Do you believe self-love is essential for personal growth, or do you think it's overrated or even selfish?
In this episode, Yvonne Trost challenges common misconceptions around self-love and shows how deeply it can influence your personal and professional life. She dives into the practical and transformative tools that help you cultivate self-love in a way that isn't just about self-indulgence but about nurturing your authentic self.
- Discover how practicing self-love can radically improve your mindset and relationships.
- Learn about a powerful exercise that can help you deepen your connection with yourself, especially when you struggle with self-criticism.
- Hear the common mistakes that can keep one stuck, either in their career or in their life.
Ready to embrace a more loving and authentic version of yourself? Press play on this episode to hear more about how self-love can become a daily practice that transforms your life.
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01:31 - Introduction to Yvonne Trost and Her Transformational Journey
02:23 - The Career Transition: From Corporate to Purposeful Living
06:03 - Breaking Free: Overcoming Fear, Limiting Beliefs, and Stagnation
10:02 - Inspiration vs. Desperation: Why Growth Matters
12:55 - The Magic Wish: Tapping Into Your True Desires
18:18 - Exploring Self-Love: Misconceptions and Practices
25:13 - The Mirror Exercise: A Practical Tool for Self-Love
29:33 - Resources for Growth: Unlocking Limitless Potential
30:58 - What Personal Development Means to Yvonne
32:20 - Advice to an 18-Year-Old Self and Final Takeaways
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"Lean into your intuition and creativity and know that it's all going to be okay. Don't try to control things. Be open, explore!"
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Yvonne Trost's website: https://unlocklimitlessyou.com/
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Want to be a guest on Personal Development Mastery?
Send Agi Keramidas a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/personaldevelopmentmastery
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Personal development inspiration, insights, and actions to implement for living with purpose.
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Personal development insights and actionable inspiration to implement for self-mastery, living authentically, finding your purpose, cultivating emotional intelligence, building confidence, and overcoming procrastination through healthy habits, meditation, mindset shifts, spirituality, clarity, and discovering your passion.
Join our free community "Mastery Seekers Tribe":
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
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.
Agi Keramidas 0:00
Do you believe self love is essential for personal growth, or do you think it's overrated or even selfish? There are some common mistakes keeping one stuck, either in their career or in their life, and in this episode, we're going to talk about them and how to fix them. Welcome to personal development mastery, the podcast that helps intelligent, busy professionals develop self mastery and discover their calling so you can thrive in fulfilling, purposeful life. I am your host. Agi Keramidas. By listening to this episode, you're going to discover how practicing self love can radically improve your mindset and relationships. You will also learn about a powerful exercise that can help you deepen your connection with yourself, and you will hear the common mistakes keeping one stuck, either in their career or in their life, before we get started. I have a quick favor to ask, if you like this podcast, can you think of someone else you know who will find it useful and share it with them? Not only will this help the podcast, you will also be adding value to people you care about. Thank you. Now, let's get started today.
Agi Keramidas 1:33
It is my real pleasure to speak with Yvonne. Trost, Yvonne, you are a transformational leader, happiness coach and hypnotherapist, dedicated to helping individuals lead lives filled with fulfillment and joy. Before this, you had 25 years of experience as a business and IT strategy consultant, a successful but unfulfilling career that you walked away from. You are passionate about empowering individuals to break free from limiting beliefs and embrace their true calling. Yvonne, welcome to the show. It's such a pleasure to speak with you today.
Yvonne Trost 2:11
Thank you so much for the lovely introduction. I'm looking forward to
Agi Keramidas 2:15
this conversation, and one of the things that I will I would like to discuss with you is self love and self care, because I know that it is a main theme in what you do. Before we go there, what I would like to start with is actually the change of career, because I think that I am similar changing from Dentistry to what I do, and it is, I believe, always a very powerful story, especially at that realization or transition moment that one realizes that the AHA that I need to do something else, or whatever it is for each person. So I would like to hear a bit about that milestone, that transition from your corporate job to your new life.
Yvonne Trost 3:11
Yes, it's, it's been a it was a quick change, but a long story in the making. So I grew up, and when I, you know, back in the day, you took these career interest inventory tests in the US and mindset, I should be a social worker, and I thought to myself, a lot of ramen noodles. And I'm not talking about the fancy kind in the restaurants anymore, like the 25 cent packages of ramen noodles in college debt. You know, might might dampen my spirit to help others, and my parents loving kind didn't grow up with a lot, so they're like, No, you need to go into a job that makes a lot of money. So I went to school for business, and then I went to school for finance, and then I thought, Oh, I don't want to work at a bank. I interned at a bank. I interned at a brokerage firm. Neither of those were for me, and so I joined a consulting firm, and I thought, I'll do this for a couple of years, figure out what I want to be when I grow up, because I'll work in different industries. And then every single year, I was thinking, Well, what I want to be this year, what I want to be this year, but I always had this fear of the unknown, Agi, because I was trained to play it safe, to get the the job that was going to help you get that, the things that you thought everybody thought you needed, the house, the kids, the family, right? The traveling, all the stuff outside of you. I wasn't taught how to look inside of me or to care what was going on inside of me. I was taught to be resilient and to try and get what was outside of me, not because they didn't care about me, but just because they thought that would keep me safe, right? And so every single year, I was like, this really isn't the career for me, but I went to have the courage, because always the fear of the unknown you. Right before kids, it was like, well, could I make it? I don't know anybody that's done anything other than what I've surrounded myself with, right? And then once I have my family, I'm like, I have to wait to the kids go to college, right? Then I can start living for myself. If you're listening and you're doing that, don't wait, because you're not doing for the kids, because you're teaching the kids not to live their fullest lives and to go inside themselves and figure out, what do they want to be? What do they enjoy doing? We spend so much time at work, we should actually feel like it's fulfilling, because life has taught us. I don't know. I've, there been a lot of people who have lost their lives randomly lately, right? And so you don't know that you're going to make it to retirement. So it's cliche, but true, things change, and people change from inspiration or desperation. And I didn't really have either. I was successful. I was playing it safe. I had all the things until desperation hit, because my marriage became unsafe. And I have two boys, and at the time, my oldest was seven and my youngest was four, my seven year old asked me for a new daddy, and I had been putting up with, I had been putting up with, and I thought, Oh, this isn't too bad. I'm sure people have it worse, like always sacrificing, because I thought I needed to stay in a bad relationship for the kids, right? Because it was taught you have to have a whole family. So again, if you're staying in a bad job and you're listening, or if you're staying in a bad relationship, and you think you're doing it for your children, you're actually not doing it. You're not doing them any good, and you're teaching them also that they shouldn't have to like necessarily. Think about what does a deeply connected relationship look like, full of love, care, understanding, support, you're teaching them like I was taught, tough it out, make it work. And so it took that terrible divorce for me to find yoga, and then from yoga, I found meditation. From meditation, I found manifesting in quantum physics. And then all of a sudden, I manifested a gentleman in my life who was becoming a Hypnotherapist. I'm like, sure you can try and like, test yourself. You know your skills on me. I need to stop drinking so much wine and binge watching Netflix. So can you make that stop? But Agi, what happened was amazing. I didn't go into trance, really. I didn't have any new memories. Some people do both. Some people don't. It doesn't really matter. The thing that matters is when you connect your conscious mind to your subconscious mind, and you realize like, oh my goodness, I've been living my life based upon these limiting beliefs that are just lies. They're just stories that my younger self had to tell myself to, like, figure out, like, how do I feel safe? How do I make sense of what's going on? Because nobody's childhood is perfect. I thought mine was boring. But even if you're like, oh, I don't have any big T trauma, I wasn't sexually abused or physically abused, or my parents are still together. It doesn't take that. Doesn't take that or coming back to the self love part. All it takes is for you not to know that you're enough just as you are, and that you should love yourself and can love yourself fully, just as you are, and others show you that by loving you and supporting you and having a safe place where you can go to an adult as yourself and feel like you can tell them or ask them anything. So it took the universe knocking me on the head quite a bit, feeling unsafe in a marriage, getting out of that. But then once I found the key, which is in my subconscious mind, I realized, and this is what we've done with almost 100 of our clients, you hold the key. You've locked your own self in your emotional mental prison, and you just don't know it. And once I found that key, Agi, I'm like, I have more to be afraid of by staying small and staying stuck than I do exploring, right? I was like, in a stale little pond, and it felt safe, but I wasn't happy, right? And actually it became unsafe, in the sense that I started like, if you're listening and you have coping mechanisms, maybe you're like me, and you drink, used to drink too much wine, or you watch a lot of TV, and you disconnect from your own self, right? You don't really live your life, or you work too much, right? Workaholics, that's also a coping mechanism. There's all sorts of things, but that becomes unsafe because it starts impacting your mental and your physical
Agi Keramidas 9:48
health. That's great. And you know what you said about the desperation versus the inspiration? And for you, the desperation was that led you to that connection. Action as you described it, because between the conscious and subconscious mind the way you were describing it. You didn't use the word spiritual experience, but it sounded like something like that to me. But what I want to ask is for someone that, and we know very well that desperation has the power to change us very much, because we are desperate, inspiration is much more, let's say, challenging to lead our decisions, especially tough decisions like this. You know, living spouse or living a career that is, you know, successful in the eyes of people. Or, you know, how would you approach someone who, at the moment, would prefer to change out of inspiration rather than waiting for that? You know, catastrophe to hit could be for different people. There are accidents, there are health issues, there always universe does find a way to put us in the right direction, and the more we don't listen, the the heavier the pushes.
Yvonne Trost 11:18
Yes, absolutely. So if you feel like, well, I don't feel desperate. Like I didn't it just like, gradually snuck up on me and got worse and worse and worse and worse until it's like, when did I show up in an after school special movie in the US when I was younger, they used to be these after school special movies right on lifetime, and it was always some like, dramatic thing that you thought would never happen to you. So if you don't have that dramatic thing that's happening to you, but you want more for yourself or you want more for your family, that's why we changed our name of our company to limitless you, because I believe everybody is limitless, so you don't have to be suffering to want to grow. If you're not growing, you are basically dying or you're staying stagnant. So I would say, keep growing, even if you're not suffering like keep growing. That's where the richness of life, the true abundance, lives. So what we would do is several different things, but I always ask people, what's your matter? Your magic wish? That's how I start any any relationship with a client. And then we get to the root of what's at that magic wish. Because quite often, what people want is something they've been conditioned to believe they think they should have, or they think they should want.
Agi Keramidas 12:40
When you say magic Quiz, How do you mean it?
Yvonne Trost 12:43
Well, and that, do you know what a magic wish is? No, I'm
Agi Keramidas 12:47
not sure. And let's clarify it also for the listeners, because it might not be if it's not obvious to me, then it's probably not obvious to others also. Have you? Have you
Yvonne Trost 12:57
ever heard or watched the movie Aladdin, yes,
Agi Keramidas 13:02
oh, that that again, okay, yes, well, please carry on. Yes, of course,
Yvonne Trost 13:12
right? Because I want people to think without limits quite often. Agi we not only get them their magic, wish, their true magic. Wish they get more than that, because a human being is more powerful than they absolutely know, like your thoughts. This isn't just positive thinking. This is neuroscience. This is quantum physics. This is modern science, and what yogis have known for 1000s of years, you can create what you want in your life if you believe that you can, and you start cultivating the skills in order to do so. So that's what I help people do. So let me ask you, Agi, if I had a magic wand, what would be your magic wish for
Agi Keramidas 13:55
me? The Magic wish, which is like my deep desire for myself is freedom, absolute freedom in all you know, areas of of life,
Yvonne Trost 14:09
yes, and why? Why is it important to you to have freedom?
Agi Keramidas 14:13
Freedom is connected to success, with me, to successful life, and also to fulfillment in a way, Yvonne, and this is a different conversation, in a way, I feel that this is my something that I meant to achieve, to fulfill, to attain that, that freedom. So it's not like, you know, just some thought. It is a calling. There is something for me to grow and evolve us, a person or as a soul, also to reach there. So yes, it's an interesting question. Thank you for. Asking me, I wasn't thinking,
Yvonne Trost 15:03
well, that's you. You asked what I would do. I started to play a little bit, but I'd take over the whole interview. So I'll pause there. But if you go to because I want people, they don't, we don't stop and think about that. We usually think about what we don't want, right? We spend, I did also spend all of our energy trying to avoid the things that we don't want, and then we have very little energy or space that we hold to think about what we do want without limits, and that's because our subconscious mind believes that it's not possible, or that we're not enough, or that we don't deserve it, right? You might not consciously think that, or maybe you do, right? There's a lot of people that have that conscious battle that I struggle with, but if they if you're already feeling like I'm not suffering, your subconscious mind will hold you back if it feels You're not safe, because the only job your subconscious mind has is to keep you alive and safe. It doesn't care if you're happy or sad, fulfilled or not fulfilled, living your purpose or not living your purpose. So you have to spend some focus effort and like, tell people, I mean, like your subconscious Safari guide, we figure out what's going on back there, connect it with your conscious and give you back power. Because Agi, you're not your mind and you're not your body. You're something greater. You're that which watches it. So if you're listening and you're like, I have no idea what they're talking about and how this applies to me, go to my website. Unlock limitless you.com and there's a resources section. And in the resources section, I have a bunch of fun things for you to hold space. They're free. The one is called Getting to the root of it, where I ask you what your magic wish is, and then I start you on this conversational journey, like I just started with Agi. We would get down to, I would be asking you seven or eight times. And then from there, we would start getting to, perhaps what is a limiting belief that holding you back from attaining that magic wish, because it's actually not that magical, right? Most times, our mind just makes us think it is so that we don't take risks, we don't create change, because our subconscious mind is risk averse, change averse. If you're alive, it wants you to stay right where you're at. That's why I stayed in a career for 25 years that wasn't fulfilling, but now I know now I'm magical, and if you're listening and you're not suffering, but you want to be magical and feel limitless, you can too.
Agi Keramidas 17:32
If you enjoy this episode, can you think of one person that would find it useful and share it with them? I'd really appreciate it, and you will also be adding value to people you care about. And now let's get back to the episode. This is great, and you actually, I'm very happy that you answered the question I was about to ask you, because the concept of the magic quiz, the way you described it, is great, but what can one do with it? So it's great that you offer this resource, and you know, to go deeper and utilize it. So thank you for that. Absolutely. I will switch gears a little bit, even though we'll probably end up talking about the same thing, because it's connected. But I think I would like to view now this from the angle of self love, because I believe it is very important in order to for everything that you were talking so far, I think it is an important component of all that. So I wanted to hear your thoughts on on self love and how, how can one understand it the way that you understand self love? Because you know, sometimes it is one of those phrases that are used, and different people might see it in a different way. Some people might think that it is a bad thing. So I would like to hear your thoughts on that,
Yvonne Trost 19:02
yes, if you're listening and you think self love, maybe you're somebody that thinks that's Woo, woo, or that's not important because self love, or maybe you think it's selfish. Or maybe you think like, oh yeah, I love myself. I challenge you to dive a little deeper. Also go. I have another fun resource for that. It only takes five minutes. It's 12 questions. It's called our self love quiz. So if you go to unlock limitless you do comm forward slash quiz. You can take this self love quiz in less than five minutes, Agi, and it's so insightful, you'll get some results, but it we apply it by not trying to describe it conceptually, but experientially. What is your way of being right with yourself, inside and outside? What is your way of being with others, right? So, rather than like taking the Webster. Dictionary version, I want you to look at how you're living. So many people think, oh, yeah, I love myself. But when they answer these questions, they're like, oh, maybe I have some room to grow. And if you do have room to grow, that's just good news, because things are just going to keep getting better. So I think that there's a lot of people, including my old self, that thought perhaps self love was selfish, or perhaps self love people that love themselves were egotistical, because that's how I'd been kind of trained, right? I was trained to be generous, to give unto others as you would give unto yourself to always put others first, to do for others all the time, even at the cost of your own. You know, whatever it is, sanity, stability, health, give, give, give, give, and thou shall receive someday, maybe. What I've learned, though, it's not a bad rule. If you've heard of the golden rule, given to others as you've given to yourself, I've changed it a little bit to account for self love, because I think it was missing. I changed the platinum rule, which is, give unto yourself as you want to be given unto so that you can be your best in order to give unto others. Because quite often, when you empty your own self love cup or your self energy club or self health, whatever it is you want to call it, you're not your best self. Yes, when you don't love yourself and you try to pretend to be somebody else, right? How many of us are wearing masks? I got, I got compared to my classmate all the time. Why aren't you more like Hannah? You're grounded if you don't get straight A's like you need to do this, you need to do that. And we're taught to put all these masks on right? And none of them have to do with self love. They tell us you're not enough Agi as you are, right? But do you think you'd make an amazing Yvonne, or you would make an amazing Agi?
Agi Keramidas 22:11
It's obvious, and that, yes,
Yvonne Trost 22:14
it's obvious, but we don't, we don't live that way. Yes,
Yvonne Trost 22:20
you cannot be your best self if you don't fully love yourself, if you don't fully love yourself, then you're never going to put out the love and the light that you've been born as your birthright with. So I want you to ask yourself what you think you're not enough of, and then I want you to think about, why do I think that? Where did that conditioning happen? Like there's all sorts of way you can top you can tap into your subconscious without hypnosis. I just like it because it's the easiest and it's kind of done for you. Yes, I don't give people the answers, but I'm their guide. I lead them to the answers, because that's where true change and embodiment happens. But I think one of the things that I tell people, it's actually selfish Agi not to put your self health or self love first, because then if you don't, you can never give unto others your fullest that's what I was doing. I was working my life away thinking, Oh, I was doing it for the kids. The kids just wanted their mom at home. They just wanted a non stressed mom to play with, right? Your partners? Right? Like, how many marriages or relationships they're supposed to be your like a ride or dies, or like your best friend, and then it becomes bickering and competitive, because you give everything away, and then you resent when you don't get anything back exactly like you want, and quite often you don't communicate what you want, because that's also thought of as selfish.
Agi Keramidas 23:59
That's a big, topic about communication altogether, yes, yeah.
Yvonne Trost 24:03
We're gonna have a whole another show on that. I've learned so much, yeah, so much that, you know, people don't have a crystal ball, and nobody can take care of you like you can. That's, that's my initial thought. I don't know if you have any, like, pull the thread questions on that. Does that answer your question?
Agi Keramidas 24:22
It does I liked. There was a phrase you used fully love yourself, which I liked. And is there a phrase, perhaps, or some, an affirmation, or something, a practice that can help one love themselves. Let's say a bit more. I'm not asking for something miraculous, but some, some kind of practice that can, one can use toward that
Yvonne Trost 24:53
absolutely, I think there's, there's a million different guided meditations, but one practice. Just that is feels a little odd. It's accessible to everybody and it's free. Is something called the mirror exercise, okay? So if you haven't heard of it yet, there's different different versions of it, but the version that I use and teach my community, I call my tribe, is look at your own eyes in the mirror, Agi or everybody's almost got a smartphone. Now you can no excuse look into your camera, but I want you to really look into your eyes. If you've not done that, it feels really strange, because we don't see ourselves. And when we look into our eyes and we start to see ourselves. We're like, Ooh, I don't know if I like what I see. So look into your own eyes, and not just the eyes of adult Agi, but little Agi in there, because your subconscious mind is the age of probably 10 year old, seven year old, something around that age, if you've not done the work to kind of re parent and upgrade the coding. It's just a little. It's a little you in there. So I want you to look into the mirror every day, into your eyes like you can even now, like Augie, look into your eyes like when we're on this phone call here. Zoom. And I want you to see you, and I want you to see little Agi, and I want you to tell him seven times I'm proud of you for and then you finish it, I'm proud of you for hosting this podcast. I'm proud of you for having vulnerable Conversations. I'm proud of you for, like, not yelling this morning when you were frustrated, whatever, whatever the things are you like you look into your eyes seven times, you say what you're proud of, and then you say seven times, seven things that you're letting go of, or you're forgiving yourself for, right? I forgive you for being 10 pounds heavier than you want to be. I forgive you for not making the raise you wanted this year. I forgive you for and I'm letting go of my parents, never thinking I was enough. I'm letting go of my divorce and feeling guilty about my kids, whatever the things are, seven times you say something and then you say, I'm committed to seven times. I'm committed to growing my mind. I'm committed to eating healthier. I'm committed to not yelling or raising my voice. I'm committed whatever the things are. So seven things you're proud of, seven things you're letting go of, are forgiving, and seven things you're committed to, and at the end you say, I love you. You're my best friend, and I got you. If you do that every morning, and if you like, it will feel weird to start, and you might have a hard time coming up with seven things to start. And it's okay if the seven things from yesterday are the same things as the seven things from today, but let your mind be open, and that's also where some things come out of your subconscious and you realize you've been judging yourself for something, perhaps when you get to the forgiveness part, right? That is a huge way, right, and only takes, I don't know, five minutes I
Agi Keramidas 28:16
want to thank you very much, because this is indeed practical, indeed, very useful, and I know that how powerful mirrors work is, but this exercise and the way that you describe it, I will definitely invite anyone intrigues to try it. I will actually utilize some of its elements on my own routine. So thank you very much for this. I will start wrapping this interview conversation up. Yvonne, where do you want to direct the listener? The mastery seeker, who wants to find out more about you? Mentioned the quiz and the resources. So, yeah,
Yvonne Trost 29:02
that's the best spot. Um, I'm on all the socials. As my name is Yvonne Marie Trost, but I also it's my company's name is limitless. You, but go to our website, because there's, I put so many things out there for you that you can get started. Unlock limitless. You.com right. Forward slash resources. You'll find the quiz. You'll find the getting to the root of it, your magic wish. You'll find a limiting belief, lie detector, a joy regenerator, like a ton of things that you can get started. And if you want to talk about any of those, or if you're just like, I want to talk to her, there's a button to link a call. So unlock limitless. U.com forward slash call and you I offer a free discovery call to anybody that wants to sign up and start to find you know and unlock themselves that I switched careers not because, like, this is all about money making. I switched careers because I want to give this gift that I have found to as many people as possible. Yeah. Yes, and if you want to like, listen to more amazing podcasts, like Agi, we have one called How to be happier for entrepreneurs, and whether you're an entrepreneur or not, it applies to you. We bring people like me, people like that are healers, or people that have gone through a transformation, so that you're saying earlier, like people that want to be inspired. I'm hoping that you know through listening whether you're feeling desperate or you're feeling I need to be inspired, that we could help you in both ways.
Agi Keramidas 30:28
That's great. Thank you. And Yvonne, a couple of I have two quick questions for you, final questions, and the first one is, what does personal development mean to you? Wow.
Yvonne Trost 30:43
Well, if you'd asked me five years ago, it would have been a very corporate answer, um, now it's, it's just much deeper. It's, it's energetic, it's, it's evolving as a human being, right? If you, if you've done a lot of like, what you read self help books, or you've done personal development, or even if you see a therapist, a lot of that's all working on your conscious mind, and your conscious mind by the time you're 35 is only 5% in charge of what you say Do think your whole personality. So for me now personal development, I've kind of taken it to the next level, and I try and help people take it to the limitless level, and that's understanding your subconscious mind and taking back the steering wheel right of your life and of who you are, and connecting your mind, body and spirit,
Agi Keramidas 31:46
nice. And the hypothetical question, if you could go back in time and meet your 18 year old self, what's one piece of advice you would give her?
Yvonne Trost 31:57
Oh, gosh, 18 Well, if I could meet my 18 year old self, I would, I would, I would need a lot of time to tell her all the things that I've learned. But the biggest piece of advice I would give is lean into your intuition and creativity and know that it's all going to be okay. Don't try and control things. Don't try and plan it out. Be open, explore. Yvonne,
Agi Keramidas 32:26
I want to thank you so much for this conversation. I enjoyed. It was illuminating, I think, in many ways, and that those practical exercises that you offered, I think they are immensely useful. So I want to wish you all the very best with carrying on with your mission, helping others and last parting words,
Yvonne Trost 32:53
don't wait. Don't wait to start loving yourself and figuring out who you truly are and what truly lights you up. Start now.
Agi Keramidas 33:07
I hope you found this episode enlightening. If you want to continue the journey further, join us in our free community, mastery, seeker, strive. It is a space to move from inspiration to implementation, from knowledge to action. If you're not already a member, you are invited go to mastery seekers tribe . com, and until next time, stand out, don't fit in.