Finding Your Way Home; The Secrets to True Alignment

Suzy Ashworth on Leading with an Open Heart - in Life & In Business

• Anthea Bell

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Gorgeous Listeners, welcome to this week’s episode of Finding Your Way Home

I can't wait to introduce you to today's speaker - and to a conversation that hits home on so many levels...

Suzy Ashworth is an internationally-acclaimed Coach, public speaker and Sunday Times Best-Selling Author. Beyond her public successes, she's someone I've come to know intimately over the past two years - exploring her professional journey into coaching and building a 7-figure empire, to her personal edges & deepest growth opportunities. She is a veritable force: and today, we connect on a theme that's not only dear to me but critical to all of us supporting others - 

"What is it, truly, to live with an open heart? And how do we get there...? "

In our conversation, recorded in April this year, Suzy shares her profound insights into the nature of personal evolution, creating mind&body-based identity shifts and finding ways to alchemise the toughest moments we face. Never someone to shy away from a challenge, she demonstrates the value of perseverance and of seeing yourself and your capacities as continually plastic. Not only will you hear a touch of me under the microscope - you'll learn what truly creates a successful Coach / facilitator, and why Suzy feels so passionately about supporting that process. 

I loved every moment of our conversation, and I know you will too. 

To find out more about Suzy and her work:

Find her on Instagram: @suzy_ashworth 

Attend her next live event, Infinite Receiving Live: https://suzyashworth.thrivecart.com/infinite-receiving-2025-a/

Attend her next Coaching Intensive: https://suzyashworth.thrivecart.com/so-you-want-to-be-a-coach-intensive-a/

Secure a copy of her book, Infinite Receiving: https://suzyashworth.thrivecart.com/get-your-book-for-free-a/

Stay connected with the podcast:

Thank you for listening; it means the world to us. We'd be so grateful if you could rate, review or share this gorgeous episode with someone you love. That small act brings us to new ears and eyes - it builds the movement of health and connection that FYWH is built on. 

For more information and upcoming news on the podcast, follow us on  @ab_embodiment and our website. 

And to explore working together more deeply:

  • Secure your space at our beautiful retreat in Costa Rica this Autumn. 6 days of sacred ceremony, moving you into the body, into the heart and through the emotional / historic blocks that have held you back. Prepare for a depth of connection you have never felt, in one of the most magical landscapes in the world. Be with us...

Sending love, wherever this finds you,

Ax

very few people know how to unconditionally accept, because it's really, really hard. Very few people know how to unconditionally love because it's really, really hard. We have not experienced that ourselves with our caregivers, and so. To expect people to be able to show up with an open heart, with care for themselves, with self-acceptance. It's a, it's a huge ask. I think it's pretty impossible until you find yourself in a situation with a person or in an environment where somebody is saying, you know, that there's another way. You know, all of those things that you think are, that you need in order to feel better, you know that that's bullshit. Right. And you know that if we work on some of these stories that you are holding in your body and some of the beliefs that you have lived your life from, you know, if we work on those things, you can change the way that you engage with the world and the way that the world engages with you. You know, you know that's possible. Right. Until you have that conversation, how would you know?

Anthea:

welcome to Finding Your Way Home, the secrets to true alignment. I'm your host, Anthea Bell, movement teacher, mind body coach, and lifelong spiritual seeker. This is a podcast about the depth, weight, and profound healing power of connection between mind and body, spirit and soul, and from one human to another. Together with an incredible range of inspiring guests, we'll explore just what connection and alignment mean. How to get there in a world full of the temptation to conform, and how great challenge ultimately can lead to life changing transformation. Get ready for groundbreaking personal stories, conversational deep dives, and a toolkit of strategies to build not just your inner knowing, but your outer world. Let's dive in. Gorgeous creatures. Welcome to this week's episode of Finding Your Way Home. We are kicking off a brand news banking season with a not brand new, but. Definitely spanking human. We've got Suzy Ashworth with us back on the podcast. For those you guys that haven't caught Suzy's previous episode on finding Your Way home, she is a veritable force.

a Sunday Times bestselling author, internationally renowned coach, really specializing not just in the realm of business and business building, but also now training coaches, bringing them into the field, um, and actually has a particular interest and curiosity in this dovetailing of the mind and the body. So how do we really optimize someone's physiology to allow the mental processes changes, actions to really take hold and embed. We're catching Suzy at a phenomenal moment, uh, in the life of the business, um, in the life of this year that we are entering into. There's a lot of, uh, motion, there's a lot of building I know for her personally and professionally, and this season is particularly oriented towards female leaders in their field. And their criteria for joining us is not just their level of success and visibility and charisma and adulation by their audiences, but is the degree to which they live from the heart. And I'd love us. Sweet one, if you're willing. First of all, thank you so much for being here. But if you're willing, I'd really love us to start on that particular theme, what it is to be a heart led leader. Thank you so much for having me, and what a beautiful introduction and it's interesting, isn't it, because I think that I have spoken to working with heart led leaders really since the beginning of my business. That felt like an important thing, but I'm not entirely sure that I really knew what that even meant back in the day when I first started saying it. I certainly, I talk about the fact that I was kindhearted, but not necessarily open-hearted in my book, and not because I'm a meanie, but because of self-protection and self-defense and have having been hurt, wanting to protect myself from. Being hurt again. So when I was asking for heart led people, I think I was probably quite unconsciously inviting myself. As often we do, we teach the things we most need to know. We ask for the things that we most desire to embody. I think it was probably a call to myself to open my heart now having done the work that I have done on myself and just I suppose having a clearer vision for the people who are in my world. I think being heart led is really about vulnerability. It is the willingness to endure pain. It is the willingness to. Make mistakes to, um, move without knowing what the answers are going to be. It's to be certain in the direction, but uncertain in the how it is going to happen and to move anyway. And I think that that requires a massively open heart because you may fail and you might look stupid. I want people who wear their heart on their sleeves. So when I say, what do you want? They're able to tell me what it is that they want, their deepest desires, stuff that they might not have even admitted to themselves before. I want people who are willing to walk that walk with me quite selfishly, because it inspires me and motivates me and gives me permission. It becomes this beautiful co-creation. I'm like, wow, God, that's amazing. how does that impact me? How does that open me up? And, and vice versa. Like, I want just. Richness and depth and wealth in all areas of my life, and I understand now more profoundly and acutely than ever that all of that richness, all of that wealth, all of that depth, all of that vulnerability comes through the heart. Gosh, it's really fascinating hearing you,'cause obviously by this stage I know you, I know you relatively well, and I would say that the qualities in you that I've been exposed to they have had a real, uh, vein of, of tenderness and care in them toward yourself and toward other people. It's beautiful to hear you referencing that, hearing somebody else's desire expressed with that open vulnerability. That implies a trusting relationship is part of the material that then goes to feed your own validation of living from that same place. What is it that you think keeps most people from that? Because my observation of the wider world is people are living a lot from want, including the lack part of want. And gratification. They're not necessarily, in my experience, living from desire. I think that it is a skill. It is a learned skill. I think that from Naugh to seven, when we're in that subconscious programming phase, we are, it's where we have. Our first lessons and sometimes our harshest lessons that we are unable to meaningfully process. And the way that we protect ourselves is just to close down. You know, if you are the child that wets themselves in the middle of the playground or the classroom and has everybody laughing at them, you close down. If you are the child whose parents have not done their own work, or even if they have done their own work, but just say something offhand in a moment because they're dealing with, you know, stress bills, relationship stuff that you have no idea about, and they tell you to go away. They tell you to stop talking and you close down. You make that mean I'm not good enough, I'm not beautiful enough, I'm not sound enough. You create a whole narrative as that 5-year-old, 6-year-old, 7-year-old. Your heart hurts. Your heart breaks, and in your naivety, you decide that the safest way for you to move forward in this life is to not give all of yourself. Because if you do, you might be rejected, you might disappoint, and the feeling of being rejected or abandoned or disappointing, it's just too much to bear. and I, I believe that even with the best intentions and the most conscious parenting, all of us are having that experience because we're children and you can't live through the eyes of an adult when you are six. So the process then has to be putting yourself in environments where there are people who are living a different way. And sometimes that will be through the landmark forum. Sometimes that will be through a good church. Sometimes that will be through just finding your people and having the experience of unconditional love or unconditional acceptance. Oh, it's safe for me to be who I'm going, who I am in my messiness. You're not gonna reject me. Okay, I'm gonna open myself up. It's just very few people know how to unconditionally accept, because it's really, really hard. Very few people know how to unconditionally love because it's really, really hard. We have not experienced that ourselves with our caregivers, and so. To expect people to be able to show up with an open heart, with care for themselves, with self-acceptance. It's a, it's a huge ask. I think it's pretty impossible until you find yourself in a situation with a person or in an environment where somebody is saying, you know, that there's another way. You know, all of those things that you think are, that you need in order to feel better, you know that that's bullshit. Right. And you know that if we work on some of these stories that you are holding in your body and some of the beliefs that you have lived your life from, you know, if we work on those things, you can change the way that you engage with the world and the way that the world engages with you. You know, you know that's possible. Right. Until you have that conversation, how would you know? It almost sounds like part of what is being spoken there is that it is impossible not to change if you come into a container with kind of the right flavor of person At the right time and enough of an inkling of your pain point and your desire, the change in some ways is deeply related to the specifics of what you do. But in another sense, it's deeply relational and so much of our work, you and me, is about cultivating that bedrock of trust between me and you, even in a conversation like this, so that there's a real understanding of a ok, I care about you, you care about me, we care about the topic, we care about the listeners. That that trust piece, again, I suspect that gets eroded out there partly'cause people aren't willing to pause for long enough to drop into the bed of that dynamic in that moment. You've been super supportive with me in helping me particularly through, um, how do I navigate when people are not necessarily happy with me or they're having some kind of experience on their side of the street. And I was given a lot of schooling from about 10 years ago on the idea of detachment with love and really allowing them to fully be who they are. And I would say I've been really successful at doing that right up until the point at which it feels like there is some bad behavior or culpability on my part. And it's at that point that my ability to detach with love and to stay in that place of real benevolence of trust, even when a person is behaving in a particular way, it starts to get a bit fractured. Is that an experience that you have had to work through? Can I still be applying to love to myself? Even when I'm not necessarily clear that I'm receiving love from the other, so yes. And what I heard you say is that it gets sticky for you when there is some part of you that believes that you may have been bad, and that is slightly different from can I choose to love myself even if somebody is not offering me love? Both of these things I have had to learn, and I believe that all transformation really starts with self love. You know, I, I, I've been very, very fortunate to have been blessed with foster parents who loved me very, very deeply. And so to have that as a foundation for my growth and evolution, I, I mean, I, it is priceless. And we all know of people that have had a lot of love in their life, and yet they still are unable to honor that in oneself. They're still unable to offer themselves self-love for whatever reason. So everything starts with self-love and self-acceptance, and that has been a very, very long journey. It will be a lifelong journey. it, it, it never stops. But once you are on that path and you are committed to. Deeply loving and deeply accepting yourself. What goes hand in hand with that is grace. So am I able to offer myself grace when I fuck up? Yes, because I've committed to a journey of self love. I can't say that I'm on the path to self-love. And then every single time I make a mistake, which is all the time, like flagellate myself, it doesn't work. So it's that acknowledgement. Am I really good at acknowledging like I've made a mistake and I'm sorry and I mean it, and I am going to learn from it and I'm going to do differently next time? And can that be enough for me? Yes. Now what if it's not enough for you? I mean, I can't do anything about that. I'm sorry if it's not enough for you, but I cannot do anything about that. Mm. And I also know that if it's not enough for you, nine times out of 10, that is not about me. If I'm genuinely sorry and I said I will do better next time. if it's not enough for you, that isn't about me. That is about your journey, where you are going, what you need, and I'm no longer a match for you. And that also gets to be okay. Really liberating. Not just to know that it is most of the time, not about you, but also. To let things be honest. It's like if it's a mismatch, you know, most of us, and I'm sure some of the listeners have this as well, spend a ton of their time trying to bring relationships that are naturally separating back together. Because the belief is, I'll feel better if it's like it was. And of course, as soon as the rupture happens, it's not like it was, you've got a new reality now. You've been playing, I think a lot recently with this kind of gorgeous meditative Joe Dispenza world of like, let's be here now, people right now. And for me, that involves a lot of truth. Speaking about, is this relationship romantic or otherwise truthful, relative to who I am in this moment in my life, who you are in this moment in your life, and actually even more than that, is there a mutual commitment on both sides that we both wanna be in it according to these terms? Is that, and that's the thing. Last year, it might have even been the year before maybe we have been separated for a year. But I, I had a, a, a falling out, a rupture with somebody who had been a very, very good friend in my business life for a long time, for maybe like eight years. And it was essentially my best friend and I was no longer willing to be in the relationship under the current terms and conditions. And when I spoke my truth in the hope that we would be able to write a new agreement that I wasn't met, and that created a lot of. Deep sadness in me for a long time, even though I had observed this pattern with this friend, with a number of people over the years. So again, even though I know that the fact that we were unable to get to a new agreement wasn't about my value, my inherent value, even though very logically my mind is like, well, it was about how much she valued me, but the way that she valued me is not the same as what my inherent value is. And if you don't get that, I get to love you and leave you. But that process of extricating yourself from a friendship. Which I think can sometimes be just as hard as a, a romantic relationship that that played on my mind a lot. It played on my mind and it played on my heart a lot until now. I am at the stage where I'm like, but I just, I love myself too much. I love myself too much, not to be met, you know, and that's nothing, there's still, there's still sadness there, but I know what I'm, I know my value. I know what I'm worth. I love myself deeply, and if I don't feel like I'm being met, then it's, it is time for us to part. It's a reason, a season, a lifetime with every single individual. So my father left when I was, uh, he's wonderful. He's still around, but he left when I was, uh, just under one. And my mom then had this, this sort of sequence of different relationships. And, and in the way of a child, you remember them, you remember really bizarre things. Like one of her partners used to tell me that he was colorblind and the flowers were pink, and he absolutely swore they were blue. And as a 7-year-old, I thought this was fantastic. But I remember her saying to me to sort of try and help me make sense of it at the time, because none of the kids at my school had divorced parents. And she said to me, well, you know, a, never could I regret it because look at you guys. But b relationships have an expiry date Aina beans. And at the time I remember that, that was so radical. I'd never heard anyone else's mom say anything that cool. But that became my template. And in a funny way, I wonder if part of my internal script became, well they don't last that long anyway. So, you know, enjoy them for a season, but don't build your life on the basis that you are chooseable.'cause that's kind of the phrase that we've not spoken yet, but we should. Mm. I choose myself. I don't even put myself psychologically in a position where I'm looking to be chosen by another. Because like you often say, I own all of this. I mean, I suppose ultimately for a human being, if they're not owning all of this, this is the skin suit that you're walking around in. What are you doing if you're not owning this? Which is a reality, it's a fact. You are a fact over there. So you have to choose it yourself. My thoughts are, is that when you are deeply and profoundly choosing all of yourself, there is nothing missing and that is a, uh, desire to get to that space. Like, I'm not there yet, but there is a desire. I really believe that to be true. To be in such. Deep reclamation of myself and my brilliance and my greatness and my uniqueness is to really know that there is nothing missing, and anything that is drawn into my field is overflow. It's abundance. It is. Yeah. It's overflow and abundance. It is. There's no need. There's no want. It just is. And presumably for you. Love that goes too, for the challenges that are drawn into your field because they become the alchemy of, of whatever growth it is that is being shown to you, encouraged for you in this lifetime. I think that when I am like really dialed in and without wanting to sound like I'm turning a frown upside down, but from that place there, uh, my sense is there is no challenge. It really is opportunity. Everything is an opportunity from that place of wholeness there, there's nothing wrong. There is just an opportunity to engage with life, this lesson, this upgrade in a way that is going to ultimately end up enriching my life in every way, shape and form if I can come from that place of wholeness. I don't know whether that's true, but that feels like. Like, I'm, I'm open and available to test that hypothesis. And it sounds like everything that we are talking about in a way, although we are touching on relationship with self and, and therefore what people might consider to be personal, I feel that, I know that this is also the fundamental for you of what goes into not just your business, but what you feel is a critical foundation in everyone's businesses that this part, this, this deep wholeness, when we're operating from here, the outcomes professionally are radically different Mm. Than this work. Yeah. I mean, this is, I. I am not sure how many times I say this in the book, but it is becoming full of yourself. So full of yourself, and from that place of fullness and wholeness and self-appreciation and self-love and self acceptance, you can't help but be anything but magnetism. And when you are a magnet from that pure state, what you attract is a match for that. That's sexy. That's, that's great. And even the stuff that isn't in inverted, doesn't appear great, is great from that place because the way that you respond and engage with life from that place is just very, very different from what's wrong with me? What's wrong with them? What's wrong with it? What is missing? How do I get out of this? How do I stop this? Why is this happening to me? That doesn't, it's just not necessary for you to play in any of those frequencies when you are coming from a place of fullness. But the people that don't know your story or they haven't read the book and team, we're gonna make sure that we link that in the show notes. Would you be happy to describe to us a little bit about your journey with that?'cause from what I know of your story, this, this wholeness, this abundance mentality, what I know it's sort of commonly referred to as in the, the popular world. That might not have been necessarily where you started question mark, or was it, have you always had this openness to the positive? It would be better for me to say no, and that I was really negative and I hated life. And, but that is not true. I was fostered at the age of three months old and I was fostered into, uh, the care of Doreen and Dennis Pocock, who were white working class individuals. My mom was an Avon lady. My dad did odd jobs around crown paint. He helped me deliver my papers. We drove a blue skoda. It was like very. Nothing was cool. Shopping from the market like that was, that was our existence. But I felt chosen from a very young age. So not only did they choose me from three months old, but when I first went to live with them, they had like five or six other foster children. And for whatever reason, they let all of those other foster children go. But they kept me. And then when my younger sister was one, she came to live with us as well. So I think that that was a very profound for me, I felt special and I felt chosen. And then one of my, not earliest memories, but I have a very clear memory of sitting on my bed in my bedroom that I used to share with my sister. So I had just been made a ward of court and essentially that means that I was not going to see my biological parents from the age of eight till I was 18. And I remember sitting on the side of my bed not so long after this period thinking God wasn't I blessed to have been given two sets of parents. And that is just such a weird thing. I must have been about eight years old and that's just such, just such a weird thing for me to have thought at that age. But that was my disposition. So I was somebody who was just able to appreciate. A lot of things. Having said that, you know, I was a right terror. I think I left, I left home at 15. I was very, very promiscuous looking for love in all of the wrong places. The absence of my biological father really did impact me profoundly. That was my first heartbreak. I, uh, yeah, a lot of drugs, a lot of just carnage also. So even the way that I tell the story and view the story, it's, it's interesting. And my, my foster mother then passed away when I was 19 and then my dad, um, a very short time after that. So there has been like, I've certainly had my fair share of trouble and my natural family. Is very, um, fractured. So have I always been like positive? Yes. Did I for a very long time protect myself by really keeping my heart under lock and key? Absolutely. And that ha has led to a lot of dysfunction. It was not until really I started this entrepreneurial journey. 12 years ago that I really started to do the work in earnest, that was my door opening to truth with self honesty and integrity. it is a deep dive. You cannot run your own business, certainly not in the work that, in the field that we are in, and not have a deep dive into your own personal growth and development.'cause you will be stretched. Every insecurity, every feeling of inadequacy, every like learning edge there is will be presented to you. I. And I think for the best coaches, you embrace that you work your way through it and that enables you to really be an incredible coach, mentor, consultant if you are doing the work. And I think that's important to say. Sorry, I will let you get worded in edgeways in a second. It's important to say that I am not in any way, shape or form saying if you've had a traumatic upbringing, that that's gonna make you a great coach. And I think that in this industry, often those two things are conflated and that it's not the same thing I remember being told relatively recently about the difference between being the hero of the story and being the guide. Yes. And that that distinction is really critical when you start to work with other people. Because if it's one hero to another hero, the client has to be. The hero. Right. you have to be able to embody the guide. Mm-hmm. And it touches a little bit on that distinction you've just made of, just because you've gone through trauma and you have an incredible story, doesn't mean that you are necessarily in a place where you can really coach, teach, mentor someone through that same experience. And on the other side of that, I definitely know for me, that witnessing my clients doing the grit, the number of edgy moments that we hold them through, of course that couldn't help but bat over to me even more courage, even more inspiration, more growth and opportunity. So is bidirectional this coaching thing. But I think you do have to start, like you say, with at least a commitment to a commitment, at least a questioning the. Simple, automatic, perhaps negative story that the mind will most often create. That's the interpretation, not the actual thing. Mm-hmm. I, I think that everything is a co-creation. There is, there are no mistakes. Every client is with you for a specific reason. You are the coach or the mentor for every client for a specific reason. And these agreements and contracts that we make are both explicit and un explicit. It is known and unknown for sure. And the idea that you have the skillset to separate yourself and your trauma and your experience from your clients, if you have had no training in that, is. Naive at best and dangerous at worst. And we were just having a conversation about what happened. You know, in this role it is very easy to be pedestal. It is very easy for somebody to inadvertently give up their own power and potency and think that you are the key because you know how to ask the right questions. And if you give your seal of approval, then that means it must be okay. No, no. That is not our role. But it's very easy in to find yourself in that position and one that is, again, that is not what we are there to do. And if you don't catch that, that can be dangerous. But even if you do catch it. You can find yourself. And over the years, over the last 12 years, I've found myself in a position where all of a sudden somebody has realized that they have given their power to you and then decided that it was your fault that you did that, that they did that. And it's like, so then you have to deal with not only the projections, but you have to deal with all of the stuff that is inevitably going to come up for you when you feel like you have been doing your job appropriately. And then for somebody to turn around and say that you are manipulative or that you are dangerous or you are harmful or you should know better. And, and some of those things may or may not be true, but the needing formal support and training to be able to hold these spaces appropriately and powerfully. I've never felt more passionate about. And that's become a huge part of your business orientation, hasn't it? In the last year. I mean, it's become, that's the baby, right? Is this incredible? That's the baby program. Tell us about the baby. Yeah. I feel like we are doing something just very unique in the coaching world now. There are a lot of certifications. You are creating an incredible facilitation training, which is amazing. There are a lot of certifications that you can get. There are a lot of talented, talented coaches and facilitators out there. But the reality is, is very few of them are earning a decent living. And some of that I believe is through. Lack of confidence. They haven't had enough support in the learning phase. So one of the things that we have shifted in our certification is that people now have to go from 50 practice hours to a hundred practice hours in order to qualify. That feels really amazing. And also we teach a very specific business model that involves community and live events and retreats and how to sell to premium buyers. And this just feels, well, one, I know that it is unique. We're not tagging that on at the end. It's something that people are learning as they're learning their coach skills. I just have a desire to have world class coaches out in the world who are, who know how to do good business because from that we can amplify impact. So profoundly and impact for the clients that they're working with, but also impact for the world if we have, not just people who are scraping by but are earning decent money. The give that you can do and the type of people that we desire to work with have their own personal goals, but they also have their own give goals. The what do, what's the social impact that you want to play a part in? And that for me is just really exciting. We get to do some really incredible work. That touches this world on every single level personally, then your immediate community when it comes to your family, then the people that you work with, and then your, the, the social impact. What do you want to give to the wider community? And you can do that when you are paid appropriately. Well, it's such an important topic, and I think it's one that's very under spoken about in our, in our industry, in the therapeutic industry generally. And as you say, there is a huge hole in, uh, validating business now, uh, and teaching it. Um, and of course that allows us to touch a little bit on kind of money mythology, money stories. I mean, you definitely have been very open with you about the fact that money for me has been a really tricky, I think it is for a lot of people. Um, but I also had a, a big emphasis. Probably innately in me and also related to childhood and, and other experiences after that. Service and money were, were mutually exclusive. Mm. You know, if you were being of service, you weren't charging money because to charge someone else money was a form of harm. And if played with the extremeness of that attitude. And one of the things that you pointed out to me very early was, you know, if you think that that's not having an impact on you and on you as a practitioner and on what you are modeling to your clients, you've, you've got that wrong. Yeah. Did you always feel a degree of liberation around the benevolence of making money or has that also been part of your work?'cause I know that it's what a lot of people experience when they come into your space is, I get to think about this differently. Yeah. I think that coming from literally no money, like no money at all, has been very helpful when it comes to saying, giving myself permission to earn money. I also think that there's, I mean, there's just, there's so many stories that I have overcome around money. There was the first, when am I gonna tell that story? Maybe not gonna tell that story. I, where, where am I starting from? There are so many things that I've had to overcome. I think the, the biggest one is, as a dark skin black woman, am I allowed and what does it represent? And. I did not realize how triggering it would be for me as a dark skin black woman to talk about large amounts of money, very triggering for the black community. Probably not quite as triggering outwardly to the white community, but that brought up a a lot for me. And there was a decision made and I'm not sure at what point the decision was made that I needed to do it because it was so triggering. And to kind of go back to the beginning, I was in a Facebook group with Marie Folio. I joined a program called B School, and I just saw somebody who had had their first 10 K month. And I literally thought, my goodness, I didn't know that was possible. I. Oh, cool. She could do it. I can do it. That that was, that bit was easy. That bit was easy. I think that the challenging thing was realizing, look, oh, I'm doing something different because of what I look like. That bit was more challenging. And then it was like, okay, come on then let's go. Let's see how far we can go. And there have been points, like the first seven figures that felt challenging to say, I had to get through the, am I allowed, do I deserve it? Am I good enough? For sure. And then now with the goal being eight figures, and I was saying to the team, I've spoken about that for a couple of years, but in the same way as the first time I started speaking about the million, it was quite disembodied and. I didn't feel as embarrassed speaking to it as I did when I first said I wanna make a million. But there's something that is very different, like right now, in this moment in time, because it feels like there is a pathway. I can see how many people that we wanna impact. There are things that I'm letting go of so I can focus my attention. And whilst I don't know exactly like what's the number of launches and all of like, I don't know that bit, but I can see a pathway in a way that I've never been able to see a pathway before. And that really does make it real. And so I think also we will cross 10 million for the amount of money, amount of revenue the business has taken over the 12 years that I've been in business with. The majority of that being done since 2020. So. That. Also, I think mindset shifts. It's like I knew, I remember saying a couple of years ago when I was like, I first wanna make eight figures in a year, but the first goal will be cumulatively and now I'm there. So now it's like, oh, okay. And that's how all of the goals have really been met, first of all by saying it, then acting in alignment with it, and then all of a sudden it's, it's, it's happening because I've acted in alignment with it. I think I've answered your question. You have, and I guess what it had me curious about is when you think about that eight figure number or when you sense into that even in your body, what, what's the meaning of that for you? It's so neutral. There is no, and that that's how, this is how we know that we're onto something. It's not like, woo, exciting. It doesn't mean that I'm gonna be better. There's none of that. It is so neutral. It just means that I will have had like a thousand students go through our program in a year, give or take, pragmatic. That's what it means. Yeah. Yeah. I love that.'cause I was thinking just while you were speaking about this common. It touches on the pedestal thing, right? This common assumption of you are more visible or you are more even, you are visible slash you are making a certain amount of money slash you have a certain, um, elevation of title that makes you better. Yeah. Which is that thirsty place. And I remember you signaling to me right when we first met that you would go into spaces even in learning containers, and you would be next to, you know, shuffling your shoulders up against people that were at the time making significantly more money than you, and that you were really able to hold your own. And, and it touches right back on what we've been talking about, about the wholeness piece and this intrinsic value versus extrinsic. Mm. But it's really beautiful to hear you speak about it in that way. Uh, with that piece about rubbing shoulders, though, that has been a process. I would say that that has been more of a process than the. Allowing, giving myself permission to receive money. And I think that probably the reason why the receiving of money has been less of a process for me is because of my sales background. You know, I started selling in Pizza Hut, do you wanna stuff cross with that? Do you want a large Coke with that? I love it. And you've said to me before also you really appreciate a really good sell. Like it does not cause any aversion in you. Oh my God, I love being sold to. I just love it. I love someone who loves their craft and I'm an emotional buyer. I'm so like I shouldn't be allowed on the internet. I, you made, really made me laugh. You said to me a few weeks ago, you seem really strategic with your buyers and I bet you are. You, you are really careful. And I just thought, that is not the way I buy. What will happen is I'll see somebody that I like, I'll like what it is that they're saying. I'll circle around them. I'll kind of get a little bit of a vibe. If I don't buy immediately, I don't buy immediately, but the next time their thing is on, I'll be thinking about it. I would've already sold myself 10 times over. So when they go again, I'm like, I'm either like right there right at the beginning, or I'll just wait until the, I get the TikTok. TikTok last, last chance, and then I'll be like, okay, I'll buy. But there's no, so much of it is done on intuition. And I would say that over the last 12 years, I've probably been disappointed like twice. I just believe in. It's been, and it's, this, again, has been so much easier in my business than for me personally in my business. I'm like, I deserve to be supported. Also, I'm just not silly. Like there are people out there that have done it the way that I wanna do it. So if I can see that they're doing it, of course I'm gonna invest. Of course I'm going to invest. And at the same time, I also know that I'm the magic bullet. So I'm never investing because I think that they hold the key as such. Like I hold the key, but you've got codes. So I'm wanna get close to you and absorb as many of your codes as possible. And then I know that I have to put the key in the lock and make it work and, um, you know, I'll do that. With four or five mentors. I mean, I'm ridiculously tooled up right now, but I also feel the most excited, the most energized.'cause I've got so much support. I deserve it. The last time I had this level of support, I tripled my business in a year and I'm, I'm confident that, that that's the energy of this level of support brings me, and you were talking to me earlier about longevity in the game, and I suppose that's also what we're touching on. Yeah, I mean, I just, I think you make it easier to stay in the game when you've got people who are, they're in your corner, but they're not blinded by the same level of emotion that you have about the thing that feels like the biggest thing in the whole entire world. And they're like, um, you're fine. Come on, get on with it. So I really like that. And then. Every person that I have worked with has just been through their own crises moment many times over. And so it is so helpful when you really learn. I heard somebody say this the other day, and I've not heard it for a long time, and I just thought that's it. Some people go into mentorship and coaching with the idea that they need to squeeze every single, um, like piece of juice out of the container in order for it to be worthwhile. And other people use coaching and mentoring like an insurance policy. And the latter, the, the, the. Higher level you invest. That is really your, you are investing for insurance because you already have a lot of the intellectual knowing because of the experience that you have been in. But you understand those moments when you fall flat on your face. To have somebody there that has done it probably 15 times and 15 times harder because they've gone 15 times bigger, that's why you've invested with them in the first place. To have that person there, then that is priceless. And when you don't have that, the amount of strength and resilience you need to all on from within yourself. Just sometimes that can feel like just too big of a task for people. And when I say sometimes, what I really mean is most of the time so many people that were on a par with me start at the same time as me. Much, much bigger than me, um, in terms of audience, in terms of income, in terms of launches that just disappeared. Disappeared because they fell and they couldn't get up. Yeah. Which is related to this thing that you talk about quite a lot and, and also publicly about staying in the momentum. And the momentum is not just the business evolving or the self-growth journey, it's about staying in a, in a community and an environment where you are regularly reminded of the same message. It's a bit like habit change that they say that when you wanna really implement a new habit, make it really easy for yourself. Put post-its up around your kitchen, make sure your fridge is full of the kind of food you want to eat, not the kind of food that you don't, yeah. There's a lot to that. Um, but I suppose the, the one other thing, there's maybe two, two more themes that I would really love you to just share for the listeners.'cause I obviously get the, the benefit of the wealth of year 12 years and all of the years before, but they don't. So the, the one is choice. Mm-hmm. You have said so many times this will shift when you choose it. Mm-hmm. I don't think that those listening will necessarily have heard that before. And I'd love you to just do a little dive into it. I just think that often we make it so hard. And in this world where introspection is valued and important and required, if you want to be self-aware, you have to look at self. And the flip side of that is that we can get so caught up in the intricacies that we forget that sometimes all we need to do is look up and say, this is what I'm doing. This is what I care about. This is who I am. You have to choose it for yourself. I'm waiting to be chosen when it comes to launching or writing or being visible or selling. I'm waiting for the client to choose me. I'm waiting for the client to say that it's okay that I'm allowed to raise my rates. I'm allowed. Mm, you're gonna be waiting a long time, my friend. You are going to be waiting a long time. You have to choose it. You have to claim it. You have to own it, and the universe will then follow suit. Why? Because the energetic field that you carry, when you have chosen, when you have claimed, when you are owning again, you, you attract What is a match for that? Now, I'm not saying that sometimes you might choose it and they feel like there's a lag time. Just sit in the void. But that's where your power is ignited. That's where it's developed. That's where your belief and faith are, uh, attested. Whilst you are in that void, can you hold it? What I think is more common is that people will choose it once and then they, they think that that's enough, and then because they don't get the result that they want immediately, they stop choosing. They revert back to type. They, they shrink, they decide to shave a little bit off of their goals. Maybe I'm not gonna set any goals anymore,'cause I don't wanna be disappointed. They stop choosing. You have to choose a thousand times over a day. That's the truth and that's the mastery because it is not easy when somebody like me is asking you to choose when there is no evidence. What you are choosing is a tool sane or is going to come to fruition. Like somebody said to me the other day, am I being deluded? And I said, yes you are. I'm being delusional. It's like, yes you are. But that is what is required. Anything other than that, you are acting based on what you already know to be true. You are acting on the evidence of what is. But for most of us who are going bigger, who desire to create deep impact, who are doing things that nobody in our family has ever done before, there is no evidence. You are not working on a map of the past. You are creating the map of the future, step by step, by step by step. Trust, faith, delusion, absolute prerequisites, and choosing that again and again. It takes courage. Yeah. So powerful and it makes me think about this fine balance between agency and surrender. And I think that's theme I just want us to play with. Surrender for me is easy in one sense because it was hard. Won control was my bread and butter for 30 years and, and I can feel in myself almost on a somatic level when is surrender actually passivity and giving up. So there's this weave of can I be in flow? Can I trust that there is more to be discovered, that I am not cognitively aware of? Mm. Me in the belly of the flow and can I pull up my boots and take action? What's your take on, on the balance between action and surrender? I, well, I think that you've just summed it up really beautifully, and it's that conscious awareness. For me, surrender is not being attached to the outcome. So, uh, can I choose my goal, which may be delusional, ridiculous, huge, and let go of whether I actually hit it or not, whilst at the same time commit to acting in alignment with it. That's where the boot pulling up the boots comes in, and if I can act in alignment with the big goal. Whilst being detached, so surrendered from whether I actually hit it or not. I don't have to push. I don't have to force, but I do get to be creative. I do well, courage is required because I'm gonna have to do brave things. I'm gonna have to do things that I've never done before. I'm gonna have to lead myself in a way that I've never led myself before in order to create something that I've never created before. Can I do that with Grace? Can I do it with humility? Can I do it with fun? Can I do it with creativity? That is how those two weave in and out of each other for me. Sweet human. It has been such a gorgeous treat to hear you. Thank you so much for everything that you've shared. Is there any final nugget that you would like to leave the listeners with? Yeah, I think I just wanna say go big. Go big on your life. You know, the, we get this one opportunity in this skin suit. Like, just go big and enjoy it. It's okay, you're gonna make some mistakes, it's gonna be okay. You're gonna have some stupendous wins if you allow yourself to live into some stupendous goals. Like potential is such a fun thing to play with. Like, what can you do? Ask yourself what can you do? And go for it. And remember that Faith plus action equals miracles. Amazing. Yeah. Sweet. Thank you so, so much. And listeners, we will make sure that you have all the info that you need about the training program, about the book, about other ways to get in touch with gorgeous Suze. Um, but we just love having you on. I just love having you on. So thank you. Good time honey. Thank you for having me.

Anthea:

Gorgeous listeners. I hope. You enjoy today's. today's. episode. To find. More about our. Featured guests. Have a look in the show. Notes.