The Grit Factor Podcast w/ Karl Jacobi

TGFP Episode 37 Audio

00:00:00 Speaker: Average is the enemy of greatness. Comfort is the enemy of growth. Welcome to the Grit Factor podcast, where we strip away the highlight reel and get into the darkness beneath it. The real stories, the real battles, and the battle plans used to conquer them. I'm your host, Carl Jacobi, combat vet, entrepreneur, resilience and performance coach, keynote speaker, husband and father. I've built, scaled, and exited multiple companies totaling over forty million in revenue. But here's what that highlight reel doesn't show you. Life has been smacking me in the face with a two by four since I was just five years old. Broken home. Constant chaos. No playbook. No safety net. Just grit. And if you're anything like me. You know, you've got another level in you, in your business, your career, your faith, your leadership. You're just not sure how to get there. That's exactly why we're here. Be sure to follow me for more great content, and check out my website success with Karl dot com. Now that's Karl with a K. Now let's get to work. All right. Welcome back for another episode today, guys. I am joined by somebody from Perth, Australia. And before she says a single word, I want you to understand exactly who's sitting across from me virtually. Of course, today this is a woman who spent more than sixteen years leading some of the most complex, high stake projects in inside companies like BHP, PwC, ING Bank. An engineer who went back and earned an MBA. Someone who's built the kind of career most people spend their whole lives chasing and never reach. And then she walked through something that would have most earth that would have flattened almost anyone alive in the process. She lost her daughter and was. She was still expecting or expected to perform at the highest level possible. Now, as I pause for a brief second, just imagine for a second your top performer just lost somebody very, very dear to you. She did not break. She rebuilt. She started over from zero with a four year old son, depending on her, walked away from a title and a paycheck and built her own company entirely on her own terms. Very inspiring. Right? Today, she's a founder of Art the Art of Your Life center, and she shows other people how to stop running themselves into the ground and build a business and a life that actually holds. She is living proof of what is waiting on the far side of the unthinkable. Kanika Vasudeva. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me here. I'm very excited. I am as well. I'm excited for this conversation and especially as I as I'm talking through this intro and I'm talking through about, you know, some brief things that you, you know, that you've walked through and achieved and so forth. I know we're going to just kind of an amazing conversation. So Kanika, before the Art of Life Center, before coaching, you were sixteen years into a corporate career leading big projects by every external measure, you know, by every external success measure, right? There's that, that, uh, marker there. So paint us a picture, take us back to who we were in that season and what you believe success was supposed to look like. That time. That's how I view the world, right? I'm an engineer, MBA by profession. I've been leading all these big projects. The world was very black and white. I was very result driven. I wouldn't say I was inhuman, but there was definitely a Kanika who just looked at one side. Definitely a lot more. It was more about achievements, about what you got out and so on. And even before I lost my daughter, that life takes a toll on you. Like I remember being in my mid thirties and also calling my friends and going, hey, are you okay? Like, is this happiness? Because I had people like me very ambitious, similar ish backgrounds, all doing well in their companies. And I was asking them, hey, what's going on? Like, are you happy? Are you good? And we all didn't know much. The advice that I got then was, well, it's just the mid thirties. You're having a midlife crisis. Mhm. Mhm. And I remember thinking about it and going, well, that sounds good. I mean, okay, you've got a term for it, but if this is all there is to life, then it's just not worth living. Like, why would you get up, do the same thing on autopilot again, again, again. Like it just lost that joy for me. And that was that then. MM. It's so good. I think a lot of people can resonate with this, especially those that are constantly chasing the achievements, constantly chasing what society has called as success. Right? Whether it's the bank accounts, it's what's sitting in a driveway or your house or what you're wearing or all those things, right? But to your point, when you lay your head down at night, do you did you feel any kind of joy, peace, fulfillment? Um, it's a very lonely place to be, right? It's very lonely place. It's very dark place. Because at the end of the day, to your point, what is the point of life? What is the meaning of life? Right? So take us back to the version of you right before everything changed. When outside. Still like a clean limb. But everything underneath started a shift. What was that? Take us to a very specific moment when the when those shifts were starting to make for you. Okay, so I remember the time when I learned from my gynae at the time that I was going to have a daughter, and that was very good. Like, on the one hand, I was very happy about it. Yeah. But it really made me introspect about my own life. So that time, my son was about two years old. I was in a marriage that seemed happy. My Facebook pictures looked really good. I was doing holidays at all the nice places. And inside I didn't feel okay at all. And her telling me that I was going to give birth to a daughter. It was. Just so hard for me to digest. Not because I didn't want her, but it was more. Well, I've come to this mid thirties age. I've sort of done whatever everybody wanted. I checked, I checked every box that I knew, and now I'm going to raise another human being, you know? Yeah. And how will this land for her? Will this be okay? Will she have a happy life? Do I know how to give her a happy life? Those were the questions that were already going on. I didn't know then that she was not going to be born. But few weeks after that. And the pregnancy, by the way, was going well, my doctor wasn't concerned with anything. I just woke up one day. I did not feel any moment, and I went to the hospital for a checkup and found out that I had lost her. Mhm. That was a really hard, shocking time because all the previous times the go getter in me had just gone ahead, it had found a problem and it would just tackle it, move forward. Right. Mhm. Yeah. This wasn't something that my warrior part inside could just power through. I couldn't distract myself from this. I couldn't give myself another thing to work on. I missed her, I felt guilty that I lost her, maybe I'd done something wrong. So losing her was just fundamentally different to anything else that I'd ever experienced before. Because now I was the person who had all these big emotions and feelings coming up, and I really had to look at them like earlier, I could put them under the blanket and not look at it. Yeah. That's, uh, that's heavy. And I know a lot of people are dealing with some type of loss in their life. And I know we in our family, we can we can resonate with this. I mean, we've lost, um, my wife, she lost our first in a miscarriage. And for us, it was we didn't know what to feel. We didn't know how to feel, you know, I mean, we're still really, really young at that point, but we didn't know what to feel with and how to feel. We didn't know. We just didn't know, you know. Um, and a large part of that came with guilt because we didn't know how to feel. Right. And, and I see this in, in a lot of high performers, I love to hear your take on this, especially after going through this. A lot of people don't take the time to Process, whatever that loss is, right? When I say loss, I'm talking about, you know, the either in your case, the miscarriage, the loss of your daughter. Um, some people it's a different, it's a different type of identity. It could be, uh, you know, you're talking about how, you know, you're leading these different projects and, you know, by every external marker, you're hitting them, right? That identity came to a close. But when I find I love to hear your take on this is a lot of times we don't stop and process the grief of that loss, right? Not necessarily the grief in what's going on, but the grief that we know. We're no longer that person. We're that's no longer our identity. What's your what's your take on that? What's your thoughts? Oh, yeah. Totally. I think that time was very hard. There were lots of things going on for me at that time. Um, so my life at that time was I had my two year old son. He really wanted me to be present, you know. Two year old kids, they are they can be very dangerous if you leave them alone. Yes they can. Yes they can. That's why they called terrible twos. They can be very energetic. You don't know what they're going to think of the next moment. So you have to be present while watching them because they could be right in front of you. And then you don't know when they're going to climb over a drawer or do what? Yeah. So you have to be with them. And the juxtaposition here was that my child needed me to be so present in just being there with him. He also wanted me to play and just be involved with him. Yeah. And there's this version of me that just does not want to be in life at all. Like, I want to go as far away from feeling as possible. Yeah. So I'm just wanting to cry and be in my world. And he is just so curious and so much in love with life. He would look at paper. The paper would crinkle and he would smile. He would play with water. He would be just so curious how the water was flowing, how the wheels were turning, everything. He was just so fascinated by it. So there were a couple of things that were going on with me at the time. And I think because of how the situation happened, it was so good that I was forced to be with my son and in that process, look after him and also heal myself. So that time, as I would look at him, I would go, well, what happened? Because I must have been born like that too. I must have enjoyed life at one time. And what transpired, what got up to here? And I was starting to look at the deeper aspect of life that maybe, however, I'd measured life so far in terms of the external measures of success. People saying I had earned a salary or my work was good. Maybe that wasn't enough because that wasn't fulfilling me. So that contrast, that understanding was starting to play in. And that's the time when I also learned or leaned more towards energy healing because I really wanted to connect with my daughter. It has been life changing for me. I reached out to teachers to work through energy, to basically be able to connect with my daughter, and it is such a gift because it was connecting with her that I can sit with you in peace, even as I talk about it. And I can truly say that, yeah, she's my guide. I've moved on with her. Like I love her. I have a very different relationship with her. Yeah, but I don't think that would have happened if I did not have the time or the drive to basically just lean into all the deeper parts of me, heal all my shadow parts, and do the energy healing work that was required. Mhm. So good here. So good. When I, when I just pull from that is, you know, while you're sitting there with your two year old, you know, just observing. I'm actually picturing. Right. I'm actually picturing this two year old boy looking everything through his lens of the first time curiosity, you know, exploration, expanding capacity. When I say capacity, I'm talking about expansion of the of their being, right? Expansion of their learning and capacity and so forth. And I'm just picturing you observing this from afar. Of this person who went through a loss. But you're trying to be refit are in. Help me. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but you're observing this child for the first time. Observing water, the crinkling sound of paper. And how amazing to him at that point in time, how that magnificent it was. And at some point you lost your sense of curiosity. You've lost your sense of expansion, of your being. Right? And it really helped you hone that in. Like, wait a minute here. Where did I lose myself? Right. I can resonate with that. Um, but I'd love to hear your thoughts. Is that sound pretty? Pretty on point. What's what's happening here? Oh, totally. You know, from the outside, it might appear as if I was a mum and I was looking after him. Yeah. But definitely There was so much deeper work that he was helping me through, and he continues to help me through. Because through him, I was able to realize, well, I lost my meaning in life. I lost the happiness and the joy. Why did I lose that? How do I get that back? So he definitely was that person that drive in success. The definition of success definitely changed because of him. Because as I continued moving through all of this, I realized that, okay, the way I've been living, my life has to change. It has to be more about meaning. It has to be more about inner growth and outer growth, because we cannot have balance if we are just looking at outside validation, if we just look at, um, any metrics, you know, that could be number, the money that you earn or the degrees or the number of clients, whatever that is, or the size of your car, your house, whatever that is, but that is empty. If you do not have the deeper purpose and the deeper meaning behind it, I think it fundamentally changed me as a person. Mhm. So, so good. I, I agree with you. One thing I failed to highlight here, uh, there was a person I reminded of I was in conversation with Jennifer Cook is her name. Um, she likes to call this the Christmas pictures. Um, don't always believe the Christmas pictures. Right. In, in working with her, I reminded of that phrase as you're talking about, you know, all the wonderful pictures put on Instagram, you know, don't always believe the Christmas pictures, right? Because beneath those pictures lies a deeper lie. real quick before we keep rolling. Maybe life hit you hard. Business fell apart. Career isn't working out. Relationship ended. Health took a dive. And now you're standing in the rubble. Trying to figure out what the next move even looks like. Or maybe nothing blew up at all. On paper, you're winning. Sure, but on the inside, something's off. If you're not in crisis, you're at a crossroads. And the playbook that built the life you have is not the playbook that builds the one you want. Either way, you're stuck. Not broken. Stuck between who you were and who you're becoming. Most self-help just piles more weight on load you're already carrying. I do not want to do that. I put together a free video series called the Grit Code exposed, and I want to invite you to check it out. Seven short videos. That's it. The five laws that change everything for me. In every client, I coach the same five that every person who's ever come back from the fire has walked through where they had a name for it or not. No fluff, no ninety minute webinar, no bait, just the free video series. You can start it tonight. Grab it at grit. Code exposed dot com one more time. Grit code exposed dot com. It's free. You don't need any more hustle. You need the next version. And this is how you find it. Check it out. See if it speaks to you. And if it does, I'll see you inside. All right, let's get back to the conversation. Right. Um, and here's what's unfortunate. So many people look at those Christmas pictures and I used Christmas pictures as a, you know, an encompassing term. Yes, metaphor. Thank you. Um, of all the highlight reels that we see on social. And then we question ourselves what's wrong with us? Why can I not have that? And that's when we start to go down this path. Up until that point, we may have been content, right? Or we may have been happy, or we may have had some level of joy. But as soon as we see something that we don't have, our mind immediately goes into a different direction. What are your thoughts on that? I love that you're bringing it out. What I also feel, because I've often asked myself, hey, was I lying at that point in time? But truth is, I wasn't. That's the best that I knew then I was authentic in terms of what I knew then that felt happy, that felt okay. I was just putting on other masks. I did not know that that I was living so much from a place of people pleasing. And I was trying to find happiness in that. But there was a disconnect that was happening and it kept feeling empty inside. Um, and now as I look at it. Or I look at other people and other stories, I think we all have to realize that this is a world of illusion. You know, there's your story. There's my story. Like even let's say, um, do you have a partner or are you married? Yes, yes. Twenty six years in August. Oh, yay. Yay. So cool. Yeah. Um, but let's say if I'm talking to you about your partner. You know, you paint a picture of her. Yes. There'll be a version of how you think about her. And you'll paint that. And now, through your lens. I've seen her, I've understood her. And maybe there's one day when I actually get to meet her. But yes, I have seen you through your story of her. Chances are that when I actually meet her, that version is going to be really, really different. Mhm. Because I've believed in your story, and it's not that your story is wrong, it's just that you've painted a version of them. It does not just have to be relationships. We can think about kids. Yes. We can think about how we describe our kids. Like right now, I've talked a little bit about my child. You've got some impression about him. And I talked about his playfulness and curiosity. That boy has grown from two to ten now, so he would be a different kid. Seems like yesterday though, right? Yeah. But yet you've got a different story, a different perception of him. So it's not that people are lying, it's just that everybody is living the world through stories and perceptions. Agreed. Yes. Thank you. That's so well said. That's a good point. Honestly, I didn't think about that until you just said that. Mhm. Man, this conversation has been so good. I'm loving your questions, Carl. I think you you're bringing out this as well. I never had a plan of sharing this today. Awesome. Uh, well, thank you for sharing all this today. This is why I love, you know, this show is because, you know, I want people to have depth. I want to have I want people to have a level of reliability relate ability to all of our stories, right? Not that all of us are going to relate to one hundred percent of our story, but there are there are a lot of people right now that probably went through some type of flavor of your story that can relate to this, right? By all external markers that were hitting all the marks. In fact, I know a few people right off top my head that can that is their right. But man, when they look at their inward, they're just a rich man, right? Or as I say, rich man. They're a poor man with a rich bank account. Right. You know, when I say poor, I mean poor by every internal metric, you know. Are they fulfilled? Do they have Joyce. Joyce. Joy. Right. So amazing here. I love how you painted that, you know, in a sense of painting that perspective, painting that that lens. We do view everything through a set of lens, our own lens. You know, um, even, you know, as you're talking about your, your story, I'm just imagining as you're talking about managing your loss, imagining your, you know, going through from, you know, project to project. I'm just, you know, painting this illusion internally, right? It's almost like a movie screen. Mhm. But when I, when it's part of your, your guest intake, I had asked you what that season had cost you and you answered it in one single word. Everything. Right. And then you said it made you rethink everything and it fundamentally changed you. You know, you moved out of your your marriage with a four year old son. You eventually left corporate world. Take take me to the cost. What did what did you actually have to put down or walk away from? And what was the hardest to let go of? Well, I like the question and I think, well, what I want to do here is leave the listeners with sort of a framework around how to think through these times where it just feels hard, right? Because everybody has their own way of hard in life. Agree. So at that time when it's happening, it feels like the washing machine is running and like you're being just churned inside out. Like it is not a good feeling at all. And especially if you have something going on with your work, when you're with your personal life and everything, like it feels a churn at every single level. But I also know this, that that internal shift causes this outer shift. I can speak for myself and say that I definitely needed a much more intense wake up call. Like, you know, on part, on surface level, it might feel, well, I lost my daughter. It's a tragic story. I'll also tell you that if I look back at my life and I see the things that were happening and what I was not supposed to do, like life was nudging me that, hey, you're not actually in your purpose right now. You're not doing the right thing. And I just kept doing it and doing it and doing it till it got really grim and dark and silent, and it sucked all the joy out. Like I manifested that experience of losing my daughter because my soul needed something so drastic so that I could just wake up. So good, I agree. So this washing machine churn, boiling and washing the clothes, if I'm bringing that metaphor up, I also caused it like that because if it hadn't happened like it, I would have probably stayed in a marriage that was unhappy. That time I was thinking, well, my son's too little. I can't separate his parents for him, it's not the right thing to do. But really, all that lives, it just lives up here. It's just all the beliefs and beliefs are like masks that we hold on to. We don't always know them. We. We just have those. We hold those. We don't know them. So my belief at that time was, well, my son wouldn't be happy if his parents are living in separate houses. My belief was then that I could not have a peaceful co-parenting relationship. If I couldn't have a peaceful marriage. Turns out none of those beliefs were true. I shifted, I moved out, and of course I know it now. And I know that those things work now. But at that time, because I wasn't ready for change and because I was resisting it so much, life had to get really hard. And hence, the one thing that I would love for listeners to take away is that if you're being called to do something, please act sooner. Don't be like me. Just act sooner. Act when you can. Because if you're really, truly supposed to do something, life will keep giving you signals like a small one, then a bigger one and a bigger one, unless you take that action. So just do it. And there is more light and expansion that waits for you on the other side. MM. I agree. So good here. So good. Let's lean in more on this because you're talking to the person right now that is feeling this nudge. What do you say to this person that is scared, right? It's probably causing them to do probably the same thing you've had to do, right? You went from a very steady corporate life, building an amazing lifestyle to immediately pivoting to a completely different direction. Right? And it caused a series of nudges. Um, boulders is what another guest because she talked about the same thing, uh, Barbara Engel and, uh, I love that perspective. You know, we, we're going to have a little bit of nudges until if we don't pay attention, there's going to be a boulder that's going to land right in front of us to cause us to move direction, different direction. But what do you say to this person? You know, talk to this person for a moment that is scared or that is questioning themselves. Or maybe they're thinking they're not good enough, or maybe they're thinking they're looking at their bank account like, I don't see it, right? Like, what do you say to this person? Yeah. I think our human mind is very interesting. It actually looks at the cost of doing something. Like what will happen if I do this? You know, if I make this change, if I leave my job, if I quit this unhappy relationship, we look at it like that. I want you to also look at the cost of not doing it. Mhm. The cost of not doing it. If I go back to my time, my most motivating time of getting out of that marriage was my son was about three then. And, um, something happened and then he could not even properly speak. He could not form his words, but he's just talking to me and he's blabbing, but it's almost like he's really angry and irritated and he's doing that. He's imitating and I'm like, gosh, I'm not raising a son like that. Like, that's not the example I'm setting for him. This is not okay. Life is graceful to me. I feel that was a moment of grace where life just blessed me and showed me this is what I was doing. But I want you to look at the cost of not doing what you want to do. What is the cost for your family, for your kids, for your loved ones? What are they missing out on? What is the version of you that they miss out on? Oh, what love could you give them? What is the difference you would give them if you were to fully expanded and living your purpose? And what are you not giving them by not stepping into your purpose? Yes, I got goosebumps. So true though. I agree. You know we we off one hundred percent. I agree with you. I hope everybody that's listening heard you say that is reflecting our own opportunity cost, our own cost of of not doing it, you know, because they're afraid of the unknown, you know, um, they're afraid of being, you know, maybe made fun of or being judged or, you know, looking stupid or making mistakes. Yeah. Failing. Right. But in my eyes, and I think you would agree, um, you know, in my eyes, you really, truly never fail until you just stop, you know. No you don't. Yeah. You don't. But also, like, look at if you don't do what you're meant to do, what is the message? What is the legacy that you're really leaving for your loved ones? Yes. Because if you haven't taken your step in life. Then what are you telling them? Like, yeah, my son at two, he was really happy. But let's say he's growing up and I am stopping myself from doing things that I want to do because maybe I will be unsuccessful. Guess what have I done to that happy little kid? I've told him, you can't dream. Because it's unsafe for you to dream. So I've taken his happiness away. So we think in the place of, oh, what should I be doing? What is the cost of me doing this? But think instead of the cost of not doing it, because that's that's a lot more there. I agree, I agree. And to further deepen that, what is the bill that you're going to get right? Which bill would you be rather be dealing with the bill of regret or the regret of the paint, a temporary pain or that temporary resistance? Correct. You know, the greater the drive you have, you will find a way. Like you said, we don't fail till we stop. So we have the human mind or the way we are fed stories. We are told, oh, this person became an overnight success. We go to Instagram and we see how people are really successful. Yes. But if you actually sit down and talk to them and you would talk to so many people on your podcast call, every single one of them will tell you that their overnight success came at the back of lots of midnight toils. Amen. Yes. Yes, one hundred percent. So there's nothing like, oh, you just, you know, magically make it. And let's say you magically make it with one post or with one course. It's still not a sustainable system to help you scale up so there will still be effort in other places. The other thing that a human brain does is what I call the iceberg effect. You see, in an iceberg, we probably see about ten percent of it up above the surface, and about ninety percent is below the surface. So in a business world, we might look at how many clients have I signed up? And that's my metric. And I go, okay, if I've signed up clients, I've got this money coming in. My business is successful. And that's the only metric where there's so many things below that. That's how are you doing your outreach? How many people are coming in? How are your conversations happening? How are your leads actually being warmed up? How are your leads then converting to clients? There's a whole lot that's actually going underneath the surface. So look at the whole iceberg. There's a lot that you are moving, but don't just focus on the metric that's visible. There are steps below that and follow those through. Yeah. So good, I agree. I, I've seen that iceberg. Um, you know, uh, metaphor or the, the meme on Instagram quite a bit, but it was in a different light. Right? You know, but the picture you just painted there is way more accurate. Um, because, you know, we, we often look at the success stories and so forth, but we don't see the ninety percent below the water of all the work that has to, to go on. And it's the boring, mundane work that a lot of people, you know, after a couple of weeks, months or or so forth, they get bored of doing. They think it's, it's, you know, they lost, they'll no longer get the dopamine hit. They no longer get the, the adrenaline of the rush, of the newness, the the winds and so forth. And I think love to hear your take on this, but I think this is where a lot of people get derailed. You know, you know, they get derailed because they don't see the immediate wins of what they do today, which is kind of dumb because guess what? You know, if I go to the gym this morning, am I going to see results from that? Nope. Nope. Yeah. You know, if I, if I go on a diet today, am I going to see results today or tomorrow? No, you have to do it for a really, really long time. Even when you feel like not following the diet. Yes. One hundred percent. One hundred percent. Speaking of following, you know, let's talk about some tactics and, and, and symptoms because you attribute your success to a structured way of thinking through problems and, you know, before acting. Um, you, you don't immediately jump into doing more, which is I love to, to, to highlight here, you look at things where they're breaking and what's actually driving results. Um, so, you know, slow down, walk us through like a process, like when something's off in your business and you're like, what are the actual steps you run before you let yourself take action? Yeah. And then thank you for asking the question. So I'll take us back to the iceberg, right? Yeah. And I'll talk about a business again. And let's say we are looking at, oh, how many clients have I signed up? Now don't focus just on the visible part of the iceberg. Don't focus just on how many clients have I signed up. Actually get aware of everything that's below the sea level and start seeing, okay, what impacts your clients. So for your clients, it might be first of all, what is your visibility? What is your visibility? How many leads are coming in you want to see then from those leads, what's happening? What is your message like? You want to see from that message, the content, however they're coming into your world. How are your conversations happening from those conversations? How are your calls happening from those calls? How are you signing up clients? So there's a lot that's going on underneath the surface. Yes. And you actually want to get aware of as many pieces in your puzzle or as much about the iceberg as possible. Then when you look at it, it actually becomes really structured because now you can go, okay, if it's my content, how is my content doing? How much is my content pulling in people? Is it working? Is it not working? See what's happening? When you look at the next pillar and you go to conversations. See okay, from content, how many people are actually moving to conversations and then analyze that piece because it is now breaking down your funnel into very specific parts that you can focus on the exact problem, then see from conversations, how many calls are you getting from your calls? How many clients are you getting? That gives you a much better picture of your client attraction process. HMM. Interesting. I love that walkthrough. You know, it's very yeah, I think you're you're really trying to drive home here is the process behind your whole business, right? You know, not just looking at the scoreboard, but looking at your whole process. Um, yeah. And, and don't do more just for the sake of doing more. Like if your content is not working, don't go out and now you're posting on Instagram. Now you're also trying to do YouTube or you're trying to do podcasts and so on. Yes, great. You're keeping yourself busy because this is the tip that's that's visible above the iceberg, right? Like I've done this much work. So we tend to focus on that because it feels it is productive. Yeah. But instead of that go well, if content at one platform was not working, let me first at least see what's not working. How can I at least get some traction there before I add more work to my plate? So improve the whole part of the process rather than just doing more processes? Yeah. Real quick, before you go, if you're still with me this deep into the episode, something in it hits you. Maybe it was the guest, maybe it was one line. Either way, you're still here. And that feeling in your chest right now, that's the signal. Most people get a signal like that and do absolutely nothing with it. They close the app, life rushes back in. The moment's gone. Six months later. There are then exact same spot. I don't want that for you. So I put something together. I want to invite you to check out a free video series called the Grit Code Exposed. Seven short videos, the five laws. I walk every client through, the same ones that rebuilt me when everything else fell apart. And if you listen closely today, you heard them running underneath the entire conversation because everyone who's come back from the fire walks through these five laws. Some find them on their own, some get help, but the laws don't change. Free video series. You can start it tonight. No fluff. No ninety minute webinar. Just the series. If you're going to do something with what you heard today, do this before life talks you out of it, go to grit Code exposed dot com one more time. Grit code Exposed dot com. And hey, before I let you go, thank you for riding with me this long. It means a lot more than you know. Thank you. I agree, and I think that's where a lot of people get tripped up in the process is instead of taking the time to assess the data and to really look at their process, they just do more because it makes them feel more productive. They feel it makes them, uh, hit the mark for busyness, right? They feel like it's because they're not busy enough. They're not grinding hard enough. Um, and that's where you hemorrhage energy. It's where you hemorrhage time. That's where you hemorrhage money, you know? Um, but time energy is something you cannot make more of, you know. But, um, well, one thing I want to drive before we move on to what you're building now that you're so passionate about. I heard it a few times. You said that, you know, the season that we just walked through earlier. Um, wasn't, uh, it was just, it wasn't just about, you know, just growth or achievement. You know, it's about building a life that you can actually enjoy without it costing you everything else. Right. You know, this is a different definition of success than the one that you started with. How did you rebuild your relationship with success after it had already costed you so much? Um, and how do you know you're chasing after the right thing instead of the old thing? Because, and I want the person that's listening right now to try to get an understanding or maybe their own, um, set of lens right through your lens or their lens of what it could possibly look like or how their relationship with success could potentially look like for them. I love that you're asking me this question, and I'm so thankful that you're asking me this because the previously, when I was describing her life, she did not have a meaning in life. She felt her days were automatic. There was almost no point of living life because every day seemed like the other. There wasn't as much meaning to it. Whereas now it isn't. That work isn't as much there. So there's another myth that I want to clear about work life balance. My work is balanced around the priorities that I have in my life, but I'm working right now as I'm recording this. This is ten thirty p m at my end, but I also love talking to you. And this is a topic that I'm so passionate about. I would talk about my work. I would inspire other people to live their dreams on my deathbed if I could. I'm not even exaggerating. So this is how dear I can feel it. The whole work is for me. So the difference here is passion. I wake up with meaning. Every single client who tells me their story, how things have shifted for them, every person that I touch in life and they share, oh, this resonated with me. And they walk away with more clarity in their life. That is way worth so much more than what I could have ever earned. So this success, this meaning, feels a whole level deeper. And I'm so inspired to wake up every day. That's the big difference. Mhm, mhm. Yes. That's so good, I agree. When you feel that internal stir, you know, and I think that's and that's exactly what I was looking for because I can relate to this, you know, uh, in my previous life, you know, life, just looking back. Life just seemed automatic, right? I was making moves. I was just making moves, you know? And life came easy to me. For whatever reason, it's about the best way I can describe it, right? But I like I like to say it better way you said it. Life has just seemed like it was automatic, but it really had no meaning to it, you know? And it wasn't until my own boulder came into into effect or, you know, came in my life where it completely just caused me to completely pivot into a completely different direction, you know, and now it's where days are worth waking up for. And it's not that we don't have hard days, right? Like, I know you have very hard days and you start questioning things and, and so forth, but you're fire. And I could feel it, you know, as you're talking about it, your fire is so hot that you're that working through those hard days makes it so much more worthwhile for you, right? There's also a different shift. Yes, that is in the beginning. And there was a lot like there was some external drive had to be there for me to do the shifts. And I suppose it's probably at a similar level with you as well called. The more you keep doing it, the more you step into your purpose and you do those uncomfortable things and risky things again and again and again. There's kind of a different faith in life that you develop. There's a different degree of comfort that you develop with being uncomfortable, that it's okay that, yeah, I don't know this. Yes, it's freaking me out. Yes. I don't really know the way, but I'm going to do it anyway. And it's going to work out. And I don't know how. I don't know why, but it is going to work out. Do you have that? Yes, I yes, it's it's that deep rooted certainty, right? It is that deep rooted certainty, faith. Um, you know, I, I call it faith. You know, uh, depending on your relationship with your creator, call it universe, whatever. But for me, yes. Um, what you're describing there, I, I've called the foot lamp versus the foot length perspective, right? Is, you know, I just had to take one step and just rely on that one step and know that, you know, in the end, everything's going to work out. Everything is going to work out, right. You know, and as long as I keep taking each step in with the faith that it may not work out in the way I envisioned it. Mhm. It's still going to work out. And it, and more often than not, it's going to work out better than you initially thought. Yeah, absolutely. And isn't that so amazing? It is. And then you look at it and you go, well, what was I so scared of in the first place anyway? Yes, because I can tell you this. I look at my old self and I look at all her stories and the fears that I had in mind. And I can tell you, life is so much better than that. Like I had a fear that, oh, my son, uh, will be, you know, damaged because he is living in different homes and that's not the case. I felt, oh, we wouldn't be able to parent together. I was so scared of even mothering him as a single mom and how things would pan out. I was scared of starting my business. I was scared of a whole lot of things, and everything's worked out better than what I could have imagined in my wildest dreams. Oh. So good. Here I, I just hope everybody's, you know, hearing you, but also listening and is imagining their own lives, you know, go back in your life all the times you've been afraid to do something, but you did it anyways. I always like to use the roller coaster analogy. I don't know if you've ridden on roller coasters. Um, I'm not too fond of them nowadays. Um, but, uh, just about every person that's probably listening or watching has gone on a roller coaster for the first time or, you know, something similar, right? They're afraid of death, but they did it and they're like, man, I want to do that again. Right? I can relate to that. I know I've been a roller coaster. I was scared to death. You know, there's loops and this, that and the other and I did it. I'm like, man, that was so bad. I'm gonna do that again. I may, I may have hurled or threw up my lunch, but hey, you know, I'm gonna do that one more time because it was fun. But we've painted this picture that is so not true. You know that. You know of the worst possible outcome, you know, because we, we, we, we tell ourselves, oh, you know, the roller coaster is probably going to, you know, go off the rails or, you know, I'm probably going to, you know, fail in this business or I'm going to fail at being a parent or whatever. You know, you're talking about the broken home, right? Um, you know, co-parenting and, you know, all these stories, you know, is any of that true? No. You know, based on my hearing, you know, everything's been, everything's worked out. Everything's been, you know, has been, has there been hard times? Has there been hard conversations? I'm sure there has. But in the end, everything's been working out fine. Right? Mhm. So that's a great point. Very good point. Well, fast forward to today, you know, because I want to dive into what you're because you talked about some of this already. You've already alluded to some of this. But fast forward to today, the Art of Life Center. You know, you've got that up and running. uh, your coach and service providers and coaches and helping them turn, you know, uh, demand into something that, uh, you know, can keep running, right? Uh, you're, you're a mom raising your son, but what are you most fired up about today? You know, what are you most fired up about right now? What is the chapter of Seneca in the Art of Life Center that the world hasn't yet met? Uh, so I help coaches and experts start, grow and scale. And this really happened because as I kept doing my business and growing it, that's what my clients wanted. Now I'm so happy to offer this version where I help people scale their business. It's a beautiful model. I call it content conversion conversations, calls, framework. So I helped them build content done for you, content for them based on their voice, based on the expertise that they have. And we bring that onto online platform so that people get known for the, for the experts that they are, you know, when you start your business and grow your business, there's a lot of hustling, there's a lot of things that you need to do. You can't scale with that same mindset. And it's the scaling part that I'm really helping these experts to do now, because I can take care of the backend for them, the content, the thought, leadership positioning, I can take care of them booking the calls for them from a very human manner. And I can do it in that sense that completely captures their voice, builds that online trust, and it also gives them then the room to be able to grow and do other things that they like, because we all grow and evolve in time. Yes, there's a part of you that started your business and then after that you have other bigger things, but you're just so busy you can't do it. So this is that scale. This is what I'm super, super excited about because I feel the more business owners we have with a heart who can bring more meaning into the world, the more prosperous the world would be. So I'm so excited about offering that to more people so that they can just focus on the business part and they can bring more of that impact. So good, I agree. I agree. I mean, from what I'm hearing is basically you're allowing the person to focus on a zone of genius, right? You're allowing them to thrive and because everybody benefits, right? When you know, when that person is able to, to focus on what they're good at, what they love doing. Everybody wins. You know, the business owner wins, their clients win because they get the best version, right? Um, they get the best, you know, of everything. You know, so I can definitely, uh, see that. Well, as I mentioned in the, in the green room, I love to give every person sixty to 90s to talk to that previous version before they had to walk through the fire. Right. In other words, the Kanika from ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, just before this massive pivot, this massive rebuild, I want you to talk to this person for sixty to 90s coach her for a minute, coach him or her. That's about to go through this, this rebuild, because what used to work isn't about to work anymore, right? This, this, you know, the old set of beliefs, the old set of metrics, the old all set of all of that is no longer about to work. So what would you say to this, Kanika, from twenty years ago to coach her through that period? What would you say to her? So with her, I first see that she is just afraid of making a mistake, afraid of failing, afraid of not being able to pull it together, just afraid. And what I'm saying to her is that I see you, um, that I understand you, that you're on this journey, and it's okay. So the first thing is just letting go of the expectation of what I am expecting from her, that just living is okay, that just her doing her is okay. Her stepping into her voice is okay. And then it will work out that faith that it will work out because as long as she is on the path, and as long as she does not give up, things will work out. They always have. They always will do what you're meant to do. You're an inspiration. Just because you're walking your path, you don't have to do anything else. Whew. So good. You gave me goosebumps. I felt that. Thank you. As we start to wrap up, you know, because, you know, we do have to wrap this up because although this conversation has been good. I know we could go on for a couple more hours, but I'd like to go through a couple of questions, some of these which I've prepared you for in the green room. Um, in this season of life that you're in with the the Art of Life Center and, and being this mom and being this amazing person you're in. What is your definition of grit in this season that you're in? Oh, grit would be don't give up, but also get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Yes. So good. We as human beings, we might get just very caught up. Like this is uncomfortable. I didn't expect it this way. So we just have a whole lot of resistance to it. We can have fear about it. We can be hesitant. But instead of that, if you could just allow the child self in you to play and surrender, like, okay, I'm taking this experience, a hack that I have given to myself. And I also do it sometimes with clients. So I just tell them, let's say they are a big perfectionist and they can't move past doing things perfectly. I just encourage them to not be perfect for two months. If they have a hard time saying no, I'll say, okay, what about you? Just give yourself permission for two months. Two months. You can just say no and not feel guilty. So grit would be just getting uncomfortable with being uncomfortable for that little duration of time. And then in time, you realize, well, that was okay anyway. That's awesome. Love it. Thank you for sharing that. All right. These last two questions are specifically what I prepared you for in the last one is a two part question. Um, in a very, you're in a the trenches or you're in the thick of it, or you're just in a moment of darkness, or when the lights go out, when what is a quote or directive or anything that you tell yourself to pull you from those moments? What is what is the first thing that comes to mind for you? Well, I don't have a quote here, but I'll tell you this, that when my daughter was to be born, so she was going to be my second born. Yeah. I had my son, he was about two and a half, and I knew I would have a house that would be really full. At least I thought so. So I prepared really well for it. You know, I got all her clothes organized, washed, like really kept well. I prepped the nursery room. I was running a business then. Like I went through meticulously and prepared for everything, and it didn't work out the way I expected it to at all. And yet it was all taken care of like nothing fell down. Um, my son, to give you examples, you know, I didn't have my son's daycare booked during that time and I needed to be in the hospital. And daycares can have their own limits as well with the number of babies that they're having with this staff ratio, but they were able to accommodate him. We just got beautiful help and more and more help from people and strangers that we did not know, and it all worked out. So my answer there is that now, I look back at that moment, and I know that at that time I had no control. I had zero control on life. And it worked out. So when this control part of me pops up and says, well, I don't know what to do and how to do it, I just go, well, when I surrender, I somehow just get taken care of. So it's okay. I can let go. Mhm. Everything will work out. Love it. Absolutely. And it works out better than what I could plan. It's true. Yeah, I can resonate for that, for sure. Amazing. This last question is a two part. Now those are listener watching for the first time. I love to offer my guests an opportunity to challenge my next guest with a with a question of their own in the the the lineup is completely anonymous, so Kanika has no idea who my next guest is, and sometimes I mix these episodes around. So I didn't even didn't even matter. So my previous guest, Tim Kelly, had this question for you. And as I'm reading this before I read it out loud to you, this is so, so good because every question so far has landed perfectly. And this is no exception for you. On a scale of one to ten, how clear are you on who you are, what you do, and the value you bring to the world, and what you need to get to your next level? Oh, I think I'm hard on myself when I evaluate myself. Um, eight. It's a lot better than yesterday. And all the yesterdays before that. Mhm. Um, there's still room in what I've got to do and how much I've got to do. Um, so I'd give myself an eight. Mhm. There's good clarity on where I am today. There's a lot more in what I want to bring to the world. Yeah. Can I let me read this last half. And I was really waiting to see what your answer was going to be. Because I'm going to get goosebumps. You are too, I think because he said, if you're not an eight, you need to go seven layers deep on the Y, and if your Y does not make you emotional, you have not gone deep enough. Told you every single one of these has been perfect and you're no exception. It's been perfect. I love that. Yeah. And I know some of those listening like, yeah, this was staged, guys. This was not staged. Like I literally just met her five minutes before I hit record here guys. So. Well, awesome. Well, what would be the question that you would love to ask my next guest? What would be the something you would love to challenge them with? What is the thing that scares you in your life right now? Why are you not doing it? And what if you actually did it? Mhm mhm. Mhm mhm. This has been so good. Thank you for the person that's listening. Where can they find you if they want to connect with you? If they want to learn more about your offer or what you do. Or maybe they resonate with this story and they want to connect with you, where can they learn more about you? Where can they go? Yeah. So people can reach out to me on LinkedIn, Instagram, or YouTube at Kanika Energy coach, hit me up with your business questions, and I'd love to provide you with some clarity to move forward. Awesome. Well, definitely be dropping all of those in the show notes guys. Um, so this is, this has been such an amazing conversation. I thoroughly enjoyed this, you know, uh, enjoyed our conversations and I appreciate you coming here, not just talking about, you know, the external markers of success and so forth, but you gave us a glimpse of what the fires look like, what this pivotal moments were for you, what it costed you in those moments. And so thank you for being transparent and vulnerable and sharing that stuff with us. Thank you. Thanks a lot, Carl. It's been such a pleasure. Likewise. Likewise. All right. Those that are listening and watching, the gap between average and excellence is merely just action guys, even if it's just imperfect action you heard today. Don't just listen to her. Please. Just take one thing that she shared. She talked about the iceberg effect. She talked about various things. Please just use something she talked about today and use it and be the reason someone doesn't quit today. Don't just keep this episode to yourself. Someone in your circle needs this right now. Send it to them. Thank you again for Stepping Arena. It's been an honor and a privilege. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me here. It's been such a pleasure as well. Absolutely.