What if I told you that the biggest reason that you are still stuck in your
nine to five is not your lack of stills?
It's not your connections.
It's not even your courage or your lack of courage.
What if the real enemy is the part of your unconscious mind that's
literally been programmed to keep you safe, keep you small, which
means it's keeping you struggling?
And what if everyone doing shadow work right now is missing the
most important shadow of all?
The one that's actually sabotaging your success before you're even
able to start your success.
DNA podcast, your success.
Is in your DNA.
What is up?
What the hell is up?
My fellow success seekers, welcome back to another episode of Your success DNA.
It's that podcast for my aspiring entrepreneurs and nine to five escapees.
It's actually for anyone who's into personal development, but I do,
as you tell by the examples we put in here, I do tend to focus on my
aspiring entrepreneurs because I think entrepreneurship is the greatest
personal development program out there.
In the world, and that's why we're here delivering these episodes that focus on
mindset shifts and habit upgrades and those little doses of rebellions that
help you break free from convention so that you can build a life and a business
aligned with your version of success.
And if you know someone who dreams of ditching the grind, but still
makes time for some personal development, you might wanna go ahead
and forward this episode to them.
Alright, so let's first break down what we're gonna be talking about today.
First.
We're gonna be diving into why traditional shadow work is missing the mark for my
aspiring entrepreneurs out there for you.
Yeah, that's who I'm talking to right now.
You see, while everyone is out there journaling about their childhood
trauma, they're completely blind to the unconscious patterns that sabotage
all of their dreams, their relationship dreams, their business dreams, their
financial dreams, their childhood dreams.
Before they're even able to start working on those dreams.
And second, I'm gonna be reeling three specific shadows that keep smart,
capable people just like you trapped in that employee mindset, even when they
are desperately wanting to break free.
These aren't shadows that therapists get out there and talk about it on the norm.
No, no, no.
These are the business killing relationship strangling beliefs.
Hiding inside your unconscious mind.
And third, you're gonna discover the entrepreneurial's shadow work process
that actually moves the needle for you.
For all my aspiring entrepreneurs out there, this isn't about healing
your past, it's about confronting a part of you that is terrified.
Of your own success about confronting a part of you that is
addicted to the all too familiar struggle of you playing it small.
Alright, so once again, I'm gonna hit you with the truth and I
think this one's gonna sting like a slap or a smack on the butt.
You are not stuck because of lack of opportunity.
Mm-hmm.
No.
There's lots of opportunity out there.
We see it every day.
Some people market opportunity to you on the daily.
You are stuck because part of you is unconsciously committed to staying exactly
where you are, right This very minute.
Right?
Let that sink in for a minute.
So here's what I want you to do.
Picture this.
You're sitting at your desk.
It's Tuesday afternoon, maybe it's like 2:47 PM and you can
feel that post-lunch energy crash hitting you like a brick wall.
This is about the time that many of you pick up a monster or something
like that and gulp it down.
Maybe you go for your fifth cup of coffee.
Those fluorescent lights are humming over your head and you hear your
coworker maybe two cubicles over having the same conversation about
the weekend plans that they have.
Every single week.
Yeah.
What do you do?
Well, you minimize that spreadsheet that you've been staring at for the last hour,
and you open LinkedIn just for a minute.
You tell yourself, I'm just gonna clear my head, and then you see it another
post from someone who left their corporate job to start their own thing.
Yeah, this time it's a photo of them.
They're sitting in some amazing outdoor diner.
Maybe it's a coffee shop in Portugal, and the caption reads,
two years ago, I was trapped in a job that was slowly killing my soul.
Today I'm building something that matters.
You feel that that pang in your chest, that mix of inspiration.
With a little bit of jealousy, make your throat tighten just a little bit.
You scroll through the comments of this post and person after person
is saying things like, so inspiring, and I wish I had your courage.
Well, you close LinkedIn and you stare at your computer screen for a moment.
Maybe your eyes just kind of blink in disbelief.
Then almost without thinking, you open the folder that's buried deep
within your document section, the one that's labeled business ideas.
You click on that document that you have been working for, I don't
know, what has it been, eight months, nine months, 24 months.
Go ahead.
Be honest with yourself, and you read through it once again.
Page after page after page of research, market analysis, financial projections.
It's solid.
Let's be honest.
It's rock solid.
You know this could work.
You have the skills.
Hell, you've been doing the exact same damn work for someone else
for years, some of you for decades.
You have some connections.
You even have a little bit of money saved up.
Probably more than enough to get you started.
Yeah.
Okay.
Some of you are nodding with me right now.
You're like, oh my God, he's been looking over my shoulder.
I know.
But then right on cue.
Your brain starts that familiar dance.
Well, maybe I need to research the market just a little bit more.
'cause this market research is from last year, you know?
And what if I'm missing something obvious?
You know, maybe I should take that online course I saw last week first.
You know, the one that's been sitting on my bookmarks for three months.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
And you know, maybe I should wait until after the holidays or after
this big project at work wraps up or.
Even more so some of you're saying I'm gonna wait till after
I get that promotion, or after?
After.
Yeah.
Now even more of, you are nodding right now.
I can, I can feel it.
I can hear some of you in my magic headphones.
You can feel it happening.
The familiar weight is settling on your shoulders.
It's that same weight that's been there every single damn time.
You open that very document every time you've gotten close
to actually pulling the trigger.
Doing something about it.
Now, imagine I'm sitting right there next to you in that same office, in
that same sterile office, and then I lean over and I ask you one question.
What would actually happen if your business succeeded
beyond your wildest dreams?
Yeah, you feel that shift in your stomach, that little flutter
of panic mixed with excitement.
Your hands.
Maybe they're getting a little sweaty just thinking about it.
Yeah.
Maybe you're just put your finger on your neck.
Maybe your heart race just picked up a couple of beats per minute.
Yeah.
Picture yourself trying to answer that question 100%.
Honestly, go ahead.
Really picture it.
You are making more than you ever have.
If everything came true, if the answer to that question is what would it be?
You are working from wherever you want.
You are finally building something that's yours, but then what?
Huh?
You'd have to become someone you do not recognize the person who takes
risks instead of the person that plays safe, the person who bets on
themselves instead of hiding behind someone else's company or brand name.
Yeah.
Yeah, you will have to leave behind everyone who knows that you are
the reliable one, that you are the practical one, that you are the
one who has their head on straight.
You know who I'm talking about.
You can hear that name popping up in your subconscious right now.
Let's be honest, what would your parents think?
They've been so proud of you with your stable job and your good benefits in a
way you've been able to take care of your wife, your spouse, and your children.
What about your friends who are still grinding it away in their cubicles?
Would they still wanna go out and grab drinks and sit down and complain about
their bosses if you are not there with them to, to commiserate with them anymore?
Uh, yeah.
Yeah.
You wanna talk about weeding out some friends?
Yeah.
And here's the scariest thought of all.
You have to admit that you've been playing small all the way up to that time.
Yeah.
Perhaps your entire life.
That all those years of being responsible, he says, with air quotes
and taking the safe path, were really just fear dressed up as wisdom.
Yeah.
Okay.
One last thing I want you to picture that moment of realization,
just kind of washing over you.
Your unconscious mind isn't afraid of failure.
It's absolutely terrified of success.
You know why?
Success means death.
What?
What the hell are you talking about, Traci?
It means the death of your current identity, the death of your relationships
with people who are making you comfortable with being just like them.
It means the death of that all too familiar struggle that has
become your strange, twisted, but ever valued comfort zone.
Even the stress at your job, the Sunday morning scaries, and that the feeling
of being trapped is all too familiar.
It's all too twisted and comfortable and familiar.
Well, let's be honest, familiar feels safe even when it's slowly
suffocating you and your soul.
Yeah, so this is what I call entrepreneurial shadow work,
and it's the missing piece that no one wants to talk about.
I, I have been a, a member of some pretty high-end mindset
shift masterminds, et cetera.
I haven't heard him talk about it there either.
Okay, so here's how to do shadow work.
That I think actually serves you and your business giving you the
breakthrough, and it doesn't just serve you as a therapy session, right?
We don't want just another therapy session.
We're gonna break this down into three easy steps.
Step number one is you wanna identify.
Your success shadows.
Okay, so I want you to go ahead and get your journal.
I've talked about this over the course of past few episodes.
I'm a big fan of journals and having a place to write something
down, even if it's a, a notes app.
But to be honest, I, I'm a big fan of taking the intangible thoughts out
of your head and rolling them down through your hand, the right hand or
the left hand, and turning it into something tangible on a piece of paper.
So get that journal and start writing.
The answer to these three questions, and I want you to be
brutally honest with yourself.
What would I give up if my business succeeded beyond my current income?
Yeah, easy question.
Write down everything, everything that pops into your mind.
Don't pause.
Don't grade yourself.
Don't edit yourself.
Relationships.
Would you change any?
How about your identity?
You know that's gonna change your comfort zones, certainly.
Even the story that you would tell yourself about why you are stuck right
now or why you were stuck, right?
Because if your business succeeds, you're no longer stuck.
Next question.
Who in my life would be threatened by my success?
Woo hoo.
This one's gonna make you think a little bit, and let's be honest.
This is not about judgment here.
It's about awareness.
Your unconscious mind protects these relationships by keeping them small.
So which ones are gonna be threatened by your success?
And what part of you, actually, let me rephrase the question in the correct way.
What part of me is addicted to the struggle?
Ah, a lot of you don't want to deal with this.
I was one of those, it was a time in my life I was addicted to the struggle.
Most people are unconsciously loyal to their problems because as I
mentioned earlier, their struggles feel familiar and familiar.
Feels safe.
Even when that safety, that struggling safety is slowly choking your soul.
Okay?
Alright, so now once you've got those, let's go to step number two, and
that's the identity death process.
This is where traditional shadow work, I think tends to get it wrong.
They want you to integrate your shadows.
Okay?
Maybe there's, you know, a part of that that needs to work into it, but I want
you to consciously choose which parts of your identity need to die for your
better self to be born, right May.
Maybe it's your relationship self for your better relationship self, for for
your better entrepreneurial self to be born, because I guarantee you, there's
some part of you that needs to die.
In order to birth the next level of you, I can guarantee you.
Here's the thing.
My corporate self could not be born until I killed my drug addicted self
Seems kind of, you know, simple.
Well, duh, Tracy.
Well, if it seems so logical in that sense, why is it different?
Other less extreme versions.
Right.
Okay.
Now next part of part two is I want you to write a letter to your current identity.
Go ahead.
Just sit.
This is no joke.
Right?
I learned this a long time ago, uh, back in the eighties
or nineties from Bruce Lee.
It's one of the ways he used to manage some of his emotions was he would
write a letter to whomever, whatever it was he was angry at, and then
he would crumble it up and burn it.
And with that went his emotions.
But we're not gonna go that extreme.
I want you to write a letter to your current identity.
Go ahead and thank it for keeping you safe.
Go ahead and acknowledge your current identity for what it has given you,
because clearly it's given you something otherwise you wouldn't keep it around
and then consciously choose to let it go.
Now if you want to go to the Bruce Lee route and go ahead and tear that
little section out of your journal, or if you write it on a separate piece
of paper and crumple it up and burn it as a ritualistic way of letting it go.
Try it.
I, that's okay because look, this isn't about healing your employee mindset self.
It's about graduating from that employee mindset.
Okay?
Now step number three, this is gonna be the success rehearsal.
Now your unconscious mind needs to practice being successful before your
conscious mind can create that success.
Right?
Now.
Many of you do that a bit when you, you know, you create your dream
boards or your vision boards, and you have sticky notes all over your
bathroom window with visualizations and affirmations that you're seeing,
that's you trying to practice here.
We're gonna do every morning for the next 30 days, I want you to spend five minutes.
Picturing yourself as the successful entrepreneur that you're wanting to
become, that you're actually becoming now.
If you're not striving to be an entrepreneur and you're just still
listening here to me anyway, 'cause you think you're going to get some good value.
Well thank you for hanging around this long and I hope
I can deliver some for you.
But maybe you're visualizing yourself as the successful spouse, as the
productive parent, whatever it is you want to become, whatever it is that
you are becoming, go ahead and spend that five minutes for the next 30 days.
Visualizing that every day.
Don't stop every day, okay?
If you really want to go balls out fast and really get things happening faster,
do it again before you go to bed.
No.
Okay, but here's the key.
Don't just visualize the money and, and the freedom and all.
The hoo ha's no, no, visualize the identity.
How do you walk?
Are you walking slumped over?
I bet you're not.
I bet you're walking tall and proud with intentful strides.
Yeah.
How do you speak?
Do you speak with fumbled up language?
Probably not.
You're probably speaking with clarity and assurance.
There's a certain level of confidence, maybe even a little
bit of joy in your voice.
How do you make decisions?
Yeah.
Are you making decisions?
You know you are.
Otherwise you wouldn't be a successful entrepreneur or successful whatever
it is you're attempting to accomplish.
Your unconscious mind needs to know that this new version of you is safe.
That it's worthy and that it's aligned with who you really are inside.
You may not be there yet, but you're about to be, and you
need to make sure it's aligned.
We've heard about, you need to know your why.
You need to make sure your why is aligned with your who and that who is who you are.
Okay, so speaking of identity transformation.
This is the exactly the, uh, kind of mindset work we dive deep
into every week in the Unleashed Your success, DNA newsletter.
That newsletter is designed specifically for my aspiring entrepreneurs and my
nine to five escapees who are ready for some real transformation, not just that.
Scratch the surface levels, level stuff.
Now you, you really want to dive in and get, get shit done.
Each issue delivers mindset shifts and habit upgrades, and more doses of
rebellion just like we deliver here.
Again, helping you break free from convention so you can build not
just a business, but a life aligned with your version of success.
And if you're, if today's episode resonates with you even a little bit
and you're, you're still here, I'm thinking it does, then you need to be,
you need to head on over and join the Unleash Your Success DNA newsletter.
Head over to your success dna.com and go ahead and join the rebellion today.
Ladies and gentlemen, here's why this matters.
On an even deeper level, we're living through the death of the employee mindset
and the birth of ownership in our economy.
I really think so.
I think.
The past few decades have pushed so many people into the employee mindset that
our economy has taken a hit, and there's a, an awakening starting to happen of
ownership of being an entrepreneur, even if it's just an online only entrepreneur.
It's still entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs out there,
uh, they give back to their community through economic ways.
Maybe hiring somebody, maybe not just their own community, the community as a
whole, as a nation, or even as the world, but most people are trying to make this
transition with, with some unconscious programming that has kept them safe.
As in as employees.
Okay, so you, you, you're not gonna make that transition without
some deeper level understandings.
The old paradigm rewarded, conformity, rewarded, security, and rewarded playing
it safe by following someone else's rules.
This new shift I'm talking about here, this new paradigm, I think
is gonna reward authenticity.
You see me here?
Long beard, long hair.
Just saying it like I is, right.
It's gonna reward risk taking and it's gonna reward creating your
own rules and then living by them.
That's part of being authentic.
So that's almost redundant to say, but I'm gonna say it anyway.
Actually, I just did.
But here's the thing, your unconscious mind doesn't know all that.
It's still trying to keep you safe using that old, outdated programming.
Okay, which is why you wanna go through the steps I talked about.
This is bigger than just starting a business.
It's bigger than just, I don't know, trying to be a good parent for your kids.
It's bigger than just having a great relationship.
This is about evolving as a human being.
You evolving, getting better, whatever it is you do with your life.
The entrepreneurs who thrive in the next 2, 3, 5 years to a decade won't just
be the ones with the best strategies.
Hmm.
I don't think so.
They're gonna be the ones who've done that inner work to align their unconscious
mind with their conscious goals.
Yeah, your biggest competitor is not the marketplace.
It's the part of you that's terrified to outgrow your current identity.
Let that sink in for a moment.
Okay?
So with that, here's your whisker wisdom for this week.
Your unconscious mind.
Should not be and is not your enemy, it's your employee.
And like any employee, it's gonna need clear direction and a little
bit of new job training because it's gotten all that old training
and now you need to reeducate it.
Your unconscious mind's job description is.
Keep this person safe by maintaining the status quo.
Yeah.
You, some of you're nodding, you're like, oh my God, he's so right.
I know.
I know I am.
But you need to give your unconscious mind a new job, and that new
job description should be help this person become the parent,
entrepreneur, wife, husband, father.
They are meant to be.
You.
Fill in the blank in there, or maybe that's your whole list.
Here's your specific action for this week.
Before you go to bed tonight, I want you to have a conversation
with your unconscious mind.
I get it.
Some people who think it's crazy to talk to yourself.
I do it all the time.
I think it's only crazy if you lose the argument with yourself anyway, but
go ahead and have that conversation with your unconscious mind out loud.
Yeah, go that far.
Tell it that you are promoting it from Safety Manager to Success Partners.
Give it permission to help you grow instead of just survive.
I know it sounds weird, but your unconscious mind is really listening
and it has been waiting for you to finally give it a new mission.
Okay, look, the shadow work revolution, I think it's happening right now
and it is powerful, but most people are using it to stay stuck within
their own story instead of going ahead and writing themself a new one.
You're different.
You stuck around.
You're still listening.
Even if you think I'm crazy, you're still here, and you're here because
you are ready to confront not just your past, but your potential.
The world does not need yet another healed person who's still playing it small.
It needs you.
It needs you unedited.
It needs you unleashed, and it needs you unafraid of your own success.
Your unconscious mind has been your bodyguard, and that's good.
You want it there, but now it's time to make it your success partner.
And with that, I'm gonna leave you as I always do, think
successfully and take action.