Episode 10: Stop Talking Yourself Out of Your Next Level—Do This Instead

Schedule our conversation here.

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This is where the real work begins.

You’ve created your next level vision, and now you’re coming face-to-face with what’s in the way.

In this episode, we’re breaking down the biggest blocks that show up the moment you decide for more—and how to start moving through them with power.

These aren’t random obstacles. They’re patterns of conditioning, fear, and old beliefs designed to keep you safe… and small.

And if you’re a woman leader, founder, or someone who’s here to make a difference—this work matters.

Because your next level isn’t just about you.

It impacts the people you lead, the work you do, and the change you’re here to create.

In this episode we break down:

The  biggest blocks that show up when you go for your next level

• How dissuasion, distraction, fear, resentment, and “not enoughness” keep you stuck
• Why your thoughts are already shaping your results
• Tools to to rewire limiting beliefs
• The sexiest thing about failure

Your invitation:

Notice what’s coming up for you.

What’s the belief trying to stop you–up until now?

Then choose a new thought.

Repeat it.

Practice it.

Build it.

This is how you create your next level.

_________________________________________________________________________

Did this episode call you forward?

If you’re a founder, leader, entrepreneur, creative, or a woman who makes a difference and you are ready to break through your upper limits and glass ceilings to create more impact and income, I’m personally inviting you to a complimentary Next Level 1:1 conversation with me.

With high-touch support, you’ll get clear on what your next level actually is, identify what’s in the way, and create aligned, powerful next steps tailored specifically to you and your next level of personal and professional success. You’ll leave with clarity, courage, and momentum designed around your vision and your capacity.

Schedule our conversation here.

You are here on purpose.

Your assignment is your next level.

And you have full permission and limitless possibility to create an extraordinary life that makes a difference for yourself, for others, and for the world.

Hey gorgeous.

I love you.

I'm so proud of you.

And I believe in your ability to create a next level life you love.

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to her next level with Dana Hunter F. Where founders, leaders, and women who make a difference go to create your next level of personal and professional success. I'm your host, Dana Hunter, f Transformational success coach for exceptional women. And I'm on a mission to remind you of your limitless possibility and to show you how to create your next level so that it feels as good as it looks. Follow the show, my friend. Grab your iced coffee and turn up the volume to create her next level. Let's go. Well, hello, gorgeous and welcome back to her Next Level podcast with your favorite podcast host, Dana Hunter. I hope that you enjoyed last week's workshop because we had a blast creating it, and I normally don't publish those private workshops that I do, but I was able to strip out most of the higher level work that we did within the container with the VIP guests that came and give you the broad overview of the things that. I get to do with women who are working with me to increase their income and their impact. It is my love language and it is the reason we are here to create our next level. So I'm so happy that you're here. I'm grateful that you're deciding to spend some of your precious time with me. I do not take that for granted, just in case you haven't heard it today. I love you. You're gorgeous. Shake that ass girl. So today we're gonna continue the work of bridging the gap between where you are right now and your next level of life, of leadership, of wealth of health, and the impact that you're here to create. So let's get it started. Are you ready? You know you're gonna have to take a deep breath 'cause we are about to go breathe in and out. Today is so powerful because. I am sharing with you, you are leaving this podcast with some of the first real power tools for what to do when things start to get hard, because let me promise you, my sister, things will get hard. In fact, our whole nervous system, I know we've discussed this, I'm gonna say it again and again and again, is designed to keep us safe, which means same safety and sameness are equated in the nervous system because change sometimes feels like an angry bear or a wild tiger on the loose to kill us. And the way that we are designed, our bodies, our brains, our nervous system is to do whatever is needed to keep us safe. And the nervous system perceives your expansion and perceives your next level and perceives the things that you are dreaming about. Even if you commit at the highest level, your nervous system is like, yeah, I hear you. No, we're not gonna be doing that because that's too scary. And I'll give you an example. We have talked a few a few times. I hope I've talked about it and sung it from the stars. When I first started this work not so long ago, part of the vision, my initial vision for my next level of personal and professional success included this one really big trip to France where my family goes to France, we are seeing the Eiffel Tower, we are eating, we are. Drinking too much espresso and enjoying the fruits of this lifetime love I have for the French culture. My mom took me because she has audacity. My mom had the audacity to take me in a group of high school students back in the 1990s over to Europe for three weeks, and I think we went to 13 different countries and that experience changed my life. Audacity changes lives, and I'm so grateful that that's one of the things that I have inherited rightly from my mom, is the audacity to do wild things like take young people abroad, which I'm leaving on Sunday to do with my own daughter. From that experience, I fell absolutely in love with French and the French language. I'm not sure why my soul got really into France. It was the second to last country on the journey of 13 countries. I had heard all the languages that they're already here in Western Europe, and something clicked inside of me when we landed in Paris and I heard the radio and I heard the French people speaking. And I had taken at that point a semester of French maybe, or a freshman year of French, I'd actually taken more Spanish than I had French. But my soul started singing and I just woke all the way up maybe for the very first time, just woke all the way up and felt like God is, there's something here. This place is magical, and I want more of that. I want more of that. And so. I came back to the States for my sophomore year and I went to the principal and the academic dean and I said, I wanna do whatever it takes to take as much French as I can to get to the AP exam. 'cause you know, I'm a high achiever. Recovering mostly. And I also want to have the opportunity to, to study in France. And so since I was also sort of navigating the choices between good choices and making the right choices in school, and also hovering around not so good choices. And if you know, you know, um, well, I don't want you to assume I was making some bad choices. So I had started trying some drugs and I was drinking and I was hanging out with half of the great people, but also the other half not so great people. So I was really at this turning point in my life. And that trip changed things for me because as a result of my audacity totally inherited from my mom and her mom and her mom, I negotiated and advocated for that plant and they worked with me. So I took accelerated French. I studied in the summer. I went to France. I went to France a few times. And I just fell madly in love with this trip. And so when in New Orleans, circa 2012 or 13, I was young and single. I had a boyfriend but no kids. There was this French immersion school, wait, I skipped one step. Let's back up. So I majored in French in college, like don't skip that step. I loved it so much that when I went to college, I said, sign me up for every French class that you got. And it was the first time that I just made a decision that I'm gonna go for what I love. I didn't know what I was gonna do with French. I had no idea. But I made a decision after taking these classes that made me want to snooze and lose to only take classes that I loved. So. Half of those classes were French. The other half were women's studies. I'm sure you're not surprised to hear that. I ended up inside of a college experience that I was obsessed with. I loved going to class. I loved learning, and I got the opportunity, thanks mom, to travel abroad and study abroad at Exxon Palm in France. That's the southern France. If you don't know the the sexy, beautiful part. And again, something inside of me changed. And so when my plan to go to law school fell through because I was struggling with alcohol abuse and alcoholism and I couldn't pass the lsat, not because I wasn't smart, because I'm a smarty pants, so are you. But because I was not functioning at my highest level and I was continuing to make series of choices that were prohibitive of me creating the dream that I thought I want, and you know the universe and God, she's funny because she knew the whole time that I wasn't supposed to be. Law school or practicing law. Many of my clients are attorneys, and when I work with them, it's clear to me that that is not the line of work that I'm built to do. And I'm so grateful for what seemed like failure at the time, and we're gonna get into that a little deeper today and maybe do a whole series on failure because it's so fabulous. I thought my life was over because I didn't score high off on the LSAT to go anywhere. And maybe that's not even true. I didn't even apply 'cause I was like, that's terrifying, that number. I don't even know what it means, but you're probably not gonna be getting into Vanderbilt Law School. So where are we going with this? Oh, yes. So that didn't work out. And my Plan B, which ended up being the exact plan for me, was to join Teach for America. And they sent me to Baltimore. And guess what? They invited me to teach French. I taught French. I taught French in high school for three years, and it was. Some of the most fun I've ever had in my life. And so fast forward I moved to New Orleans, partly because I thought people in New Orleans spoke French. Well, they were gonna be a lot more frank of miles than there actually are. And the truth is, Louisiana has a very rich Cajun French history and Cajun French and the French that I learned French, French from France. Super different. But I feel grateful because I can understand them and they can mostly understand me. And living here has given me more of an opportunity to practice and grow and learn. So now let's fast forward Cir 2012, 2013. I am not married, no kids. And a French public charter school opens in New Orleans. And I remember saying to myself, when I have kids, maybe I was saying if I have kids at that time, 'cause I wasn't sure until I was sure they're going to this school. They're school. School. And I put the emblem, there's a very cool artist down here called Simon, and he did the marketing for them. He did this really cool design for the school. It's, and it was in his very unique, beautiful artistic style. And there were bumper stickers and I just thought like, I'm gonna have a bumper sticker like that on my car. And so it won't surprise you because that's how manifesting works. You decide that you want something even before you have kids to send them. I have a thought maybe I could also go teach there, but that I would remember that I was done working at school. But the universe knows when you set your sights and your heart on your next level, no matter what it is, the universe starts to work in your favor. And so when I did have kids, even though the first one, because the school's so popular and amazing, it's a free public charter. French immersion in the middle of New Orleans. Now we're in the middle of the French Quarter. You better believe it's competitive and lottery system to get in and you gotta get in in pre-K or in kindergarten, otherwise you have to test it. And so we didn't get in the first year, Ava didn't get in. It was COVID, it was insanity, and I was devastated. So I spent some time on my, my longest time friend, Kate, I love you so much, her kitchen floor crying, though we didn't get in. And she encouraged me and she said, just keep going. We went to another French immersion school, which was also amazing. What a gift to be able to have so many free public French immersion schools where you live. And we ended up. At least say the next year because my other daughter Laed in at the last minute and we said Yahoo. And now I have that bumper sticker on my car, even though they've rebranded. I still have the OOG bumper sticker, the one that in my vision. Okay, so here is the actual story that I wanna tell you now that you know the whole francophone backstory. I also, by the way, had a French sister, have a French sister who lived with me in high school and I we're put a pin in that I'm about to come back. Her name is Celia. Love you Celia. I know you're listening. And she introduced me to lots of French friends and French dance music and all the things. And so it won't surprise you 'cause I'm here to teach the work that I've learned and continue to learn that part of my vision. My big vision, even though I had no idea how to create it or accomplish it, was to take my family to France. To have these beautiful moments that I was given as a young person, I can offer that cultural, global experience to my girls. And I wanna cry just thinking about it because you all are going. We are going not before. I take my oldest daughter, Ava, to Spain for a whole week with her fifth grade class who are participating in an international dance competition. And then we're leaving Spain. Everybody else is coming back to the States. But we're gonna go to Paris and meet my husband and my middle daughter, and we're gonna spend 10 days in France. I almost am in disbelief, but what I want you to hear beyond that wow, is ever since I bought the plane tickets, my fear response, my nervous system has freaked the fuck. So this podcast episode is as much for me as it is for you because we're doing the work of bridging the gap between where we are right now and what your next level looks like in real time, where it pulls out of the dreamscape and is manifested into your 3D reality. I am gonna touch that Eiffel Tower. I am gonna bite into that pen lot. I'm probably gonna cry on the streets of France and not feel one bitch guilty about it. So let's talk about what do we do when those fear responses come up? So last episode, if you haven't listened to it, highly recommend going back because in the middle of creating your next level of envisioning what it looks like, how it feels, the nuances and the specifics, and the excitement, and the passion, and the possibility of whatever it is that you are creating as your next level. The biggest blocks of your life are gonna show up the moment you decide you're gonna go for it. And that's not random. Those are patterns of the way that we have been conditioned, both socially and biologically, and many of them are deeply rooted in what we as women have been taught to believe about ourselves, our power, and what is available to us. So let's do a quick recap of the five Ds. There actually might be six. I think I need to add one more. Six Ds. Number one is what we're gonna talk about today, dis persuasion. So when you decide for your dream, you're going for it. You can taste it, smell it, feel it, you're excited about it. When you go to take an action to create it, some things are gonna start stripping naked, setting themselves on fire, dancing naked in your driveway. Do you hear me? Those things are dis persuasion, distraction, delay, disdain, deficiency. And my favorite Defcon one, it's happening at night for me right now. Defcon one is waking me up in the middle of the night saying, I got so much anxiety about this trip. Why did I even dream about it? So we gotta be awake to these. We get to be awake to these so we can know what to do when they show up. Because sister, they are showing up and they're probably gonna be earlier than you expect them to be. So let's break them down. Recap, last episode, we go deep. First one is dis persuasion. It is the voice inside of you that says, do not to go for it. Don't do it. Don't do it to us. It's not safe. It's not right. It's not time. We don't have the money. We don't have the time. We don't have the audacity. It's that that's dis persuasion. It's like you're talking yourself out of it. You know her, right? You have her two living in your, okay, not just me. The second one is distraction. We're gonna come put her with her, with her twin sister delay. So distraction and delay, and those things show up and they will pull you towards every single thing except your dream. Every single thing. They often start with the phone or the email, or the laundry or the exercise or the kids, the things that the kids need, the things that the spouses need or the things that es the things that. When we have decided for something that's really expansive, all sorts of distractions are gonna show up like fleas. Ugh. Have you ever had fleas in your house? It's a disaster. You know, we have so many animals. So every once in a while you girl will forget the flea medicine on schedule and I'll start seeing fleas jumping on my arms and it freaks me all the way out. And once you see one, you know there are a lot. And what I mean by that is, yes, we cleared up the fleas. I'm now a flea expert. Uh, you can reach out to me for that. No, just kidding. Go to Google or chat your friend chat and they will. Speaking of distraction. Those distractions are gonna pop up and jump on you and distract you and get your attention. And then twin sister Gille, she's gonna say, we're gonna definitely do that. We're gonna do it this, we're gonna do it next tomorrow. We're gonna do it next week. We're gonna do it after the weekend. We're gonna do it when things calm down. We're gonna do it when we're not as busy. Hello. Have you ever not been busy? Probably not. We've, I know I've gotten up on the box about busy. I'm not doing that today, but I want you to know that busy is a lie and a weapon of the patriarchy that we are now using against ourselves and wearing like a badge of honor. I just met with someone fabulous today. She's a multi-business owner and has another job and all the things. And she is, um, I totally lost my train of thought. First of all, she's amazing. Oh yes, she's very busy, busy, busy, busy, so busy that it took us months just to get the call on the calendar. And the truth is, is that when we're busy, we're likely over functioning. We're likely not taking the time to slow down and take care of ourselves, and we're likely not putting what's actually first. First. And I said to her very candidly, I said, you could probably make it go on the speed that you're going, but you're probably also gonna have a nervous breakdown. Ask me how I know. I know, because that was me. And the distraction of busy and the delay of I'll do it when I'm not busy is a dream killer. It's a dream killer. It's a next level killer. We're never gonna go to the next level if we're busy, busy, busy. Being busy, we gotta be done. Being busy done, being distracted, done putting it off. And I'm gonna share with you one thing you can do today to overcome that paradigm of distraction. The next one is disdain. Which is really beating up on yourself and you're rehearsing the past. You're full of resentments, you're full of maybe some fear you're holding onto stuff that we definitely, you got lots of dead hairies, and if you haven't listened to that episode, please do. But you're carrying around things that are dead and not serving you like blame or resentment or anger. We do not have time for that, and we cannot create the next level if we're holding onto some of that stuff. The next one is deficiency. It's this belief that you're not enough, good enough, worthy enough, smart enough, rich enough, sexy enough, young enough, like all the bullshity that the paradigm of deficiency feeds you. And I wanna say that again. All of that is bullshittery and you can call it that and still need tools to overcome it when it shows up. I'm having that same ceiling right now. I am expanding my business into businesses and companies and teams and executive councils and organizations. And oftentimes, before I even go to make the connection, my paradigm of deficiency says, well, you've never coached teams before. Even though I have. I was a principal and had my own team. I was a team leader and had my own team. I've coached many teams, but my deficiency says, but you haven't done it like this. You haven't done it as a leadership coach. And the truth is, yes, I have. I've coached principals and their teams, teams. I've coached all sorts of people in their teams. So deficiency is a liar. So I'm not gonna be mad at my deficiency because what that's saying is to me, all of these Ds, and then I wanna get to the last one. They're good news. They're here to say, uh oh, you're expanding. And as long as we are awake at the wheel and we see them when they show up, we can do something and be with them so that we can continue to expand any way. Are you with me? Can I get an amen on the other side of this speaker? Amen. On a weekday last one. So we've done dis persuasion, distraction delay, disdain deficiency, and the last one is death con one, which is a military term for shit is about to go down, and that is when the fear in your body stops you from moving and that fear will do whatever she needs to do to stop you. I told you the story about when I launched my business and when I started my podcast both times I threw up and thought I had the flu. Your girl doesn't get the flu. Okay? I'm a healthy af. Like healthy is a healthiest force. So when things happen, and this is what's happening for me right now, is I'm waking up in the middle of the night. We're a week out from the dream happening and I'm having incredible anxiety about what if we forget the passports and what if I don't have the insurance papers, and what if the flights delayed? What my kid gets lost in a foreign country? What if I lose somebody else's kid? And what if the Eiffel Towers clo, you know those things like the what ifs? That needs to be a paradigm too. But that makes me up in the middle of the night, and it's so bad right now that I have to wake my husband up and be like, I need help right now. And I don't identify as someone who has anxiety. I think anxiety is a feeling, it's an experience, and I'm noticing that the closer we get to the dream, the stronger my nervous system is saying, stop it. Because when I take my family to France, I'm gonna be a woman who took her family to France. Do you understand? Are you with me? When we do the things to create our next level, we become the woman in our next level, and we don't have to wait to do the things. That trip is happening because I became the woman who could hold it, create it, envision it, execute it, and have the audacity to say yes to it. Way before I bought those plane tickets and I was talking to a woman who's really supported us on this trip, she's. Contributed love and money and visioning specifically for my, my oldest daughter. And we were just discussing about how when we become the woman who is available for the next level, it falls in your lap. It falls in your lap. And I said to her, I don't even know how we did this trip, because I definitely didn't have what I thought. I didn't have the extra income to pay for all the tickets. But somehow, every time I went to buy the tickets, I signed a client. I got an invitation, we got extra money, my husband got a, you see what happened? So it's almost like I threw my hands up and I said, we're gonna go for it. I have no idea how it's gonna happen. And the universe said, hold this, hold this. And money kept showing up and opportunities kept showing up and places to stay, kept showing up. And all these things kept showing up because we decided for it. We dreamed into it like we're gonna do today. Even in the middle of night anxiety and Defcon and being dis wrecking, being persuasion and saying to yourself, God, you've never really been back to France sober. I don't know if you can even do that. Will you be okay? Well, what happened? You know, and this happened when I, my husband and I went to Vancouver last year. It really required an internal shift in who, I had to remember that I was a woman who travels internationally and before I got sober, I had no problem with that. Probably 'cause my fear was turned off by the drinking. Gosh. So now I don't have that option. And so I get to authentically dream create and be with the paradigms that show up the paradigms of fear. And I bet you have some of those too. In fact, I hope you do because if you don't, your next level isn't big enough for you, my friend. Because you're a woman who makes a difference. You're a leader, you're a founder, you're a business owner. You get shit done. You felt all of these, not because you're weak, because you're not. We feel these because you are a woman who breaks patterns from the patriarchy. Patterns from the patriarchy. Do you know that many of the things that we say to ourselves didn't even come from us? And none of this next level expansion was designed for us wealth, income impact, taking your family to France that wasn't designed for us. And we're here to break patterns and break ceilings, and break upper limits of systems that are designed to keep women specifically safe and small and same. And we're gonna be done with that. So the question right now is, what do we do when these paradigms show up? Because just knowing that they're around is not gonna be enough. We gotta have what I'm gonna call power tools. So I'm gonna start sharing with you week after week, power tools of how to bridge the gap between where you are right now and this beautiful next level vision which you have designed for yourself. And if you have not designed it, please go back to episode one and do not collect $200. Do not pass. Go. Go back to episode one and break out your notebook and create your vision. So tool number one, and this works for a lot of people, it does not work for every people, okay? So if you try these tools and they do not work for you, keep it moving. So one of the first tools, and these are for if you know your human design, these are for active manifesters. Active manifesters. Also, if you don't know your human design, please know your human design. It is very important. And soon, if you want a human design reading, in fact right now, you can DM me and we'll get one of my books. I'm ready for it. I keep all my horses, but I'm ready for it. I'm obsessed with human design. I think manifestation can be collapsed and you can create incredible income, incredible impact. You can help your teams. You can make more money, you can have better sex. Everything that you want I have found is within your humid design. So I'm gonna assume that you have some of you have and know your humid design, and some of you have not. And for those of you who have not, I would love to, I'm probably gonna be opening these in June, so DM me to on the. I'm gonna be doing human design readings in order for you to increase your income and your impact, because that's my favorite playground for women specifically. So this tool works specifically for active manifesters. Active manifesters in a nutshell, are people who love things like vision boards, affirmations, you like to put on the costumes of the things that you're creating. You're in action around your manifestation. The I, I am not an active manifester. I'm a passive manifester, and so that means I don't have to do any of that and still cr create it. I still love doing some of the things, and I do do active manifestation techniques only because I love them, but most people are active manifesters. So I'm gonna assume that you're one, even if you're not, this can be really fun. So I know you've heard of my best friend affirmation, so we're gonna start with her affirmation. So we're affirming something. And what we're doing in this process of creating our next level is we're recalibrating our nervous system. We're retraining our subconscious mind. Remember, the subconscious mind is your programming. It's the, it's the software that's running the computer of your life, life. And in order to be available for what your next level is, we're gonna have to probably get in there and do some rewiring, both of your brain and your nervous system, your identity, all the fun stuff. And it might sound like a lot 'cause it is and it is worth it. You get everything you have ever wanted and more on the other side of this work. Because I know you are a woman who's here to make a difference in the world, who is filled with visions and dreams of serving and doing good and creating more wealth and more abundance for other women. I'm okay saying to you, you get to have everything that you want. 'cause women who create their dreams make a bigger difference in this world. I'm gonna say it again. You as a woman who creates her dreams, are set up to make a bigger difference for women in this world. So, come on, affirmations. So lemme tell you something about affirmations, especially for my girls in the back who were like, wah, wah, I don't like affirmations. You already affirming my friend. You. You're already affirming all day long. And maybe you're not doing it out loud. I sure hope you're not because that amplifies it. But we're saying things like, God, this is really hard. This isn't working. I don't know how. I'm so busy. Those are all affirmations. I have anxiety. Those are all affirmations. We're affirming what we believe to be true. So I don't wanna hear from anybody that you don't like affirmations. 'cause you're already affirming my friend all day long. And the question is, can we get you to affirm more that's in your favor than you are right now? And in doing that, you take your power back. You wake up at the wheel of your own life and you say, I'm not gonna be affirming bullshity in my head anymore. I'm not gonna be experiencing bullshity of negative affirmations in my body, in my words, in my feelings. I'm not available for that anymore. So we're taking that power back. We're retraining our system little by little, by little, by little, by little, by little by little. Okay? Nobody's asking you to jump off a cliff today. We're just gonna take one step and make it safe so you get to decide what your affirmation is. You can pick your favorite one that you, you tried three times and then quit. You can use your favorite AI tool or the internet or your best friend to create them together. Shared affirmations are so powerful and listen, I hope you've got a partner do this work. You have one, right? You found her, you asked her, you invited her. You shared this podcast with her. I know you are 'cause I hear from you and it's so much powerful when you're doing this work together. Ask me how I know I get to do it with women all day long. And because of that, my life is expanded. My life is on purpose. My life is fulfilled. So imagine what you can do when you say I'm not gonna be doing this thing by myself anymore. This thing meaning the work of transformation and also everything else in your life. 'cause we are not set up to do life so low. So your affirmations, you get to create them. The conditions are, they have to feel good. They have to feel good, and they probably shouldn't be something that your brain immediately says. Absolutely not, right? So I used to walk around being like, I'm a rich woman. I'm so rich, I'm rich beyond my wildest beliefs. And my brain was like, girl, you are not rich. You are in debt. And so that affirmation did not fit because my brain won and it said, you're not rich. I was like, you're right. We should give up. So you've gotta be careful that the affirmation that you choose is crafted so that it's believable. So you can say, I'm growing in wealth every day, in every way. You can say creating wealth every day, in every way. You can say, I'm making progress in becoming wealthy every day, in every way, whatever it is. I wanna invite you to check how you feel when you say it. So now I say I am a woman of wealth who makes a difference in the world. I am a woman of wealth who makes a difference in this world. I am a wealthy woman who makes a difference in this world. I love this one because my brain believes it, and so I receive it. My body feels good, but I say it, I do a little head. One day I'm gonna get this video out so you can see my pretty dress and my hair tosses, but for now, just know I love that affirmation specifically. I have a few of them, and I only affirm what feels good. Some other things you could start with is I love that. I love that I am healthier every single day. I, I love that I have great sex with my husband, right? So maybe you're not believing that, but you wanna believe it. I love that I am available for more abundance. I love that. So I am, and I love that you can also say, every day I am becoming we. I love this one. I'm a part of a power of a group through the work of Lynn McTaggart, who's phenomenal. And we create intentions and then intend for each other. And so we say healthy, wealthy, and happy, healthy wealthy, and happy in every way. So you can say something like, every day I'm becoming healthier and wealthier and happier in every way. Feel how good that feels. I'll say it again. Every day I'm becoming healthier and wealthier and happier. In every way. Every way. And that's such a beautiful, I love that one. I think I'm gonna borrow that one and come back to it. So another example is you could say, I'm a powerful woman who takes action on her vision. I am a gorgeous woman who creates her next level. I love that. I trust myself and move forward with confidence. Every day I'm becoming more aligned, more courageous, and more expansive and more sex. I say that one girl and every day I get sexier. In fact, one of my favorite things to do with my girls is I walk, they're around. I walk by the mirror mirror and I say, oh girl, you look good today. I'm not talking to myself. So guess what they do? They do the same thing. So we love looking in the mirror because we love the women who were looking back in the mirror. How about that? Did you know that when before I got sober, I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror. I don't even think I owned a mirror except for the one in the bathroom, and I avoided that like a plague. So the fact that through work like this, including the program of recovery, which is a transformational experience in and of itself, I can look in the mirror and I can say that and mean it, and so can you. So. You got your affirmation? Hmm? I want you to pick one. Maybe just pick one. Make it sexy, make it fun. And when you pick your one, sometimes people say, pick three or four. I get really distracted when there's more than one. So I want you to pick one. And here's how you're gonna use it. Because remember, we are upgrading your system. And how I wish our operating system was like the iPhone where you can just click it, set it, forget it, and it updates overnight. We have to do a little bit more work. Because if you're like me, you spent decades, the first decade of your life, learning all the things you would need to unlearn later, learn learning some things you wanted to keep, and then the rest of the decades spent practicing what you already believed and all that. In programming normally shows up before you're even eight. So how about that? I mean that to say that. You can't just say affirmation one time and forget it and put it down. That's not how it works. It's almost like taking, brushing your teeth. Let's use that example. So before I got sober, my teeth brushing was questionable. But now that I'm a grown, recovered woman who has relatively solid hygiene, I brush my teeth at least twice a day, sometimes three, depending on what I have for lunch. Okay? So we're gonna use affirmations just like that. Remember, we wanna choose one. We wanna make sure it makes us feel good, and we're gonna say it in the morning. I recommend right when you woke, wake up, you put your hand on your heart, you say your effort, because our brain is the most trainable just before we wake up and just before we go to bed. And you say it at night. So as you're going to bed, hand on the heart, and you say you're healthier and wealthier and happier in every way. Every day, you might even close it with, thank you. And then you say it when your par fear, fear paradigms show up. So you can say when you're starting to talk bad to yourself, like, oh, I'm never getting anything done, or, um, we're never gonna break this income ceiling, or this person on my team is driving, like, whatever it is, you use the affirmation as an antidote when that part of you shows up. So recommendation is if you wanna put a number on it, five times in the morning, five times at night, and as needed throughout that day. And this is not about you pretending. It is literally you training your nervous system so that your reality of your next level can shift. It will not shift until you shift. And this is one power tool that you can use to shift that. Because as women, I gotta say this, we weren't taught to think most of us. I think maybe I'm an exception because my mom's so brazen and wild and fabulous. She just has no fucks to give. But most of us are not taught to think in ways that expand us. We're taught to doubt ourselves, to delay, to defer to someone else. Have you ever been around a group of women who were like, when should we meet? I don't know. Where should we go? Why do we have a dinner? And the whole thing takes about, you know, six weeks. That is good girl conditioning. It's the patriarchy and it's not. No shame on when that happens. And now we know where it comes from because we are taught to question what we want to stay realistic. And so when you choose a new belief, a new thought, a new affirmation, you're not just doing mindset work or nervous system work. You're interrupting generations of patriarchal conditioning. Let's do it. Ask yourself, what is the belief that shows up the most for you? Up until now? Up until now, what is the thing that you are believing that shows up again and again and again? What is the thought that tries to stop you? That gets in your way, that distracts you, that freaks you out, that tells you to do it next week? That tells you how busy you are, what is it? And if you don't know and invite you to do some silent meditation or some breathing, clear your mind and see what comes through. And we're not gonna judge it. We're not fighting it. We're just noticing it. The one we wanna go a deep on today is dis persuasion. So let's isolate her and pull her forward. It's almost like on one of those dancing or singing shows, it's her time to shine. Let's zoom in on dis persuasion. So dis persuasion, you have her right? She's the voice inside of you that says, girl, you have tried this before and it is not gonna work. You have failed and you have been embarrassed, and you have, and that has been a big dead Harry that I've carried around is the, some of the embarrassing stuff that I did as a part of my career right before I got sober. Just the, the last couple of years before I got sober were just a show. They were a show and it didn't end pretty. And so oftentimes when I go to make a big move, that voice of dis persuasion is like, no, you really, it creates a feeling of shame. Almost like I'm still in the experience. And that happened, I guess I've been sober almost 16 and a half years, so, you know, between 16 and 20 years ago. And it's still showing up like, oh, you failed and you got fired and you had a move, and all the things. So like, how were you to even do this thing? Even though if you've been around this podcast, you know, of course I'm assigned to do this work. It's my purpose, it's my calling, it's for me. And still that voice says, this is not gonna work. They're gonna know, they're gonna find out, they're gonna find all these skeletons in your, in your closet. I chuckle when I say that because I literally stand up in front of conferences of thousands of people and talk about the truth of those situations. So the truth is I don't actually have any shame around that because I have done the work of transformation and self-forgiveness and making amends to make that, that experience right. And still persuasion shows up. She says, she really kind of follows me around like an angry dog. Like you're late all the time and you are nice to your daughter and you didn't get all your task list done today. And you're always behind and you're so stressed. You right? DYS suasion loves to use your past, and especially when I was a newer mom and I had no idea about nervous, nervous system dysregulation. I was dysregulated all the time. And so I would yell, I would snap, and then I would just cry on the floor because I felt so ashamed about the things that I was doing as a mom, even though I have freaking was obsessed with my daughters and I didn't understand what was happening, which was my whole system was shot. And now I understand more about nervous system regulation and the importance of. Take a really amazing care of ourselves so that we can be regulated for ourselves and our kids benefit. So I don't regulate for my kids, I regulate for myself and my kids benefit. That's how I live my life. I'll go on adventure, not for them, for myself. And then they get to follow. And maybe if you look at it sideways, you might think, oh, that's really selfish, but is it? It's the reason why I have adventure and audacity and bravery and mostly have less Fs, less Fs to give. It's because my mom didn't sacrifice her life to bend over backwards from mind. She lived hers fully to show me what it looks like when a woman fucking goes for it. And here we're here we're, she took me with her and they come with my kids, come with me. So dis persuasion, her favorite snack is your past. So let's talk about failure. Can we talk about that? It's like the sexiest effort. So failure. You failed before, right? You have a bunch of them. Have you ever written down all the times you fail? It's so fun. It's really fun. And whenever I teach a workshop the way or, or give a talk, I introduce myself as a master failure. Now, I'm not a failure, but I am a master. I've got black belts and awards and trophies and failing. I have failed so much that I have failed my way into success. I've failed in marriage. I failed in parenting. I failed in business. I failed in teaching. I've failed in my health. I mean, I've failed about, about as many times as somebody can fail. What I don't do though is see that as an evaluation of my worth. If you've been around long enough, here she comes. You've got to have heard me say this. Your worth is not in question. It never was and it never will be because you were born worthy with a capital W. You're made by the creator, a piece of the master of fucking masterpiece. Some of the one, someone, a creation of the creator made in her image, which means you are divine. Your worth is never in question and it never will be. So can we please stop asking, am I worthy? Because that's the patriarchy. It's a weapon, and we can set it down and pick up something like personal power agency, connection, collaboration, community, and love instead, truth about failure. It's not even failure. We should really do some better marketing and PR on the word failure. Because failure, my friend, is feedback. It's feedback. And in another workshop I do, I go through the slide after slide after slide of women who you probably know who have, have failed. Do you know that Oprah was fired from a job she had early in her career because they said she was not fit for television? You know who Oprah is, right? And you know, Beyonce, she has had failed business lines and partnerships and Alpha, I mean all the things. And you know who she is, right? And what about the Williams sisters? You know them. I know you know Serena Williams. You know how many times she's lost a match? Hundreds of them. What about my girl, JK Rowling, the author of Harry Potter? Her manuscript for Harry Potter was rejected multiple times. Can you imagine being that publisher that rejected Harry Potter? You probably buried yourself in the ARD if you were that person. My goodness. So if you heard of any of those women, I imagine you know that failure is feedback. None of them said, okay, that's who I am. None of them are showing up in the world like, oh, I'm a total failure. Maybe they're saying it to themselves because, you know, it's a disease, this disease of persuasion. All of these people are still in the game. All of those women, and it's not just famous women. I want you to think about the women in your life, women in your life that you look up to. Ask those women to tell you about the times that they have failed. And here's what I want you to know. You cannot fail. You cannot fail if you're not in the game. You cannot fail if you're not in the game, which means if you are in the game, you are going to fail. And that is evidence that you are in the game. So I'm gonna look up this quote because it is so powerful that I wanna read it to you right now. Okay? Now it's written by Theodore Roosevelt, former president. It's called The Man in the Arena. So I'm gonna change it. Sorry, president Roosevelt, hope you don't come for me in my dreams, but let's translate this. The woman in the arena. It's not the critic who counts, not the woman who points out how the strong woman stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the woman who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood who strive a valiantly, who airs, who come short again and again. Who spins herself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if she fails, at least fails while daring greatly so that her place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. Powerful, right? We're not worried about what the critic says, even if the critic lives inside of our head. The credit belongs to you, my friend, because you are actually in the arena when you think you're failing. It's your face marred by the dust and the sweat and the blood, and you continue to strive, valiantly and make mistakes and come up short just like I have done again and again and again. But who invest yourself in a cause that is worthy. If you're listening to this podcast, you are a woman who makes a difference and who is designed to make an even bigger difference. And even if you fail, you're doing so in the name of impact, in the name of making a difference for yourself and your family and the people that you love, and the people that you've been sent here to serve. Are you with me? So your place will be among the greats like JK Rowling, like Oprah, like Beyonce, like Serena. That's you. You are in the arena. You're not a failure. It doesn't matter what happened in your past. You are a woman who is in the arena. And this matters for us because we are taught don't risk, don't fail. Don't be seen trying. Don't be visible. But leaders, you who create movements and businesses and change and legacy, you fail. You learn, you rise. You keep going. You are like a toddler who is rocked up and scratched up and screaming and crying and gets up to run again, driving his parents crazy. So what do we do to move through dis persuasion? We build in order to move through dis persuasion, right? We don't fight it. We don't judge ourselves. We don't yell at ourselves. We build, we build the bridge of believing in your next level. Remember, there's a gap between where you are right now and the next level that you've been assigned to create. And in order to. Move from A to B, we are creating a bridge. No, there might be a little Indiana Jones leaping required. But for today, we're building this bridge of believing because the things that we believe are just agreements that we've continued to make over and over and over and over. And if you've ever read the book, the Four Agreements, which I highly recommend for everyone, you know, that the things that you believe now can be unie. The agreements that you make now you can make new agreements. You can make new beliefs because your belief system isn't fixed and you can train it. You can train your belief system, you can train it, you can shift it, you can upgrade it. Lemme upgrade you. You heard me say that right? I love you Beyonce. Please come me on my podcast. Okay, so two things and then we're gonna close. How do we build belief? Well, first you can use your affirmation. Okay? Because affirming what is true, that you are healthy, wealthy, and happy in every way and every day is going to help your nervous system begin to believe something different about who you are. The second thing you can do is to take action. To take action. Now, we've talked about the importance of being the woman in your next level with the frequency, with the energy, with the mood, with the words, with the way you're dancing at your breaks and drinking a healthy water and exercise and move in your body and doing things to uplevel the way that you feel in the world so that you can elevate your frequency and to listen. Once you become the kind of woman who's ready for her next level, who's available for that thing that you are creating in the area that matters the most, then you start to take action from that frequency. And it doesn't have to be huge action, it doesn't have to be enormous. It can take fun, small action. And what happens is when you take one small action, one email, one pitch, one episode, one, yes, one, I'll try it, that action proves to your brain, yes, I can do this. Yes, she can. Yes, she can. There was a movement, if you know, you know, back in the Obama years, he won the election based on this powerful community building up leveling slogan. Yes, we can. So that's what you're saying with that kind of fierce passion. And if you don't like Obama, this is not your podcast. Love you. Goodbye. 'cause Michelle's gonna come be a guest on that. I need you to be ready for her. Are you, can I get an amen? Michelle Obama is coming to the podcast. I'm, I'm affirming this. You are gonna say to your brain after you take that action, even if it's teeny weeny, little teeny action, I forgot the rest of that song. Teeny weenie. Something about a yellow bikini. Anyway, take the action and that's gonna tell your brain Yes she can. And yes she did. Yes she can. And yes she did. A friend of mine gave me this. I'm looking at it right now. It's like one of the only cards that I keep. It's up in my window. It said she dreamed it, she did it. She dreamed it, she did it. So when you take action, and it can be a, a teeny action with a yellow bikini, it says your to, to your brain. Yes, she can do this. Watch her. She's you. You know what I mean? Huh? So I'm gonna ask you, since you have designed your next level, what's one little thing you could do today that's gonna move you towards that vision? What's one little thing? And I wanna tell you a story. Oh my gosh. I'm gonna get choked up. So in the middle of, I bought the tickets, my brain is shutting, shutting down the system system, and I'm creating a lot of resistance and delay and distraction around the itinerary for our time in France. Like I just can't get myself to do it, like what's going on? So I'm in meditation and then I go for a walk, and then it hits me a couple days ago. Girl, you don't have to do the itinerary because you already did it last year. I already did the itinerary for a trip when I was doing this visioning experience that I'm teaching you how to do. So all I had to do was open up my notebook and there it was, the 10 day itinerary for the trip that we are taking right now. So all I have to do is buy the tickets and I could get my 10-year-old to do that one. I love delegation. I was in a call today with a business owner. I was like, girl, we gotta talk about delegation. It's one of the sexiest words you're gonna be using from now on. The point is, is that was the action that I could take with what I had at the moment. I didn't have the money, I didn't have the time, I didn't have the bravery. But what I did have was a notebook and the internet, which helped me through like two articles that some other moms wrote. God bless us mom bloggers on how to do France with small kids. I guess mine aren't super small anymore, but you know, medium sized kids and now. I don't have to build the itinerary because that was the action that I took last year with what I had. It was one of those things where it was like, what can I do today that moves me just a little bit towards my vision? And that was a baby step. That's been a whole big mama step. The hell it saved me a lot this week. So I'm gonna put it back to you. Belief building at, um, I'm gonna cut this episode and then do the last tool for next episode, because this one I'm just realizing is a whole episode in and of itself. So to build your bridge of believing, you're gonna create your sexy affirmation. That's tool number one. Take it or toss it. The second thing you're gonna do is you are going to take one teeny winy polka do. It's a polka bikini, isn't it? Of course, it's maybe it's a yellow polka. Bikini. Okay. Where that came from? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure my dad used to sing it. I don't know. Hit me up in the dms. If you love that song, it's so sexy. Okay? So you're gonna do your affirmation and then you're gonna do something even more powerful to tell your brain, yes she can. When the dispassion comes up and you're gonna take one baby step action just to tell your nervous system, yes we can. Yes we are. And yes, we did. What is the one thing bonus if you d DM it to me on Instagram at Dana Hunter, what's the one thing that you are committing to doing today that is going to move you toward your next level? And then you're gonna do it. You're gonna tell me about it, and then you're gonna tell me that you did it. And then you're gonna notice how you feel after. And the feeling after is one of acknowledgement of appreciation. And you're gonna live in that feeling. You're gonna live in that feeling of accomplishment. Yes, she did. Yes, she did do that. And you're gonna celebrate, you're gonna do a booty dance. You're gonna give yourself a high five and a hug and a kiss. You're gonna tell yourself how good you look in that mirror, my girl. And then you're gonna take another action tomorrow, and then another one, and then another one. And they're not gonna be big. They're gonna be small and they're not gonna be sexy. So break out the design of your next level. This is your life. Work between now and the next episode. You even know when, who knows when it's gonna be. I was supposed to do two today and that didn't happen. So we might be on a little break. I might publish an interview. Who knows what's gonna happen next week you might just go back and listen to your favorite episodes or go back and design your next level. Make it even sexier and juicier. So you're going to take one action today. I wanna know what it is. Tell me one action tomorrow. And then the next day. And then the next day. And what happens. And my original, one of my original mentors, Mary Morrisey, said, enough baby steps, we'll get you to the top of Mount Everest. Now, I don't know if you wanna climb Mount Everest, but you understand Mount Everest is your next level. Enough baby steps will get you to the next level of your personal and professional sex success. And I want you to remember what baby steps look like. They aren't pretty. There's a lot of crying snot and tears. Simple blood. So long nights. Okay? So we're not going for Cinderella steps. We're going for a baby steps. And you're gonna make a promise to yourself and your next level that you're gonna take from now on until you are sitting in the middle of your next level. And now it's time to create an even more expansive next level. You're gonna take one belief, building action a day. Affirmations are no affirmations. Everybody is gonna be taking action. That notice I didn't say you're gonna figure it out 'cause that's not part of the transformation process. But action is dreaming, is envisioning, is embodying, is settling your nervous system by taking the action. Especially when DIS persuasion shows up. Okay, so those are your tools from today. I would love to hear from you in the dms on Instagram. I also am going to officially invite you to go give this podcast five stars and a really fun review if you do that and screenshot it to me. I have a special abundance workshop I wanna send to you. This is normally behind a paywall, but I'm excited about the reviews that are coming in and I would love to give you a gift of sending you my Wo Woman of Wealth Abundance workshop that I taught. And it's amazing. Women in that workshop have been messaging me ever since, and that happened almost a year and a half ago with the money that is coming in because of taking that workshop. I would love to put that in your hands. All that's required of you is five stars and a fun review about how much this podcast is changing your life. I hope that it's, and if you have experienced dis persuasion and are feeling really called forward by the next level that you are creating. I wanna be in your ear and I want you to, I only have a few of these left because my, my calendar is packed right now with clients and some of these conversations and me living in the middle of my own dream in business. But if you are feeling really called forward by your next level. You're a leader, you're a founder, you're an executive, you're a business owner, you're a woman who makes a difference, and you've got this next level that you know you're here to create and you want support in creating it. I'm gonna invite you into a totally complimentary conversation with me, and here's what we're gonna do. You and I are gonna get really clear about what's happening right now and what you would love to create, had you a magic wand because you do remember it's you, but we're gonna identify the Ds that are showing up, the paradigms that are showing up at how they show up, and then we're gonna navigate that together so that you can create the first set of steps for you to create your next level. Bringing it outta your vision and into reality without having hustle or grind or work long hours. And you're gonna say, God, that was so easy. How did that feel so easy? And I've been working so hard. How did we do that? I'll tell you how. It's this framework that we use to help women create their next level so you can make a bigger difference in this world, an income and an impact. So my friends, that is all for today. You've got your assignment, and I want you to hear this last part for me. This work is important. It's for you if you're still here. You know it's absolutely for you. It's identity work, it's leadership work because the woman that you are becoming is leading, earning, living, being, having sex differently, and the world needs that version of you. Your clients need that version of you. Your team needs that version of you. Your family needs that version of you. So this is how we're gonna show up for the next level edition of you. And it's so much easier when you don't do it alone. 'cause when we're in our own mind doing life solo, those old patterns can be very convincing and compelling. So I wanna remind you, you are expanding. You have an assignment. You are the magic, you are the solution. And you're co-creating the experience with the power that created you. The power of the universe who is working in your favor. You're here to lead my friend. You're here to expand and to create something that really matters. So let's build it together. I love you. I'm so proud of you and you know, I believe in you and what is available for you in your next level. And. Whoa. Did you just feel what I felt? There's a whole lot of that and so much more to help you create your next level of personal and professional success on upcoming episodes of Her Next Level podcast, now ranked in the top 5% of podcasts globally. If you're a leader, a founder, an entrepreneur, or a woman who makes a difference in the world, and you're ready to break through your glass ceilings and upper limits. Let's make it happen together. In the show notes, you'll find a link to book a free one-on-one conversation with me. We'll get clear on what next level success looks like. We'll create powerfully aligned goals and a plan just for you. We'll talk about the things holding you back, and you will walk away with a roadmap for how to create your next level of personal and professional success because hear it from me, my friend. You deserve next level success and freedom, and the full identity of a woman who knows what she's capable of and exactly who she is. And I wanna help you get there. So book your free call in the notes. If you love this episode, follow the podcast. Give us five stars, write a lovely review. Share it with your best friend, share it with your neighbor, share it with your mom. Share it with the extraordinary women in your life, and in case you haven't heard today, I love you. I'm so proud of you, and I believe in your ability to create an extraordinary life you love starting right now. I'll see you in the next episode.