Mary Meduna-Gross

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Show Notes

Robert Peterson 0:38
Mary, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm so excited to have this conversation. And we've already been talking for 10 minutes. So we'd say we better hit record and get. So the audience can enjoy our conversation.

Mary Meduna-Gross 2:54
Exactly. Now, this has been absolutely amazing. Already connecting with you. And I can tell we there's a lot of things that we could talk about here today.

Robert Peterson 3:02
Absolutely. So typically, I let our guests just share their own entrepreneurial journey and what's led them to making the impact that they're trying to make in the world today.

Mary Meduna-Gross 3:11
I appreciate that. Well, I started out not having any idea about entrepreneurship I want I was an educator. I remember in high school thinking seeing that I had teammates or classmates, right that were not learning the same way I was learning and I wasn't even trying like, I was one of those slackers. And I, I could get away with it. And I saw that I had peers that were working and couldn't get away with it. And I also saw that there, the teachers didn't seem to know what to do with them. So I thought, Okay, this is what I can do, I can help people maximize their potential by learning how to teach. And if I can learn to teach anyone with any kind of disability, then I could probably teach anybody. So that was my first intention about going, I knew I was going to go into special education. And then almost as soon as I got there, I thought, Whoa, just a classroom, just doing this in the classroom isn't going to be enough for me, like, I want to be able to influence an entire building and even an entire district and entire system. That's the kind of leader that I want it to be so that every teacher would feel confident having any student walk into their class and know that they could teach them. That's what I wanted. That was my vision. And I thought that there were two things that I needed in order to get me to that vision. That was I needed experience and I needed academic credentials, so that I would learn what I needed to do while I was doing it. And that I would come out the other end, you know, this very lovely, polished leader that was bringing out the best and everyone else. The truth, the way that it really played out though, is that about I was at this for some time. So I taught for about seven, eight years and I was an administrator for about 11 or 12 years. And the closing conversation that I had with my superintendent, he brings me in, he says, Mary, it's not what you're doing. He said, I'd be doing exactly what you're doing. But what you're doing isn't working. So you have to figure this out, or you have to go. Now, this was after now nearly 20 years of pursuing this passion pursuing this dream. And part of me was, there was part of me that said, there's no way to do this, like this, this dream cannot happen, right? Mary, you, you you're a Pollyanna, you're you're too optimistic, this really can't happen. But the other part of me just dug in our heels, I can be very, very stubborn when I want to be, and I refuse to give up on it said, No, this is this, these are the leaders that that people need. And this is the leader that I want it to be. So I went back to my desk after that conversation, my superintendent, and I finally asked myself, How am I contributing to the problem? Because to be honest with you, up until that point, I was the solution that was brought in to solve the problem that was there. And so the problem was everybody else. But now that I'm turning that lens back onto myself, the answer I get is a model that I learned in one of my psych classes, that basically says, there's part of you that you know, and everybody else does, too. But there's also part of you that you don't know and no one else does, either. So in my, what I know now is that that's really our unconscious beliefs, behavior, programs, all of those kinds of things. And so I remember sitting that afternoon, like, I don't know exactly what this means. But I also had this feeling like there had to be other leaders that felt as passionately about leadership as I did that was running into the same obstacles that I was. And so I wanted to be the coach that I wished that I had had. So now entrepreneurship comes into play. So I'm super excited about this, I get my credentials and coaching, I resigned from my job. And I sit at home for a year, thinking I was a leadership coach. And I didn't tell anybody that I was a leadership coach, I really didn't even tell myself, I was leadership coach. But that's what I was hoping to do. I had no idea where to start. i The one thing I did that year is I did have an internet talk radio show is really kind of even before podcasts were the things that they are now. And that, you know, there's no call to action, I had no offering and there was nothing. And so of course for you, after a year of no business, my husband says let's go back to work. And let's figure this out. And then we'll try it again. So I did I had an opportunity to work for a corporate entity. And we worked in school leadership teams with school leadership teams. So I live in the Chicago area. And I was assigned four high schools that were all chronically underperforming. These are, you know, lowest fifth percentile kinds of performance. It was volunteering, not everyone had to work with me. But since they were identified, they had to work with somebody and that was me. So I have my four that I was assigned to three said yes, we'll work with you. And one said, No, thanks, Mara, we got this. At the end of four years, I am going to be the first one that was absolutely stunned that those three that I was working with had made so much progress, they were no longer eligible for services. And the one school this is now we got this was still in the fifth percentile. Data was so freakin obvious. It just it literally blew my mind. And so the bad news good news of that is the bad news is no one expected those schools to change. And so no one was generating new business to bring on when our schools you know, advanced. So I got a pink slip. We have no we have no more clients, great job. No more clients, you're laid off. Now, I believe that the universe always has my back. And coincidentally, one of the guys that I had gone to NLP training with had a work anniversary on LinkedIn, I happen to acknowledge it, which I was never on LinkedIn. And he said, Are you ready to work with me now? I said, Well, actually, I'm a free agent. What do you got? He was the director of the transformational coaching team for a real estate company. And so what I worked with on with that company was all of the clients that didn't work out with the production coaches, for whatever reason, either the production coach fired them or they fired the production coach because it wasn't working. And so they would come to transformational coaching. And the son sometimes it was to be fixed. It felt very much like my my special ed experience, right? You go to the general ed, and if you fail out of that, then you come to Special Ed and we'll take care of you. In that space. I ran into a lot of clients, mostly women, probably in their, you know, between 45 and 65 that were really struggling to ask themselves why am I doing this? What's the point? You know, the these production Coaches wanted me to do all this lead generation, I don't want to do these lead generation, I don't want to pick up the phone. I don't want to do any of this. And so what we ended up doing is really getting in touch with their purpose, and why are they doing this? And it was amazing, because as soon as they got in touch with, why am I really doing this, then all of a sudden, it was easy to go make a phone call. I remember one of them was, well, I'm a real estate agent, because I believe that through real estate families can really build financial security. I said, so what have you started your phone calls with instead of Do you or anyone you know, have a real estate need? What's your financial security for your family? Do you feel secure with that? Is there anything I can do to support you with that, right, I do this through real estate. Now all of a sudden, they're say, oh, my gosh, Mary, I talked to these people at, you know, the mice, my schools, my kids soccer team, or, or, you know, the community event that was that they were having, and they were adding up all of the context of they were talking to so it really showed me the importance of having that alignment with who we are with what we're doing. So, in that, in that regard, I finally learned how to build a business because I had to learn their business building models in order to be able to coach around the leadership pieces. And that's kind of how I've now got on my path and to build my business. And it as as grueling and challenging as this path is. I absolutely love it.

Robert Peterson 11:27
Love it? Yeah. Yeah. So interesting. Just the special ed side, from the student perspective, I feel like there's the same expectation that these students won't change. But the school also is motivated for them not to change because of the funding. Yeah. And so there's this, I, my son, my brother in law is 10 years younger than my wife, who's five years younger than me. So he's 15 years younger than me. And so my wife and I were together and took him in when he was in eighth grade, because his family had lost. Basically, his dad had three daughters, and I had no idea what to do with a son at that point in his life, and, and but, so he had speech therapy issues, because he had forced his three sisters and a mom that answered all the questions for him. So I was on the outside looking in and seeing all this happen and wondered, okay, now Now I see why he doesn't get a word in edgewise because everybody answers the questions for him. And now he's in school, and he can't really read and write. And the school said, Well, he just can use a keyboard, that's all he'll ever need. And they didn't want to solve the underlying issue of the problem is he can't read and write. And so they were getting paid for him to not read and write. And that was heartbreaking. And so to hear a school system at the upper level, with the same issue, we don't expect the school to change. And so the funding is just going to be continuous. And, and, and it's heartbreaking to see that, wait, these things are possible. I'm super proud to say that one of my greatest business moments, is when my brother in law's started his own business, and then reached out and said, I think I'm the problem in my marriage and in my relationship with my teenage boys. Yeah. And he read 40 books that year, as a 40 year old hadn't picked up a book to even look at one since high school and, and that personal growth, commitment has changed his life and his business and his marriage and his relationship with his teenagers. And it's, it's so crazy that our culture avoids cause we avoid cause

Mary Meduna-Gross 13:51
what is happening to me? It's happening to me.

Robert Peterson 13:54
Yeah. And so the work my wife is doing is in a very similar place as those women so now she's helping emptiness women who have never, you know, they've given up their name, they've given up their identity, they just do whatever needs to be done. They're the mom, they're the wife, they're the soccer, you know, leader, snack provider, the, why am I even doing this? Yes. And it's helping them rediscover that no underneath all of those roles, because those are just roles. They're all temporary, for the most part, is a purpose. There's a purpose. And when you dig into your purpose, it aligns with so much it makes sales conversations completely different. It makes what you choose to do in the entrepreneurial space completely different and, and it makes you want to wake up in the morning.

Mary Meduna-Gross 14:48
I was gonna say it changes how you even see yourself. Right? You see yourself now as valuable and as contributory and, and, yeah, it's fun. It's exciting to be able to come tribute to the life of someone else in a positive way.

Robert Peterson 15:03
So good. And of course, so many things that school doesn't do is help kids figure out purpose, but we're so busy trying to help kids, you know, track into a college track into a career, pick this pick that pick, pick, you know, we got preschoolers, now they're already looking at college catalogs like, wait a minute, let kids be kids at some point and let them figure it out a little bit, but love the entrepreneurial space, because it's so it's a crucible for that personal growth. It really is the place where if you don't face these thinking things and these personal character things, your business will fail.

Mary Meduna-Gross 15:45
Absolutely, absolutely. And you know, that's one of the things that I realized early on, as I was working with entrepreneurs is that importance of the leadership. And yet leadership was often the last thing that they were ever looking at is what does my business need? Right? I need lead generation, I need to find clients, I need financial systems, right. But leadership was kind of out. In fact, I had a client who signed on to work with me. And then she comes back and says, You know what, I don't really need leadership training, because I don't even have a team. I thought, oh, my gosh, well, I'm not I'm not sending my message very clear. Because, to me leadership, yes, it is often considered what are we doing to other people? Right, how are we leading other people? But what I found myself doing was how am I leading myself? Because through my own experience, like I was doing all the right things, but I wasn't leading anyone else. And I certainly wasn't leading myself. Oh, and it was miserable. Yeah. I mean, not only was I miserable and just unhappy, but my marriage was unsatisfactory and eventually ended, I was bouncing around from job to job because, you know, it was always them. It was never me. And eventually, my health, I had a health crisis. And I remember my doctor said, this is chronic stress, you just get to the bottom of chronic stress, and this is gonna go away.

Robert Peterson 17:19
And the truth is the crazy the crazy of it all is self leadership isn't taught, and entrepreneurs start and many of my clients start their entrepreneurial journey with this vision, this idea, this dream to do something different than what they experienced in the job. But their only experience is the job. And so they treat their company like a job. And they, you know, I mean, Michael Gerber talks about it in the E Myth, right. They're the technician. And they're really good at the technician part. And yeah, they start to realize I got to do the accounting, and I got to do some bookkeeping, and I got to do some of these, I gotta do this marketing thing and social media thing. But underlying all of it, is they don't step into being the leader. And trying and, and leading themselves is the first step. And so you know, my tagline is very similar, right? I help entrepreneurs shift from working like an employee to thinking like a CEO. And even if you're the only employee, you still need to think differently when you own a company. Right? And yet, most of entrepreneurs will look at it and go, Well, I don't need that. Exactly. But it's exactly what they need to, to help them think through the things that are causing them to be stressed out to miss all the family activities to be working 12 hours a day, because now the job, by default has taken over their life. That's right.

Mary Meduna-Gross 18:52
Exactly. It's self leadership is my passion. That is my specialty. Because Because again, I was about leading teams and even when I started coaching leaders, what I noticed very quickly was that the way they lead themselves is going to be the same way they lead their team. Right? And so if I'm telling them or advising them, or coaching them around how they're leading their team, I can't have that conversation if I'm not directing those questions back to them. And so I've really just embraced this whole concept of self leadership as really being that core fundamental. Practice that regardless of what you do, whether you work for corporate or you work for yourself, or maybe you're a stay at home, mom, you're still a leader, you're a leader of your own life and everything that we teach in within this whole self leadership piece is about how do you understand who you are? What are your strengths, what are your passions? What do you what do you purposeful about what is it that you want to create? That's one thing I really realized as I went through this experience is that I didn't know what I wanted it. I just assumed that what I wanted was somehow eventually going to show up. And then I would recognize it when I got there. And then I'd be really excited and happy about it. Oh, and

Robert Peterson 20:12
most people are exactly they're absolutely. And that's why the job takes over the business takes over your life. And you're running the business by default, instead of by design.

Mary Meduna-Gross 20:23
Exactly right. And then we wonder why we're so miserable all the time. We're not getting what we want. Well, I haven't even identified what I wanted yet,

Robert Peterson 20:31
let alone make a plan to reach it.

Mary Meduna-Gross 20:34
Well, exactly right. And then that's the last part, then how do I use? How do I intentionally move towards what I want? And it's not just about creating a plan? I love systems, I really do. But even in my own leadership experience, I was just hoping that the doing would be enough. Clearly it wasn't.

Robert Peterson 20:56
And most people I think, do believe that right? We're, we're taught, we're taught work harder, just work harder, you get what you want work harder, and you get what you want. But if you don't know what you want, and you haven't, and you haven't put it down, because most people know they have ideas, right? They have all these wants a little more money, a bigger TV, a nicer car, you know, a place for the kids to hang out. We have these ideas. Yeah, we don't write them down. And we don't design what we want. And then our subconscious mind has no idea because we haven't learned the things. And so our subconscious mind is so focused on what we don't have. Yes. And right. And people wonder why they have money problems, and they have time problems, and they have memory problems. And it's because their subconscious mind has been programmed with, oh, I'm always late. Oh, I can't do that. Oh, this will never work. Oh, I don't know. You know, I missed the kids baseball. I'm a bad dad. I'm right, in our subconscious mind is getting fed. All the things we don't want, because we're living by default, instead of by design. So let's talk about designing. Let's last.

Mary Meduna-Gross 22:09
So one of the tools that I meditation, right is one of those tools that everybody tells you should do more of and I'll say yes, we there's never enough time and and you can never get enough benefit out of it. That being said, I have found a practice that looks like feels like meditation, and does a lot of the same things that meditation does. But the point of it is to really retrain how even pay attention.

Mary Meduna-Gross 23:34
so this open focus was developed by Dr. Les Femi and he developed this to the research he does at the Princeton biofeedback center and once again his premise is that all of being in a highly stressed in mental emotional pain and or physical pain is all because we don't know how to pay attention properly we in school I was that kid that's you know merry Stop Stop daydreaming that you know your division is on your desk it's not outside the window get to it right and so I'm sure we've all had these kinds of messages about pay attention shut out your distractions and just focus on what you're doing and that's great if we have something for a short period of time that we need to do right a lion alright or let's let's pick the water buffalo that the lion was going to go after right the water buffalo is just out there living its life and then all of a sudden the lion picks it out as your my next meal. And so as the lion is pursuing it this water buffalo is like oh my gosh, like I gotta bring in my attention and focus on this lion that's coming at me. And you know if then he can evade this lion and the lion goes away then he just goes right back to being completely embedded in his environment. You know, enjoying the water, the breeze, the bugs, the birds, whatever, like that's what animals notice. naturally go back to we don't do that, right? We have these very intense focus periods. And then we shift to something else is very intense and focused. And then we shift to something else. We think we do this through multitasking, like, oh, well, I've got my attention over several different things all at the same time. No, you don't, you're narrowly focusing here, and then you shift over here, and you're losing time in the shift. So every time you shift, you're losing more and more time, you're actually losing focus. So in order to break out of all of this open focus, teaches us to experience re experience what a diffuse attention style looks like. So again, imagine that let's imagine the lion just laying out on the what do they call it? Savannah? Savannah, there you go. Yeah, they're just laying out on the savanna, you know, they had this great meal, the water buffalo got it. And now they're just, again, completely immersed in their environment. And so what we do when we go into this diffuse attention, it is taking our nervous system, which automatically goes to fight or flight, when we focus on something specific, right, it's automatically going there, because all of our attention is focused on that. When we do this diffuse attention, automatically, our nervous system now goes into rest and relaxation. Because we're telling our nervous system, we're taking this all in, it's all safe, it's all okay, we are connected with all of this, right, and we become part of it. And so our nervous system automatically and without effort goes into the state of relaxation. And so now you're in the state of relaxation. And the additional benefit that I really love with this practice is that it also puts us in that alpha state, you know, our thinking, brainwave pattern is beta, sleeping as delta. And so in between, we have alpha and beta, as we move in between these brainwave states all day long, you know, especially as we're getting sleepy or coming back, we at least do it a couple times a day. And so when we go into this diffuse attention, we're moving into that alpha state. While we're still conscious, we're still awake. But it's that soft kind of awakeness that gives us access to our intuition. And you often hear the advice to imagine your future, what is the future that you want to put yourself in that skin walk around in that skin? This is the perfect practice to get yourself into that alpha state where you can use that state now to imagine the future that you want to become. And it's, it's absolutely fascinating, and it's absolutely simple.

Robert Peterson 27:44
Absolutely. And it's absolutely something most people avoid entirely. We are, our culture has an epidemic of fight or flight and the brain chemicals that are dumped into the body of adrenaline and cortisol, which are designed to run away from the lion, right. And if we don't do the physical activity, which most of us aren't doing physical activity, we're in fight or flight. And the chemicals inside our body are sitting in our body going well, how come we're not running? What am I doing? Right? And for men, it takes eight hours for those chemicals to get processed through your body without physical activity. For women, it's up to 24 hours. And so you experience another stress cycle before those chemicals are ever out of your body. And it's no wonder we have an epidemic of depression and all of these anxiety issues. Exactly. Because people aren't taking the time to let their brain do the incredible things that their brain was made to do. And, get it out of fight and flight. Stop running away from the line. So many times throughout the day, right. And obviously we are we're overstimulated for what our brains are designed for our brains. Our brains are designed to be out there on the savanna with the lion. They're not designed to be in an office with technology and a phone in our pocket and all cars and buildings and all of these stimulants that are happening. Right? So I love what you're sharing, because, because even if you don't make a plan, even if you don't design anything, if you spent 15 minutes of a day allowing your brain to just go Yeah, that's gonna have an incredible impact on your life. And if you take it to the next level, and you take advantage of being in that alpha state, and you start designing who you want to be, how you're going to show up in the world that will take it to a whole nother level. And, and I know a lot of people listening, we talk a lot about the positive right, focusing on the positive, letting go of the negative, focusing on what you can control letting go of what you can't control, and in so many people disregard it as well. Whoo, I'm telling you, your brain needs you to stop the negative here brain is designed to have more positive and puts the negative inputs. But we're, we're so caught up in this world that sees negative and judges negative and points out negative. And I love the example. And it's probably not even a real thing. But Einstein writes 10 numbers on the board, but he writes the nine backwards and the students are all, look, you got it wrong. And, you know, and but that's our culture, right? We, we are so quick to point out the one wrong thing. And we never compliment that nine right things. Right? And, and that switch is so important. Because when you start to make that switch, and you start to focus on the positive and focus on what you do want, your brain loves figuring out how to get it.

Mary Meduna-Gross 30:54
It does, it really does, right, I love that I to talk about give your brain a new job instead of finding everything that's wrong with what is ask your brain to I love questions like what else is possible? How does it get any better than this? All of those kinds of questions that now give my brain that unconscious mind a job to do that now has its compelled, it's compelled to find me how things are going to get better. And so I'm never disappointed.

Robert Peterson 31:28
Well, and the other pieces, it really will solve these problems for you. It really will it the crazy thing when you focus on what you don't have, you will continue to not have it because the brain has said okay, that's what we've got. This is right. We're, we're in alignment. Yeah. When you focus on what you really want. Yeah, the brains like, oh, wait, something's missing. How do I get it? That's right. That's what the brain wants to do. The brain wants to figure out how do I get it? And, it really is powerful. When you start to tell the brain every day, you know, something simple as, look, I'm creating opportunities for positive outcomes. And opportunities for me and my friends. Yeah, just that sets your brain up to be looking for opportunities. And that's when luck comes in. Right? That's, that's yes, great things start to happen to you. And you're like, Oh, he's so lucky. No, it's because he's telling his brain to look for those things. And he doesn't walk by him, right? It's a it's your brain is going, Oh, I could call that person. Oh, we could partner with that person. Oh, we can make that happen. Oh, this collaboration could do this. Just like our conversation before we started recording. Right? We each name two or three people we can introduce each other to because there's alignment in our ideas. And our brains are going oh, that person Oh, I thought that oh, this person would do that. Right? Because our brains are thinking about collaboration and solutions. Not about oh, this will never work.

Mary Meduna-Gross 32:58
Exactly, exactly.

Robert Peterson 33:01
Oh, I love this. Mary, love this.

Mary Meduna-Gross 33:04
What would you read her job? What do you think about having a little bit of experience with open focus? Let's do it. All right. So again, it's going to look and feel a lot like meditation. So for the listeners out there, if you're driving or operating machinery, please don't do this. Come back and do this again later. But you know, the, the instruction is going to be the same. Now one thing I want to say before I go into this is that everything is going to ask you all the prompts are going to ask you to imagine feeling space. Now, that is very intentional. We're all we are all space. We're all connected to space. So when I can even imagine feeling space, and I'll kind of play around with the prompts. And you'll see what I mean about playing with space. I say that because I know when I first started this practice, my inner chatter said I was going on a rant about I can't feel space can't be felt this is stupid. Why are we even doing this? Right? So if your inner chatter is like mine, I just wanted to say that there is a purpose for this. And it feels great. So right now, that's all I want you to know is that trust the process, this is really going to feel good. So let's, let's do just a few minutes of this. So again, sitting as still as you can, preferably with your eyes closed, and sitting upright, thus sitting upright is going to allow you to go into that alpha state without going into sleep. And before we even get started, take a moment just to tune into your body do a quick little scan. How are you feeling in this moment? Where's your energy level? Do you feel like you're in a state of confusion or do you feel like you're in a state of clarity? Do you notice any tensions in your body? Simply noting them? Don't need to do anything about it just note what's there and now what I'd like to invite you to do is can you imagine that no effort is required to listen to or imagine what follows and can you imagine that your imagination is very subtle and effortless and that it includes all of your senses not just visualization and now I invite you to imagine feeling the three dimensional presence of both of your thumbs

Mary Meduna-Gross 35:51
Can you imagine feeling the space around your thumbs

Mary Meduna-Gross 36:04
Can you imagine feeling the space that your thumbs occupy

Mary Meduna-Gross 36:16
Can you imagine that the boundaries of your thumbs are dissolving

Mary Meduna-Gross 36:31
you using your experience with your thumbs now can you use that same model and experience the three dimensional presence of your index fingers

Mary Meduna-Gross 36:47
can you imagine feeling the space around your index fingers

Mary Meduna-Gross 36:58
and can you imagine feeling the space that your index fingers occupy

Mary Meduna-Gross 37:09
Can you imagine the boundaries of your index fingers are dissolving

Mary Meduna-Gross 37:20
as you continue to feel all your thumbs and your fingers surrounded by space permeated by space occupying space can you now imagine feeling the space between your thumbs and index fingers

Mary Meduna-Gross 37:45
now can you repeatedly move your thumbs and index fingers toward one another and then away from one another? Until you can imagine feeling the space that the fingers move through

Mary Meduna-Gross 38:07
Can you imagine that as you slow down the movement of your fingers through space you can imagine still feeling that space that they're moving through even after your fingers slow their movement and cease to move

Mary Meduna-Gross 38:31
Can you imagine that as you open your eyes and resume your day that you can maintain this state of open focus and return to it with no effort

Mary Meduna-Gross 38:49
so whenever you're reading bring yourself back What are you noticing about yourself now? Robert? Do you notice any difference between the wood before we started and now?

Robert Peterson 39:06
Not thinking

Mary Meduna-Gross 39:07
you're not thinking yeah. And what does that experience like for you?

Robert Peterson 39:18
I very good. Like yeah, being able to turn that thing off is that's a Jedi mind trick.

Mary Meduna-Gross 39:27
Yes. Yeah. You know when before I found this and I was practicing meditation that idea about you know, watching your thoughts or stopping your thoughts and why don't know they're always there. This is like giving myself the direction or my brain the direction to do something. I felt like I didn't have to follow my thoughts anymore. Like I was already directing them into something that I wanted those thoughts to go towards.

Robert Peterson 39:51
Yeah, like, I typically direct mine into counting breathing but then it's just distracted, by the breath work. Yeah, this is this was good. This was similar, you know, similar but different. Exactly. But with similar results, so

Mary Meduna-Gross 40:08
well thank you for giving me the opportunity to share this with you and with your listeners today, I'm I love it. And it's something that I do on a regular basis, on a daily basis too. Keep my nervous system in check. And like I said, imagine what it is that I'm building.

Robert Peterson 40:26
I love the acknowledgement. So I'm a huge Victor Bach fan, wrote a book about how to solve all your money problems. And, his affirmations are really similar in that idea you mentioned at the beginning, like, he's, he gives you the space to say, you know, I'm going to own a red Lexus LS 350. And then, but he gives you permission to say, now that ain't gonna happen, oh, this will never work. Oh, you know, and acknowledging what's really happening in the brain, because the conscious mind is rejecting those things, the conscious mind doesn't believe those things. But when you do it enough, that you get past the conscious mind, and you get into the unconscious mind, that's really cool stuff happens. And, the idea that we can, we can truly program our unconscious, to be helped us become the person that we want to become, it is a superpower. And it's a superpower, because so many people give up. And they allow their conscious mind, to shut it down. And they allow their conscious mind to focus on what they don't have, what they don't want. And they get what they don't have and what they don't want. And that's where their state of being will always be. And for the people that are willing to push through just a little bit, just a little bit to start to see results. It is powerful. This is ninja Jedi stuff that that your brain really does want to help you your brain really does want to do these incredibly good things for you. But it needs a break from all this cash.

Mary Meduna-Gross 42:06
And the haves,

Robert Peterson 42:07
man, and especially when you've taken on entrepreneurship, you've taken on this, this responsibility for your family. And it feels different than a job. Although it's not typically much different than a job. But the story you tell yourself puts more pressure on you. And so helping people you know, change the story, they're telling themselves start to design the life that they want intentionally. And then for me, it's helping them build a business around what is the life that you really want? Let's create that process. Let's create that system, let's reinvent your business in a way that honors the things that are important to you. You know, if you say going to your kids baseball games important to you, then why are you missing them? Right? Exactly. You know, if having money to help your parents is important to you, then why aren't you doing it? Right? So figure out what matters to you and then start honoring it. And great things start to happen when you start to honor the things that are really important to you. You get alignment in yourself and in your business, and in your life. And it does incredible things for your marriage for your business. So thank you so much for sharing that. Yeah, my pleasure. That and love this, this self leadership. Just it's so important and entrepreneurs that get through, even the ones that are struggling, have dealt with this. And they, whether they recognize it or not. Right? Yeah, they're wrestling with it. They're there. They know something isn't right. They know, their business isn't right. They know, you know, they know. And they're convinced if I just work harder. If I just work harder, it'll, it'll make it better. And that's why it's okay to say, look, this is the reason coaches exist. This is the piece that we can help with. Because I love the Chinese proverb, you can you know, you're stuck inside the jar, and the instructions for getting out are on the outside. And you need a coach or mentor to help you see this and give you the guidance to say look, all you got to do is turn the lid and climb on out but you can't see that when you're inside the jar. And so many the piece identified so much with entrepreneurs is they're a lot like missionaries and there's this independent spirit this American, I got to do it. And I'm the boss, I got to figure it out. And it's okay to ask for help. It's okay to get support. The most successful entrepreneurs have absolutely gotten coached and are getting coached and are getting guidance from others. You know, Napoleon Hill talks about the power of the mastermind and it really is. Tapping into a network of brains is really more powerful than trying to do it on your own. So those entrepreneurs listening, you know, if you identified with, with what Mary was sharing and, and the work that she's doing and helping people become self leaders in their own life and their business, you know, certainly reach out to Mary. And we'll have our contact information in the show notes and below the below the offerings, because we want to encourage you to get a coach, get, get involved with a coaching program, have a mentor, have some people in your life that are that are, are able to call you out on your crap, call you out on the lies that you're telling yourself

Mary Meduna-Gross 45:36
in a way that's going to help you because I think we all have family and friends are more than happy to call us out on our crap, but they don't have any way to offer you. What am I supposed to do instead? Or not? So why

Robert Peterson 45:47
don't you just go get a job friend? No, you need friends, the friends that you can trust and that look at look at your situation and say, I can serve you I can help you I can I can guide you. And let's let's dig into this together. Love that. All right, Mary, we they end every episode with a guest sharing their words of wisdom. So what would Mary's words of wisdom to our entrepreneurial audience be?

Mary Meduna-Gross 46:12
Wow, words of wisdom. What popped into my head is trust yourself. And so I would say that my words of wisdom would be as regardless of what experience you are experiencing in this moment. Especially if it's a challenge, I would just go to that place. And that's then and say to yourself, I know there's part of me that knows exactly what to do in this moment. And so and that kind of that question of how does it get any better than this? And then let that beautiful brain of yours figure this out for you. Hmm.

Robert Peterson 46:51
Love it. Mary, thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks for the wonderful conversation, the wonderful connection between our spirits. I really appreciate it.

Mary Meduna-Gross 46:59
Likewise. Thank you. It's been fabulous. Take care.