Hello amazing souls of the world.
Welcome back or welcome first time listeners to the Thriveau journey.
I'm El Michael Burke and we're here to explore the paths of thriving life physically, mentally,
spiritually and financially.
So today's episode speaks to the heart of our mission, finding strength and adversity,
growing spiritually and discovering our deeper purpose in life.
And we'll dive into mental resilience and what it means to stay strong when life tests
you and how spiritual growth can anchor us as we navigate life's challenges.
And I'm really excited to be joined by a special guest today, Denise G. Lee.
She's a coach who specializes in helping leaders and solo entrepreneurs turn their
challenges into transformative growth.
Her approach blends straightforward with straight forward advice with empathetic guidance tailored
to empower business owners to navigate their unique challenges and achieve their goals.
With over a decade of experience and business coaching, she offers what I love actionable
strategies to streamline decision making and drive success.
Now Denise is passionate about helping others tap into their inner power and live with purpose.
So together we'll explore the tools and mindset needed to not only survive but thrive in the
face of adversity.
Whether you're feeling stuck or searching for deeper meaning, this conversation I'm
looking forward to will give you the inspiration and strategies.
You need to stay resilient, grow and find your true purpose.
Denise, hello.
Wow, that was a heck of an interview intro.
I was like looking to the side thinking, he's talking about me?
That sounds pretty good.
Let's get at this.
I love it.
I'm so glad that I'm here.
Thank you so much for having me.
And I know we're going to have a killer conversation.
Yeah, we'll be.
And I just want to acknowledge that you are, even though we had a couple episodes before,
you are our first actual guest.
So you are a special guest here on the podcast.
And I'm really excited.
I do truly, truly appreciate you being here very much.
Thank you for having me again.
Absolutely.
Now I know that we talked via email.
And right away, I got a great sense of who you are.
You're very authentic.
You're very straightforward, but cool at the same time.
And I was like, man, I really, I need to have her on the show.
So I looked at a couple of different podcasts and I kind of got the sense of who you are.
And one of the questions I really have for you is why do you do what you do?
It's every, I'm pausing and there's two answers, right?
There's the PR answer of I'm doing this because I want to make a difference.
That's the PR answer that everybody wants to hear.
But let's get real.
Let's just get real.
I'm doing this because I want to remind myself where I was and where I never want to go back
to you again and by sharing my experiences, strength and hope, by sharing the tools that
I learned, it always reminds me that there's always more ahead of me than behind me.
And then we always have to keep it moving forward no matter what we've gone through.
And I just keep pressing through because the more I learn, the more humble I am, the more
appreciative, the more grateful, and the more we can amplify that message so that we know
we never have to go and resort to things that make us feel belittle beneath and behind where
we ought to grow.
Because we're all in a state of growth.
And so that's the real reason.
If I keep that on the forefront of my mind, then I have no other mission, no other desire,
but to help spreading the word.
And that's the answer to God's truth.
Yeah, you know what?
I actually feel that from you.
I love the way that you broke it down into the PR answer because that's kind of what
goes around when you ask people, why do you do what you do?
But then there's the more intrinsic answer that's real authentic to you that you're really
sharing yourself and who you are in the world.
And that really brings about your purpose in the world.
You know, Elmico.
I think everybody, I tell this to my clients, I tell this to anyone who listens.
We're all in the state of perpetual adolescence.
We all want to be guided, nurtured, told what to do.
Right?
Maybe if I read, what color is your parachute?
Maybe if I go to a kiyosaki event, what if I do all this?
Maybe I'll figure out what I need to do.
And basically, what we're saying is I don't feel strong within myself to guide myself
to where I know I need to be.
Everybody knows where they need to be.
You don't need to necessarily be listening to me.
I mean, you listen to me all day.
You want me?
I'm here.
I can give you a mic and still talk all day.
But we all have leanings, guiding, urges, but because we feel to be ostracized, criticized,
demonized, we betray ourselves daily.
It takes bravery to listen to what you are inclined to do.
It's good in you.
And thank goodness, because I don't want a bunch of Denise J. Lees.
I don't want clones of me everywhere.
I want everybody to shine as who they are.
It's that unique self.
And what I'm hearing is that going outside of yourself to find an answer, that's not
where the answer lies.
It's not outside of yourself.
It's within.
And that's scary, right, because we got our mom, our cousin, Uncle Jimmy, everybody saying,
well, you don't need to be doing that, because I know somebody who lost a whole lot of money.
Or I don't think you should be doing that.
That's some family business.
And so if we're listening to all those voices from today, yesterday, or whatever, then we're
going to sit there and just shrink ourselves smaller and smaller and smaller.
And then we're wondering why nothing ever gets done.
You know, that's, that's, that's, that's deep.
And with all of that, I mean, you transition, you talked about your history and what led
you to where you are now.
Can you speak a little bit about that?
Oh, yeah, I'm glad that I'm drinking coffee, because once upon a time, I'd be sitting there
talking with you in a coffee mug sipping vodka.
Oh, okay.
I, I'm, I'm going to be real with you when I say that my history involves alcoholism.
My history involves waking up in beds with people beside me that I only knew barely hours
ago.
My history involves doing things that were questionable, all because of the fact that
I was betraying myself and it started very, very, very early in my life.
I am a, a, an incest survivor from as long as I can remember up until 11, I was sexually,
physically, emotionally abused by my mother.
The betray, the betrayal started then where I had to pretend that everything was fine.
So for a lot of us, betrayal starts early, self-betrayal starts early.
So you're smiling, you're putting it on a mask.
I smiled, I put on a mask.
I got a degree I didn't believe in.
I smiled and I put on a mask for 10 years in a job in corporate America doing something
that only just nurtured my anxiety and my worries.
And it wasn't until I was actually at the brink of being fired that my, my husband at
the time said, you got to quit.
You're going to lose your mind.
You're going to, you got to quit.
And I betrayed myself again and started a personal training business.
Although I do exercise, I still do.
I believe or fitness.
I was not being authentic to who I was again.
So it wasn't until I finally said, well, what does Denise really want?
And then it's, and then I started doing business coaching and transition out of personal training
business coaching.
Cause I never really, it's like, well, I just know corporate America.
So I'll just, you know, laying in deeper.
And El Micah, I remember I was in a marketing coaching group and I was showing my, my coach,
my sales coach, my sales pages.
And he said, this sounds like life coaching.
And I said, what are you talking about?
I'm talking to business owner, like no Denise, you're talking about life issues all throughout
your copy.
Oh, when I say copy, they're written material.
And I saw it.
I, El Micah, I stopped and I looked at it and I was like, who Denise is trying to tell
Denise what she wants to do.
Are you willing to be honest and brave enough?
Cause I was thinking, oh, there's so many like the executive life coaches out there.
Oh, I can't do that anymore.
Oh, nobody's talking about trauma edition.
No, everybody wants to run away from all that stuff.
They, they, they cry their eyes out watching Oprah enough.
They don't want to do any of that mess anymore.
Right.
And then I had to be honest with myself and I said, you know what?
I can continue living at, I was 38 a time.
I can continue living my life trying to fit in, trying to do what I thought was more appropriate
or I could just jump into the unknown and say, you know, whatever happens happens, but
at least I went down trying.
Right.
You know, that's extraordinary that, that everything that you just, excuse me, explain
and share with us.
What was, what was that thing like you, you, you were dealing with trauma from the age
of 11.
You went through this life where it sounds to me like you were, it was just pretending
and you were just trying to keep up with the pretend, the pretense of who you were in the
world.
But then there was a shift from pretending who you were to being authentic to who you
are.
What was that shift?
What would change?
And what could, what could you tell someone or show someone and how to actually make that
shift?
So I'm a recovering alcoholic and I remember when I was in, um, my talking with my first
sponsor and she said to me, you know, Denise, you're going to have to hit a bottom.
And I thought, I'm already in a bottom.
I'm afraid of losing my job.
I'm having, you know, random guys bang on my door.
Right.
And before I got married, I knew things were bad.
Okay.
Isn't that my bottom?
And she was like, no, Denise, that's not your bottom.
I knew, El Michael, my bottom was when I didn't even care how messy and nasty I looked.
I just needed to get better.
And that bottom looks differently for everybody.
Right.
Exactly.
And I was like, I'm going to the point where I was done wear hair extensions.
I'm just going to show a big old Afro.
I knew I was hitting bottom when I didn't feel the need to dress up in a certain way
because I was trying, done trying to impress people who didn't care if I lived or died
in that moment because I wasn't giving them what they wanted.
Everybody needs to find that bottom where they wake up and they realize, wait a minute,
I'm not even living for me anymore.
I mean, I talk, El Michael, I talk to so many people.
They got heart problems.
They're insomniac.
They got neck back pain.
And then they're like, everything's going well.
But then I ask a question.
So how's your, how are you feeling about your job?
How are you feeling about some real with this?
And you could tell things are tensed up.
And then they say, smile and they have a forceful.
Everything's fine.
For me, my bottom hit when I was not tired of betraying myself.
Got it.
You know, it's so funny because not funny, haha, but funny to the wear.
Like when you, when you're sharing what that transit was for you, for me, like, it was
my health, you know, losing my kidney and getting cancer and all that kind of stuff.
I was like, the life that I used to live kind of led to the issues that I have now, but
this is not who I am.
And I had to find myself within that, that bottom as well.
And so that was a transition for me as well, because I was always, I was an athlete.
I was working out.
I was always healthy.
And then boom, you know, and so I had to make that transition for my life.
Myself, but I was living for something else, a portrayal of who I was, but not the actual
authentic self of who I am.
You know, I'm not a big football fan.
I'm not a big football fan, but I found myself last night watching Thursday night football
Jets versus new Angin Patriots.
Oh yeah.
And what happened to me was there's always like, there's the butt crack of the NFL, the
Chicago Bears, right?
The Detroit Lions and the New York Jets.
But here I am watching.
It was first quarter and I saw Jets was 14 Patriots there.
I'm like, what is this?
What is this?
And it was led by the cool and cool.
I forgot that guy's name.
Number eight.
I think Adams, I forgot his name on the quarterback on the Jets.
What's his name?
I don't remember.
Okay.
Y'all, y'all don't forgive us as you listen to this later.
Yeah, I'm not a Jets fan.
Anyway, I know for good reason, right?
Ain't nobody know Jets fan, right?
But the point of this is all going to make sense.
Just flow with me on the story.
Okay.
So I'm sitting there and I'm watching.
I think is the butt crack of the NFL crush the New England Patriots.
Tom Brady's gone.
Yeah.
And I thought they ain't going to do enough.
Like Patriots still got that energy going.
They're going to get it.
And the people you thought had nothing was just slaying it.
I think they ended the game like 26-4 or something like that.
Like they just wiped the floor with them.
And the point I'm trying to make is once you got beaten but so down, so long, you got to
rise up and ask yourself, I can't go out like this.
I got to make some pivots.
I got to switch up my roster.
I got to get some MVP's.
I got to recruit some other folks.
I got to integrate some new fresh butt.
And sometimes you're going to have to bleed out a lot before you rise up.
And like you're telling your story about losing your kidney, having all these health problems,
you had to bleed out before you got out.
Right.
And in that, I mean, in that space, like this is where you really find yourself.
You know, sometimes it takes what it took for me or for you to find yourself.
Yeah.
I think everybody wants to solve bottom, right?
Where you feel a little uncomfortable and then suddenly you just have an epiphany and
then you rise up high and then you just jump in from mountain to mountain to mountain to
mountain top.
But growth happens in the valleys, y'all.
Right.
Growth happens in the dark places nobody can see.
That's where you get the reps in.
That's where you feel this, you're testing your real metal, not when you cruise in high.
Right.
And don't let anybody lie to you when you see them on TV and they tell them what they're
doing and how famous they are and what they've got going on.
They're never going to tell you all their L's.
Right.
Babe Ruth, home run king, strikeout king.
Nobody wants to talk about the L's, but that's part of the process.
That's what resiliency is, is owning your L's just as much as you get your W's.
And to that, to that fact, like how, when you're talking about the resilience and that's
really, we're talking about mental resilience and spiritual growth, how does that play a
role in how you as a business coach or actually a life coach, how does that play a role in
being the life coach?
So there's the things I tell other people and there's the things I tell myself.
And then on the surface, we're like, well, you're just going to have this tough and through
or just know that there's going to be season, you're going to go through it and it's all
going to be all well and we, you just need to like that's the PR message.
Right.
So let's sweep the PR message.
Let's talk about those moments where you're putting out tons of content and you get zero
views.
Let's talk about paying all these services and you're barely getting a fraction of your
money back.
Let's talk about getting nasty emails from clients, even though you knew you did your
best work and they're trying to cash in on your money back guarantee.
Let's talk about all that because that's the real stuff that business owners need to talk
about because when we're talking about resiliency, right?
We're not just talking about just hoping you, you'll meet cash flow, right?
There's the nuance, hoping that your partner will still look at you the right way when
you come home after you've been working, working 12 hour days.
That's, let's talk about what that really looks like, right?
And I'm not going to sit here and lie and patronize everybody and say, well, everything's
just seasonalities, right?
Because from some people that season's 12 years.
For that people that says in the season was 20 years, right?
It's all about how you frame the situation that matters.
Now if I'm frame the situation is let's just get this done quick.
Now I'm going to feel resentful.
I'm going to feel angry.
I'm going to feel irritated because it's on my timeframe.
But if I'm framing it from an attitude of gratitude, man, I may not have gotten all
this, but I sure learned a lot.
Man, I didn't see that one coming with this unexpected bill, but now I know how to put
some more money in reserve.
So resiliency isn't so much how you do it, but why you do it and understanding the fact
that there's always more ahead than behind.
As long as you got breath, you got purpose.
Amazing souls.
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Now I'm back to it.
That's powerful.
As long as you've got breath, you've got purpose.
When someone's in that space, though, how do they connect to that world?
Like I'm struggling, I'm hurting, I can't reach this goal, I can't get to that goal.
But there's what you just said.
When you got breath, you got purpose.
How does somebody connect to that when they're in a space that's dire to them?
Okay, so this is where it gets complicated, y'all.
This is where it gets complicated.
Because as much as I would love to say, just think positive things, keep an affirmation,
your vision board, and stare at your vision board, it's a little bit deeper than that,
okay?
For some of you, like, Elmico, you shared your health situation.
For some of us, our pain is causing us to not think straight.
Some of us, we're living in a dangerous environment.
I was talking the other day with a client.
He lives in Queens.
There's a lot of stuff going down in his specific area in Queens.
When you're hearing gunshots outside your house, it's hard to think positive when you
think you, a bullet might grace past your door.
Right, of course.
Yes, that environment.
All right.
For some of us, we got a sick relative that we got living with us.
Or maybe we've got mounting bills that we get emails.
We got phone calls.
So I want everybody listening to understand that it's not always as simple as like, okay,
just think positively when your body's acting up.
You live in an unsafe environment.
You've got unfinished business, okay?
I'm not even going to sit here and deny and negate any of that.
Because I want everyone to understand that I understand the world will keep spinning no
matter what you're feeling.
But what I will say is this.
Instead of us thinking behind, right, about all the stuff we did, or thinking forward,
all the things we have to do, I want us to understand what's happening right now in this
conversation.
As you're listening to every word I have to say, I don't care what's going to happen
15 minutes from now.
I don't care what you did 15 minutes ago.
In this present moment, can you fully realize who you are?
All right?
And what is within your power right now?
You have the power to listen to me.
You could be sitting there on Instagram watching cat videos, but you decided to sit here and
listen to this, right?
So that's choosing to step forward towards who you are, right?
So in that present moment, I want you to hit the pause button and think about what's the
best, best step I can do right now.
What's the best step I can do in this present moment?
And for what some of us is just having gratitude for all of us is being humble for all of us
is being creative.
But you've got that choice.
And when you get fixated on all the things that are going wrong, your body aches, you're
saying I want to deprive myself of my personal power of the now.
You know, that's really great because what I'm hearing is that it's a state of being,
like you can be worrying about who you've been.
You could stress about what's to come.
But if you bring yourself to the present of your purpose, if you know your purpose, or
any of you don't, but if you're staying in the now and being who you are in that moment,
you have the power to choose, like even in the crazy environment, you have the power
to choose to say, you know, this is what I'm going to be right now.
And this is the next step I need to take to move forward towards my purpose or towards
whatever step I need to do to make my business go to a next level or whatever it may be.
You know, you're absolutely right, Michael.
Because you know, I think we live in a society has been trained on the Insta, right?
Oh, yeah.
Stuff that ain't arriving in two days.
I'm going to cancel that order.
Stuff that, we came from like, my, our grandparents, you were happy as several arrived in two weeks.
You were like, who are two weeks?
We lose our mind if it ain't arriving within two days.
Yeah.
We get instant notifications, buzzing on our watches, things popping up on our phone.
We have trained ourselves out of how our prior generations lived for millennia.
Okay.
We're just, we're just only like we're in the agricultural age, right?
That's only what two, five percent of our existence of homeosapiens.
Okay.
And so for a lot of us, we have quickly felt out of the natural rhythm of it is to live
life.
We are slow and intentional by design.
Our nervous system was never meant to hurry up and put pep in our step was never designed
to be that way.
And so maybe we need to go back, back, back, back and have some newfound appreciation for
the little simple things.
Man, I have, I can go to the store and pick up clothes.
I don't have to sew clothes.
I don't have to go outside until land.
And we weren't about how many falls we have on TikTok.
What is this, y'all?
What is this?
You know, it's so, it's so great because what I'm, what it, what it seems like is that you're
speaking to the outside influences that can kind of stunt your, your mental resilience
to life and what it's intended or how it's intended for us to live.
Although it can stop the spiritual growth that, that really moves us forward or upward
in our, in our lives.
I think our, you're absolutely right.
I think our modern culture has pulled in the ultimate oaky-doke on us.
The ultimate oaky-doke.
I'm going back to that game I was telling you I was watching yesterday.
I could not believe how many times I watched Shaq and Snoop Dogg hawking products.
I needed a gamble.
I needed to go to Applebee's.
I needed to go buy NFL merch.
I needed to buy the type of stuff.
Yeah.
And then don't worry, I got my, I got my Amazon fire stick.
So don't worry.
If I'm too lazy to grab my phone, I could just hit a button and it'll add to the cart.
Do you realize how we're being stunted in that moment to think that we need stuff instantaneously
and we don't even have to think through the logic of whether or not we even need something.
So how in the world can be resilient and, and, and have patience when we're being guided
towards impulsivity and recognizing the oaky-doke in the process.
Because it's the oaky-doke.
We're being con and we're just not grinning and nodding our head and say that's good entertainment.
What can somebody do like in that space, it's almost like we're blinded, right?
We're blinded to what that is, we're deaf to what it is and we're just in what we're
being guided towards.
How can we then like get out of that, acknowledge where we are so that we can start living in
a different way where it's healthy for our minds and our spirits.
Elmico, I'm going to make some people mad when I say this.
Go ahead.
I'm going to have some.
I'm feeling the butt cheeks clenching and the jaws tightening as I'm about to say this.
So I'm, everyone's going to brace for impact as what I'm about to say.
Because some of y'all need social media fast, electronics fast for real, for real.
And for some of you guys are like, no, I can't do that.
I can't do that.
I got people who notify me.
I got all the stuff that I'm like, the world will spin on.
You don't need to know what's trending.
You don't need to know, because like what, as we're recording this in September 20th,
24, we, I don't need to know who's trending.
Come on.
I don't care about the, I don't care about none of them jokers actually.
That's, but that's beside the point.
I'm just going to say that's a sidebar.
I said, the point I'm trying to make here is that for you, some of you guys, the reason
why you feel so stressed is you're connected to things that are tearing away from your
soul.
Put the devices down.
If you can't do a day, try half a day.
Okay.
You can do an app.
You can do a half a day, try an hour, turn off that stuff.
And if you looking like a crack addict, twitching, right?
After even a half an hour, an hour, that tells you that your body is neurologically addicted
to things that are tearing apart your soul.
And no wonder why you're not achieving and you're feeling stressed.
So tear away the things that are tearing away from your soul.
I'm going, after I'm done with this interview, I'm going on a fast myself.
I'm going to disconnect all my stuff and I'm going to pick up a book, a real book, a mystery
book.
I love me some mystery books and I'm just going to dive right into it because you know
what?
I already have everything scheduled out.
I already have everything itemized on my electronic calendar that will alert me when
my fastest over.
Some of you guys need a plan in your fast.
I always say, I hear from Michael, I don't like, I hear people say, well, I have a breakdown
and I decided to put my computer down.
I needed, I don't want to go right.
Why did you have to wait down to your breakdown for you to decide that you needed to come
apart from that?
Why did you need to wait into crisis mode?
We need to pre plan our rest pre plan.
Just like we go, we plan, we go exercising, right?
We need to pre plan the things that we, that rejuvenates us.
Rejuvenate us.
Maybe, yeah.
No, that's the word I was thinking of.
As you were speaking about the break, like I remember when earlier, when I was dealing
with my health, I didn't go, I mean, I was done with Instagram, Facebook, whatever, whatever,
whatever.
And for a couple of years, few years.
And when I got back on, you know, friends that I knew in person that were all on my
Facebook, like, where you been?
You know, what's going on with, we didn't know what's going on with you.
But I mean, being, you know, on TV and all that kind of stuff, like, you know, it's just
like, where'd you go?
And I got back on and slowly it enraptured me.
And then the newest device I got, which is probably later than anybody else was this,
this dog on thing right here on my, my wrist, and I recognized that I was wearing this all
the time because I was like, Oh, I want to know what my steps are.
I want to know what my heart rate is.
I'm going to know all this kind of stuff.
And then it almost became a permanent wrist apparatus.
Like I almost didn't take it off.
And then when I did take it off, I could see the imprint.
And I was like, all right.
I wasn't thinking about what this thing does to me or what it would do to me before I even
got it.
And then all of a sudden a special came on, get this for $150 off or whatever it was.
I was like, Oh, okay.
Well, let me go get that because I don't, I didn't really need it, but I wanted it because
it was like an advertisement that kind of guided me to get it.
And then here I am and basically caught up with this watch that tells me all this stuff.
But then I was like, you know, one day I was just laying down.
I was like, I don't want this wrist anymore.
So I took it off for like, I don't like two or three weeks.
So but I know now that I can break away from it when I just want to take it off because
it was mentally, I didn't know that it was doing this to mentally.
It was just kind of taken over, you know, just my thought process of wearing a watch
that tells me most steps.
So my heartbeat or all this kind of all that jazz, you know, and I just had to break it.
It's so crazy.
Oh, Michael.
I mean, most of us are not exercising, right?
But the ones, those of us who are exercising, we go in like above and beyond above and beyond.
I remember I was looking at my watch the other day.
There was like, Denise, you know, you walk about seven miles a day.
I'm like, what?
I'm still looking obsessively at it, right?
At the watch.
But I've trained my body to do what it needs and it goes on autopilot.
So basically what I'm saying is I don't trust my body.
I trust some electronic leash over what my body is telling me.
And that's that was the that was that was the what do I call the trap that I was in,
you know, and I had to get out of it.
And it was just simply by taking it off, leaving it off for a little while.
And so it's amazing how people like they deal with that, but they don't know that they're
dealing with that.
Like what are and here's a question for you.
What are some of the common signs that someone has when they're caught up in that and they
need to break out for their for their mental health and their spiritual growth?
There's a lot of signs.
There's the the the obvious is denial, right?
And it's not just a river in Africa.
When everybody is telling you there's something wrong, right?
And even when you see a sign like Elmico, you say, I see an imprint.
Oh, no, maybe it was because it was the watch was on too tight.
No, you were wearing it too much.
It was too much.
Yo, yo, yo, the other ones are you are you're going in a completely different direction
from what you said you were doing, right?
For example, oh gosh, I got so many examples.
Let me just find one.
I remember I was talking with this this this dude and he said that he was interested in
doing selling merch, right?
Then he he told me, well, I was on Insta and I saw somebody saying that I can make more
money if I also sell coaching to you.
I said, wait a minute, I thought you were doing merch, merchandising, right?
Why?
Why are you moving into consults and work, right?
He said, well, I thought that people see me.
I, you know, they would feel more trust in my merch, right?
I'm like, well, why do you feel that way?
And then that brings me to fear, fear of missing out.
If you're feeling fear of missing out, you're automatically on the road to betraying yourself
and going down to things that will actually make you feel miserable.
Fear, right?
Because this other little sneaky monster is called Envy.
Envy, right?
When we're thinking that everybody else got more, I'm thinking about one particular client
who lost over $2 million in a spin of a couple of years because he thought like he had to
make more aggressive moves to have a higher portfolio than other people who said they
had bigger accounts.
He didn't even know how much money they had.
It's not like they had access to the Charles Swab accounts.
They can open up and see what these people say.
I just made all this money.
And you believe in that?
And you're risking your own money to catch up to people on what they're claiming?
Envy will do some sneaky stuff to you.
So when you're finding yourself staring at somebody else's lawn while your grass is going
brittle and gray and dying, when you're feeling anxious and worried and nervous, but you so
preoccupied with what other people are doing, that's a sign you're going down the wrong
road too.
So I got Fumo, fear of missing out, Envy.
And what was the one before that?
All right.
Fum- uh, oof.
All right.
Fear.
Well, fear of missing out is the one I'm familiar with.
So I guess the other is lack of trust in yourself, right?
Lack of trust in your own plan.
That's what triggers the fear, right?
Right, right.
Because you're lacking confidence in yourself.
That's great.
So we got lack of trust in yourself.
Fear of missing out.
Envy.
Yeah.
Now these are things that you talk to your clients about when they come to you with
these kind of issues, which is extraordinary.
How does that help them in shifting their mindset or grow them spiritually so that they
can really begin to grow their business in the way that they see fit authentically and
otherwise?
I'm not a big horticulturalist, arborist, but I find very fascinating about how trees
grow.
And you know how you could tell of a tree is growing strong where there's no sprouts
out, it goes straight up and then it just flowers.
But then you know when a tree is starting to look diseased, when you see a little rot
on the bottom, you see the little sprouts come out, you're seeing some things a little,
or it's shifting in a weird direction because of either wind or some other pests or something
nibbling at it.
So the answer to your question is let's check the foundation.
When there's fear, when there's FOMO, when there's lack of confidence, there's some root
issue that's off.
And it's rarely, rarely connected to the present.
It's always the past.
It's about when you were talking with your father about your business plans and he said
that was stupid.
And he didn't even want to do no research.
I'm not saying you, Elmack.
I'm just saying speaking in generalities.
You're like, hmm, how do you know my business?
I don't know your business.
I just had a conversation with my dad yesterday.
I don't know your business.
Look, it comes when we start buying crap because somebody we thought was an influencer told
us to do it, but we never even checked in with ourselves and thought, does my bank account
agree with this?
It starts when we are chasing things that are on Google Trends, but never even asking
ourselves, this is in line with our business values.
Right?
So when I talk with my clients about these root issues, we can make sure that their tree
of business, their tree of life grows up high and strong the way it needs to be.
And we treat the infections.
We cut off the sprouts that are going off.
We scatter away all the rodents and the creatures that are coming around it.
Because in order to go high, you have to go deep.
And when those roots are rotten, we need to do some investigating.
That's great.
And in that experience as a business coach, what are the struggles that they face trying
to build their business when they're, basically the roots are not ready or they're rotten,
so to speak?
I'm going to be honest with you.
90% of y'all ain't going to make it five years.
And whatever you're doing, you might be skipping around.
You're going from selling shoes to cleaning windows.
I don't know.
Just everyone's going to be hopping around.
And that's normal in the course of being an entrepreneur.
I told in the conversation, I said, I started off doing personal training.
I'm like, I'm not in the beginning of where I was.
And so there's going to be some learning curves.
There's going to be some scrapes.
There's going to be pivots.
That's normal.
So I want everybody who's listening to understand that just because you're doing this right
now doesn't mean that this is going to be the end.
A lot of y'all are going to be pivoting.
And that's part of the growth.
That's part of the learning process.
A lot of you guys may not be able to survive because you're fearing investing because you
don't trust in yourself.
You're not investing in resources and tools.
Or you may be investing in gimmicks online.
And that's going to cause you to slip and stumble.
And that's okay.
Maybe you invested in a lot of people who didn't know what the hell they were talking
about.
And then you feel jaded.
I know we probably could develop a whole hour just telling them about dealing with people
for an hour.
Maybe a five-side chat.
That's another show we'll invite you back.
No.
That's a conversation, right?
Within itself, right?
So I'm mentioning all this to say that if you are brave enough to go through all the
pivots, if you are brave enough to work through the betrayal issues.
You're being betrayed by other people.
Your expectations, right?
Getting in line with what to do.
Every day I wake up, Michael, I'm thinking, how can I expect less of myself and others?
And that's kind of weird, right?
Because we're supposed to expect high of ourselves and others, right?
But when I'm expecting, I'm a human being.
I'm fallible.
I'm going to make mistakes.
And if I'm thinking perfection in an imperfect world, I'm setting myself up for heartache
and stress and overwhelm.
But if I'm taking it moment by moment, doing the best I can, progress, not perfection,
that's the aim.
And so in order to grow, in order to pivot, in order for us to do what we need to do,
again, it goes back to what I said in the beginning, like, what's the best stuff I can
do right now?
Let's break everything down to this micro level.
I think one of the...
I heard everything that you said, but one stick out to me, and that may stick out to
other entrepreneurs or people who are wanting to go higher in their career or wanting to
find love or whatever it may be, progress over perfection will bring you closer to whatever
your goal is or whatever the next step is, whatever next level is that you've created
for yourself.
And I think that when you look at the progress that you've made, you can really start to
be glad about what you've done, tap yourself in the back and say, you know what, I can
go further.
So I don't have to lose myself in the social media, the golden ticket over here, but then
I was the golden tickets over there and all that stuff that kind of messes up our mind
and makes us feel like we are lost on the journey.
So a lot of...
Okay, so L. Michael is hard, right?
Because at one point, we actually need to be hip to what's going on, right?
Because we can't be totally disconnected.
But then we also have to stay true to ourselves, right?
So I'm not going to sit here and say to y'all, just bear your head in the sand and just keep
plowing for...
You'll figure it out.
That's ridiculous.
That is a word.
I've always had the mindset of...
Oh, let me tell a story.
Let me tell a story.
I think of this, bear my head a story.
So a farmer decided to enroll his mule in the Kentucky Derby.
And he knew he had a big old ugly mule and he knew his mule was competing against all
these thoroughbreds, right?
And somebody came up to him like, yo, why you...
That's a mule.
You know that, right?
Why you try to have him run against all these thoroughbreds?
He was like, I just thought the exposure would do him good.
Maybe for some of y'all, you ain't ready to run the Kentucky Derby.
But getting up alongside somebody who's actually doing it the way you want it to be done ethically
with integrity, with honesty, with humility.
You need to come up under them for a minute.
Nobody's telling you to mimic what they're doing, but mimic the attitude of how they're
doing it.
And there's no way you can lose in life as long as you're staying in true to your values
and being consistent.
Most people fail in life because they just aren't consistent, El Michael.
It takes 10,000 hours, five years to get something done right, to move from novice to proficient,
albeit even expert level, depending on what you're doing.
It was in the blink, Michael and Gladwell, one of the Gladwell books.
Anyway, Malcolm Gladwell, sorry, Malcolm Gladwell books.
The point I'm trying to make here is that some of y'all quit before you even start.
You're like, oh crap.
This looks hard.
Oh crap, I gotta invest money.
Oh crap, this takes time.
I'm like, but you invested the money to get your smartphone, your $1,000 smartphone.
You invested the time to upload your website.
Take that same energy into how you build your business.
If you can invest in small little things, you are a big project.
Right.
Ask yourself a project that is you.
It's going to be ongoing.
Invest in a project that's you.
That's really big because I think a lot of people that are entrepreneurs, they're looking
at what other people have done and been invited to, or you can make money doing this, but
it's not who they are authentically or they're not really connected to that project or that
thing.
And then they end up skipping around and going to other things.
And I think that's really key is, especially for who you are mentally and spiritually,
connect to that thing that's you that will let you shine, that will let you be a megaphone
of your life in the world.
And so that's really great.
Can you share just a success story where you're coaching help someone discover their
greatness, their purpose and where they're building their minds and their spirits and
just what's a success story?
Oh yeah.
I'm thinking about a client, one of my early clients from Inverse Christine and she is
a widow.
She's a widow and she had her, have you ever heard of line X?
It's basically like this coding they put on the flat beds and trucks.
Anyway, so she was just, she just sell this industrial pain that goes on liners or trucks
and whatever.
And she thought she had her, she had this business and she was like, I think, I don't
know what I'm going to do.
I'm connected to this business.
I'm not even like, that was my husband's business.
I don't know if I just need to sell everything and just move on with my life and just in
time, try to figure all things together.
And I, we have this conversation.
We had many conversations.
We had a conversation with a coach and I said, you know what?
The reason why you want to give up is because you've lost your sense of why you're providing
equipment to people that provides livelihood.
You're providing equipment to people that helps improve safety.
You're providing equipment to people that helps improve the quality of how they do work.
By you quitting on them, you're quitting on purpose for other people.
And that's a heavy, heavy thing to hold on to.
You want to quit on that?
Or are you more attached to your feelings of pity because the husband you thought was
going to take care of it was going to do it in perpetuity and death too.
But that season has changed.
Maybe universe, she's not Christian.
I just said universe.
It's just showing to you that it's time for you to realize how your purpose helps other
people find their purpose and helps provide safety.
And I was just so happy at the end of our relationship, not only was she able to keep
maintaining the business on her own, she actually merged with another business owner to forge
forces and continue selling Linux products.
And that has really made me happy because it wasn't about so much that she didn't sell
the business.
It was a fact that she understood that what she was doing was providing service to the
community.
That is a great why.
And I know for me, my why keeps me going into things that I create, especially starting
this podcast and things of this nature.
My why gets me connected to my purpose.
Even when those days are like, I don't feel like doing this no more.
I can't do it because this is not happening the way I wanted to.
And thank you for sharing that because I think it's really, it could be, it should be prevalent
in people's minds when they go off and start a business or whatever it may be, like what
is your why?
And I could see that you are a great coach, a magnificent human being, very authentic
and very real.
And I mean, this first conversation is really great.
And I don't want, I want to go ahead and, and we could, I could sit here and talk to
you forever, but I want to be cognizant of your time.
And so I came up with this thing that I want to always ask my, my guest, the very last
question, it'll probably change over time, but, and I have a question here that I've
typed up was two, but I'm trying to figure out which one I want to ask.
Okay, let me, let me try this one there.
If someone's listening today and standing at the crossroads of their life, unsure of
how to move forward and struggling to find their purpose and what is one powerful piece
of wisdom or a question they can ask themselves right now that could shift their perspective
and help them take the first step toward their purpose within mental resilience and spiritual
growth.
I know we just talked about why, why, why, why, why, why, right?
Which is why I asked that question.
All right.
But actually I want to flip it and say how, how do you want your legacy to be remembered?
And I want to ask a who will carry your message for it?
Because whether or not we want to acknowledge it, even on our darkest days, somebody's watching
us, even on our darkest moments, something of our life is being recorded.
We drop dead right now.
Somebody's going to come through and examine our belongings.
We're leaving a trail physically, electronically, and it's telling the story.
And that story is either going to be of resilience, compassion, humility, understanding, or regrets
self pity, fear and remorse.
And the crumbs that we leave show us how a life should be loved.
So as people are listening to this, I want us to understand that no matter how you feel,
eyes are watching.
Do you want it watching with a spirit of hope and inspiration or fear and regret?
The choice is yours.
Denise, thank you.
We've been in this last, within this last hour, has been extraordinary.
And I think that anybody that connects with you, whether you coach them in the business
or however, is, it's a gift.
And so I appreciate you and thank you.
Now, how do people get connected to you?
Yeah, the best place, thank you for asking, the best place really, my hub is my website,
Denise G. Lee, all one word, D-N-I-S-E-G-L-E-E.
I'm like struggling to pronounce my own name.
See that?
Right?
So, I mean, I tell you that, I mean, I'm a prolific writer.
I got tons of stuff I've read.
You can access my podcast, the Intervert Entrepreneur, all that fun stuff.
All can be found on my website.
Okay, cool.
And what I'm going to do is connect that in the main, my main, write up in the description,
and that will be spread across all the different avenues that this podcast is on.
And I want to make sure that people know that you have a six month private coaching program
called Royalty, which focuses on helping, like I said in the beginning of the podcast,
helping six figure business owners navigate personal and personal growth.
Do you want to speak a little bit on that before we end?
Yeah, I'll speak about it.
I mean, I'm not trying to sell nothing here.
I just want to get some information about resiliency, but I appreciate it.
I mean, for a lot of us, I kind of mentioned it earlier in our time with one another, where
we have a lot of messages from our childhood culture, society that creates our life script.
For better or for worse influences how we interact with other people on a personal and professional
level.
So the first job that I do with everybody is understanding their life script, because
for a lot of us, we're just going autopilot repeating things and custom that aren't even
really connected to who we are.
Once we understand that, we can actually formulate a plan of who we want to be and actually create
short-term and long-term girls that will guide us.
And then it will also tag along with some business goals that will help marry the person
with professional life.
And that's over a course of 20 sessions and six months.
And I do that via video.
I'm a virtual coach.
I don't do in person.
And there's a lot of other little things, but that's just the overall is that you understanding
who you are and you're getting access to me and my coaching library to help assist you
in that process.
Perfect.
And again, I'll have all that information within the description and just make sure
you check it out.
Denise, G. Lee, you have been extraordinary.
And I do appreciate you once again, just for really being our first guest here on the
Thriveau journey.
And I mean, I can praise you through some more time, but that's it.
So thank you so much.
Thank you for having me.
It's been such a pleasure.
Absolutely.
All right.
I'll see you next time.
Hey, keep being amazing.
Take care.
Thanks everyone.