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Michelle Pualani: Have you ever been ready to do something, launch something, pitch something, or create something, and then this sneaky feeling creeps in? Maybe slight at first, then perhaps it grows [00:01:00] louder, larger, and soon completely eclipses
Michelle Pualani: any of your initial excitement? Typically, these are feelings of doubt, insecurity, or limitations that take over your thoughts, crippling your ability to take the action you know you want to or need to do to reach your goals.
Michelle Pualani: So if you feel like you've set out to do something big before, but then there's this almost invisible force field holding you back from reaching your full potential or seeing it come to fruition. Get ready to kick that pattern to the curb because today we've got a special guest who's here to help you crush those mental roadblocks and unleash your personal power. Hello, and welcome back to Her First, prioritizing you in business and life, where today we have an exciting discussion planned with Megan Blacksmith, the co founder of Zesty and a true mindset ninja. Hi Megan, and welcome to the show.
Megan Blacksmith: Hello, thank you so much for having me.
Michelle Pualani: So Megan isn't just your average holistic health
Michelle Pualani: coach. She's also a functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner, speaker, and NLP trainer. So with her unique blend of expertise, she's on a [00:02:00] mission to equip you with the tools for faster inner transformation, Without all the self sabotage along the way through her becoming zesty podcast and her innovative approach known as functional NLP. Megan empowers coaches, practitioners, and leaders just like you to release limiting beliefs and step into your greatness with confidence and clarity. So if you're ready to silence the inner critic and elevate your mindset to unlock your full potential. You're in the right place. Let's start with a little more background on you, Megan, if you could just tell us a little bit more about you and what it is that you do.
Megan Blacksmith: Of course. Well, I want to take you back a little bit, a little bit to when I was pregnant. My daughter is now 13 years old, which is crazy. I can't believe I have a teenager. And when I was pregnant with her, I was equally so beyond excited. Like I, I knew I was meant to have kids and equally just scared out of my mind. So I grew up in a family, like I like to say, it's a little cookie cutter [00:03:00] family in New Hampshire. My dad had a hardware store, my mom stayed at home with us, right? All the things, everything was good. I didn't have big T trauma. I had resources, I had love. And so I had everything I needed. And yet, when I became a teenager, in college, I rebelled so hard, like all the things, all the areas, I was like, oh, drinking alcohol, that seems fun, drugs, those seem fun, oh, men, right?
Megan Blacksmith: Like shoplifting, the things that I do not want my children to do. And so here I am pregnant with my first child thinking, if I had, I'm doing air quotes good family, And this great environment growing up. And I did that stuff. I was like, how am I going to bring this human into the world? And Give her a good start like how is this going to work out because not only was I not as stable at all as my parents I actually my husband and I at the time were we split up for the first year when she was born we had a crazy situation [00:04:00] where a We were officially homeless when I was having her in the hospital.
Megan Blacksmith: Of course we found a place to live, but we had been kicked out of where we were living and moved into all of our stuff into a storage 12 hours before she's born. So I'm like, this girl came into chaos. All I could think was like, how, how is this going to work? Like I wanted the best thing ever for her. I, was meant to be a mom and I was just really struggling with With how I could provide that when I had everything provided for me and I did the stuff I did so I did what every Good mom would do I called it intuitive healer I'm kidding. Not kidding. Well, that is what I ended up doing. I was like, I don't know who I don't know what to do like I this amazing woman was referred to me by a friend and I had a call with her and I just dumped everything I was thinking. I just said, I don't, I don't know how I'm going to do this.
Megan Blacksmith: I don't, I don't know how to provide a good foundation. And as I'm telling her all the horrible stuff I did and that I don't want my, my daughter and now two daughters to do, she's just stopped. [00:05:00] She just stopped me. She's like, stop, Megan. Stop, stop right there. She's like, you did all those things. So your daughter doesn't have to. And like, I still, I'm still hanging on to those words. Like it, it gave me full body chills. And I, and I knew it, I knew it to be true. I knew I was moving into a different age. And I knew for whatever reason, I had to learn all those things the hard way. And I had lots and lots of lessons from them. So that became the pattern in my life of, I did things the hard way so other people don't have to. And I've applied that now to business. I started in health, I started in functional medicine because my own health crashed out after having that lovely daughter. And then I found a world and a way to bring myself back to wholeness that didn't require conventional medicine because I was being told to do it. All your labs are normal. When I felt like, I was dying. I felt like I wanted to break my arm not to go to work. I was having anxiety attacks. So I, I found the, I had the struggle and then I found a way that worked [00:06:00] for me and created a business out of that. And then, and then the next life.
Megan Blacksmith: Unfolding of really big struggle me with my husband and I found like the next struggle. I was in that's when I found, NLP. So neuro linguistic programming and hypnosis and the world. That brought to me that our thoughts create things and our beliefs create our reality and, and this was being opened up to me. we started adding that into our holistic health practice and saw people having super rapid transformation when they had been plateauing, when they had been stuck because there was some belief there. Some belief maybe around, I'm not worthy of healing or nothing works for me. Or who will I be if I get better when this has been my identity there were these. really, really strong beliefs. And so finding that then, um, my business partner and I were like, Oh, this is what's missing from medicine. And even functional medicine is the power of what's going on in between our ears. How these [00:07:00] situations growing up, these things that. We put into categories these significant emotional events, these beliefs that we get from like zero to seven years old, just teeny tiny little humans taking these on how much they are shaping our current reality.
Megan Blacksmith: So I went from that to how I support my daughters is now how I support my clients and helping women, people in business, entrepreneurs, online coaches. usually that have a gift and are holding it back a little bit. There's some belief there's something there that's keeping them from the next level.
Joanna Newton: Thank you for sharing that story and the truth is I wasn't sure exactly what to expect from today's conversation. I think it's going to be really interesting because some of what you're talking about, I'm like right in the middle. of that sort of journey. I've had health issues for over a year now.
Joanna Newton: I was working with a traditional medical doctor working through things got nowhere. My labs [00:08:00] weren't normal, but there was like no solution other than medication. It was like, well, we can just medicate you and it'll make you better, but it won't actually make you better. Cause you'll have to be on that medicine forever.
Joanna Newton: So I've started working with a functional medicine doctor, working on those things, solving some problems, and now I'm getting to kind of a state in my personal health journey to really work on healing. What's going on up here in my brain, I'm like on the path, like kind of on the path you went on or not quite where you are.
Joanna Newton: So that's great for me today to have this conversation with you and kind of learn more about like my next steps. And I think when you're struggling with. mental health or, actual health issues, motivation, all kinds of things. There's so many things going on and it can be really easy to just get in the pattern of thinking of like, what's wrong with me?
Joanna Newton: why can't I just be better or why can't I solve this or and I think there's very little. Common knowledge of [00:09:00] paths to help people do that, right? Actually help people tangibly figure out ways to work through those pattern patterns, work through those things. You know, your doctor is going to tell you one thing, a functional medicine doctor is going to tell you something else like, there's more than that going on that needs to be addressed, right?
Megan Blacksmith: gosh, this is so cool that you're in, I mean, maybe doesn't feel cool at the moment. And to be in that and already having that awareness, right, that there is more than just finding the right protocol or the right doctor or the right plan, because that was me. And that's where a lot of the people who found us, cause we, for the first 10 years, we worked in female hormone health and brain chemistry. people would find us after seeing seven to ten doctors. So it was the like, nothing's working for me category. And I was gonna say it's not that we had anything special. I guess we did have something special and it wasn't like that there was one Right way and actually what we've [00:10:00] started to find was that the searching for one right way was actually some of the one of the most detrimental aspects of the people that we worked with and I personally went through that as well having we had mold in our home and I went through a mold detox journey and finding when I finally stopped thinking like I would get two months into a protocol and think, Oh, no, what if this is what if there's not something right about what if there's something a little bit different? Like a little bit better. What if I'm missing something? What if I'm doing and that thinking and going down the research rabbit hole again, that was actually what was taking me down. and not to say that there aren't like some answers and some physical support that's needed, right? Like there was some baseline support. The thing was I was doing more than baseline support at this point I had some of the best, you know, we had some of the best doctors and practitioners on our podcast and my business partner is a functional MD. Like I had support around me. It was more questioning, will this work? So there's, [00:11:00] like the two inches from gold, you get close and then you switch protocols, right?
Megan Blacksmith: Like right when maybe it would start to work. And so. This pattern of looking for the best thing, and this is not just health, this is in business, totally in business, the pattern of looking for, like, the best thing is usually the people who were really good at school or they were good at sports and they figured out, like, there was a right way. To get success. You, work this hard, you get the grades, like, you get the kudos, you get the pat on the back, and you move up, you go to college, or whatever it is, like, that, there was a right way, and, and that, that's how I was. Very, very good in school, like, very good, with the books, like, with the tests, but it didn't mean I was learning. It's like I had hacked the system, but it didn't necessarily mean I had learned anything. And that same thing carried out later on, of there had to be a right way. And so the people that have that pattern, you know, I attract, of course, because that was me. They'll, they're really good at literally doing anything.
Megan Blacksmith: Like I've had people come to me and [00:12:00] say, I can follow anything. I can, I could just tell if I have water for five days. Okay. Like they could do anything. They could force their body to do anything. And they did. The thing was is that in that process, they're completely overriding the signs from their actual body of what's good for them, completely overriding any cues and in the process, like following one's person's plan. And that was the struggle we often saw with a lot of the research in functional medicine being about men primarily men are studied who. Don't have a cycle, right? So there's a big difference between men and women and what works and what doesn't work. And so then if you take this cookie cutter, like this is what works, like fasting works, I'm not saying it doesn't just random example, but, and apply it to women, it's very, very different. So what we do now is really cool because. actually don't really need to know the latest and greatest in the research, although we do [00:13:00] love research. The thing is, is that what we've found is that when we take away the junk, so when we can start to pull away the baggage, the energy, the emotions, the beliefs that people have been holding onto, For years, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years, then they start to get tapped in to their actual self. They're knowing, and we, we 100 percent believe like the body has the perfect blueprint of health. We just got to get out of the way. And so. It doesn't, you don't have to find all the answers anymore, right? It's really, really freeing and simpler. And when I found that in my mold journey, when I, I actually, it was hypnosis.
Megan Blacksmith: So I'd done physical things, but it was actually hypnosis and shifting beliefs I had where then my detox symptoms finally went away. And if I had listened to people around me, um, I had been told this is just how I would be for life. Like I would be sensitive for life. I wouldn't be able to smell an air freshener and I would have these [00:14:00] headaches and I don't.
Megan Blacksmith: It's been many, many years. I just don't. And I don't, but I don't believe that it would have gone away if I hadn't, done the rewiring of my subconscious mind and had examples of people who had shifted because if you're what, you know, if you're told or were highly suggestible. So we're like, well, okay, they say it's going to be for life.
Megan Blacksmith: It's going to be for life. And so having these examples of people around us, having the, the stuff we've seen in our container, our trainings are seven day in person certifications. So there's, they're very intense. You're in a different environment. Like people come with their stuff and they are ready. So the change that happens. I mean, honestly, I believe 100 percent in it and it blows me away every time new things. my business partner had celiac disease and she will eat, can eat gluten right now with zero effects. I used to have to like, make sure that the bathroom was open. If she even got a little cross contamination, she'd vomiting diarrhea.
Megan Blacksmith: Like [00:15:00] her mind has shifted to the point that she's now making. the enzyme that breaks down gluten. It's just, we're so cool. Humans
Megan Blacksmith: are so cool. have to get out of the way.
Michelle Pualani: absolutely. So many of the things that you said really connected with where I feel like my journey has come from as well, having dealt with and managed the health conditions, but also what you said about showing up in school, being able to apply ourselves and think that there is a right way. I think this translates so nicely to the online space.
Michelle Pualani: base, because I feel like there's a constant need for strategy and seeking the next strategy, the right strategy. You know how we know Megan is I am in a next level coaching program with her and a lot of the questions that come up are almost like, well just tell me the right thing to do. Tell me the way that I have to approach this.
Michelle Pualani: Just give me the X, Y, and Z. Tell me the list. Give me the things and I will do them. And I think that this type of business ownership, this type of [00:16:00] entrepreneurship attracts that type of person who wants to check the things off the list, who wants to just show up and say, I can do it. I can make this happen. In a lot of times doing so has completely forgotten that intuitive. Sense of self, that alignment, tuning into the intuition, tuning into that inner voice, that inner knowing, that inner wisdom that you say that we all have. And that's been part of my journey at this time as well, is getting rid of some of the noise, what's external to us, looking for that validation, looking for someone who is an authority figure, is a leader to tell us exactly what to do. When truly we have to let some of that go, yes, understand the landscape, but still tune into whatever it is that's going to come through us. I'm in the same place of really, again, being in this journey of figuring out what that means and uncovering some of these things. thing. So I'm excited for our listeners today to get to better understand and recognize when they have some of these things [00:17:00] that are coming up. Like you mentioned, when people come to see you, there's this sense of limitation, this sense of not knowing exactly what it is, but knowing that there's something there. So I've seen in our group, in our community, shout outs to you, Megan, for successfully helping them overcome a limiting belief. Or get them past that point of being quote unquote stuck. So what is it typically for business owners, entrepreneurs, and coaches that they find to be like, I just don't know what it is, but I can't do the thing that I know that I'm supposed to do. Is there something that you see as a common theme for those clients that you work with as kind of that underlying, okay, once we can get at that underlying thing, then we're able to move forward?
Megan Blacksmith: Yes. My favorite thing, Michelle, such a good question. My favorite thing is to come in when there's someone, a business owner who has some things working, some of them work, things working really well, but to come in and do it. Like I said, yeah, I do think I'm kind of a ninja with [00:18:00] the beliefs to come in and pull out, like, what is that thing stopping them from the next level?
Megan Blacksmith: Like, there's usually something that is hanging out there that they're not really sure what it is, and the pattern, same thing with the school thing, the pattern we'll see. Often people who are really successful or people who are like, who go all in, right? They do the entrepreneurship thing. They do the online business thing.
Megan Blacksmith: They're in programs like, we're in. It's not uncommon that some stressor trauma, significant emotional events. Early on did lead them to kind of have this very intense ability to focus. So some of the most successful CEOs had really, really, really rough childhoods, for example. And you know, the phrase like what got you here won't get you there.
Megan Blacksmith: So it drove them. I know someone who had a multimillion dollar company and he said, I did everything up until 45. I built this whole company in [00:19:00] spite of my father. every single thing I did was to prove him wrong. Multi million dollar company, right? So it got him to a certain point, and Usually it does like being good at the checklist, being good at school, being good at sports.
Megan Blacksmith: So like, it'll get you to it to a certain point. And then I feel like that's where the cracks start to come in. And we realized that we can't just follow what someone else is saying. And maybe we can have success meaning money, but we won't have fulfillment. And that's where I think it starts to break down.
Megan Blacksmith: So it's accepting and knowing like, yes, all these things got me here. So we're not, we're not throwing it out. Oh, you work too hard and Oh, you need to get rid of all of that. Like that got you somewhere. And then saying like, now we're in a different place in life. This is usually the person I'm working with.
Megan Blacksmith: Now we're in a different place. The pace you're going will lead to burnout most likely. the physical body will start to let you know. I don't know a lot of entrepreneurs who are forced to take a year off because they forced it and [00:20:00] didn't listen, right? The physical body will let you know, the mental body will let you know, you know, all sorts of mental health concerns will come in to stop us.
Megan Blacksmith: So we have to learn to listen Use everything, that fire that got us there, like we're not dropping it, but we're also kind of, we're dropping the force. We're dropping the, like, doing it to prove someone wrong, and we're starting, so what we talk about in our trainings is like away from or towards motivation, right?
Megan Blacksmith: So is it the stick, like, we're, we're moving away from someone needing us to, to beat us with the stick to move versus like, what do we want to go towards? what's that amazing vision we want to create? Like, I want to have a retreat center someday in this amazing space that I can imagine that people can come in for even months at a time.
Megan Blacksmith: Like, I'm going towards that vision, and when we can start to move towards the vision, then we're not running away from that vision. What we don't want when we're not running away from failure. So the patterns for this, the highly successful, the achiever, the [00:21:00] patterns that we see, um, the beliefs will be all different, of course.
Megan Blacksmith: So some people have very common recently is that the idea that when things are going well that the other shoe will drop. That's one that I keep hearing over and over. Like they're almost uncomfortable with things going well. So because the, there's something in their life that when it was going well, like it didn't work out or something horrible happened and they have a strong tie to that. So they'll start to mess small things up. Or just like, you know, I don't really, we don't really like the word self sabotage because in reality, your brain is always there. It's always trying to protect you. So it's maybe sabotaging you from like the million dollar business, but it's actually there. To keep you safe, right?
Megan Blacksmith: It's doing something to keep you small out of safety. It's not like just trying to screw with you. Everything we're doing is for a purpose. And these things will come in where, um, people will start to just like maybe not show up as much as they used to, right? Like [00:22:00] when it starts to work and then they'll have to wait until things aren't going well again.
Megan Blacksmith: Like if the bank account Everyone will have like a different trigger. But if a bank account goes below a certain number or whatever it is that gets them back in gear again, like, Oh, shoot, I got to get some clients. I got to do some things. I got to put my face out there. So different beliefs around, what it will mean if they're really successful.
Megan Blacksmith: I worked with a lot of people who have children. So there I and I had a really strong belief of like, it's one or the other. Like I'm either a successful business owner or I'm a good mom. Um, So being able to integrate that was really important in me recognizing I could do both. Consciously, I knew I could do both.
Megan Blacksmith: Of course, I know
Megan Blacksmith: people who do both. Um, It was an unconscious belief though, so it was there kind of just hiding underneath where I would start to do really well and then all of a sudden my body would. My business partner and I joked around how, like, we would get so sick, magically, both of us, during our launch.
Megan Blacksmith: Like, [00:23:00] all of a sudden, the whole body goes down. It's like we're flu and achy, whatever. And that was when we were still really, really afraid of, we were actually afraid of our own power. Like, we were afraid of success. And like, what would that mean, and what if people come at me on the internet like this?
Megan Blacksmith: What happens if you're seen? How many uncomfortable conversations am I going to have to have? That was when I We really had to work through it because we, we do in person trainings, which are really intense. And as we grow those, you know, if you're like a 20 person training is one thing, but a hundred people doing this kind of deep work, my unconscious mind was like, Oh, that's not safe, that's a lot of potential, whatever. Um, so I had to work through that because I couldn't, I could, like you said, Michelle, I could have the strategy because there's all the strategy right in our program. I could have the strategy to grow and we had the numbers to grow, but they would not grow beyond the number of people in that container that we actually felt safe with. Like, we could double our participants in a workshop, which you would [00:24:00] think would double your people joining, right? It's supposed to be a numbers game. And over and over and over, if we weren't actually ready for a larger group, It wouldn't happen. And then the next time, maybe we'd have a small webinar, but we were really ready.
Megan Blacksmith: We had like done the work of like sitting with our uncomfortable emotions, like having those conversations with people, really holding the boundary and the container over and over and over, having people push against us and realize like, okay, we've got this. Like they're just people, they're just in their stuff. We can handle it. And as we grew in that way and our nervous system could handle it. The group grew, but not directly with the numbers. Does that make sense? So it's just, there is so much more to the, like, how behind the scenes of our, our belief and our, also just our nervous system, like what we can handle as to how much we grow that you can't really calculate in an algorithm.
Joanna Newton: one of the things that you, you've made me think of is, you know, for me, I work with a lot of business owners, a lot of [00:25:00] coaches, a lot of creators, one on one to help them build their businesses, from like a tangible, practical standpoint, not a, you You know, coaching holistic standpoint and working with people, I find there tends to be a task or a thing that's so clear to me as a hurdle for that person.
Joanna Newton: we'll be working on it. The projects will pause stall because they can't do something that in my mind, Is like the easiest thing, They'll be like a little task. It would probably take them about 30 minutes to like move the project forward and we get stuck. And, and I've never really actually thought about the fact, you know, I'd always be like, what's wrong with it?
Joanna Newton: Why can't they just, just do it? Just get it done so we can, so we can finish this and you can have your thing and you can start promoting your business. You know what I mean? Like, just do it. but like thinking about the fact that, right, there's likely something going on that they might not [00:26:00] even be, they may be aware of, or may not be aware of that's making that task That thing, a sticking point for them.
Joanna Newton: Cause you see it. Like when I've worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs, right. And a lot of them will have some sort of sticking point that is like, okay. Why is this the thing that's keeping you, you know, from, from being successful? But it is for some reason, this thing is keeping you from moving forward.
Megan Blacksmith: Yes, and it could be just like writing a page or something, right? Like it could,
Megan Blacksmith: and for everybody it's different, right? So, um, I know I, I've always loved to speak and engage in learning how to speak better and speak on stages. So that One I've just been full force. Something about written, like when it comes to a written opt in page, that's where I will like freeze.
Megan Blacksmith: So it is funny. We have, We have, we'll have an area where you're like, well, really you can speak on stage in front of hundreds of people, but you like, can't get together four lines for an opt in page, there is this [00:27:00] limit often, I think that we put on ourselves and the cool thing about understanding language. And like, that's the basics, basis of NLP is like neurolinguistics, uh, linguistic, right, language, is that we can pull out their beliefs, like you could pull out their beliefs because they probably don't know it. Because you're seeing it, like, this, okay, okay, red flag, simple task, not getting done, been one month, two months, six months, whatever, something holding up the project. And it's a simple, like, thing where it seems like a small task, but then maybe they go on this whole, like, well, first I've got to update my business card to update my logo to update, right, like, eight, 80 steps get added to that one task. And so with their language, we can start to pull out that belief. So, It's kind of taking them down, uh, well, what will happen, what will happen if you do that task right now? And then, well, what will happen if you don't do that task right now? And what won't happen if you do that task right now? We can actually just use questions. Their answers, [00:28:00] often their answers will surprise themselves. Because they'll come out with some like, well, if I do that thing right now, then I would have 800 people in my webinar tomorrow and you're like, okay, well, what would happen then? And then they're like, well, then I'm not really ready for that. My systems can't handle that many people. Or then I'd have, right, there's something underneath this. What's actually going to happen? What don't they feel prepared for? With that, and it, and it's just, it's just like a gatekeeper. It's just that little task, uh, that represents in their mind of like, I mean, some people have the fear of success, which I know is weird for others, and others it's like the fear of failure, meaning I will put this whole thing on and nothing will happen. And some have the like, too many people will come and I'll be seen and called out and they'll know I'm a fraud, right? There can be all different flavors of it. But yeah, I love that you br brought that up. It can just be a task that looks like it's not related. We always say the presenting problem, whatever, someone comes to you with the problem, the thing [00:29:00] they can't do is never the actual problem. Even though they think it is, there's always something underneath. And so the Lang language is how we get to that problem. And then language is actually how we deconstruct those barriers. Those. The box that they've put in their mind around that problem, we're actually starting to break it down neurologically because there's a link of like, if I do this, it can equal pain, right?
Megan Blacksmith: Maybe if I was too big and too loud and too good at something, maybe that's when people in the family yelled at me, told me you're too much. Maybe I lost friends on the playground because I was too bossy, right? There can be these ties neurologically to actual pain, rejection, right? I say like the way where we feel, feel pain of rejection and abandonment is the same thing as, as if we're actually getting cut, like as, as if we're actually having physical pain.
Megan Blacksmith: So we will run and protect ourselves. So
Michelle Pualani: And a couple of things to pull out of this as you're listening is that [00:30:00] you essentially, Megan, I like that you explained it this way. It's not sincerely self sabotage because what's happening, and I've had to reconcile this, is what's actually happening is that you are protecting yourself to the best of your ability. So your mental faculties, your subconscious, your way of being is in some way from a nervous system perspective, putting you in a place of comfort. And so those things that you may be procrastinating on, putting off, avoiding altogether, Or making excuses for and saying like, Oh, I couldn't do that.
Michelle Pualani: Or I could never do that. Or that's not meant for me are often things that are outside of your comfort zone that feel unsafe. And so as Megan's explaining, it's replicating perhaps something that has happened to you in the past or something that you are unaware of. You've never experienced before. And so that adversity, that sense of change, that newness.
Michelle Pualani: can be really scary. And so it's presenting this to you in a subconscious way that then again, [00:31:00] consciously, you're just saying like, Oh, I don't have time for that. Or that's unimportant or, Oh yeah, I'll take time for that later or whatever that looks like and how it's coming out in your life. Now to pull things back a little bit, Megan, for some of us, we may be just be operating from our conscious selves. This is how we've always lived. Our thoughts run our life. We are kind of always chatting up top in our minds. We are always talking with other people. We're always receiving content and we haven't really taken the time to perhaps get quiet, to tune into the subconscious, to tune into that inner voice, that alignment and everything else. So I want to roll it back a little bit and just kind of start with a basic question of this idea that our beliefs create our reality. What does that mean, and how does that show up in our lives? How do beliefs create our reality? And how is it that someone listening is going to understand that it's not just their conscious self talk that is the issue here, but that there's something [00:32:00] else underlying that they need to address within their belief system?
Megan Blacksmith: the first test is we get to look around our world, our environment, and just see, do we have what we say we want, right? So are the things in our life showing up in the way that we want them? And if they are, then cool, right? Reality is matching what you say you want. It's, it's matching your conscious goals and goals. You're good, right? So if what we're saying we want, so if we're saying I want growth in my business or we're saying I want to spend more time with my kids and what we're actually doing is not that, that's where we start to look for that mismatch. That's where we start to find what Is my actual belief because like you said, they're, they're hidden.
Megan Blacksmith: They're not consciously there. Most of us out loud. We'll say like, yeah, I want more money. Right. When we're not saying, well, that's not true. I actually [00:33:00] know plenty of people who do out loud, say things like money is evil and money doesn't come grow on trees, but people in our world who are actively looking to grow and have been working, you know, growing a business, building a business will challenge all those beliefs.
Megan Blacksmith: So. Most of us have done some work in that area, and we're saying what we want, and if it's not matching up, we just start to say, okay, what do we want? Is the actual belief here because you say, like, how can our thoughts create a reality? Well, imagine that every second, every single second, there's 11 million bits of information coming in through our senses.
Megan Blacksmith: Through our eyes, our ears, our nose, or our taste. And actually, that number has gone up and up as we think about, like, you know, now the number of, like, flashing lights. If you go to Vegas, for example, right? There's even more than 11 million pieces of information. So what I want the takeaway to be with, let's say it's 11, let's say it's 13 million.
Megan Blacksmith: It's a lot. It's a ton of information coming in every single [00:34:00] second. Now, our lovely brain is only able to take in There's some variation in numbers here. Some people say 264 bits per second. Let's just say, you know, it's low. It's in the hundreds compared to 11 million. So that's, imagine if I have 11 million toothpicks that I'm dropping from the sky every single second and you all are each able to grab about two to 300. Like that's what your body can take in. That's how much information. Okay. So what happens? There's a filter, right? Because you're not taking in everything. If we were, we would have to be thinking about the fact that my shirt is touching my skin right now and my butt is on a chair and I would have to think about calibrating looking through my eyes and seeing my nose. Right? And like having to filter that out, but we don't have to do that because it's just automatic. So as these toothpicks are getting dropped, we will start to see the things that we filter out. So we either delete or we distort or we [00:35:00] generalize. So we'll delete stuff that just does not match our belief system. So whatever's in the subconscious, it can come in. I don't know if you've experienced this, but you're in the room with another person and they see something and you see something completely different. And you're like, how did that happen? that looked like an old guy. And they're like, no, it was like a young lady.
Megan Blacksmith: Like you, you see through your filter and you're, or you generalize and you have the belief, like, you know, all. Maybe you were bit by a dog, and you have a belief all dogs are horrible. So, you were like, oh, that dog was snarling at me. And this other person is like, they love dogs. All dogs are great to them.
Megan Blacksmith: And they're like, no! That was the kindest dog ever. So, you're seeing through your filter. And that's how many of these toothpicks you can pick up. And so because of that, if we have the belief, if we have the belief, let's just go with something like, I'm ugly, or I'm not good enough, or I'm not smart enough. And so then you walk into a room of a party and someone looks at you. And I'm sure people have had this happen when you're in a place where you don't feel like you look that good or something. And you're like, they, [00:36:00] they get, she's looking at my outfit. She thinks, she thinks I look dumb. She, right? Like we immediately create a story without even knowing the person. Whereas the person who's super duper confident, let's just say in their clothes or in their body, maybe someone is having that thought, but that doesn't even cross their mind, right? That they don't pick up that toothpick. So when we have the, um, I'm not good enough, or I'm dumb, or I, or I'm, I'm bad at systems, or I'm bad at business, or I'm bad with money, then we start, the toothpicks we're picking up are things that match that. So we don't hear the five people who just said, that was a really good presentation. We hear the one person who said, oh, you were a little unorganized at the end. And then that piles in for the evidence, and now we're. actually changing, like how does it change our reality? Then we actually change what we do, because if you're feeling like you're a really good speaker, you probably go apply for the next thing.
Megan Blacksmith: You probably reach out to someone to be on a podcast. If you feel like you're a good writer, you start to write the book. But if you've been pulling the evidence of how you're [00:37:00] not, you don't know enough yet, or you're not good with money, then, then what are you, what action do you take, right? Those beliefs will, will change.
Megan Blacksmith: Take the action. So the cool thing is that you can first change the actual beliefs. You can do this in either way though. So you could change your action and changing your action over time will change those beliefs. Or you can change those beliefs and then secure it in by changing the action. Either way you have to do something. we don't get out of that. and we like to do it both ways. Like we like to do subconscious reprogramming work to go in and find the belief. where was this formed? Where was the earliest time this was formed is usually it's like zero to seven years old. Sometimes it's in the womb. We have crazy things that people decided in the womb about not being good enough or taking up too much space. And then we can, we can rewrite that and then their job though is to now live with the new identity you have to go keep acting and you have to secure that pathway in because you have like a superhighway to a different belief.
Megan Blacksmith: If you have a superhighway to I'm not very [00:38:00] smart. Then it's going to take a little while to put in the new pathway of like, actually, I learned easily. Actually, I learned well. So, it goes both, both directions, but I think the most important takeaway is that you can shift these and it can then shift your reality
Joanna Newton: one of the most interesting things that I learned about like child psychology is the way you experience trauma and that what you think happened in your head is not what is what affects you versus what actually happened. So maybe I'm speaking from experience on this.
Joanna Newton: Maybe I'm not, but when something happened to you as a child and you go to your parent and say this happened and they're like, well, that's not how it happened. It doesn't actually matter. If I remember the traumatic event in a specific way, affects me like that. traumatic event. And I think that goes for like good things and bad things.
Joanna Newton: Like what is happening in our brains and what's actually happening in the world. Like what matters is what's happening in our brains, right? So we can affect the way we see [00:39:00] and feel things. if we think someone's going to be angry with our heads, they probably will be angry with us, right? The amount of control we have is just really astounding.
Joanna Newton: It's something that's hard for me as a mother, right? Because I'm like, what is she going to remember? I did like, I hope that I'm doing all of these things right. and then, you know, when you're thinking about the mindset, And as business owners, you know, on the podcast episode, we just released today, though it's not the day this episode will come out.
Joanna Newton: We talked about mindset in sales conversations, right? The mindset you have going into that sales conversation is going to affect the reality of the outcome. And as business owners. As entrepreneurs, if you want to see growth experiences, or you're in a plateau, taking time to think about your mindset is going to be so valuable for you and as someone who's, I'm like a doer, like I'm a like get stuff done kind of person.
Joanna Newton: So thinking about my mindset has always felt like a waste of time. I'll just be perfectly honest and some of the [00:40:00] people listening, you might feel that way. You might be like taking time to work on my mind. That's not making money. That's not making progress. That's not crossing things off my list, but it is because you're not, you're going to get stuck at some point if you don't work on that inner self.
Megan Blacksmith: Um, so my business partner and I have a joke where if we're talking about something that happened in the past of like, Oh, well, remember how that went well, or that didn't go well. And we always joke when we look at each other, we're like, well, it's like a 50, 50 chance that what you remember happened or what I remember happened.
Megan Blacksmith: We're like. I don't know. And they say, like, each time we pull up the memory, we actually change it. So, who knows what actually happened. And it doesn't, it doesn't matter, like you said, because it's how we remember it will be how it goes forward, which is so cool because there's some cool studies about that where people will visualize something. They'll visualize there was, um, There was one I think around playing the piano and they just visualized playing the chords and they, or the scales. And then that [00:41:00] actually changed in their brain as if they knew how to play and they had never physically played yet and then could play better when they learned.
Megan Blacksmith: just by imagining it in our mind. So we get to, and we like to bring that back to the physical body. Cause we started in the physical body that it's not just in our mind though, because Every single thought we think has a chemical reaction, there's a neurotransmitter, a hormone, there's something released based on that thought. So uh, Uh Uh It is changing then how your body operates, right? I think we've all experienced where you're really like freaked out about going on stage or you're freaked out about speaking and you're, you like have to run to the bathroom, right? Like you physically have things move through your digestion because of a thought. Like you thought that or you think about just imagine you're about to eat a lemon and most people can have the salivating feeling just thinking about biting into a juicy lemon. Like all we had to do is think and those that is released. So we say [00:42:00] no, no thought is free. Like you might be like, I didn't say it out loud that I'm ugly.
Megan Blacksmith: But if you're looking in the mirror and saying it to yourself, you're still. having that chemical reaction. It is still creating the physiology, which then creates the behavior, which then shows you what you have in your reality. So you can address it from the thoughts, but you can also address it from the body, right?
Megan Blacksmith: Like we can go both directions with it. And for people with kids, this has been the hardest thing for me, learning this kind of thing. Because I'm like, you know, in my 30s, I'm starting to learn about all these beliefs as a kid and rewriting them and like what they've done in my life. And I'm like, holy cow, like my, my kids are eight and 13 now.
Megan Blacksmith: So I'm like, and at the time, you know, they were in the middle of this zero to seven and their subconscious is forming. I'm like, this is a lot of pressure, a lot of pressure. I remember my two year old, I was like, I was doing all this rewiring, like of money programming. And I was like, well, if I'm doing all this rewiring, like, [00:43:00] I'm just going to install really good stuff for her.
Megan Blacksmith: So I would sit next to her and I'd be like, you are abundant. And she is just like the funniest little human and little mismatcher. So from, from that, everything I said, she'd be like, I am not abundant. I have this video where she's, I was like, you have a million dollar company. She's like, I have not no million dollar company. She's just immediately rejecting, but it doesn't matter because. Um, the subconscious mind actually doesn't even, work with the word not, so she was still, she was still saying it. It's just cool to watch these little humans, uh, absorb this because my belief and understanding is that if we can just be there for them, one of my mentors says, as long as you're there for them, like 50 percent of the time when this stuff is going down, 50 percent of the time where they actually get to talk about it, share their feelings about it, You can just be there for them that they will be able to write these powerful beliefs like they will have enough of that sport and I was like, okay, 50%. I can [00:44:00] do 50%, right? Like that feels much more manageable and Like my story, you can have great parents and like a great growing up and still create all sorts of crappy beliefs. So, I feel that this is just part of the process. I'm gonna mess him up no matter what. I'm just, I'm just gonna teach him the tools.
Megan Blacksmith: It doesn't have to be with me,
Michelle Pualani: I think just the fact that we're conscious of this and aware of it is really important. So we're already bringing this up and as you're listening, you're already starting to become aware of it. And that's half the battle. Half the battle is just knowing that this is an opportunity for you, knowing that you can dive into this and learn more about it as well as start to strategically do something about it. Whatever that action looks like, and of course, tuning into what Megan is doing and finding other people who are working at this level on the subconscious reprogramming or the more habit forming action taking whichever direction you intend to come at it. And I actually suggest you take multiple directions and see what works best for you, but being aware of it and starting to [00:45:00] own your personal power in rewriting your beliefs, because independent of where they came from.
Michelle Pualani: Because there are lots of external circumstances in which they probably formed, whether that was school, peers, family, relationships, just being on the street, out in the world, social media. Now, these days, how much access we have to entertainment, media, television, and everything else is all coming at you. And your. Trying to process and understand and deal with all of these things. And of course, when you have children, I, for my niece, when this comes up, this is what I think about is giving her the ownership over her own belief system and understanding that she has the personal power of choice. And that's something that I feel like now that I'm learning as a 33 year old. That I gave away for so long. I gave away a lot of that personal power by giving into a lot of those belief systems and not digging into this a little bit deeper. So yes, we're [00:46:00] all going to have an impact on those younger people. And whether we, as you say, Megan mess them up or whatever, they kind of come out of it with. At least we can. On the undertone, because I always with my, when I'm with my niece, I try to instill, you know, you are so bold for doing that. You're very strong. You're very strong when you do that, right? Do you feel strong or talking and using language that helps empower her in those positive ways, but also.
Michelle Pualani: Yeah. Allowing her to decide how she feels or what she believes about things. And that's going to change and transform and grow over time. Again, as you're listening, noticing all the ways in which maybe you have given your power away because you either haven't tuned into the underlying belief system before. You've let yourself talk and kind of conscious thoughts, chatter, whatever is happening, inner dialogue, kind of run away from you and you haven't really kept them in check, is starting to just notice, like give yourself the gift of awareness and start to pay attention to [00:47:00] these things because then you can actually start to take action and make some shifts and make some changes. So Megan, as we start to head towards wrapping up this conversation, what are some of those shifts that people start to see when they start to address some of these things they've uncovered? They believe they've recognized, Oh, this is something that I'm dealing with. What do they see when they start to go through managing that
Megan Blacksmith: They see choice. Just like you said, they see that they have a choice versus living by a pattern or a plan. I know for me, I'm like, you know, recovering from the peacekeeper people pleaser. And I didn't really feel like I had a choice when people asked me if I would do something. This just didn't feel like that was a choice.
Megan Blacksmith: So as I worked through the beliefs around, well, what would that mean if I said no? Who would I be if I didn't do what people wanted me to do? What would happen then? It's, it's amazing what, what happens and what opens up when you're not operating by those beliefs anymore. And you just, you know, even like my husband, it's when, uh, he retired from the military three years ago.
Megan Blacksmith: And [00:48:00] so when he was first home and I, Worked from home forever and he's kind of in my space and, during the day, sometimes I read a book, I nap, I go to the ocean, like I don't have what people, it looks like a classic job, uh, because some of my best work happens when I'm on a walk or doing nothing and I, knew that myself, but I knew he didn't know that, or I believed he didn't know that.
Megan Blacksmith: So I found myself at first few months when he was home, I would like jump up when I heard him come, I would jump up from the living room, like go to my computer, like, Oh, people who work are at a computer, I think. Right. And there was like this whole facade and, and it was so freeing, like when I finally dropped that and I was like, you know, and he, it was, this was not driven by him at all.
Megan Blacksmith: He did not care whether I was napping or working. This was all my belief in worthiness and I remember when I finally like realized I was like, yeah, I'm napping like I'm making money right now. Like, watch me [00:49:00] nap. and that part that I just said, it wasn't even coming from him. So, like, he was the one that was in my environment that then I was doing something different, but it was my beliefs. He's super supportive of me going to the beach and napping, so, we act differently with people around us, but it's not even their belie it's they weren't even putting that on us. So, it comes down to having the choice of how you, um, act.
Megan Blacksmith: Operate how you schedule whether you say yes or no, because you're, you're really just then operating from like your compass and not all these beliefs that were put on you or you absorbed. I mean, they're, they're nicely handed to you generationally.
Joanna Newton: Thank you so much for sharing that. I really enjoyed this conversation. I hope that this encourages our listeners to think more about what's going on in their brain, not just what's happening in the physical world around them. if our listeners do want to connect with you, keep track of what you're doing, what your business is doing, how can they find you online?
Megan Blacksmith: Yes. [00:50:00] So the main spot is Instagram at becoming zesty and then our podcast. So those are the two places that we have content. You know, every day on Instagram, every week on our podcast, our podcast is also becoming zesty. That would be the place to find us. Depending on when you're listening to this, we have, we do two day live events twice a year, August and January.
Megan Blacksmith: So our next live training where we do two days in person and we go deep into habits. So habit formation through the four bodies, physical, mental, emotional, energetic, where we're really looking at Why we want to change a habit and like the whole body, which will then we get on board and the change becomes easy.
Megan Blacksmith: It's usually like when it's not even really our habit we want to change or we're doing it for other people or other beliefs. So that's what we do in two days, August 20th and 21st in Dallas, Texas will be the next Often when we're on podcasts, we do offer a free ticket to our live event. If you would like to do [00:51:00] that, we say, if people leave a review on your podcast within a week of it going live, we pick somebody to get a free ticket to the two day event. That is an option.
Michelle Pualani: amazing Megan? Thank you so much. There's so much to this underlying belief system and so much that we still need to uncover for ourselves. And like we've said throughout the show, this conversation is that it's not about the right way. It's not about the strategy. It's not about just finding that thing, checking it off the list, doing the tasks and making it happen. It's about finding that internal knowing and finding the guide or mentor who's going to help you support that intuitive alignment, that inner voice, that sense of self so that you can step into your own personal power. Make the decisions, have the choice and work from that place of awareness so that you continue to show up in front of the camera, in front of an audience with your clients in service, in your business, to the best of your potential, which is what we're all after is that next level that you're working [00:52:00] towards.
Michelle Pualani: And we fully support you in that.
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