#280 How to tap into your intuition, learn from awareness, and create lasting success in every area of your life, with Alaina Schwartz.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

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Please note that while an effort is made to provide an accurate transcription, errors and omissions may be present. No part of this transcription can be referenced or reproduced without permission.

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Agi Keramidas  0:02  
You are listening to personal development mastery podcast, providing those with the desire to grow with the simple, consistent actions needed to master personal development and create the life they yearn for. I'm your host Agi Keramidas. A few years ago I found myself unfulfilled and unmotivated like I had lost my sense of purpose and my life was merely passing by. Since then, I've been on a continuous journey of personal development that has transformed every aspect of my life. Now, my mission is to inspire you to grow, stand out and take action towards a purposeful and fulfilling life. In this podcast, I invite myself inside the minds of remarkable entrepreneurs, authors, thought leaders, spiritual teachers, people who share the journey milestones and learnings for you to be inspired to grow. In this episode, you will find practical action points that you can implement right now. So make sure you follow the podcast to get them as soon as they are released. 

Agi Keramidas  1:08  
In today's episode, I am delighted to be joined by Alaina Schwartz. Alaina, you are an international speakers Best Selling Author and elite performance coach. After many years from the roller coaster of entrepreneurship, you are intimately familiar with sacrificing health and freedom to increase profitability and productivity. You are passionate about empowering entrepreneurs and leaders to make shifts at the DNA level to align with your purpose so that they can multiply their income and impact while creating more time freedom. Alaina, welcome to the show. It's such a pleasure to speak with you today.

Alaina Schwartz  1:49  
What a delight Agi. Thank you.

Agi Keramidas  1:52  
I'm very much excited for this conversation I've been since our original connection, I have been looking forward because I saw this beautiful energy that comes immediately from your messages and your webs. Certainly your presence here. So and the topics that you talk about are so useful. As I was telling you earlier, I have personal interest as well. I'm sure you see that all the time with people. So before we go there, I would like to start with a little bit of your journey, your background, you know, before becoming a mindset. Coach, so can you take us back? What was going on? And what was the turning point for you?

Alaina Schwartz  2:43  
Great question. You know, I started out as a lawyer in the music industry in New York City I gave and I was a lawyer for 18 years. And I became the Executive Vice President of the largest independent music company in the world. And I felt this disconnect between what I was doing and my passions for a long time. But when I when I entered that role, because I'd always been in private practice before that. And when I entered that role, I realised that I had really put my ladder against the wrong wall that it was the wall that my parents wanted for me. They wanted me to be a lawyer, they wanted me to be really successful. And like the safe thing, right, the safe thing to do to make sure that I had a career that would provide financially for me for the rest of my life. And I was miserable. And it made me very physically ill and for all intents and purposes on the exterior, it looked like I had it all I had a great marriage, I travelled multiple times a year to exotic locations, I had a two bedroom apartment in Manhattan. You know, like it looked like I had it all but I was dying inside. And I came home one day and I said to my now ex husband, I can't do this anymore. Like I really need to walk away from this. And he said, okay, but I had no idea what I was going to do next. And so I started to explore everything that I was passionate about, which was more about health and healing, holistic healing, really, those were the things I was really passionate about. And I learned I was very good at a lot of things, not all of which I was meant to do. And in the process of that I literally hit a wall I call it a dark night of the soul I started to watch all the structures of my life fall apart. Like I had a very sweet nest egg and I went into massive debt. And then my marriage went like started to deteriorate went on the rocks and moved out in New York City up into upstate New York where I knew no one I lost a lot of my friends throughout this whole process. And I just was in this. I'm gonna call it self imposed hell that I didn't realise was self imposed. Right? I was just experiencing this darkness that I could not get myself out of difficulty with my son just everything in my life. And then all of a sudden I started to just like I was almost desperate to get myself out of the hole I was in and I just kept pursuing it. have different kinds of techniques. And I finally discovered something that helped me liberate my mind and understand the nature of reality in a different way. Right. And through that process, I also hired a purpose coach and realised my purpose was to give these gifts to entrepreneurs. That's really what my purpose is to help entrepreneurs not had the experience of the constant hustle because I was working 6080 hour weeks as a lawyer, and it was just burning me out on a regular basis. And so I was really passionate and always felt that there could be a way for us to create lifestyle businesses that actually make a lot of money and really help a lot of people in the process. But here's the interesting thing, because patterns tend to repeat themselves until we actually clear the patterns. And so what ended up happening is, within seven months, in my first year of coaching, I created a six figure coaching business, but then proceeded to crash and burn it and Ken down to the ground, I hadn't enrolled the coach in five months, the shame and the guilt for me helping other people make money and not being able to make money myself. It just it just like piled on top of each other. And I literally went into another dark night of the soul. And this time it was really interesting about it is that I had been disconnected from my intuition in a lot of ways because stress, shame, guilt, which is exactly what I was experiencing tends to disconnect us, from our intuition from the inner guidance that would have directed me to actually create success in my business. And so I put out a few years ago, I put out like this request to the universe of A, I wanted to like what I was noticing about my clients is they were getting phenomenal results while they were working with me. But if they didn't work with me for at least six months, they'd start to slide back into their self sabotage patterns. Right. So I wanted one that one thing that helped my clients actually get more permanent results, two that helped me reconnect to my intuition, and three, that actually helped me get out of the hole that I was in so I could get past where I was, and actually start scaling my own business. And then I discovered another like, tool and technique that actually helped me do that. And in a year, like 13 months, I seven times my income by not doing anything, but changing the space, the five inches between my ears, and my clients have just been getting phenomenal results. And while I've always been really good at helping people work less like 20 to 30 hours a week less, this allows people to stay in flow, so that they're not in that, that hustle mode all the time. You mentioned

Agi Keramidas  7:36  
so many things here, I'm trying to think what's the best. One thing that I certainly want to ask you about was that dark night of the soul? You had to as as you said, there was a phrase you use that to your soul, the structures in your life collapse fall apart at that time. So my question to that is because you know, this similar stories of when the rug is pulled from under your feet or something like that, that you are desperate you to hit the rock bottom or other phrases that describe simulate, you know, experiences, that they are fairly common. But my question is, can someone change their life without having this kind of a dark moment? Or is it necessary part of the journey that we have to go through that to realise ourselves? I don't know the the structures that are not right, or that were disconnected from the intuition or anything else. So how necessary is that on the growth journey?

Alaina Schwartz  8:45  
I love that question. I so love that question, isn't it? So So here's the thing, the vast majority of people I would say alive today are so focused, and we've been so brought up with safety, right? That safety is the main focus, what does school really teach us, it teaches us safety, it teaches us how to become a good employee and get a good job that you might stay in for the rest of your life and get a salary. So you're safe, right that that's what society itself teaches us. And so because everybody's in their comfort zone, the idea of moving out of your comfort zone, which is what you would need to to create what I created without the pain and suffering, right? Through awareness alone, you'd have to get out of your comfort zone and most people aren't willing. And so there's there's this thing that I call that where it's actually one of my mentors calls the lesson of the feather the apple and the Mack truck, I call it the two by four cost. So the universe comes along and taps you on the shoulder and says, Hey, there's this there's this thing you need to really understand about yourself in life. No one listens to that. Virtually no one listens to that right. And so then the universe starts chucking apples at your head to say, Hey, are you going to wake up from this? Now some people will wake up during that time because it starts to get painful. Enough, some people won't like, I needed the two by four across my head a couple of times, obviously, to get myself out of that situation to realise the truth about myself. But in the process of that you can actually learn from awareness alone, right, you can proactively clear what you need to clear, so that you can learn from awareness alone. And one of the things that I will say is that learning from experience can actually be even though it's far more painful, and causes so much more suffering, it can be much faster, right? Because people are usually at the point, like you said, rock bottom, where they can't stand it anymore. And they're like, Okay, I'm finally I'm desperate, I'm going to do something, they're finally tired enough of it to actually make a change. But I think before them, they're really not that tired of it. Right? They're willing to settle, they're willing to settle for mediocre life, because at least thing it's the life they know. Right? Better the devil, you know, than the devil you don't. And that's not true. But that is very prevalent in society in terms of what what people think so no, it does not take pain and suffering to create radical shifts in your life. But what I find is that most people are not willing to make those changes proactively unless they experience the pain and the suffering. That's a

Agi Keramidas  11:13  
great answer. Thank you the way you said it, it is absolutely one of the reasons why I asked this question was, you know, because of the hero's journey, when there is that Final Fight With Your biggest demon, quote, unquote, which could be your fears or your comfort zone. So that's why I was wondering how necessary that is in in the journey as a hero, and you said about, you know, learning from awareness, rather than having to learn from the experience, which I liked very much the sound of it. However, it it feels like, how would you direct someone that wants to learn from awareness? Because is it a matter of looking inwards of meditating or of doing spiritual practices to? How can?

Alaina Schwartz  12:07  
Yeah, that's a great question. So So definitely, meditation will help but here's the thing that I do, I teach my clients, I and I'm gonna, I'm gonna, like just be totally vulnerable, because I know that you're, you know, like, your audience is ready to hear this, but I teach my clients how to tap into their higher self, right? So it is the seed of our intuition, it is the All Knowing part of us, right? It's the it's the infinite part of us. It already knows what we need to do to go from point A to point B, with ease and grace it like with no resistance whatsoever. It already knows how to do that and make our lives easy. It's just most of us are ignoring those inner voices, the still small voice, whatever you want to call it, right? Most of us are ignoring it. Like I cannot tell you how many people have said to me Oh, yeah, I get that. I just don't follow it. Well, why don't you follow it? Like if people are getting it? Why don't they follow it? It's because of the blocks and the limiting beliefs in their subconscious mind. Right? Their ego mind is essentially saying no, no, no, don't do that. That's uncertain, it's unsafe, you don't know what's going to happen, you don't know if you're going to actually live if you do that. So don't do that. It's just trying to protect us. But it ends up keeping us exactly where we are, rather than allowing that awareness. So once I teach my clients to essentially befriend, it's like your BFF, like your Higher Self, your true self, once you start understanding how to allow it to guide you, you also use it to go into your subconscious mind and clear those blocks and limiting beliefs so that they're not in the way now you can do that proactively, you can do it reactively. Okay, I just got triggered as a result of somebody saying something, I know it's not anything they said, where I hope your audience is at the place where they know it isn't about what the person said, it's about the meaning that they're making out of it, right. And so they're, they're we're making meanings all the time, we're meaning making machines. And so you can clear proactively, oh, I just got triggered, somebody said something, and this is what's coming up for me, you can clear that. But you can proactively clear what's coming up so that you don't actually have to experience it the hard way. And it makes life so much easier, because then you're able to get such clarity on the kind of guidance that you can get. And so because I work with business owners, I also teach them how to tune into the energy of their business. So not only are they tuning into their their higher self, they're tuning into their business, like, what's the right strategy for me to use? Who's the right team member for me to hire? Is this person energetically compatible for me to work with? Is this person energetically compatible for me to bring on as a team member? What will be my experience if I decide to do this? You know, it's like all of those things we actually have access to that we haven't been raised to have access to. So it's like a muscle we need to develop but it can be developed and finely tuned. Does that make sense? It certainly

Agi Keramidas  14:53  
does. Thank you for the answer. We have this the the intuition is part I mean, we can call it connection to the higher self for the divine it is, for me the description we use, it doesn't really matter as much as the fact that there is a part of us that knows more than that. So we are connected through intuition is a wonderful word that it is part of us. And it is meant for many people difficult to follow, you will given the exam with a feather it, it has to become, for many of us loud enough and painful enough to really make the change. Yeah, talking about this universal about the, you know, the limiting beliefs that are there that prevent people from proactively changing. You talk about the shift, the paradigm shift, or there was something you said about the DNA level. So that's something I would really like to understand and learn more about.

Alaina Schwartz  15:55  
Yeah, yeah, I love that. Okay. So intergenerational preferences, limiting beliefs and traumas are actually passed to us through our DNA, right, so So through the field of epigenetics, they have actually, and what I do is energy work, it goes beyond epigenetics, but through the field of epigenetics, they basically have discovered, okay, we have these markers on our DNA, and based on our thoughts, and our environment, we can actually turn on and off the markers. So for example, your parents may have heart disease, but it doesn't mean you ever have to get it, because you can actually flip that marker off, right? You don't, you don't actually have to experience it at all. And it's the same thing with limiting beliefs now that we acquire limiting beliefs in three different ways. And the truth is, none of them are ours anyway. But we acquire them through those intergenerational limiting beliefs that are passed down to us that are in our DNA, we acquire them from the meanings we're making out of our experience before, we're seven years old. Because before we were seven years old, we're basically just a subconscious mind. And our conscious mind isn't fully developed yet. And because it's not fully developed, our subconscious mind doesn't have the ability to reject it accepts everything it's told. So if you're told you're bad, you know, you believe you're bad, right? If you, if you hear your parents fighting about money, and talking about how hard it is to make and how hard it is to get ahead, you're gonna grow up believing money's hard to make, and it's hard to get ahead, right, so So these are all things that we pick up. And then there's societal limiting beliefs. society as a whole has a massive amount of limiting beliefs. I'll give you one that's like super prevalent about ageing, or having to work hard to succeed, you know, those are all limiting beliefs that are held at a societal level or no pain, no gain, right? They're held at a societal level that aren't true at all. Right? So what I have the capability when I've been trained as a DNA healer is to go in and energetically see what's going on in your DNA, all of these things that have you've picked up from society that you've picked up from when you were a kid that you've picked up from your parents, and ancestral generations, and actually remove them energetically. So that you get to act and insert other DNA to be supported. So that you're essentially buffering against these things, so they don't come back. Right. So that when you're working at a DNA level, because, you know, my experience of rewiring the subconscious mind, whether it be through say, Theta Healing, or hypnosis or inner child your parenting work, or EFT or, or REM reimagining images and memory, many of which I used to use before I started doing this work, they feel like they're effective at a certain level, right at a certain, gonna almost say at a superficial level in terms of taking action in your life. But they don't help unravel the identity construct that we've created for ourselves, from the time that we're little. And this work actually helps you deconstruct your identity construct, so you can be a more true version of you. Without all of these things that have been piled on since since you were young.

Agi Keramidas  19:02  
I want to take a short break from this episode and quickly let you know about something I'm really excited about. For me, having a podcast made a tremendous difference in my life's journey. And I know the kind of impact it can have on one's personal development. And that is why I'm so passionate about helping coaches who are ready to amplify their methods and reach a global audience by creating launching and growing a top quality podcast, even if they aren't tech savvy and are limited on time. Maybe you have thought about having your own podcast but you don't want to go through the time consuming learning process of how to create launched it, how to record the ad to host and so on. If you said yes, I have a solution for you something that takes away all the complexity and allows you only to concentrate on creating cold content. Go to my website AGIKERAMIDAS.COM to find out more and to get your free copy of my guide about creating and launching your podcast. Alright, let's jump back to the episode. 

Agi Keramidas  20:12  
What you were just saying about the different levels that others, let's say techniques or modalities work made me think that I have personally done practices like this of, you know, changing limiting beliefs of different ways. And even though each of them was in a way successful, I mean, it worked to some extent, none of them would give me that, you know, sensation when you have that, Oh, my God, everything is different now. Yes. So it is interesting what you saying. And there was something that you said earlier. So tell me how this is connected? Because you're saying that your clients had great success while they were working with you. But when they stopped, it would stop. So what is the connection there? Is that something that needs to be reinforced? Or is that something that can be changed permanently?

Alaina Schwartz  21:12  
That's something that can be changed permanently. But but here's the thing. So you spoke to it very well, when you said, okay, you've used a bunch of those techniques. And you felt like, I'm going to use my words here. But marginal success, right with it, like you did feel some shift, but it wasn't like an Oh, my God shift. Right. And, and so that's my experience of a lot of these other techniques is they are incredible for shifting, but they only take you so deep, right? So the key to this work, really mindset work is the kind of thing where just like brushing your teeth, you got to do it every day, right? I have a couple of clients who will say actually one of my team members, because I've taught my team members how to do this work too, because I want to my goal is to create an intuitive business. So everybody who's working in the business uses these tools and techniques, so that there's no ego in the business that we can keep it clear of the ego mind, right. And I was I was talking to one of my team members the other day, and she was like, yeah, when we have an issue, we use these these tools and techniques. And I was like, That's reactive clearing, but you're not doing the proactive clearing, which is why you keep having the experiences that are causing the reactive clearing, you actually have to work this work proactively. Right? If you want the experience, you actually have to work to work proactively. And that requires a daily practice. And that practice can be you know, 1530 minutes a day. But but for me, it's just like grooming, you know, it's something that I do every single day to make sure that I am not letting my ego mind creep back in and foment thoughts in my head that start to build on themselves that take me out or create other things I don't want to create in you know, in life because my experience right now, I've done so much clearing on this I've cleared my identity construct so much that my in my feedback loop is instantaneous. So if I am in the ego mind and believing the ego mind, my experience in my reality is instantaneous reflection of that now, it doesn't take a long time for that to happen. So I'm like, Oh, I gotta stay in flow like this doesn't feel good. I don't like that. All right, so it can be permanent. But it does take the work to keep it that way. Because we live in a society that's filled with all of these limiting beliefs still, and until society cleared them at a hole. It wouldn't be possible for us not to be doing the you know, the little bit of work regularly. But but here's the thing, I'm going to ask you and your audience Auggie. Like, wouldn't it be worth spending 15 to 30 minutes a day doing this work than experiencing the kinds of crap that we experienced in our lives that

Agi Keramidas  23:45  
we don't like? There's no question about it. And you know, when you were saying that you have to work proactively at it and do a daily practice of it. It made me realise that the way I asked the question whether it is permanent, maybe it implied a sense of you know, after a while, you don't have to put any effort anymore, everything is different. So you just sit down and Abundance flows into your life. And it made me realise the way I asked the question that because we you know, with with my podcast, sometimes I think of the personal development mastery as the journey of going there. And there is no point that after that, you don't have to put any effort in I say, now I have mastered my life. So it will carry on every day. Every day. That is the process. It's the daily practice. So thank you for explaining it.

Alaina Schwartz  24:42  
Yeah, may I say something else about that? Of course, we are in third density reality right now. And the third density reality has this veil of forgetting of who we are. And it also has the polarity so that we can experience like it's hard to experience happiness without experiencing sadness. It's hard to explain Hands up without experiencing downright. So we're living in a dimension of polarity so that it allows for the fastest quickest growth and evolution of our consciousness once we get past because there is a doorway open right now into fourth density reality. And once we move into fourth density, we no longer have the veil of forgetting, we don't have to have the level of suffering to learn that we have in this in this experience, right? It's a different, this is specific to this 3d reality that we're experiencing now. So when you talk about that permanent, is it permanent once we no longer have the veil of forgetting, and we remember who we really are, we remember where this is, these infinite beings with only a sliver that can fit in our body because we the pure potentiality of who we are, is so vast and so big, we cannot even fathom without like massive nuclear explosions, getting ourselves like our true selves, to actually inhabit our entire bodies. And once we realise were that vast and infinite, we get to have a different experience. But for right now we've all chosen this experience. Right? So the idea is to make the most out of this experience by raising your consciousness raising your frequency because when you raise your frequency, the abundance that you're talking about is right there. It's been there all along Auggie. It's totally there, all the opportunities are like right here, we just haven't been able to see them because we're operating here instead of here. And once we're here, like I cannot tell you it's like it's a joke that I have with my team about how many of my clients say it came out of nowhere. And I laugh because it's like, no, it was there all the time. It didn't come out of nowhere. Now you have the vision to see it.

Agi Keramidas  26:38  
What's one way that one could use to clarify that vision.

Alaina Schwartz  26:44  
So for me, the vision gets clearer because it's a frequency when I talk about the vision, right, because we have the vision in terms of our lives and our businesses, right. But then we also have a vision in terms of the clarity of our frequency,

Agi Keramidas  26:57  
our meant with raising our frequency, as you said, What's one way to raise that frequency or keep it raised?

Alaina Schwartz  27:03  
Right? Okay, so I was going to say clearing limiting beliefs, because that's the biggest way, but one of the biggest ways I would say is gratitude, right. So I'm sure you've had many, many guests talk about the effects of gratitude. But essentially, when we have gratitude, the experience of gratitude is if you already have something and you have gratitude for it, when you're given something like let's say you're given a gift, or you get a client, you have gratitude for that, it's the experience of something already happened. So there's a couple of ways to do this is when we have gratitude for both what we already have, like a tremendous amount of gratitude for the abundance that we already have, that may not be feeling like abundance for a lot of people, but is abundance when you can actually start focusing on it. And then you start focusing about the the maybe the future things, you want to have gratitude for already having it, then it brings it in so much faster. And it does really raise the frequency because again, you have gratitude for things you already have. So if you're giving gratitude for things in the future, the universe will fill in the gaps to direct you there if you can consistently focus on on what's working rather than what isn't working. Right, because what ends up happening is what's working and what isn't working are two sides of the same stick. Right? Most people, they will look at what they don't have focus on what's wrong with their relationship, what's not working in their business, what's in their bank account, rather than what's possible for them. Right, what is working, what do you love about this person that might be your significant other, you know, and cultivating that and the more we focus on what we do have, then it allows more to actually come into us.

Agi Keramidas  28:38  
Thank you. Is there any particular practice that you recommend for someone to use us technique? I mean, to enhance the gratitude?

Alaina Schwartz  28:47  
Yeah, feeling is key. You know, feeling is key because, like even visualisations I call them feeling as Asians. Because visualising without the feeling isn't isn't gonna get you very far, right? It's the feeling that magnetises it back to us. And so being able to cultivate the feeling of it already receiving it is is key. So one of the things I have my clients do is sit down and maybe visualise, let's say, for example, I'm just going to use business analogies, because that's the area I work in. But let's say you're wanting to create, let's say, three new clients, in the next couple of weeks, what you actually do is you have to focus on feeling as if like, okay, like maybe it's a group programme, and you focus on seeing these three new people in your in your group, like on Zoom or something like that, right? And having the conversation with them and how psyched you are about it, and how excited you are to work with them because it feels these are great clients like these are totally ideal People Who Get IT who are willing to do the work, who you're psyched about, like feel those feelings, and then really stir the gratitude in you for being able to like, do the thing you love to do with these three new people. Right and the more that you You can cultivate that energy throughout the day. Because what you can do is then first you're focusing on someone, and then you just start to feel the feel and cultivate that feeling. Right. And the more again, you can do that throughout the day, the faster we'll bring it in.

Agi Keramidas  30:15  
That's great. I love this because it's practical. It's something that can be done and a bit more on that. So would someone do that, let's say close their eyes and put some nice music on and visualise and feel that at the same time? Is it? Does it have to have a specific setting or committee done when you drive your car, you can do it

Alaina Schwartz  30:37  
in your car. You know, the thing that the thing about it, I do recommend closing eyes doing it isn't a closed eye process only because then you could clearly see the visuals more, right? So you're pairing visual with feeling which is really helpful. And then in your car, though, you can cultivate like, I have to say when I created that six figures in the first year, like I was not doing well financially, before that I was doing a lot of different odd jobs. Before I really got into coaching when I was trying to figure out what I really want to do next. And in the process of that that is something that I do, I'd be driving around. And every time I would start to feel like those feelings creeping in of like, oh my god, how am I going to pay my rent this month, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I would just give gratitude for the fact that I had a house gratitude for the fact that the lights were still on. But again, the feeling of it, right? I didn't have to do that with my eyes closed. And I just did this as a practice consistently. Every time I had that negative thought in my head, I would just turn it around and go into gratitude. And, you know, I was able to create that pretty fast. That's brilliant. But it requires again, it's a practice thing. It isn't one and

Unknown Speaker  31:39  
done. We all want one and done. It isn't one done. It's consistent practice.

Agi Keramidas  31:45  
Absolutely, there is this tendency to have instant gratification or to give up too early when something doesn't seem to be producing the the effect that we want. This is It's fascinating.

Alaina Schwartz  32:00  
I say something to that, because, okay, one of the biggest things that I see with my clients is that they start doing this work when they first start this is when they first start, right? And then they go into that habit of like, okay, I'm not seeing it yet. I'm not seeing it yet. I'm not seeing it yet. And the thing that I say is like, okay, when you plan to seed, how long does it take for that seed to germinate, some seeds take, you know, much longer than others to germinate, right. But if you keep digging up the seed to check if it's growing, it's never gonna grow, you're gonna kill it, if it has tiny little baby roots, and it's just starting to germinate, but it hasn't come through the earth yet, then you're gonna kill it by digging it up. And so what happens is, we're starting to bring it to us, we're bringing it to us, we're bringing it to this, then we start questioning it and wondering why it isn't here yet. And we've except we've repelled it, we've moved it further away from us again. And then we have to start all over again and bring it to us bring it to us bring it to us, then we repel it again, by wondering why it's not there. And we just keep going back and forth, and back and forth. And it's exhausting. And people are going Why isn't this working? It's not working. And it's exactly what you said, they're just not sticking with it long enough.

Agi Keramidas  33:07  
I speak from personal experience. I suppose we all have our trials and things that didn't work or things that were just about to work and we'll quit. But one other thing that I would really like to ask a quick comment about it's one of the things that you discuss and you like discuss, you mentioned the identity earlier and the construct. So the topic is how for many people their self worth is or they are their identity is very much attached to their financial situation, their net worth. So I know this is a vast topic. And what I would like to ask because I really enjoy, you know, having practical direct wisdom rather than theoretical concepts. So what's your number one advice to someone who has their self worth tangled with their low net worth and two as one is affecting the other because eventually, I think it's, it's a two way thing, if you allow it to be.

Alaina Schwartz  34:13  
So it is one of the topics that I love to talk about. So thank you for asking that I gave. So it's a really interesting thing because your self worth absolutely has everything to do with your net worth. But your net worth has nothing to do with your self worth. And so let me let me explain what that means. Okay. When we were growing up, I was thinking about this yesterday, as a matter of fact, I had dinner with some friends and they have twin two year olds, two twin year old boys who absolutely I love and adore. And when they do something there the boys like to be really helpful. And when they do something, the parents always say Good boy, oh, job well done. And so there therein lies the Genesis. I mean, other than the fact that it's so societal. So we're dealing with this on a societal level. So we're getting it all from society. Like we we've been and rewarded for doing good stuff, right? We get love and approval from our parents when we act as good boys and girls. And so because of that we've grown up with this idea of conforming who we really are, this is where our identity construct starts to come in, we start conforming with who we really are, to get the love and approval, because the way we are doesn't seem to get the love and approval, right, it seems to actually get disapproval a lot of times. So So because of that, we start conforming who we are, and we start realising, Oh, Mom and Dad, give me more love when I accomplish. Mom and Dad, give me more love when I do really well, Mom, if I do this thing? Well, the mom and I get love and approval, and it happens in schools, too. My experience is only of schools in the United States. But I know it happens across the board, where teachers want you to act a certain way you misbehave. You know, there's all kinds of consequences for acting like yourself, right and not sitting there and conforming and being a good student. So as a result of that, from everywhere around, and if you're in religious institutions, it's the same thing. Right. So now we're getting it from all different angles about how we have to act to be good people, what it means to be a good person. And if you're not a good person, then it means you're not going to get love and approval. Now, on a tribal level, when you don't get love and approval when you're ousted by the tribe, it means certain death. So there's still this ancestral part of our brain that for us seeks the love and approval, because it means we get to be part of the tribe, then we're not ousted from the tribe. So as we become adults, and we start pursuing careers, then we go after the accomplishments too, because our whole lives have been spent on getting love and approval from outside of ourselves. Rather than cultivating the love and approval from inside of ourselves. We've been getting love and approval from outside of ourselves from external. So then money becomes the next external thing that we really focus on. And we start looking for money, like success in society means you've arrived, you're somebody, right? Everybody wants to be a somebody. So it means if you have money, you're somebody. And they don't realise that the ego is just constantly looking for validation from outside of ourselves. And so I mean, it's why Auggie, I can tell you that I have worked with millionaires like a guy who was worth $100 million, and still feeling like it wasn't enough money, right, afraid that he was going to lose it. And so we think, Okay, well, when I have enough money, when I make my first million dollars in my business, when I make this amount of my business, then I will finally feel XYZ, whatever that is secure, safe, free. None of those things keep us feeling worthy. It's pursuing it from inside of ourselves from the truth of who we are. Because because you are here right now, because you were born, you are inherently worthy. You don't actually have to do anything for it. But that's not how we were taught. That's not how we were brought up. So money becomes the next thing that we pursue to make ourselves feel worthy. Now, here's the interesting thing. So at the beginning of this, I said, your self worth has everything to do with your net worth. Because you can make a lot of money without having a lot of love for yourself Self Love, you can make a lot of money with that a lot of people who make a lot of money, don't have a lot of self love. They may have self belief in a particular area, but they don't necessarily have self love, which is why they keep chasing more, keep chasing more, keep chasing more, right? So in that sense, right? What happens is when we start understanding that self love is synonymous with our life purpose is synonymous with 100% responsibility for our lives and 100% responsibility means I am the creator of my life, everything I've created in my life, whether I like it or it sucks, everything I've created, I put there, I put there and I am such a powerful badass being, I have the power to change it and put there what I want instead, what I desire and what feels good. That's 100% responsibility means not being in victim mode, but it's also synonymous with money. So when you attract money from a place of self love, it doesn't come at the sacrifice of anything it comes because you know you're worthy and so abundance can absolutely flow into you effortlessly, rather than having to work your butt off to create it and be in constant hustle mode, which is what most people are doing. You know you hear about the Guru's some of the people who've made a lot of money like even Elon Musk, they talk about the necessity you know, Kevin from Shark Tank or or Gary Vee, they talk about the necessity if you're not if you're not successful, you're not working hard enough. No, that's BS. If you're not successful, it's because you're not feeling like you're worthy of and deserving of the success you want. And when you shift that and Abundance flows into you effortlessly

Agi Keramidas  39:59  
well Oh, thank you, Elena. That's a wonderful answer. Very useful. Thank you very much. And it's, as I said, it's a vast topic. And we could have a whole conversation just on that. But I'm glad that we mentioned even this part. It's been a fascinating conversation. I have some quickfire questions to wrap the episode up before I asked them. Well, could you direct the listener who has loved this conversation and wants to find out more about you and what you do?

Alaina Schwartz  40:33  
Yeah, the best way to get into my world, I am so passionate Agi, about helping people live a lifestyle business and make more money helping people work less. And so I created this course it's a it's a four part video mini course. It's no longer than an hour on helping people, it's called Five Ways to shave 20 to 30 hours off your workweek while earning more money. Right. And so I'd love to offer that to your audience for absolutely free. It is actually the real techniques I use with my high end one on one clients, my team has asked me not to put it all in there. And I said, I'm giving it anyway. Because I believe, you know, value comes back to us in a variety of different ways. So I really want to provide value and help people work less if they work, what they you know, the exercises are in the programme. That's really key. Because again, there's no magic you actually have to put in. And it's not Blimey, it's so much less effort than working 6080 hour weeks. Right. Right, because I typically help all my clients work less than 40 hour weeks. So I would love to offer that and they can get that at Elena schwarz.com forward slash time. So that's Elena schwartz.com, forward slash time, and I'll have that link for you to put in the show notes as well. Yes, absolutely.

Agi Keramidas  41:47  
Fantastic. That's great. Thank you very much. And I will also I'm looking forward to checking it out myself and seeing what you have in there. So let me ask you a couple of quickfire questions then to end this. And the first one I always ask is, What does personal development mean to you?

Alaina Schwartz  42:08  
All right, personal development means to me, I mean, we're not really developing ourselves, right. It's about removing the layers that make us believe were something other than we really are. So we can reclaim the beingness of the consciousness of who we really are. Right, so that we can understand we're here to be powerful creators. That's really what we're here to do on this earth plane is be powerful creators. And it's like, so many of us feel disempowered. And it's about reclaiming the truth of who we are. So we can be powerful creators.

Agi Keramidas  42:38  
That's great. Thank you. And, hypothetically speaking, if you could go back in time and meet your 18 year old self, what's one piece of advice you would give her?

Alaina Schwartz  42:47  
Oh, my God, I would, I would say, continue to develop your intuition. I was always a pretty intuitive person. But I didn't develop it deeper, and now understanding the power of the intuition to create ease and grace in your life. I'm like, wow, I wish I had known that so much earlier, because it would have allowed me to just live a life of so much more grace and ease.

Agi Keramidas  43:10  
Thank you. That's, that's beautiful. I agree very much with the intuition. Alaina, I want to thank you very much. This has been a fascinating conversation. I really mean it. And I enjoyed it very much. So I want to wish you the very best with your mission with what you're doing and you're very passionate about it. So all my very best to you. last parting words.

Alaina Schwartz  43:35  
Yeah, don't give up on yourself. That's really it is don't give up on yourself because like we were talking about the other side of where you are so much closer than you realise. And when you get the proper tools and support you can get there so quickly. I'm amazed how quickly I see both in myself and in my clients the transformation that's possible when you actually get that support. So don't give up on yourself and keep going because the other side of the walls right that thing to have been an honour and a pleasure Augie thank you so much.

Agi Keramidas  44:07  
Thank you for listening, and I hope you got great value from today's episode. And if you'd be so kind, please take a moment to leave me in Apple podcasts review sharing how personal development mastery has made a difference to you today. Until next time, stand out don't fit in!

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