Your Brain is Sabotaging Your Business ft. Dr. Shannon Irvine

Are you feeling stuck, overworked, and frustrated in your coaching business? You're putting in the hours, but the growth has stalled, and burnout is creeping in. What if the solution wasn’t more hustle, but a complete rewiring of your brain for success?

In this episode, Valerie sits down with neuropsychology PhD and business mentor, Dr. Shannon Irvine, to reveal the powerful, science-backed methods you can use to break free from the subconscious "brake pedal beliefs" that are holding you back from your next level of income and impact.

Dr. Irvine shares her revolutionary "67 Day Year" method—a proven system to achieve a year's worth of goals in just 67 days by aligning with your brain's natural language, not working against it. You'll learn how to overcome limiting beliefs, develop a true CEO mindset, and stop trading your time for money so you can finally build the business and life you dream of.

In this episode, you will learn:

• 01:59 How Dr. Irvine's philanthropic journey in Uganda proves that you can build a highly successful business that doesn't depend on you being there 24/7.
• 04:34 The pivotal soccer game moment that made her realize the "hustle and grind" culture was a trap and why she needed to pull back.
• 10:56 The science behind "The 67 Day Year" and why it takes exactly that long to hardwire a new pathway in your brain for success.
• 15:40 How to identify the subconscious "brake pedal beliefs" and brain blockers that are sabotaging your growth without you even realizing it.
• 21:57 The surprising impact your network has on your subconscious programming and your ability to see what's possible.
• 27:52 Actionable advice for parents on how to help our children develop a powerful growth mindset from an early age.
• 31:10 Two tangible things you can start doing today to "flip the switch" on negative thoughts and begin rewiring your brain for the outcomes you want.
• 37:21 The inspiring mission behind Mosaic Vision and how the organization is changing lives for orphaned children in Uganda.
• 40:39 The ultimate legacy Dr. Irvine wants to leave behind through her work and her book.

Meet Our Guest:
This week, Valerie is joined by Dr. Shannon Irvine, a Neuropsychology PhD, entrepreneur, mentor, and author of "The 67 Day Year". Through her work, Dr. Shannon helps passionate entrepreneurs harness the power of neuroscience to rewire their brains for success so that they can achieve more in less time.

• Find more from Dr. Shannon here:
  • Website: https://67dayyear.com
  • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drshannonirvine/

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Disclaimer: The Fuel The Flow Podcast is for educational purposes only and is based on the lived experiences of Valerie and her guests. Please consult with a professional for your specific needs.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

The whole educational system was set up to help create great employees in the auto manufacturing era. And nothing has changed since then. 90% of your daily decisions and your actions that you're taking, so therefore the results that you're getting is coming from your subconscious. I did what every well-meaning entrepreneur does. I hired a$50,000 mentor to show me all the magical things that I didn't know. What I discovered on my first meeting with her was Welcome to the Fuel Your Flow podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

I am your host, Valerie Figali, physical therapist, turned software CEO and business coach for health and wellness coaches. We are going to be talking about all things health and business. They might be more closely related than you think. So let's go ahead and get into it. Today I'm joined by Dr. Shannon Irvine, a neuropsychology PhD entrepreneur, mentor, and author of the newly released book, The 67-day year. Through her work, Dr. Shannon helps passionate entrepreneurs harness the power of neuroscience to rewire their brains for success so that they can achieve more in less time. So we're not talking about the hustle mentality, we're actually going in the opposite direction. She's the host of the Epic Success podcast and creator of proven brain-based systems that have helped thousands of entrepreneurs step into clarity, focus, and joy while scaling their businesses. Beyond her business, however, she has this amazing philanthropic initiative called Mosaic Vision. It's a nonprofit serving Uganda children, orphaned by AIDS. She shows her deep commitment to impact and service through this program. In her last book, The 67-day year, she reveals a step-by-step neuroscience-backed method to achieve a year's worth of goals in only 67 days. Not through hustle, but through aligning your brain for success. Dr. Shannon, I am so excited to have you here with me today. Thank you for coming on.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Oh my gosh. So honored to be with you and your tribe.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

We just love you to death. One of the things that I noticed about you, actually months into knowing you, I didn't know it right away because you didn't, you know, talk about it as much, but was your philanthropic ventures. And I am so blown away by how you do this. And a lot, I can see a lot of your efforts go into building this, you know, um, community for orphaned Ugandan children, correct? And I thought to myself, that's so amazing. And it's just proof in the pudding that you follow what you preach because the fact that you can dedicate so much of your energy to that shows that you really have these businesses that are functioning on, let's say, a 67-day business, right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's just proof in the pudding, and it's so incredible what you're doing for.

SPEAKER_02 2:54

Oh my gosh. Thank you. It's it's I always say glory to God. Like it's it's amazing because as you're building businesses and you're you're in this kind of conversation around the build and you know, revenue and profit. And we're we're in that washing machine, so to speak. And at the end of the day, like for me, it's about what am I doing that that's gonna be lasting? Like, what am I doing with my family? What am I what am I showing my kids? I have teens now, so they don't listen to anything I say. They just watch what I do. And um, you know, how can we make a difference in the world? And what I love telling my the people in my programs is like the more it the more you're dialed in and you're hardwired, aligning with how your brain works, the more money you're gonna make. And the more money you make, the more impact you can have, whether it is helping kids in Uganda or if it's being able to be at your daughter's soccer game undistracted from the phone, uh, anything like that. So it's not the reason we build businesses. We build businesses to help people, number one, obviously, and help people solve problems, but we also build businesses to create a life for our families and to make the world a better place. And so, yeah, the more we get to do that, more we hardwire those things, the faster our business can grow and the less it's dependent on us, which is that's the beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

And I think a lot of people who start their businesses, they end up getting lost in the grind, right? They kind of lose themselves. They originally start their business for all of those reasons that you just mentioned. And then all of a sudden it's like, what's this 60-day work week that I all of a sudden have? And so can you talk to people about when you realize that wait a second, I gotta pull back because success is not about the grind, it's not about the hustle, it's really about rewiring the brain. And can you talk to us a little bit about when you notice that?

SPEAKER_02 4:49

Yeah, I would love to say that because I I use the soccer game scenario, but that was a real one for me where I had my daughter when she was younger, and she's runs up to me and she says, Mommy, mommy, mommy, did you catch my goal? Did you see my goal? And I was like, I looked at her and I went, I couldn't say yes because my face was in my phone answering yes, another team question. And it was that moment that I realized this isn't the way it should be. And the reality is it's not your fault. We're literally taught in the educational system that was set up to make you successful in a warehouse environment. So most people don't know, but the whole educational system was set up to help create great employees in the auto manufacturing uh era. And nothing has changed since then. And you know, intuitively it's not right because we're looking externally for validation, meaning, like, if I got an A, I feel great. If I got a C, I don't feel so great, even if it was your best effort. So we're we're taught external validation is how we get where we need to go. And then we're taught to ask permission for things. You're like, I was joking around, like, but you had to ask permission to go to the bathroom in school. Like you knew you needed to go. I know that's a silly thing to say, but and obviously teachers don't, you know, they're gonna be like, that would be chaos. Yes, but understand that that whole system is hardwired to make you an employee. And at the time it was a system that made you more successful because the more you produced, the more you make. But that doesn't exist anymore. And so we're still operating and learning and and building our businesses that way with grit and grind, unless you think I'm some like smarty pants. I used to run my literally, I would say this I would chocolate-covered espresso beans in the morning and a glass of wine at night, like to try to like manage the kind of energy. And the thing is, it kind of works like the grit, the grind until it stops. And it's usually somewhere in that getting close to six-figure range, that what you did work hard work, hustle, grind, neglect yourself, neglect your body talking to you like you've seen probably this all the time, right? At for the successful outcome. And then we hit that successful outcome. And our brain now is only wired to do more of that. Because the brain, it's a simple system, it's it's a reps game, just like working out is a reps game, it's a reps game. And so the more you hustle, the more you grind, the more you sacrifice your body, your family, all those things for the sake of success, the more you're literally hardwiring your subconscious that that's the only way to be successful. And so when you start to try to grow it more than that, then your brain only knows, well, it must require more of me. And then we give it more of us, and it's all of a sudden stops working. And I remember having that moment. Uh, I always say I've been a lifetime entrepreneur, very unemployable. And so um I and I got to that same place, that ceiling where I felt like I was doing everything I could. I was working 68 hours a week and I did well, but then I it literally stopped. And I felt like I was on a treadmill going nowhere. And I did what every well-meaning entrepreneur does. I hired a$50,000 mentor to show me all the magical things that I didn't know. And what I discovered on my first meeting with her was everything I was doing was exactly what she was doing. Like there wasn't a magical secret, a magical puzzle piece, a tactic. See, that those are all external. I was looking for something external. But what was different between her and I at the time was she thought differently about everything, about worth, about money, about ability, capacity, impact, all of it. She just thought differently, genuinely. And here's a woman I really admired because she did put her family first and she did she did put God first and all those things, but she then had three billion with a B dollar businesses. So I'm like, okay, she's the right person. That started this crazy quest because up until then I didn't have doctor in front of my name.

unknown 9:24

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 9:25

I always had the doctor stands for desperate enough to go get a PhD in neuropsychology to figure out how can I get my brain to do what hers is. Wow. So that was the push. Changed the game for me because what I discovered in those rooms, without going super deep into it, is you know, everything we think we're doing, most of it is being rubs run subconsciously. And we're never taught how to even access that or even give it permission to continue to run. And it was in those rooms that I got to solve the problem I was having, and then caught the desire to make sure every single person in the world had those tools to be able to do it too. So it was a personal journey for me. It was uh the glass ceiling, feeling like I couldn't crash through it. And the only thing I knew how to do was to spend more of me and more of my time. And and that one soccer game was that was the linchpin for me. It was like there's gotta be a better way. And and definitely hardwiring your brain to get to the next level is that fast and easy way.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Sometimes it's those small moments that catch us off guard. And a lot of people think it needs to be this crazy thing that they were hospitalized because they were so stressed, and you know that this crazy thing changed their life. But sometimes if you can just look at those moments that are happening in the present day and you can pick up on those things, it can vastly change the way you go about your business, your personal life, your relationships, and so much more. And so I love I love that. Can you talk to us a little bit about this 67-day year, right? Because that's all about what your book is about. And when people see that, they've never heard of it before. So why is it 67 days? Talk to us about that.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

Great question. So 67 days is the amount of time it takes for your brain to what we call hardwire, but the code to that is just build a pathway toward the thing that you want. Traditional goal setting, smarter goals, we all did them in January. This is what I want. I write it down, I did all that stuff. Literally works in opposition to how your brain will allow a result. And so we teach in the book and in programs and all that on how to really build this pathway. Because without that pathway running in your brain, you're working against your brain's natural language, which is clarity. We say, I want a million-dollar business or a$10 million business or whatever you're shooting for. And what your brain hears is there's a tiger in the room. Do not give that to them at any, like, please, warning. And you get all these neurochemicals of fear and overwhelm and all the things that we blame ourselves for. They're actually your brain just signaling neurochemicals, telling your whole body system to just slow down and stop. And some of us actively stop, like we go do another to-do list for our family or whatever. Some of us get into overwhelm, but none of that is our fault. It's just we weren't taught to hardwire a pathway in the language that the brain uses to go to the subconscious, which is the present tense language. And so we help people build what we call brain primes, just audios that will literally do the work for you of building that pathway. And it takes about 67 days to build that pathway to full capacity. So you might have heard like, oh, 21 days to create a habit. Well, that's based on old science. That means like that's when we could see the beginning of a pathway being built. But just like a well-worn groove, the old pathway has been used for 20 years, 25 years, 30 years. And so we need to be doing two things at the same time in those 67 days, building that pathway to where you want to go and making it safe for your brain to let you go there. And then we've got to remove any of what we call those break pedal beliefs. Now we can get into that. We all have them. Uh, for me, I'm a step-by-step girl. I didn't want, I not that I don't love the woo, but at the end of the day, I'm like, okay, but what are the steps to the woo? And that's when uh, you know, part of what I was trying to uncover, like, how do you get rid of these things? You know, I need the steps. And so that 67 days is it's the time to when it goes from building the pathway in your brain to strengthening it. And 67 days is that what we call that compound interest where the brain takes over 90% of your daily decisions and therefore your actions and therefore your results are aligned with where you want to be, not where you've been. And so that's why it can collapse time because the and without getting too much in the science-y side of things, your whole brain system starts to support it and you start seeing different opportunities, you start showing up differently, not because you're trying to, but because you're building that as an automatic reaction in your brain. And so that's where the 67 comes from. We uh we also put it in a new brain-based goal setting system called the 67-day year method that helps you pace out those 67 days, taking the full year that you would have wanted to accomplish a goal, and then constricting it down to that 67 days because your brain's working for you. So it's a pretty powerful tool. But yeah, I mean, I think we intuitively know this because there are some things that are natural to us, and those always come so much faster. And and it's it's like, oh, well, yeah, of course I did that because I'm naturally wired that way. Yeah, that's why. Because you're naturally wired that way. There wasn't any resistance getting in the way of you going quickly. And so that resistance is really the thing that takes a year-long process and can make it take five, 10, 20 years, right? Sometimes I'll ask my clients, how long have you wanted this thing to happen? And most of them they'll say three, five, 10 years. It's not because they're not capable or they don't have the capacity or they don't even have the knowledge. Most people have that, but it's just they have their brain working against them.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

Some sort of brain block or barrier. Yeah. So what are what would be some examples of those?

SPEAKER_02 15:45

Yeah. Oh gosh, yeah. So usually it, you know, the place that I say these show up the most is when we're stretching, like when we're going to do something we've never done before, that's when your brain will serve the sentences that your subconscious already has programmed. So, for an example, when I was going to start my podcast, I know that your podcast is on the newer side. So, congratulations, and you've got a great following already. So excited for you. We're hitting our 400th episode of our podcast. So I remember when I was starting that, and of course I wanted it for at least a year, and I kept putting it off, kept putting it off. That's one of your brain's tactics to kind of get you distracted off of that. And then when I finally did it, I remember the thought. It was starting to hit play, starting hit record. That was before I even did video podcasts. And and you get a physical feeling in your body, right? It's either like in the heart or in your stomach, the butterfly. Yes, I've experienced that, right? You feel it physically. But what happens the moment after you feel that physical sensation? Most of us high achievers, we dismiss it, but it's actually the most powerful moment you could pay attention to. There was a thought that floated across my mind. That's kind of how they get delivered. Like it's just this thought. And the thought was, what do you have to bring to this? Who's gonna listen to you? Right? It was just that floating thought. Now, unlike the rest of the world, high achievers deal with this differently. We just try to like outwork it, outperform it, out-hustle it, outdo it, right? And we dismiss it. But what that thought, it's not our thoughts, it's actually a subconscious thought that was created probably back in my childhood when I was trying to be enough and I wasn't and I failed. And that created a belief, a subconscious belief that when I do new things, it'll probably fail and no one will listen. Right. And so there I was trying to do this new thing. And of course, the thought happened. Well, now if by that time, I had already developed the systems in in the mind matrix specifically that we teach in the book around what do you do with those? Because if you just let them go right back to your subconscious, here's the crazy thing. And your listeners, I know this number seems unbelievable, but it's been so proven scientifically. 90, 90, 90% of your daily decisions and your actions that you're taking. So therefore, the results that you're getting isn't coming from your thinking part of your brain, your prefrontal cortex, that planning part of your brain. It's coming from your subconscious.

unknown 18:26

90.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

So it's I believe it. Yeah. I don't know about you, but I feel like well, sometimes I feel like I'm going through my day on autopilot and I'm like, I don't even know what just happened today, but somehow we got through the day and we're here at the end and we're putting the kids to bed. Because yeah, it's just you're probably your subconscious driving the day.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

And that's the positive side. See, that's the thing. Our brains are neutral, it just automates. Automates just means going into the subconscious, what gets repeated. Now, when you were a child to a young adult, the part of your brain that doesn't fully develop, I call it the BS part of your brain, it's your prefrontal cortex. It's the part that can say, no, that's not true, or no, that's not right. That part of you doesn't fully develop until you're 24 for men and 22 for women. We'll leave that alone. But so think about that. Like we are a subconscious process of the patterns of our youth, our childhood, whether it was great or horrible or somewhere in between. When you when you're your peer groups, your educational experiences, and we're never, ever, ever taught that we can access it and decide what to keep and what to remove. We literally have never taught this. This is my big mission now is now that I'm getting the book into people's hands, it's now I want to get it into colleges and then I want to get it into high schools because when you realize that your subconscious that runs 90% of your results is just a reps game, then it's about wow, like what number one, what's in there? And number two, the things that are on autopilot that are great, like you're courageous, you take risks, whatever it is, we don't touch them. We let them run automations and you know, do well. But we get really passionate about anything that we hear, especially when we're moving into the place that we want to go to, like for me at the podcast at the time, that is going to stop you. And the metaphor I love using, it's like your listeners, you and me, we always have our foot on the gas. Like we don't nobody has to encourage that. Like that's just who we are, right? So your foot's on the gas and you're doing everything you can, working all the hours, but it's like subconsciously speaking, you have a foot on the brake at the exact same time. Yeah, I can relate to that. Yeah. And you feel it like you feel stalled or like you're spinning in circles. And and it's just a matter of a process we take you through step by step in the book to recognize them, and then a process to remove them. And thanks to the scientific principle of synaptic pruning, it's about a four-step process, fairly simple. But we're just not taught it.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

We see evidence of this all around us, yet I think some of us choose to ignore ignore it. But for example, we see the person who's, you know, very overweight, who sat on their couch most of their life, and all of a sudden they're in in the news and on the media because they ran an Iron Man or they climbed Mount Everest or whatever it may be, these physical feats that seem impossible, right? I mean, to me right now, it seems impossible to run a hundred miles or hike a hundred miles, but people do it, right? People compete in these races. And so there is some evidence in the real world that these block it blocks are there and they can be removed, and we can actually achieve way more than what we actually think that we are capable of. Now, as far as I would love to know a little bit about Like our network and the people that we surround ourselves with. What impact does that have on these blockages that we have, or vice versa, our ability to see what's possible and kind of start to remove and take away those?

SPEAKER_02 22:13

I love this question. Nobody's asked me this question, Mallory. So, like, I love this so much because you do hear that. Oh, you're the amount, the five people that you spend the most time with. Well, why? Not everybody is that way. People can come into a room and sit in a room and not observe the patterns that those people present. But if you are in rooms like your clients that are working with you and they're able to see the patterns that you just like me with my$50,000 mentor, right? Right. I was able to see that pattern. The patterns were different. She thought differently. I never knew you could think that way. And it's a little bit of not realizing what you don't know. It's like it's it's you weren't taught that's not your fault. I always say all those break pedal beliefs, those limiting beliefs, automatic negative thoughts, whatever you want to call them, they're not your fault. Like you didn't even create them. So you don't have to judge yourself for them. Like they're just there as a representation of what somebody else had. I have a funny story about that, but I want to keep answering your question. So as you're in these rooms, you're breaking your paradigm of what patterns really do exist. I remember I was in a mastermind at one point. I didn't grow up with a lot of educational knowledge around money and finances. Um, I'm the first generation to be in a place of wealth. And so as I sat there in this room and they were all eight and nine-figure business owners, and we're sitting in a huddle and they're talking about things. And I'm totally serious if I'm gonna use my book as an example. I have my little notebook and I'm like taking notes under the table because literally they were saying words I'd never heard before, but it it just created something that I didn't realize was possible. And now my brain has this thing called an open loop uh propensity. And all that means is our brain really wants to close loops. And because I'd opened that loop, now my brain was trying to figure out how do I do this. Now, if I add to that learning, if I add to that proximity, conversations, watching, immersion, now your brain is getting all of these repetitions toward the thing that you want. And there was a study, I put it in the book, where just by literally physically being in the room and saying nothing, we could see a 22% increase in somebody's output just by being in the physical room. And that's just a matter of here are all the patterns you have that are running subconsciously. And now you enter a room and they say the sky is purple. And you're like, what? I didn't know the sky would be purple, right? And that's it's it's hilarious. I still have that notebook when it was talking about divesting investments and all these things. I'm like, I have no idea what I was gonna learn. And so it's it's powerful to be in the right rooms with the right people, meaning there are a lot of rooms you can be in that are they're just people bragging about results that they may or may not have. And then there are the authentic ones, you being one of them that has walked through it and can kind of shortcut the process for people and kind of create for them subconscious patterns that they didn't realize were possible. And that's the power of being in a room for sure.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

It is so wild. I mean, we had a guest um at Jasmine Star's Mastermind where you and I, where you and I met and but this last time, and I remember him saying, Well, he's we were talking about a subject and he said something about um this is Neil Patel, by the way, but he said something about how, yes, that's true if you want to build a million-dollar business, but if you're looking to build like, you know, a multimillion dollar business or an eight or a billion dollar business, then that's that is no longer true. And I'm like, so interesting because we're talking about fact, we're talking about truth, right? We're talking about and but yeah, what he's basically saying is like you can think differently and get achieve a 10 times, 20 times, 30 times better result. Yeah. And so yeah, it it that that sat with me because I'm like, oh, okay, you know, yes, it's just it, it is just a matter of mindset a lot of times.

SPEAKER_02 26:37

And it's not like we we tell ourselves this weird story that we just have to get become better enough or uh become smarter. And the way I demonstrate this a lot with my seven-figure entrepreneurs trying to go to eight in a program that we have is there's been a language and you've been speaking it all your life and it's English. And English works up until a point. And it's just at that point you don't realize that it's switched to French. But you're just as capable of learning French and you can completely understand it with a little practice, but we make it mean something else when we aren't able to push through those barriers, something lacking in us. There's nothing lacking other than a subconscious programmed to see that language as truth or see that pattern or see that the sky's purple, but like see what's possible and then repeat it enough so that you can break through that barrier. But it isn't that you're not smart enough, capable enough, or have the capacity. It's just you didn't know it existed until you did. Like you can't unknow that now, right? Like once you heard him say that, you're just like, oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And I realize this is not a parenting podcast, but something came up earlier when you said when you were talking about how when you were a child, you know, some that might have happened where you realized you were not enough, and so you had to do something different. But can you talk to us a little bit about maybe how we can help our next generation, our children in growth with their mindset and kind of opening up their um capacity to achieve more?

SPEAKER_02 28:18

I think the it depends on the age, but I do think the biggest gift you can give your kids is understanding, and I'm gonna get into it a little bit just so that you can have a clear picture, and it's all just all spelled out in the book, but your thoughts and emotions, your thought happens before the emotion. We see that in the brain. I can see it in a brain scan. So thoughts fire before the emotion. And remember, where are the thoughts coming from? 90% of them from the subconscious, right? So thoughts fire, then the emotions connect to it. That's why when we're trying to do something new, we feel it before we hear the thought. So thoughts and emotions combine to become a belief or get go into the subconscious, right? Okay, not every thought is your thought. And that's the the big thing I've literally like a mantra to try to get into my kids is the thoughts create your life. Not every thought that you think is an accurate one. And so we we get to change just like that thought that was floating around my mind, what kind of value do I have to bring to this podcast? Yeah, I had to take that c thought captive. That's not a new idea, right? That's in scripture. But it's like for me, it was like, well, how do you do that? Right. And then we go into those details in the book, but it's literally teach your kids to think about what they're thinking about. To like think about thinking, yes. Yeah, what is the thought you have? And just ask, because with kids, it's simple. Do you believe that thought is true or could be false? Remember, kids as they age, right in the beginning, their their emotional center is like, Oh, I've got a 14-year-old right now. We got a lot, you know, we're driven by that. Right. We're in it. But it's like just giving them the gift that they can make a decision about a thought. I'm now watching my 17-year-old that's heard me say this now for a decade, say, you know, I thought that, but then I realized that was an error in thinking. And so I chose a different thought and now it's better. And so it's just just we we're taught that we feel things and therefore they are. And just giving them that one tool that you can be the creator of your thoughts, and the thoughts are gonna either create a life you don't want or a life you want. So you get to choose that. And then when they're not doing that, just being that guide to say, do you think there's that thought is true, or is it possible that it there's some falseness to it? And just having those conversations helps them get that skill that I can question the thought the thoughts that float across my mind. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:08

That's really good advice. Yeah, really, really good. So can you also give some of our listeners one or two other tangible things? So they my listeners definitely want to know like what can I do today or what can I do tomorrow in order to start this process? And then they can pick up the book and learn everything else that they need to know. For sure. But what are one or two things that they could things that they can start with tomorrow?

SPEAKER_02 31:28

Yeah, love it. So on the moments where you do hear those limiting limiting beliefs or limitation, we call them brain breaks. But the moment you hear them, we call it flipping the switch. So for your brain, if you do nothing with it, it strengthens it. Just know that. Like if I think the thought, no one's gonna listen to me, and I do nothing with it, now that's gotten stronger going back into my subconscious. So get a little bit iry, get a little bit irritated, like not on my watch, get a little bit like, you know, sassy about it and flip the switch. Okay, so if I'm thinking the thought I don't want or nobody will listen to me, what is the truth I actually want to believe about that? And so that there's a deeper process that we take you through, but this process is in the moment. Because sometimes you're in a place where you can't go do a four-step process. You're like on stage or you're, you know, about to go onto a podcast or whatever the case may be. So ask yourself the question, what do I want to be true? Okay. And then do practice that. So five times, real quick, practice. So for me, in that moment with the podcast, I'd say I have amazing value. I bring value to my community every single day. And I just repeat it. It's not affirmations, it's really working the truth in opposition to what is hardwired already. And what that does without getting too science-y, is it disrupts the glucose that has it on autopilot and it almost like puts it in a state of wait, maybe this isn't true. And so we think, oh, that can't possibly be enough to disrupt that subconscious pattern. Well, enough times it absolutely is. And so I call it flip the switch. Don't let one of those negative thoughts remain. Kind of be that guard or that vigilance behind that. And then a second, we really have three steps that we take people through within the 67-day year method. We call it clarify, erase, and automate. Uh erase, we talked about kind of getting rid of those limitations, automate is how we get them through a brain prime to be on autopilot. But clarify is one of those areas where a lot of times in business, especially business owners, we're kind of just doing the next, right? Okay, I got to this level. Now I need to get this level. Like sometimes we don't slow down to say, what is the thing I really want? So my encouragement to you is to say, to spend some time today thinking about what does uh success look like when you arrive?

SPEAKER_00 33:59

Right. Yeah. I think a lot of times we get caught up in like, yeah, just the the next thing. We we have developed this part of our business, and the next natural step would be X. Well, you know, if we developed X, the next next part would be Y. Yeah. And instead of thinking about, well, what would Y actually bring to my life? Yeah, how would that change my day to day? Because those are really the reason we're growing the business is to affect our life in some way. Yeah. Most of us. And then of course we get the benefit of once we've really made it to affect other people's lives in massive ways as well. Too. But yeah, I think, and I've gotten caught in that trap where I'm like, well, I already have this, so now I'm gonna do this. And I've I hired somebody to take to go to take on this step, so now I'm going to take on this whole other big thing. And it's like, why? Why don't you just sit back for a minute and enjoy the fact that you don't have to do all that work?

SPEAKER_02 34:47

Yeah. And you still might choose to make that step, but is and again, we walk through this step by step, but we're just not taught to start with the end and reverse engineer it. We're taught to start from here and look out there at what we don't have and ask for it. And that's the piece that puts us in opposition with how our brain works. So just ask yourself, what is what does it look like? Doesn't need to be about money, it can be, but like when I arrive at whatever number is in your head, what's happening in your life? And some of the things, when I do this work with my six and seven and eight-figure entrepreneurs, some of them they could be doing those things now, but they haven't given themselves permission because they're still in the hunt for the thing. And so I would definitely do that. And then whatever your big goal is, like if it's to get to seven figures, if it's to get to eight, if it's to sell the company, whatever it is, start practicing saying that in the language that your brain can receive. So if I say I want a million dollars, I have just literally put my brain in opposition to me. But if I say, and it seems simple, and people ask, is this affirmation, Shannon? No. This is like giving the brain the language of certainty. So if it's I'm at seven figures, because I know what seven figures or eight figures or nine figures looks like to me, success is done, I can picture it. So when I say I'm at eight figures in my business, I know I'm not at eight figures yet. We're very close, but I'm not there yet. But here's what I do know I can see it in my mind because I know what that looks like already. And so when I say to myself out loud, preferably, when I say to myself, I'm at, I have an eight-figure business impacting thousands of people's lives. I can see my daughter and where she is. I can see my son at the school that he's at. I can see the place that I'd be spending my time, I can see the stages because I've done that work. So it's not affirmation, but it's really giving yourself the same language that your brain needs in order to start to draw it to you.

SPEAKER_00 37:00

It's like you embody that person now.

SPEAKER_02 37:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:03

Right.

SPEAKER_02 37:04

You like you climb into that shell. Yeah, climb into that shell and practice it. A lot of people think it's like accidental. It's like, no, your brain just needs to practice it enough times where thou it starts bringing those opportunities to you. You you stop blocking them, to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

Yeah. That makes sense. So I'd love to hear more about your is it mosaic vision? Is that the yeah? So that's for your um children in Uganda who have been orphaned. Can you tell us a little bit about how that changed your view on just leading a team and kind of dividing your time between multiple multiple different initiatives? Talk to us about that.

SPEAKER_02 37:39

Yeah. You know, to me, it was really, I started that charity. I always joke and say I started when I was five, but it's been we're celebrating our 20th anniversary this year. And it shows us that like what we're doing has a bigger impact, right? And so, in terms of dividing my time, you know, because I've built the business on a 67-day year, and because I teach my team to do so as well, I don't have to be in the day-to-day operations of my business. I get to be working on it, but not in it. And ultimately, to me, that if you're a business owner, that's the freedom that this book can help give you is getting yourself in a cadence to where you spend less time and trust people more and are able to operate in a way that it comes quickly. And so hiring great leaders here and in Uganda. In fact, 20 years in, we have two of our first initial kids that we helped back 20 years ago are actually running the organization in Uganda.

SPEAKER_01 38:41

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 38:42

And so to me, I see them as an extension of our team and family. And when you think of them as family and you help them grow as leaders, and they're really running the show. And my focus is on just helping guide them and just restoring the lives of kids who've lost both their mom and dad, just like we would want for our own kids. And the beautiful thing is with our businesses, we're able to cover a hundred percent of any of the fundraising and anything on the United States side of the thing. So everybody that donates or sponsors a kid completely goes there. And that's the beautiful thing. The more money we make, the more impact we can have. So it's been a joy. It's a joy. I mean, just to see these kids, brilliant kids, by the way, like some of the smartest people I know just didn't have an opportunity to be born where we were born. Um and they've taught me more than even growing my business could ever teach me on humility, on what to put first, on how to love other people and the richness of life. And so as uh we even bring these tools over there, their outcome, generally speaking, is more community time than it is growing the revenue. And I it's fun to watch that as well. But it's it's a matter of just prioritizing, you know, majoring in the majors. And uh it's been a journey, it's just a journey over the last 20 years to keep it going through the good times, through the bad times, through COVID, through all that, and uh, and to still be operating 20 years later is pretty powerful.

SPEAKER_00 40:19

It's amazing. And I'm sure that contrast between your life here and then what you see over there is just so enlightening for so many different reasons. Your relationship, your business.

SPEAKER_02 40:29

Got a couple of them working as virtual assistants for our business. And I just think it opens your eyes to impact, you know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:38

Yeah, I love that. So, what legacy do you want the book and the work you're doing to leave behind?

SPEAKER_02 40:46

You know, I love that question because that's why I wrote the book. And it's I want what seemingly is hard, which is how do I achieve these goals? How do I how do I make things happen? It's a system to enable you to do that with ease. It's getting the tools that I had to go get a PhD to figure out. And I jokingly said I was uh DR for my name stands for desperate enough to go try to solve her own glass ceiling. So I always say, I'm not not the unicorn. I'm I'm actually the one that's nutty enough to go do that. But in those rooms, even the knowledge that they had wasn't trying to solve the problems that we have. And that's what I believe was kind of the next season for my life was it worked for me, and I knew I wasn't a special unicorn. And then I took these tools and these models to my clients, the 10 of them offline at the time, and their businesses, all entrepreneurs went from six to seven, seven to eight. And I thought, okay, I'm not a special unicorn, and all of us are getting the same results. This has to get in the hands of everyone. Not everybody will come and join a coaching program to go through this or get certified in this as a coach. But for those that are sitting on the couch, you know, single mom raising three kids that has a dream, or the business owner who's just wanting to so get to the next level so that they can make a better life for their kids. That's why I want to do this. I just want it to be that that ripple in the pond that creates the results that they've been dreaming about and I believe are God-given, and get them out to the world so that people can get impacted. So that's that's the legacy. As many hands as we can get it into, give the tools so that they can stop wondering how to remove limiting beliefs, stop wondering how to achieve goals and really start living it.

SPEAKER_00 42:38

Well, I will put the link to the book in the show notes. And it has been so fun to be here with you, Dr. Shannon. It's been a joy. Thank you for coming. Thanks for having me. I hope you enjoyed our conversation from today. Any links we discussed will be in the show notes below. Also, we would be incredibly grateful if you would leave us a five star review. This helps us keep the podcast going so that we can continue to provide value for all of you. I hope we see you on the next one.