The Authority Podcast — Expert Insights and Fresh Ideas for Education Leaders

Ross Romano: [00:00:00]

How can I get out of my own way? How can I manifest my best self? How can I be not just successful, but massively successful in my job, in my profession, in my business, in my life? How can I do all this in seven minutes a day? Well, you're listening to the Authority Podcast on the B Podcast Network, and today we're going to get into these questions and talk about a seven minute shift that maybe can help you achieve some of these outcomes in your life.

And in your work my guest today is Michelle Sarah. She's a Certified Freedom Formula facilitator and a Certified Happiness coach. She's also the founder of Elevated Mind, which is a company focused on helping people manifest their greatest self and their highest [00:01:00] potential. And her book is called The Seven Minute Shift, and that's what we're talking about today.

Michelle, welcome to the Authority.

Michelle Sera: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Ross Romano: Let's start here, Michelle, what, does a happiness shift have to do with professional growth? I, don't know if we hear. Topics talked about in conjunction often enough, and I think it's a great place to start.

Michelle Sera: Yeah, yeah, for sure. You know, happiness, like this whole topic of happiness is, relatively new. And that sounds funny to say that, right? Like why should happiness be new? But this focus, like, you know, five years ago you, there weren't very many books on happiness, and now there's a ton, right? But happiness, the thing is, all of the studies that have been done around happiness, we know that happiness precedes success, right?

We think it's success, and then I'll be happy. And surely if you reach certain goals, You feel happy, you're way up there feeling great. But it's usually a short term thing. And so we know through the happiness studies [00:02:00] that, when we pursue happiness, when we learn to cultivate a deep well of happiness, when we are able to shift our mindset and make that our first priority each and every day, then success naturally follows.

Ross Romano: Yeah, like as you said, it's that, directional relationship right how, if I'm successful then I'll be happy. But it's almost a case of, it's really difficult to truly, come up with a definition of success that will hold.

Michelle Sera: Mm.

Ross Romano: we have defined what happiness is for us, right?

I mean, so many times, if we are pursuing these professional, outcomes and we think, okay, if I achieve X, Y, and Z, that'll make me happy. And then of course we find out that. It does, and it really just leads to the next thing. Okay, well now I did this and now I need to do that. But it, there's not, you don't have that context for understanding, well, why would that make you happy?

What, what about that [00:03:00] is supposed to make you happy versus, when we find happiness in our life, whether that's, With respect to our relationships or just the way that we are, conceiving of ourselves and our personal growth and all, then it gives us that context to say, okay, now I kind of know what happiness looks like for me, and now I know what other goals in my life, professional or otherwise would.

Support that and help me to increase that. But it's something that so many of us unfortunately only learn through experience and then find out, oh, you know what, that wasn't actually the, right trajectory. And it's good to, to have these conversations early and often so that we can map out maybe a more productive path.

Michelle Sera: Yeah, you bring up a really good point in, the importance of just knowing what happiness is for you, right? We go after happiness, like we're, running to reach a goal post. and the thing is in with goals, like when you reach a goal, like your brain moves that [00:04:00] goal post, so you're never really able to fully experience.

A depth of happiness from having achieved the goal. And so then if you really think about that, it makes perfect sense then that on a logical theological side, that if we can create that happiness foundation first. Then there is no moving of the goalpost. Right? Then we then we can experience happiness as we continue to succeed.

But as you said, it's really important for every person to figure out what happiness is for them and in general, especially because we see this today that most people don't even know what happiness really is. Like happiness isn't just about feeling positive, so yeah, it's an

Ross Romano: Yeah. And it's not something that just means that you're not attuned to challenges or attuned to things that are difficult, but it's, when you understand, your broader goals and, what's the [00:05:00] most important to you, then you're able to, again, like I keep using the word context, but contextualize that and say, well, this thing about is really difficult, but.

When I do that, it allows me to have this, and this thing is really critical to me. So now that I've thought about that, okay, you know what? I am happy with how this is going even though it's a difficult day. And that's part of our understanding of even the path we want to take.

And I think that relates closely to one of the early chapters in the book, which talks about how all results are vibrational. And it's about, who we attract, who attracts us in those relationships. And I think these things are kind of close, connected, but can you talk about that concept of vibrational and, how that, plays into our kind of understanding of, our, pursuit of whatever our results are going

Michelle Sera: Yeah, sure, sure. So, there's a, there's a lot of information out there about, vibration and, manifesting and things. But there's, points that I'd like to clarify here [00:06:00] is I, ask people often to look at the vibrational level as thought and emotion. How we feel, what we're thinking.

And then of course that thought and emotion drives our behavior, which in turn creates our results. So everything begins then at that thought and emotional level. Any action we take begins from our thought and thought to end emotions. That's why it's so very crucial when you're looking to change a behavior, to get a specific result, whether it's in business, whether it's in your career, what relationships, whatever it is, you really have to start at the foundation, at that vibrational level, at the level of thought and emotion else.

You are only putting a bandaid on something. You're really not making permanent change. And so that's the way I look at, the vibrational level is the level of thought and emotion.

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Ross Romano: Excellent. And before we shouldn't go any further, let's say, let's talk about the seven minute shift. So it's the title of the book, it's the, core, concept here. [00:07:00] So what is the seven minute shift?

Michelle Sera: The seven minute shift is a very quick process that you can go through every day. You can go through it in your head once you've learned it. You can use this as just a, mental exercise that you go through in your head to quickly shift your state of mind. And of course then we're looking at behavior and result.

One of the things that I encourage, like with my clients, I have them start using this every day, but what they find generally is then it becomes this tool to use at any time during the day when their state of mind begins to slip. Because we all come up against challenges. You know, life is life.

That's not gonna go away. We're gonna have good days and bad days, but it's when you have the, challenges that arise that derail you. And how, long that, moment of derailing it might end up being days right, is what determines your ability to succeed. Right. Does this [00:08:00] slow you down?

Does this stop you all together? Are you able to move past it and keep going? And so that's where the seven minute shift comes in. Because what I found in working with clients, I've practiced meditation for a very long time and initially that's where I was taking many of my clients into some kind of daily practice.

And that was meditation, of course. And I found there was a lot of resistance there, a lot of difficulty because. I would hear, I don't have time. I can't quiet my mind. Meditation isn't easy for me. I'm struggling with this, and so I decided to come up with something that was much faster, but that you can still feel immediate results from. Yeah.

Ross Romano: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's really appropriate now to, kind of almost pivot. It's not exactly a pivot as you'll explain, but I think it's important for, listeners to kind of understand how these concepts fit together. So of course, seven minute shift, you kind of talk about those moments of peace and meditation, right?

And reset. and that is not. [00:09:00] Antithetical to being very energetic and enthusiastic and really into your work. But it's those times where you need to get back on track. And so there's a quote, that's shared early in the book. it's from Rumi. And it says, set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames. and this language comes up a lot in, the education world. And we have a guest who's going to be, on the podcast here soon, who a lot of our listeners will be familiar with, principal Baruti Kafele. And his big thing is talking about how he's on fire, right?

And he actually has this challenge to educators when we talk about burnout and. Being, being wiped out in the job owner, or he says, how can you be burnt out if you were never really on fire in the first place? And a big thing about this is, How it relates to the second part of the quote, seek those who fan your flames.

And it is that [00:10:00] importance of finding the right collaborators, colleagues, community, and understanding that whatever work we're doing is full of challenges. It's full of those days where it's really hard to, get ignited. and we need to not feel like we're alone and we're by ourselves or,

surrounded by people who are throwing water on what we're doing. And so part of that is being really clear about our mission and our purpose and being able to reset and revisit that and say, okay, it's kind of chaotic right now. Let me center myself and. Remind myself what I'm trying to do here.

But part of it is saying, I need to lean into the people that are really on board with me and I need to not worry about the people who are trying to extinguish my fire. But what, does this quote mean to you? Why did you include this in the book?

Michelle Sera: When you set your own vibrational baseline or you shift your focus to raising your vibrational baseline, raising your level [00:11:00] of thought and emotion, right? How you feel. Naturally, you're going to attract others who are in that same place, but it also requires your just awareness of that, that, yes, when you do this work, you're going to naturally attract more people who are where you are.

But I want you to also intentionally go out there and attract more people. That are where you are. And that's, why that quote, still like, gives me goosebumps money here just because I love it. You know, protect your mission, protect your goals, protect your passion and your purpose.

And you do that by keeping yourself surrounded by the people who fan your flames.

Ross Romano: Yeah, and particularly if you're in what is called a leadership role, and however you define that, it relates to, I think a lot of things that I often talk about around communication and transparency and you know, we language versus I language and those things where you're saying, okay, I'm [00:12:00] recognizing in my colleagues here a common mission, a common purpose, and we're talking about what we are trying to do and I am recruiting those collaborators and gaining their buy-in and having them understand.

What I'm thinking. and here's why I'm doing this. I'm trying to achieve this versus trying to be that, charismatic person who's, but I'm off on my own doing my thing and people either are or are not inspired by what I'm doing, but they don't feel like they're a part of it. They think, and, sometimes that doesn't come naturally to everybody, but it's important to think about that you can only go so far alone.

And you can't if, if you're not bringing everybody along with you or you're not giving them insight into what is fueling you or what is fueling everybody, or you're understanding that. In most situations, certainly when we talk about in the education world, we know that there's a common purpose.

We, we know that, and everybody may have a little bit of a [00:13:00] different way of expressing that. Some people may not know how, or they may not have felt. Empowered or free in the past to show that because they weren't sure what the reaction was going to be like, or they worked, for a place where they had an administrator who didn't seem to want that.

Right. And so how powerful can it be, when we're all speaking to each other in a way that we understand, look, we want to be fanning each other's flames cause we wanna see that and we wanna see that.

Michelle Sera: absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And it too, like part of that process is understanding if you're in a place where your state of mind is not where you want it to be on a daily basis because of whatever environment you're in and how difficult it may be. The challenges that brings, this process allows, is, allows you to get to a place where the kind of people you wanna attract and surround yourself with.

Ross Romano: Yeah, absolutely. So are there other elements that are [00:14:00] present in a successful mindset, right, like a, a mindset for success, in addition to, some of the things we've already touched on.

Michelle Sera: Definitely, there's a couple things that I'll, I wanna say here. When I look at like the seven minute shift and the elements of that, the reason I put them together was a. Of course to elevate a person's state of mind, right? To elevate your mind, to give you tools to remind you of experiences you have had where you have felt the way you want to feel now, because we get in this, our society of instant gratification, we forget, like we want what we want, we want it now, but we forget that we've had it in the past. That we can have it again. And I bring in the, visualization of self-image, right?

Of reminding yourself of who you are in the process of becoming. Our brain has to see, That version of ourselves to move towards it. Otherwise we stay. This is the second part of what I wanted to say, is we stay in our comfort zone. And this is a really big piece in [00:15:00] terms of, a success mindset, is having the skills to move outside of your comfort zone.

Because typically we, we venture out a little bit, right? We come up against this event or, circumstances that we fear feeling a sort of pain from, whether that's like just discomfort or, Buster syndrome or, not good enough. Whatever those things are, we avoid going any further because we don't wanna feel the pain of that, right?

We don't have, we have lost a lot of skills around. Moving through fear. And so when we go out of our comfort zone and then we start to feel this discomfort and we say, Nope, we go back to our comfort zone, then we, don't grow any further. And we certainly don't bring our, message to the masses and we don't make those big impacts, whether it's through, an organization or on our own. So, Those two pieces. Calling on the things that you already have available to you right now, and also building a skill to move [00:16:00] outside of your comfort zone more and further.

Ross Romano: Totally, the one word, I think I probably mentioned it a couple of different times, just in our introduction, and it comes up a lot, it comes up in the testimonials about the book. It comes out throughout the book is manifesting right? And that's, obviously a critical terminology here.

What is manifesting?

Michelle Sera: I spent a lot of time figuring that out for myself. There's a lot of, information out there. As I said before, there's a lot of harmful information out there around manifesting and the way that I, when I started to, when I decided to do this work and bring in this topic of manifesting, yes, I do believe that everything at its source is vibrational.

We can look at this from a scientific side. We can look at it from a more woowoo side, right? Either way. But as I said earlier, when I began to look at the things that I had manifested in my own life from some really incredible things to some really not incredible things, some really painful things, I could directly [00:17:00] correlate it to my state of mind.

And that's not to say that we manifest everything in our life. I don't believe that. I mean, life throws a lot at you. there's the good and the bad, and the, the neither, right? That is life. But I do believe we can influence our experiences. And so I come back to, again, I write a lot about it in the book in terms of that vibrational level and, what you're attracting through your state of mind, right?

It still comes back to. Thought, emotion, behavior result. It really, to me is what manifesting is. It's where your state of mind is, your behavior follows, and in turn, that's what you influence. That's the results you create. So I can either, just kind of blindly go forward and be, at the whim of my state of mind, right?

Which fluctuates quite a bit. Or I can make that my focus every single day so that I do manifest more. And the truth is there are some things that manifest in between all of [00:18:00] that are kind of just mind blowing. Like I just don't know how that happened and how that came about. And these are the aspects of it that we don't fully understand.

And maybe we do that and we, by attracting more of what we are in the state of mind of. Who knows fully? I don't think any of us has that answer.

Ross Romano: It occurs to me it seems that manifestation is really, closely connected to. Values and knowing what your values are, that it's not necessarily that we can reliably manifest particular outcomes that we think we can understand the values that we stand for and that tether us to our purpose and what we want to bring into the world in that regard.

And if we're really focused on, achieving and or enhancing whatever our values are, our mission and vision in a sense, that it may lead to some different results and [00:19:00] outcomes that what we expected because we couldn't see that far into the future. And a lot of our listeners are in space where even though they might not be, coaches in the sense that you are right and this is not what they're trained to do. They are in a position where their job is to help others manifest. Whether it's the teachers, whether it's certainly the students, to say that, okay, how am I setting up these individuals that are in my direction or in my care to understand their own goals, their own values. Going back to one of our very first episodes of this show, a conversation I had with Sean Slate, we were talking about a student engagement and the ongoing challenge without, okay, I don't feel like my students are engaged. They're not excited to learn, they're not happy in class, and all those things.

And we said, one of the things that would clearly explain that is if we're in an environment where teachers aren't feeling that way because of the burdens that are being [00:20:00] placed on them by the profession, and they're not feeling happy in their job, they're not feeling particularly engaged, then of course that's not going to come out in the students.

Students are going to respond to what's in front of them the same as teachers are, So we need to be mindful at every level to say, okay, am I exhibiting what I would want the people that I'm interacting with to exhibit, and if I'm not, then how can I be surprised, right? That, that they're reacting to me in the same way as what they're getting out of me.

Michelle Sera: You know manifesting is defined as like making something real. Making it tangible. So when you look at that, like what you were just sharing in an organizational setting, or education. And you're, looking to help another, make something they want real, to make it tangible, you know, how do we do that?

And of course, it comes back to mindset, and motivating to take a specific action. And as you said, for teachers, I mean the, the [00:21:00] massive challenge there is they are challenged to be that source of inspiration and motivation, because they themselves are overworked and burned out and don't necessarily have the resources available to them.

And so, that can be the conundrum. Like how do I then, Change myself in order to make that bigger impact and to help others manifest more. How do I begin to manifest that? And really the way that I look at it is, like I shared earlier about, moving outside of your comfort zone anytime that we feel, if we have it like a dominant negative emotion around something, or even fear, the way that I like to look at that is it's an indicator that there is untapped potential and we lean into it, right? But we do that through, you know, of course, making your state of mind your number one priority and your one and only job every.

Ross Romano: Right. Right. And that is, In this profession. That's a big part of moving outside of your comfort zone is understanding that it's [00:22:00] okay, you focus on yourself and your own wellness and wellbeing a lot of times, because the pressure is always that it's a service oriented, role, and everything always has to come.

particularly for teachers. Everything always has to be about students first. And it is. But the point is, A lot of times what's going to end up being best for them is things that you need to straighten out for yourself. I know another one of our episodes not long ago with Byron McClure and Kelsey Reed, their, book is about hacking, deficit thinking, and it's all about.

Students, but one of the chapters is that educators deserve to flourish. And what I said about that is, it would be really hard for an educator to be flourishing and their students to be languishing because if you are really operating at peak performance and you are fulfilled and you are happy, you're right and you're bringing joy to the workplace and you're.

That those vibrations are going to carry, and, you're going to get a lot of [00:23:00] response to that, and then it enables everybody else around you to start to tap into that themselves because that's what they're getting from you. You can only really get there if you focus on yourself in that way and saying, okay, what do I need to be doing to be bringing my best?

To the environment. And I need to understand that that's a, that's the right thing to do. That I'm not short changing my students by doing that. In fact, I'm short changing them by not doing it.

Michelle Sera: Exactly, exactly. Again, coming back to that, the root cause, right? That level of, thought and emotion, and that's where all change begins, you know?

Ross Romano: Yeah. And, then that also, you know, leads me, I want to ask why it's. I don't think you may have an example, but I was thinking about this and I, I can't think of an example where in the long term anybody achieved or maintained happiness, by having pursued [00:24:00] goals that they set in reaction to someone else, somebody who decides they want to become successful in X, Y, Z field because, they think that'll, prove to their parents that they are somebody, and they feel like they're being doubted or, anything of that nature. Sometimes there's those micro moments.

I, I observe this a lot in sports, for example, where there are certain athletes, who respond best to positive motivation to, I want to prove you. And there's others who do respond to, I, I wanna prove you wrong, right? It's far more, I think the former than the latter. But that's within an environment where perhaps that athlete has already made up.

Their mind that they want to be great at that. And there's just certain things that bring the best out of them in certain moments, but,[00:25:00] if this is not my goal in the first place, and I just think, there's this authority figure, and the only way I'm going to earn their respect is if I show them that I can do this, but it's not really the thing that I want to do, or I haven't set, I'm going to get there and I'm not gonna find myself fulfilled.

So, I mean, maybe, I don't know if you. Observed examples where that, that has worked in the long term, but I think that speaks to why it's so critical to have the mindset of helping people identify what are their values, their goals, the things they wanna work toward, so that they can really get there.

Because ultimately, if we're not defining that for ourselves, you get there and you're miserable

Michelle Sera: yeah. Yeah. Very well said. when it comes to goals, on the first point, when you are pursuing a goal that has been set because of someone else's influence, right? Something because it's what someone else feels you should achieve or, it's something you are set to achieve because it's part of your job, but you're maybe not aligned with that.

You know, happiness. [00:26:00] One of the elements of happiness is living a life of purpose. I mean, we hear that term, but, so living a life of purpose doesn't necessarily come from pursuing goals that others set. Unless you are aligned with that goal and you have identified the meaning in that goal that is tied to you and, why you're here and what you're here to do.

The other aspect of that is like goals in and of themselves are, overrated. We, we have found in studies that, that it isn't the achieving the goal that gives us the greatest happiness, but it's the pursuit of the goal. And so that's why we find that so many times when people are, don't have any goals set, they're not in pursuit of anything that they're experiencing the greatest unhappiness. But we can still experience that level of unha unhappiness when we are pursuing a goal, as you said, that someone else has set. I agree with you, Mike. I don't see long-term happiness because it isn't, unless [00:27:00] you have successfully tied it into your purpose. Right. And that's not often the case.

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Ross Romano: Right. Cool. And so I, I want to kind of go in a little bit of a, different direction here, but I think it all relates, but, prior to doing this work, you spent 15 years as a copywriter and a marketer. And so I want to talk about the importance of words and the, the impact of words.

So, when you were working on your the messaging and the stories you were telling and, the words you wanted to use. What impact do you believe that, words have and what, was your mentality around using them and thinking about the things we need to say and want to say and who we're saying it to.

Michelle Sera: Hmm, great question. So, as human beings, we look for a reflection of ourselves in everything. In everything and in things that we read. just like in writing the book, being conscious of, using [00:28:00] language That tells the success. That tells the wonderful outcome, the positive feelings because we all want that to be us. We want to experience that, we want to feel that we want to be the hero in our own story, and so, Words. As a copywriter, words have an immense amount of power, and we can use them to drive negative behavior. We can use them to drive positive behavior if the spoken word carries a vibration, right?

We can look at the stories from indigenous cultures all throughout history that talk about the vibration in song. So it all comes back to that, base level, right? The thought and emotion that's going into the words. Because as a copywriter, here's one of the things that, like, I, when I teach copywriting, I'm always emphasizing the importance of getting into the head of the person that you're writing to, right? Getting into their, their deep [00:29:00] thoughts, because that's where people are gonna resonate and connect with you. In order to do that, you ha it. It isn't a simple, like, when you're doing it for a long time, you can get there a lot faster, but it does take a little bit of practice. And so I think that, again, we come back to this level of. Thought and emotion and being aware that what you say or what you write, has some level of thought and emotion to it.

Where is that gonna take you? What goal is that going to achieve? Or what outcome is that going to achieve? I'm not sure if that answered your question, but at least it took it in a direction right?

Ross Romano: Yeah. No, I think that's exactly right. I was, interviewed recently on a podcast, and the question was posed to me, what is a brand's story? How do you define what that is? And my answer was that it's your brand story, your company story, your organization story is not your story at all. It's your customer story.

It's the story of what [00:30:00] is going to happen in their life by when they interact with you. So in the case here of, schools certainly, or of companies that work with schools, the story is, Are the pain points and the challenges that students are facing, families, educators, what are the things they care about?

What are the things they need and what are the things they aspire to? It's aspirational as well. And how do you make a difference in those areas? And it's talking about all of that. And I think, that that concept, it comes back here because, it's so critical for. Schools, educators, leaders to be thinking about these things and communicating what they're often already doing, but also communications and, and programs.

It's a two way relationship. It is oftentimes think about, okay, what are all the things we're doing that are making a difference and are we telling people about. But [00:31:00] also it is, okay, what are all the things that they want us to be doing? And they want to be hearing from us and, oh, wait, we're actually not doing that thing.

Okay. That gives us intel on something we need to improve. I think more often than not, it is, it's the former. It's just frankly thinking about, all right, well, how would anybody know we're doing this if we're not talking about it? And who needs to know and what do they wanna know? But a and I think it also leads into.

The idea of imposter syndrome and how that can really hurt your marketing such as it is. And I know certainly in schools a big thing, I've worked with schools on this many, many times is your story and the impact you're having. It doesn't have to be unique, it just has to be meaningful, uh, you know, to the people that you're talking to, and a lot of times educators will set the threshold far too high on what's worth talking about and feel as though, either, [00:32:00] certainly feeling like it's potentially bragging or it's just unnatural to, to talk about myself, but it requires a mindset shift to understand that well, in fact, there are people who really want a need to hear about that.

So think about it more as what you're helping them with and the service you're providing to them versus that you're, touting yourself. But if I am a parent and my child goes to this school, I want to hear about the things that are happening there. I. Care if they're different or similar to what other schools are doing.

My child's in this school, right? So I want to know what are their values? What do they care about? What are they trying to achieve? What are the programs that they're doing? What's happening in this class? You know, it's big picture and it's small picture. But it's kind of having that confidence to say, I'm thinking about this as how it helps somebody else, not, I don't need it to [00:33:00] reflect on me or make me seem like I am better than anybody else, but, how else does imposter syndrome kind of interfere with our ability to effectively market ourselves?

Michelle Sera: so it doesn't really matter whether we're talking about it in the sense of like, I'm, you know, helping a coach understand how, his, frustration with imposter syndrome is affecting his marketing, or whether it's just, as you were saying, whether it's, part of the education system and, getting that, message out there.

Right. It, if you are struggling with imposter syndrome, it makes it near impossible for you to one. How can I sell something that I do not feel in integrity for, or that I do not feel, confident in? It causes you to not have clarity around what to talk about and why. Because you do not see yourself as the authority to speak to that. [00:34:00] And it just trickles on down the line. So it doesn't, again, it comes back to being aligned with the meaning we're all looking for, meaning we're looking, we're all looking to find the meaning in our own lives and of our lives, meaning, why am I here? What am I here to do? That's the meaning that we're all looking for.

And you, said something earlier about. Your story doesn't have to be unique because ultimately we all have the same story. Like if we, follow everything down and we continue to ask the question, just like, how a five-year-old is so incredibly great at asking a million questions, like if we do the same thing, we find we all will come to the same answer and it's to be happy.

So, When it comes to imposter syndrome and that getting in the way, you have to find the, level of whatever it is that you are promoting, right? Whether it's your own business or whether it's something in [00:35:00] your career, you have to find the level at which you can confidently say I do this or I can do this, or I believe in this, and you start there and you build that up, right?

Because otherwise it's just not going to convey, it's not gonna come through in the way that you want it to because you are detached from the meaning in it and you are detached from your purpose in it. So hopefully that makes sense.

Ross Romano: yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And by, talking about it, you just have much more control over it, right? Because you're able to explain why are we doing this? Here's what we're trying to achieve, here's what this means for us, here's the impact it has. Versus allowing other people to kind of make up their own stories about it, which then you end up on the defensive and then you, you really are going to have the challenges of this because, you didn't take that opportunity to say, look, we're doing this great thing for these reasons, and. should know about that. And then they'll [00:36:00] understand and then we can be even more successful because we'll have people who can fan our flames, right? We'll have people who understand what we're trying to do, who are who become enthusiastic about it as well, who want to contribute. Versus, waiting for somebody who's a naysayer to say, Hmm, what, like, what are they hiding over there?

Because they're trying to sneak this one past us. What's that about? And then you have a fire of a different sort, which, so you really don't want that. What happens with any of these things, you know, when we're trying to achieve, Success in any, kind of pressure, whether it's our business.

And we have, listeners who may be in a position where, maybe they do some consulting work, already, maybe they're thinking about different opportunities and different ways to apply their talents. And sometimes there are circumstances where our results are delayed and we need to determine, okay, how do we think about that?

How do we, contextualize those delays versus. Sometimes it's not evidence that it's not going to happen, but it's just a natural part of the process, and then [00:37:00] sometimes we just need to know, okay, what can I do about this? What would you say in that regard?

Michelle Sera: Well, I'm always gonna come back to state of mind. And focusing on elevating your state of mind. Because when something doesn't happen in the, time that we expect it to, that can certainly trigger this kind of downward spiral, mindset wise. And so I'm always gonna bring it back to elevate your state of mind, what's working right now? Because often here, like one of the things that I say, and I I share it in the book too, is about, in the section of reframing, it's one of the methods is diffusing extremes. And so, When we're in that place where something hasn't happened, when we want it to, we often begin to make statements, or at least internally, we're making statements to self, right?

That nothing is working or everything is a failure uh, it all has all fallen apart. And we have to diffuse those extremes and say, has it really, let's look at it. Let's look at what's actually accurate and that can kind of get you back on track. Look at what's accurate and then elevate your state of mind, right?

Using the tools like, any mindset tools. [00:38:00] But certainly I share, them in the book as well. But, I certainly believe that we influence our experiences in this reality. We don't. Obviously control over when things happen or, this would be a completely different experience, right.

If we did. And that's a good thing though, because it gives us contrast. Because then when the thing does happen, you enjoy it that much more because you've waited for it. Whereas if things were to happen exactly when you wanted them to, we wouldn't have the same experience with them. You.

Ross Romano: Yeah, absolutely. And so for those listeners who are considering, whether or not they want to, get involved in some type of consulting or, some other type business that they wanna have. What does it require, to have steady and consistent clients and income in that type of a business?

Michelle Sera: Yeah, it's a good question. I was just actually, I was creating a workshop for, [00:39:00] something I call the middle work. That'll be book two. And in the process of that, I was mapping out basically these 10 steps, and this applies to. Of course in, in my realm, which is, coaching and entrepreneurs and of course I do work with some consultants, but there's these 10 steps.

From a business perspective, what does it take for you to build a business and get to the point of just getting started to study, clients and income? If I boiled it down to just 10 basic steps, here they are. Right. And. The thing about it is, yes, you can look at that logically and say, okay, here's what I have to do.

But I also want you to become aware of where you hit those internal roadblocks along the way, because, I can pinpoint to you where most people start to fall apart, where they start to hit that kind of place of getting completely stuck, because it's the places that dredge up the most feared out and worry, right?

And so become aware of that. That's like super key, right? Because if you don't know [00:40:00] what's between where you are and where you want to go, then you're gonna stay stuck in a certain place. For a very long time. If you don't, in addition to that, if you don't have the skills to move through it, and I'm talking about internal, struggle.

That creates external struggle or creates a struggling business, right? This is one of the things that, that I talk about a lot is this is, yes, we can get certifications and we can go to school and we can gain all of these knowledge and these super valuable. Skills, but the one skill that most of us are lacking is how to handle self and all of the internal struggle that comes up when we embark upon a goal.

And that's what you see in super highly successful people, especially in athletes, right? You see this kind of. Absence of that, we think that they don't have, feared out in worry. And that's not the case. So developing that skill, I think is crucial. And that's what I would say. And if you're, , thinking about starting a business, like [00:41:00] map out, the steps that you need to take to grow the business from an external action point, and start going, like start moving on it, but become very aware of where you're hitting your own walls and barriers and gain the skill to move through those.

As you're moving through those, actions.

Ross Romano: Excellent. Michelle, is there another book other than yours, you've read recently or not so recently that you would recommend our listeners to check out?

Michelle Sera: Hmm, that's a really good question. There's one that, that I've just read. No, I've, I've actually, this is the second time I've read it and I'm looking at it right now cause it's on my desk. And it's called The Tools and it's by Phil Stutz and Barry Michaels. And this is gonna probably be in your positive psychology realm, but the thing that's really great about it, And I use some of these tools in my work as well, is there's just five simple [00:42:00] tools to, finding, encouraging creativity and willpower.

And the thing that I love about his work is that it gives you something to actually do rather than to sit and talk about or contemplate further. Right? It's, it's an, it's an.

Ross Romano: Right.

Michelle Sera: correlated to the internal struggle, so it's a great one.

Ross Romano: Excellent. So yeah, listeners, check that one out. We'll put a link to that below and we will certainly put a link to, Michelle's book, the Seven Minute Shift. Michelle, where can listeners find your book and, learn more about your work?

Michelle Sera: Sure. So it's on the Amazon of course, and you can also go to my author site, michelle sarah.com, and you can also go to the elevated mind.com to learn more about what I do.

Ross Romano: Great. So yeah, we'll put the links to Michelle's website into Elevated mind below, and so we could find the book there and also to her LinkedIn profile if you wanna follow her there. And, Learn more about her work and so please do, listeners [00:43:00] check those out. Subscribe to the authority for more in-depth author interviews like this or visit BE podcast.network to learn about all of our shows.

Michelle, Sarah, thanks again for being on the Authority.

Michelle Sera: Thank you.