand where I was coming from and he
can heck it. You know, he he cinched the hose on the depth of
what we could have experienced had he allowed that to happen.
We we do that so often in business. We keep it super
service level but as you said, there's an audience of seven
that we're craving and that may not sound like a lot but seven
out of 150 converting at a first time event with stranger
danger as a reality like people who don't know that's a
phenomenal amount of people and they probably converted with
an extreme amount of purpose. I know I'm I'm leaving the
witness here but you know, you don't you don't hear somebody
talk vulnerable about who they are and then be like, oh, I
kinda wanna work with them. That doesn't happen. You know,
like you're like all in at that point and moving so that's
awesome. They signed. Did you have anybody sign up for the
social media strategy? Did it come with that process of
coaching? I'm just curious where that went. So, I
actually created a separate part of my program that is
strictly become. It's called your story strategy and it's
called what? Story strategy. I heard destroyer strategy. So,
I'm going to. No, no, no, no, no. Well, I mean, if it's not
so good, I mean, we do that too. Right? Story strategy. We
don't do that. That's a bad idea. No, your story strategy
and a lot of times, again, you know, business, give them
what they think they need and then or give them what they
want and then give them what you they actually need and
that's a lot of what I do. People want to build their
businesses. They wanna do things but a lot of times they
can't because they've got mindset stuff. A lot of stuff
around who they are, what stories are there is that so I
joke taking it back to massage. I have two two
factions. One is like to get stuff done business, business
which and then the other one is like you need a hug. You
need to cry and you need to get over your ish like those
are the two two ways to work with me as a coach and and
it's funny as you were. It's not funny actually but as you
were talking about what would have happened if you could
have just cried, that's something that as a massage
therapist, I had to hold the face that happened to me a lot
people were very vulnerable and it wasn't just because they
were naked. It was because they were you know, it was a
release and that was very normal. Yes, I think it's
superpower. I love the Tony Robbins II only saw it in an
Espy's commercial one time where he talked, you know, he's
just giving a speech and he said, you know, every day we
should you know, we should cry fully. We should laugh. You
know, we should it's all about feeling and just really
valid. I don't even know if he said it but like my thought
was like this life's all about feeling you know, it's all
about experience and if we're holding that back, then we're
not experiencing. So, yeah, you you got me on my stuff box
now. Let's move to what's your best experience in business so
far? It's kind of a it's the same version of the same
thing when COVID hit. I obviously couldn't work as a
massage therapist and I had a fabulous business which
shutting it down was hard for me both from a financial
perspective and just an emotional perspective because I
had amazing clients, some of which are now coaching clients
but I when COVID hit and they had announced like I couldn't
work and and all these things. I had client after client that
was on either a retainer or a package or I had their credit
card info many of which had just renewed with me. Text me
and go renew it again. Do it again. Like I'm even getting
chills even sitting here saying it. Whoo. I'm gonna cry. You
know, I was able I was in the middle of a custody battle at
that point for my daughter and I had no money. So, no work and
no money. Everything was maxed out. I got real good at
knowing which one of my cards could have cash advances on
them and I was just absolutely astounded and one of my
clients, there was a group of five of them and they were how
I paid my rent that month and you know, several of them, I
had one that was on a retainer for $3000 a month. He paid me
$6 in advance. That's awesome. Yeah and when I started this
business, many of the same people were like, how can how
can we help like maybe I, you know, they're not
entrepreneurs, which is my faction, my my demographic but
you know, what who who can we put you in front of? What can
we do and that's why having that authentic connection to
me is so important. Like, you know, and there is a
difference between codependency and you know, coming at a
place of of victimhood versus empowerment and I I don't ever
encourage that but we are missing out on so much by doing
business the old school way. Well said and there there is a
difference and it's important to to study and to learn and to
practice so that you can you know, can master the art of how
to utilize it and how to utilize opening up being
vulnerable in a healthy fashion. So, well said. So,
you're familiar with Donald Miller. Yes. Yes. I'm a story
guy. I'm a pretty big fan of his email series. I don't know
a lot about his program. I just know I've I've never met a
client of his who was was a raving fan. That doesn't mean
he doesn't have them. She means I've I've met plenty of
people who've come through and and didn't quite have the
experience they were hoping for and maybe I need to pay
closer attention to his elite audience, right? The ones that
get absolute closest to him. I imagine they stay pretty close
to him. What are your thoughts on on his story teaching
methodologies and how does it relate to what you do?
I don't know why I'm choosing my words carefully because I
know right what I want to say. Sure. No, I think it's okay to
talk about it. So, again, I think, you know, his stuff's
been around a long time, a decent amount of time and I
think it's it's it's another missed opportunity. A lot of
the stuff it's it's not leading with the feeling we were just
talking about. It's there is such a thing as too much
strategy.
Wow, that that hits deep. It's deep because yes, his his
version of stories, the way he presents it is pretty much all
strategy. He doesn't share from when I when I remember going
through it, I didn't have like a feeling about it is more of a
methodical mathematical equation like, oh, that's why you
use story. It's more like a how to process. Wow. Let me just
mic drop for you, Mandy. If you can't, I almost feel like so
say from you to me, there's a string like a golden thread and
for me, that's what the story is and if you can't latch on to
that golden string and feel the tingles and feel the the
connection, there's you're missing out whether it's an
email, a social media post, a podcast, whatever it is, your
audience will never fully connect with you unless you can
find that thread. Wow. Okay. So, how do you go about that?
Let's dive into some coaching while we have some time. So,
how do you find that golden thread and how do you empower?
How do you nurture it and make it stronger? Well, I usually
talk about I I start with unpacking why you're you know,
as a coach, why you wanna work with me or why you approached
me most recently. I guess I'll I'll go into one of my clients
who she's known me a long time. She's known me since high
school and I'm very open and honest about my background, my
history and she's a very successful realtor but she's
going through some personal things and as soon as she and I
started talking, she talks about all the loss but she's
not talking about her difficulties with a child that
has special needs and I know the one thing that usually needs
to be dug into is the thing that either doesn't get said or
get skipped over like, oh, I've got this going on but all this
other stuff happened and this is why I'm feeling this way. I
doubt it. I actually really doubt it because the thing that
you're already willing to talk about, you've already started
processing. It's the thing that you're not willing to talk
about. That's the sticking point. Interesting. So, how do
you inspire people to dive into the depths of of sharing? I
usually, if they don't know my whole story, I will talk a
little bit about me and give them a little bit about my
background and be like, if I have a policy, if we're gonna
get naked, we're gonna get naked. You know, you know, I
don't dump but I am. I'm very open and honest and I'm like,
you know, if there's something that if you had to guess what
is keeping you stuck, what is it? And I let them talk a lot
about it is creating space because people come to us for
the answers. You know, very rarely does somebody ask what
do we want or how can somebody help us? Wow. That's deep. So,
the let's try to shift some of the the less woo's here. I'm
woo woo. I'm in. All of us who are feeling this, get it. You
know, those who are on the fence trying to figure out like
how does this actually work? You know, how does this relate
to my business? You know, what's what's in it for me
perhaps? I'm not sure how far to go down that path because
again, I'm more like, wow, like I think what you're teaching
makes perfect sense and it's, you know, goes back to that
vision. Like, how can you clarify your vision if you're
not willing to talk about your vision from a standpoint of
truth, you know, and and depth and it's just hard to see the
purpose of the vision. So, how do you what are some exercises
people can do to open them up? You mentioned one, meeting
with somebody who's willing to make space and kind of go toe
to toe with you, right? Here, let me share more about me so
you know that I'm the type of person who's willing to make
room for for your stupid or your problem or your trauma or
your negative, your pain, etcetera. What's in that?
What's something else? If somebody's not ready for that,
what can they do to in a healthy fashion own their trauma? Own
what they don't talk about and bring it to the surface. So, I
will say the biggest blessing behind what I started doing,
which was copywriting and branding strategy and stuff is
realizing how healing writing is. I launched a journal, I
guess it was March, April-ish of this year called the the story
shift and what I tell people that aren't ready to really
dive in to do is just to write and I I don't mean journal and
you know, do your 10 minutes before you go to bed. It's
literally just right when you feel like that I can't like
because it happens. There's always something you know,
there's a problem before you admit there's a problem. You
know what I mean and the story shift was my way of of
packaging my thought process with things and it's cutesy and
it does have some you know, beautiful looking book too.
Thank you. I like that golden threadness to it. Yes. If
you've ever heard of the fates, I know not to take it back to
woo but like Latin, you know, mythology and everything but
you know, if you think about it, there there's definitely
somebody weaving our weaving our stuff for us. So, may as well
take advantage of it and the only thing you have complete
control over and complete ownership of is your story.
Interesting. Okay. So, this person again on the fence like
man, Jackson, you led it on the wrong path like what's in this
for me? Right. What what would you say to them? What's you
know, you got a business owner who's kind of like doing okay
or doing well on the surface but it just kind of lacks the
depth they're looking for. What is this unlock for them? One
of the things and the best piece of advice I've ever heard
in business is you have to have a polarizing opinion and my
opinion. Polarizing opinion. Okay. And the polarizing
opinion that I have is that you cannot create a cult or a brand
without story. You can't. You may create some success but
you will never get where you wanna be. Okay. So, I'm gonna
take doctor Peter Drucker's words and the effective
executive and power down on exactly what you just said to
so people get it. Peter Drucker said, if you want to have
exceptional results, you have to be willing to work with
somebody with great strengths and with great strengths come
great weaknesses, right? The both go hand in hand.
Otherwise, you are settling for mediocrity. Yup. 100%. And so,
if your brand is you don't have that sense of depth and that
feeling, that sense of purpose and you settle right there.
Like you've chosen to be mediocre and like if that's
your chosen path and you want that, then that's fine. Own it.
You know, like like like own it. Accept it. Realize that's
what you want and if not, then I think one of the greatest
secrets that you could you could find is working with
somebody like Mandy who's going to shift your universe. Shift
your paradigm and dive in deep with who you are. Um you know,
what what it is about you that makes you you. That means the
the good, the bad, and the ugly. Um of of and that's all
your perception, right? But it sounds like um Mandy turns it
into a golden thread. Um and so, yeah, that's it. Do you
have anything else you'd like to share before we wrap up Mandy?
If you're working with a coach or anyone that's supposed to be
a business strategist or a support system, if if they
don't make you uncomfortable, they're not the right person.
If they don't make you uncomfortable, they're not the
right person because being outside of your comfort zone is
where growth occurs um and growing means that that seed
has to break. That means that as it sprouts, you have to fight
through the dirt. That means that as you, you know, receive
the sunlight, you also have to get a little burned. Um right,
there's a whole process. Yeah, in order to get the water, you
have to drown a little bit. There's those are the analogy.
Um you know, to me is is one of the reminders I have of of my
growth. I appreciate you saying it in such direct capacity
which is I believe true. Um you know, if you have a coach that's
a yes man or yes woman, you know, who's making you feel
good in the process. Not that feeling good is wrong but if
that's their sole purpose, you know, and the sole experience
that you have with them, then they're probably sheltering and
coddling you. Um not helping you move forward. So, thank
you for sharing that incredible bit of wisdom. Um what's the
best social media platform for people to connect with you on?
Um Facebook or Instagram is ideal. Uh YouTube is coming but
Facebook and Instagram for right now. Great. Then reach out
to Mandy. Um if you'd like to further the conversation on
Facebook and Instagram. Um you know, feel free to ask her
about any coaching programs, whatever else is there. Mandy,
uh we'd be happy to have you back on the show. Um for future
episodes, of course, this was delightful and super insightful
and and there's so many more. There's so much direction and
clarity that could be achieved regarding the subject for
entrepreneurs and um I don't know how to do that. Um and I
don't. It's not my superpower but it is yours and so I'm
excited to do that because if we bridge those gaps for
entrepreneurs that are out there, they will transition
into an exponential growth and that will allow them to fuel
their fire um and provide to more people out there. So, if
you're hearing this and you have any inkling that it makes
sense to talk to Mandy, do so. It's not gonna hurt you to
have a conversation and uh vision pros. We will see you on
the next episode. Thank you everybody for tuning in.
Everybody have a fantastic day. Thank you for being here
today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros
Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these
episodes continue to move forward. This is gonna get more
and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show and
thank you for giving us your time and attention. Have an
excellent time building out your vision and becoming a
vision.