myself.’ ‘Fine.’ That was the discussion.ts-podcasts.s3.amazonaws.com/AdventuresInHappiness/... · Jessica Ortner: Welcome to Adventures in Happiness. Nick Ortner: Are you recording

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(c) 2015 The Tapping Solution, LLC (c) 2015 The Tapping Solution, LLC www.thetappingsolution.com

Jessica Ortner: Welcome to Adventures in Happiness. Nick Ortner: Are you recording already so I have to watch my language? Jessica: I did press record already, how did you know? Nick: Because you tried to get me the other time with it so I knew you were about to try

to call me and have me be really mean to you and then just sell me to the world. Jessica: So you are saying you are mean to me? You admit it. Nick: Yeah, I admit it but I am your big brother, I have to berate you once in a while,

right? If you are going to say this please tell people I never berate you. I am very nice big brother.

Jessica: You are a very nice big brother. Are you speaking with your headset? Nick: I am. Jessica: Can you speak without your headset for a sec? Nick: I cannot. Jessica: Really? Nick: Yeah, I have no hands. Why, does it not sound good? Jessica: No, it sounded better when I was trying to trick you and now it doesn’t sound as

good. Nick: Well these are the choices you have to make. Jessica: Are we really using this? Nick: I don’t know, it is up to you. I don’t care. I don’t think it’s that entertaining for the

poor people that have to listen to this, my poor quality audio.

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Jessica: That is because you don’t want to set up your microphone, because you are too important and too busy.

Nick: Too important and too busy – that is correct, people. Right now I am outside and I

am walking around with a little Juney on me. Jessica: Aw, little baby. Nick: I have got to do a bunch of work tonight so I took over babysitting for an hour to

give Brenna a break and she is in the little carrier facing out, which is really cute, because she is basically like walking around and looking at the world. I think she thinks she is just walking around herself so it is super exciting for her. She is very entertained by it.

Jessica: That is so cute. Well, you don’t sound the best and I think it is because you are

walking outside and you are far away from the receiver but regardless, we can hear you.

Nick: How bad does it sound? Jessica: It doesn’t sound that bad. Nick: Let me take my headset off for a second. How does this sound? Jessica: Way better. Nick: Oh my gosh, fine, I will do this for a few minutes. Jessica: Two minutes into the podcast and all you have heard is us talk about the sound

quality. Nick: I hope you are happy. Are we really going to use this? I sound so mean but I think

it is just because it’s amusing, right? Jessica: You are really not that mean. Nick: It is entertaining.

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Jessica: Not that mean – I don’t know what episode this is but I interviewed Barbara Stanny. Do you know who she is? You should.

Nick: Wait, hold on – can we talk about the fact that you kicked me off the podcast? Jessica: No, I didn’t kick you off the podcast, you don’t want to record with me and so I

am taking it and doing it so I don’t always have to wait with you and this way I can be more consistent with my episodes and you can do it whenever you want.

Nick: That is true, people. that is a true story. Jessica: That is what happened. There was no fight, not really. Nick: Well the fight was, ‘Can you record an episode today?’ ‘No, I don’t want to.’ ‘No,

come on, we have to record.’ ‘I don’t want to.’ ‘Fine, then I’m doing the podcast myself.’ ‘Fine.’ That was the discussion.

Jessica: That was our big fight. Nick: I think it is great that we do it this way because you can be more consistent and

get the episodes out. And as you know, not that you don’t have a lot on your plate but I have a lot on my plate. So I think adding the burden of we have to record this every week was just tough.

Jessica: And that is what is different about us. You like to have more of that flexibility and

I kind of like the schedule. And that being said I know we didn’t come out with a podcast for a while because I was traveling in Russia and it has been a crazy summer of moving to California and everything, but I am back.

Nick: You are back. So sorry, who did you interview? Jessica: I am ready. I interviewed Barbara Stanny, who wrote this book called Sacred

Success. She has written a ton of books and this is not her first book. It is like her seventh book but this is the first book that I read. Someone recommended it to me and I read it – it was so good that I read it on my Kindle and then I bought it and found out we have similar friends and got in touch with her. She is really sweet and her book is so good. So what is interesting about her and you hear about this in the podcast and I already recorded it. Her father is the R at H&R Block. She grew up with a lot of money and you will soon hear how she lost it all and how

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she had to – she learned as a kid just don’t worry about money, it will be taken care of. So all of a sudden when this money disappears and she is a million dollars in debt, she suddenly has to take responsibility for her finances and also take a closer look at her relationship with money and with power. So this book is about women, women’s relationship with power and with money. But the podcast, whether you are female or male, you are going to get something out of it. She is so good. And what is so good about this book too is she brings a lot of spirituality and she said this was a really hard book to write because it is scary when you start to talk about spiritual beliefs because I think it’s something where people tend to have more of a stronger opinion. They either really like it or they really don’t and I love when people talk about spirituality and money because it is a conversation we need to have more.

Nick: I love it, can’t wait to hear it. Jessica: So any other news before we jump into the podcast? Nick: Well, I don’t know when this is going to be released and I don’t know if we want

to talk about this but the sad news right now is the passing of our dear friend Wayne Dyer. It is Monday now when we record this and this happened yesterday, Sunday. It happened Sunday morning off in Maui. He wasn’t ill – you were asking me if he was sick and I know people who were just with him two weeks ago in Australia and who were traveling with him and he was feeling well and In good spirits. He had a whole tour ahead of him and he actually had to be out of his house in Maui because they were doing some construction, so he planned all these speaking gigs for the next six months. He was just out there doing it and it was just a shock to all of us.

Jessica: One of the things I do love is that he did talk a lot about death before and how he

was excited for the next adventure. I think he said that there is a suit in his closet and he cut out the pockets to remind himself that he can’t anything with him when he goes. And it is tough though because you are sad – we are both really sad about it. Then when you hear him talk about death he talks about it like a celebration that we are infinite. So it is just so important to go back to his words to be comforted at this time.

Nick: Absolutely. And his legacy – I know it sounds kind of corny but his legacy really

lives on. This morning what I did is it loaded my iPod back up with all the Wayne Dyer stuff I have, his greatest hits. To me it was like what better way to honor

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him than to listen to him again and to dive deeper into his work. And I posted on Facebook and emailed for people to pick up his books or pick up what you haven’t read. I don’t know, I feel like I know that he would love nothing better than for people to pick up his books and audio books, not because he ever cared how much money he made from the books but because he was so passionate about the message. And if you follow the story he has been so inspiring to me as an author. He sold books literally from the back of his car, from the trunk of his car, driving around. I mean, this guy did it and he pushed and he pushed and he pushed. He traveled around and he spoke and he spoke and he wrote and he worked his butt off, full of love for many years. It is incredible, the outpouring of love on Facebook and the number of stories of people who say, ‘He saved my life, literally. I was thinking of committing suicide and I picked up his book and it changed everything.’ Just thousands, tens of thousands of stories and really probably millions of people that he touched in such profound ways. So it’s a shock and everyone I have talked to at the Hay House family – we all say the same thing. It didn’t seem like it was his time. I don’t know if it ever seems like it is anybody’s time but I think we all thought we would see him speaking for another ten years and then retiring or doing – here is my last speech in New York, I am taking time off, and things like that. It just seemed like he had a lot more. But what is crazy, Jess, and I know you know this is the last book that he published called I Can See Clearly Now was his memoir. He didn’t write it – I mean, he handed me a galley copy of the book. He didn’t write it thinking, ‘This is the last book I’m writing.’ In fact, he was working on another book right now and I don’t know what the status is. Hopefully it was finished enough that it can see the light of day. It is actually on a very interesting topic. So look out for that. But he wrote his memoir, which is a beautiful book. It is called I Can See Clearly Now I highly encourage you to pick it up and read it.

Jessica: What I do love is he was just so full of life until the very end. I mean, what a

beautiful way to go, in your sleep and still so full of life. It was also the super moon.

Nick: I heard a couple of people mention that. Like super moon and Pisces, whatever all

that means. But super moon sounds good. Jessica: Well I don’t know what the Pisces means but the super moon just means that the

moon was closer to the earth and it was a beautiful moon. I remember that night. His legacy lives on and for those who have read his work, now is a great time to

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go back to it. It is always a good time to go back to it. For those who haven’t, pick up his books and pick up his lectures. He was so good on stage.

Nick: Yeah, he is so good on stage. I mean, I read all his books but it was really his

audio that moved me the most because I just put him on my iPod and walked around and handed him to people. And I did dishes and I commuted and I exercised listening to Wayne.

Jessica: My favorite Wayne quote – because he is incredibly thought-provoking too, is

love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves without any insistence that they satisfy you.

Nick: That’s beautiful. Say that again so everyone can just sort of sit with that for a

second. Jessica: Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they

choose for themselves without any insistence that they satisfy you. Nick: Beautiful. And as the father of [eight 00:11:23] children I know he had those

experience where he just had to let them be who they wanted to be in the world. Jessica: Yeah, and our love is with their family and those kids – as kids I have hung out

with Serena and Sage a few times and they are just hysterical and full of life and the thing about Wayne is he was so funny and so sarcastic and that is the thing about spirituality. Spirituality doesn’t have to be this heavy topic, it could be light, it could be funny, and he was full of life. So we are sending love to the whole family.

Nick: I like his opening joke, which I am probably going to butcher right now – I don’t

know, the last couple of years on stage he comes out and he says something to the effect that things are good, I am having sex every day – or no, he says, ‘I am having sex almost every day,’ see I knew I was going to butcher it. Almost on Monday, almost on Tuesday, almost on Wednesday – so that is pretty good. I am sorry I butchered it a little bit but I think you get it.

Jessica: Totally. Well, Nick, thanks for this intro as you walk June around in the backyard.

And everyone that is listening, I hope you enjoy this interview with Barbara Stanny – let us know what you think. We love to hear from you and have you share you’re a-ha moments. And also on Facebook, let us know how Wayne

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touched your life. How did he impact you? What do you feel is the legacy that he is leaving in this world? We would love to hear from you.

Nick: Thanks everyone. Thanks for allowing me to come with you with a not-perfect

audio connection and maybe some wind in the background and a baby. But she stayed quiet. I had hoped she might say a little something but she is very content, looking around at the world.

Jessica: Sweet baby June. All right, thanks Nick. Enjoy, everyone. Nick: Thanks Jess, thanks guys. Jessica: Barbara, welcome. Barbara Stanny: Thank you! I am glad to be here. This is fun. Jessica: I know. So we have been emailing each other and I told you that I read your book,

Sacred Success, and I was basically just underling every other word. It was so good. And I loved it so much – I read it on my Kindle and I ordered it because I wanted to have it in my library. I wanted to have a copy that I could even lend out to friends. And when I ordered it and got it in the mail I looked at the back and saw that a lot of my friends also think that you are amazing and wrote you some great testimonials. So I felt very excited and grateful that we were able to connect in that way. I just want to start off by saying congratulations on such an incredible book.

Barbara: Thank you so much, I really appreciate it. It was a tough book for me to write.

Thank you so much, I really appreciate it. It was a tough book for me to write, very tough.

Jessica: Why was it tough. I know you have written a lot of books. Barbara: This was my seventh book and it was tough because this is the first one where I

really come out of my spiritual closet and really talked about it. Because to me money is a very practical process but I believe financial success is not just practical, it is also very much a spiritual practice. And it always has been for me. I grew up knowing nothing about money. Money gave me a lot of problems. I had a compulsive gambler for a husband, who lost a lot of money. And getting to

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understand money was very much both practical and spiritual. I wanted to write about that.

Jessica: I thought it was so fascinating that you shared in the book that you grew up also

relying on your father, who you call the R in H&R Block. So here you are, someone who was raised with abundance but it seemed like something very outside of yourself.

Barbara: I was raised with an abundance but with no knowledge of how to create or keep

that abundance. Jessica: That is interesting because so often we hear about these lottery winners and I

think there is some crazy statistic of how many people who win the lottery end up losing it within ten years.

Barbara: Within three years. Jessica: Three years! That is crazy and it just shows that even if we are given this money,

if we don’t have the mindset mentally and now we are learning spiritually, then we can’t hold on to it.

Barbara: There are three prongs to creating wealth. There is the outer work of wealth, the

inner work of wealth, and the higher work of wealth. And all three of those need attention. And the media, the financial industry, focuses primarily on the outer work. And this is important, understanding investing and the difference between a stock and a bond and how to negotiate. That is all important but that is not enough for those of us who get stuck. It is also the inner work, looking at your attitude, beliefs, and decisions you made about yourself and money. And also the higher work. I believe that all of us are on this planet for a purpose, that we are here to do God’s work or whatever you call that higher power. And I believe that is a great motivation, especially for women, to get smart or smarter about our money. Because as the Reverend Michael Beckwith says, ‘How can you be the light of the world if you can’t pay your light bill?’

Jessica: Right. Your book was recommended to me by Mike Watts, who I think you

know. You know Kate Northrup? Barbara: Oh yes.

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Jessica: So I was having a conversation with him and I was just in a place where I had written one book and I was just in a place where I had written one book and it was successful but then I felt kind of lost. I didn’t know what I wanted to do next and I was telling him that making money wasn’t enough of a motivating factor for me. Then I was searching for the next idea and wanting something more and he is the one who recommended your book and it came at such a great time and what I found so fascinating was the connection that you make between our personal power and finances. Because there are many people out there who think I have low self-worth or I am having a horrible time right now because I don’t have enough money. And if I only had more money, then I would have greater self-worth and feel better about myself. Here, in the book, you talk about how we tend to have that whole concept backwards. So what’s the connection between our purpose, our power, and our finances?

Barbara: Great question. So I have been working in this field of women and money and

wealth for over 20 years. And one thing I saw very early in this work is that women’s difficulties with money, making it and managing it, has very little do with money, per se. It has everything to do with our fear of or ambivalence about power or what we perceive power to mean. When I wrote my very first book, Prince Charming Isn’t Coming: How Women Get Smart About Money. And that is where from interviewing women who are smart with money that is when I first saw the connection between wealth and power. And I remember saying to a psychologist that I was interviewing for that book, ‘I am really seeing that women are afraid of their power. Why do you think that is?’ And she said back to me, ‘Because powerful women have been burned at the stake.’ And I think in our collective unconscious historically we have been punished for being powerful. I think we are hitting a brand new paradigm where women are being asked and they need to step up to their plate and into their power to lead alongside men, not just globally but in our homes, in PTAs, and in organization. And so really what I am passionate about is helping women really own and step into their power.

Jessica: Right, and it is so funny because before my book came out I kept having this

dream that I was being burnt at the stake and I called my friend Regina. Some people know her as Mama Gina. I told her and she goes, ‘Oh yeah, before my book came out I kept having a dream that I was being run over by a car.’ And I was like, wow, what is this that we have in our psyche that says if I stand out something bad could happen? Where do you think that this stems from? Do you think this is something that we suffer because it is a cultural belief that is being passed down?

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(c) 2015 The Tapping Solution, LLC www.thetappingsolution.com

Barbara: Like I said, I really believe it is part of our collective unconsciousness and I

remember years ago when I started playing around with this whole idea of spirituality and coming out of the closet and I remember in the Wall Street Journal there were two big articles that Massachusetts that apologized to the witches. Because what they saw at that time as witches were women who were very independent, who were dressing like they wanted, who spoke like they wanted, and these were the women that were punished. My definition of a powerful woman is someone who knows who she is, who knows what she wants, and expresses that in the world unapologetically. And I think what happens is we are so afraid of being seen expressing ourselves, speaking our truth, that will water ourselves down so as not to make waves.

Jessica: One of the things that I underlined in your book is that you wrote somewhere

along the way financial incompetence became a safe house of sorts granting us protection and oddly enough, security. Think about it – there is no better way to limit our power than by lowering our earning potential or by mishandling neglect or ignoring our money. I circled that and starred that – it is so powerful.

Barbara: Jessica, I remember when I wrote that sentence. That is so weird, I remember

writing it. Jessica: The other thing that you say in your book is one of the first things that we need to

do is just acknowledge where we are. So here we are and we are acknowledging hey, you know what? I might have been holding myself back. I might have been ignoring my finances because of this fear of my own power. Once we gain that awareness that we may be sabotaging our own success, what do we then do with that information?

Barbara: Okay, what I believe and what I help clients do, what I did for me, is I had to

explore a little deeper. Why am I doing that? Because until I explored deeper, no matter how much I saw that I knew I was sabotaging myself, I couldn’t go forward. So what happened, let me just give you a brief background of me. So people listening can understand, the only advice my father ever gave me about money was, ‘Don’t worry,’ so I thought that was great advice and I never worried. And it turned out my husband was a compulsive gambler who lost a fortune of my inheritance. And by the time we divorced 15 years later, and I continued to let him manage the money because that is how terrified I was about anything financial – by the time we got divorced I not only had no money in the bank but I

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had gotten a million dollars in tax bills that my ex, for illegal deals, got us in. I did not have a million dollars, not even close to it. My ex had left the country. My father wouldn’t lend the money and I did not know what I was going to do.

So I started this journey and I started interviewing women who were smart with

money and that just was really so eye-opening to me. I knew there was something stopping me but I couldn’t get to it. So I went to a therapist and I said to this therapist, ‘Oh David, I really want to understand money. I really do. I want to make it, I want to manage it, I want to be smart about it.’ And he said, ‘Stop.’ And he moved over to another chair. Then he said, ‘I want you to talk to me like I am a voice in your head. I am going to be you and answer back.’ So I said, ‘Oh, David, I really want to make money. I really, really want to make money. I really want to understand this.’ And as a voice in my head he says, ‘No, you don’t.’ And it was like, I couldn’t argue. I realized there was a big part of me that was terrified of becoming smart with money. So what I did, with my therapist’s help, was I started exploring – and you don’t need therapy. But to start exploring what was going on, and I saw that I was scared my parents would be mad at me, but the biggest thing was I was terrified that if I was really smart and financially independent, a man wouldn’t love me. And well, that changed.

So once that I got that, once I got the clarity that was going on, then I could feel

myself holding myself back and I could push myself forward. Slowly, small steps, but really seeing the lie in that, the lie in that belief I had.

Jessica: Do you have questions that you recommend that clients or people you work with

ask themselves to help gain clarity on what that might be? Barbara: You know, people come to me because they are stuck. And whenever they are

stuck they always say, ‘What do I need to do? What do I need to do?’ And the one thing I know for me is before you ask yourself, ‘What do I need to do?’ The first question to ask is, ‘What do I need to let go of? What is not serving me? Where am I giving my power away?’ And you know where you are giving your power away wherever you are not happy. So you begin by looking at the places you are unhappy, looking at how you are giving your power away and how you are creating that, and what you need to let go of. And once you can understand that and the letting go, then you clear the way for better to come in.

Jessica: Now, if someone asks themselves that question, where am I giving up my power,

and the answer comes back to something like in my relationship. But then they

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think, well, my relationship has nothing to do with my money. It is a different area of my life. Are they all connected?

Barbara: Whatever is going on with one area of your life is going on with many other

areas. You cannot slice up your life like a pizza and say, ‘Okay, I am just going to work on the financial and forget the other parts.’ It doesn’t work like that, because whatever is going on with my area with money was going on with other areas as well.

Jessica: Yes, that makes a lot of sense. And as we begin to move forward, we want to

begin to make some changes and it is so important for us to begin to have the peace inside to have the clarity to make decisions that are right for us. Because, as you mentioned, we can learn about – when it comes to finances there are a million different strategies. And so what I found interesting about your book is not just going inside but going inside and then finding that there is a voice inside of you that is even greater than your current circumstance. It is even greater than that little fear voice. I think you call it the soul.

Barbara: So let me suggest – this was a very, very important awareness for me and it is for

people who come to my retreats, my Sacred Success retreats. Power really has two voices. There is the voice of the ego and the voice of the soul. And the voice of the ego is the voice of fear and the voice of the soul is the voice of love. And where you go next depends on which voice you tune into, which voice you listen to. The ego is not bad at all. As I understand it, the ego’s job is to keep you safe. And it learned how to keep you safe when you were a kid. And when we are a kid we are all about survival. And survival to a child is getting attention, approval, and love. And so we learn very early what gets us attention, approval, and love, and what gets us disapproval and no attention and abandonment. So that is what our soul does. Our soul wants to protect us. I mean our ego wants to protect us. Our soul, which gets its marching orders from God or your higher power, whatever you want to call it, your soul knows you are safe. It wants you to shine. It wants you to soar and so your ego will push you beyond your fear. I mean, your soul will push you beyond your fear. Because your soul knows the truth is that just beyond your fear lies your power and your pleasure. So the power comes from which voice you listen to. Is it the voice of fear or the voice of love?

Jessica: I love this understanding of the ego because I think many of us have been taught

to believe that the ego is evil and we begin to blame the ego and then we get mad at our ego and we say that it is sabotaging us. But here what you are saying is

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there is a benefit. It’s intention is to keep us safe because as a child we needed that acceptance and that approval. So as adults, because I know this is a struggle for many people, and you wonder well, other people like it and we still are seeking that approval. How does this need for approval impact our finances and our happiness?

Barbara: Because financial success – success in anything – really demands that we make

some tough decisions, some decision that could have some negative impact on other people. We make decisions where we can set boundaries, where we can say a very strong no, and we can disappoint people. It is part of the process. And what I learned from successful women was absolutely pivotal for me. And what these successful financial women told me was that, in every woman I have ever interviewed, in every successful woman I have ever talked to there is a piece of them – they all say something like, ‘There is a little girl inside me that just wants to be liked.’ But they know in order to succeed that they have to make these tough decisions. So they knew they had to toughen up and the way they toughened up is not by hardening their heart or becoming all macho, it was by shifting their thinking. They realized they would rather be respected than liked. And that one shift, I would rather be respected than liked in the world, makes all the difference. Now, we still want to be loved by our friends and family and all the successful women I have ever interviews have what I called, not them, but what I called the Love Nest. A little Love Nest of people they can be this little girl, they can be insecure, they can be a little needy with. I had my daughters, my husband, my besties. But in the world of work I would rather be respected than liked.

Jessica: Yes. There is a quote that you – you quoted someone else and I don’t know if you

are going to know it off the top of your head but it is something like take that sticker that says, ‘I want your approval,’ off your forehead and put it on the mirror, where it belongs.

Barbara: Yeah, who wrote the book? Do what you fear? Jessica: Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. Yes, oh, I love that quote. Barbara: I love that quote too. In fact, I found it while I was writing the book and I thought,

‘I have got to put it. I have got to find some place for that.’ Jessica: So we are going to return to this ego and the soul voice, but I want to take just a

step back when it comes to deciding that we want to make a shift in our lives and

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we want to experience this call that you say, this experience of purpose and we want to experience our destiny. You wrote that signs of the call include feeling discontented, restless, anxious, unfulfilled, frustrated, bored, and burned out. And I know that there are people who are listening to this who are raising their hand and going, ‘Yes! I feel one of those.’ And so here we are feeling anxious or unfulfilled and we think that it is wrong. We think we must be doing something wrong but you are saying it is actually part of the process. Can you expand on that?

Barbara: So I remember I was trying to write this book, Sacred Success. Although I didn’t

know it was Sacred Success at the time and I thought it was a completely different book. I remember working on it for three years and I was just feeling so burnt out, really burnt out. And I remember my coach at the time said, ‘Barbara, you are so busy doing, you need time for just being.’ And I knew she was right so I went on a four-day retreat and it was during the four-day retreat that I realized that my burnout was really a call to greatness. My soul was calling me. My soul said, ‘Pay attention. Stop what you are doing, it is time to play a bigger game.’ And I had spent three years pushing and pushing and when I finally stopped I got to see it. I had this whole new body of work in me and I had no idea and I believe that women – I believe many women, many people listening to this call right now, are receiving the call to greatness. Their soul is telling them to stop, pay attention. It is time to play a bigger game. And you know the signs that they all have in common is they are uncomfortable because the purpose is to get our intention. And as A Course In Miracles says, this uncomfort is aroused simply to alert yourself – and these are my words, but simply to alert yourself that there is a need for correction. Your soul is calling you and it is time to course correct. It is time to do it differently.

So Sacred Success, I realized, is how women are achieving success in a very

different way than this planet, i.e., men, models. And that is when I was on this four-day retreat and the call got louder because I was so jazzed after this retreat that I kept doing what I was doing, only more of it. The call got louder and I remember my assistant quit, my computer crashed – the worst was that my business partner and I broke up. I thought, oh, I am just lost. I felt lost. I remember saying to my husband, ‘Oh my God, I wish I could take a month off.’ And he said, ‘Well, why don’t you?’ And I said, ‘Oh no, I am way too busy. I have way too many important things to do.’ The moment I said that I knew it was the next stage of Sacred Success. And that is receptive surrender, taking time for quiet, taking time to reflect, and taking time to tune into your soul which is

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always quiet. The ego is always the loudest and always speaks first but your soul is very quiet, very gentle, and very persistent.

Jessica: I love that word – receptive surrender. Can you expand on that and talk a little bit

about – people always say when it comes to success you have to be patient. How do you view patience?

Barbara: Let me back up. I love you how said how I view patience because patience isn’t

passive. It is not just sitting there waiting for something to happen. What I thought Sacred Success was going to be was a book on making millions. I had written a book on the secrets of six-figure women. That was how I learned to make six figures. Now I wanted to learn how to make millions. So I started interviewing women who made millions. Three years later I was nowhere near there. So I went on this four-day retreat and I took my transcripts of these interviews with women who made millions. And I saw something that I totally and completely overlooked. Even when I saw it I didn’t know what to do with it. All these women, right before they soared into making millions, right before they soared into these stratospheric levels of success, they all sank into a limbo of sorts, a time out. And almost all of that was precipitated by a crisis, something awful that happened in their life. Like they get breast cancer and bankruptcy and a major breakup, just all kinds of really tough things where they had no choice but to stop. I decided I was not going to wait until a crisis got worse than my business partner and I breaking up. I decided to take a month off but it turned into nine months.

What these women did – and we all have crises, but not everyone goes off to

make a million dollars. What these women did – this is what the patience looks like – they said they used this time. They didn’t try to push through, plow through, at least not for very long. They actually took time out where they would just sit and start out the window. They said they used this time to regroup and come back stronger. And that is what I did – I took time and gradually at first. I stopped taking things off my plate. I stopped taking on new clients. I stopped blogging. I stopped Facebooking and stopped doing social media. I just kind of stopped everything. I didn’t travel, I just stopped. And I just wanted to see what would come up. It was during this period that this whole body of work, Sacred Success, came into me. It was not only became a book but more important to me it changed the way I lived my life.

Jessica: When we begin to take time out to be quiet, that’s when we begin to hear the

voices. And hopefully it is the soul and often times the ego sneaks in.

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Barbara: Wait, always. I am sitting here, right where I am sitting now and talking to you,

and I am sitting at my desk and looking out the window and I am not doing anything and I have no clients and no speaking engagements and I feel like a loser. I feel like there is an L tattooed on my forehead and everyone can see what a loser I am. And my ego says to me, ‘Come on! Get out there. Do something. You are just going to disappear.’ And that was always my biggest fear. My biggest fear ever since I was a little girl is that I am not important, I don’t matter, and I will just disappear and no one will know I am gone. And part of what to do in this receptive surrender period is to really reflect and regroup where it is that I want to go, but also to meet our fears, to meet our demons. Because once you face that which you fear it will never control you again. And I know so much of what was pushing me to succeed was my need to feel important. But that is a no-win battle because I will never feel important. And what I saw from taking nine months out of really falling off the social media planet is I was still important. I was still important to my husband, I was important to my children, I was important to my friends, and suddenly this whole need to prove myself, my whole fear of not being important, it just left. Now, my ego keeps wanting to bring it up again but it will never have control over me like it did.

Jessica: This is the crazy thing, when it left and when you saw your worth and your value

in other places, now this whole new body of work comes up. Barbara: Which is why I said at the beginning it was so hard for me writing my book

because I remember just sitting here and writing this stuff and my ego was saying, ‘This is crap. No one is going to want to read this. This is crap.’ And I knew, even though it viscerally felt awful to me and I felt like no one was going to like it, I really felt it, and I still had to do it because this was God’s purpose for me. I had to because this was my desire.

Jessica: You mentioned before that you have heard a little bit about tapping and you have

seen one of my interviews and one of the things that I love about tapping is that it is all about honoring how you feel and accepting it. And when you get to the place where you say, ‘Yes, this is how I feel,’ and even with this voice and even with this frustration, I accept myself. There is an immense amount of freedom that comes with that.

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Barbara: I think, Jessica, and I am truly not an expert at this, but I think there is no better tool for dealing with the ego than tapping. I think it is just like a short circuit to the go.

Jessica: Yeah, I agree. It is incredible and what is so great with your book is you give

people such a clear understanding of what the go is because we have to begin to realize that voice isn’t ours. I still have the critical voice, the ego voice. Before I thought it was me, I thought it was the truth. And now it comes up, it still comes up, and I am like, ‘Hey, you’re the ego voice. I see you, I hear you, but I don’t have to pay attention to you because I am able to tell the difference between the go and what you call the soul voice. For those who are listening, what are some keys to really knowing the difference and sometimes there is a voice from the soul that says, ‘Hey, you need to course correct.’ And it gives you maybe not so much fear, but this sense that okay, now you need to take this aggressive action a different direction. And sometimes it tells you just to wait. So how do you know whether you are acting from a place of love or acting from a place of fear?

Barbara: The more that you tune in, the more you will know. But I know when it is my ego

when I am feeling this visceral feeling in my solar plexus. For me my solar plexus is a fear of terror. And I know when it is my soul when I am feeling this knowing that it is right. I may still be scared of the unknown but there is this deeper knowing that I am right. Like when I was writing this book and my ego was having a heyday telling me what crap it was, I just knew I could turn it into my soul and my soul would say, ‘Keep going, keep going.’ You will never shut the ego up. It never will. Sometimes it gets quieter, but the key is say, ‘Thank you for sharing,’ and follow the soul’s knowingness, that it is right.

Jessica: I can’t even believe that you had a moment of thinking this was crap because this

book is so good, so good. Barbara: And that is what our ego does. It has no discernment into what is truly good and

what is not. But I learned as a child that you don’t speak up, you don’t tell your truth, and you don’t talk about money. That was a big thing in my family. Can you imagine being a writer about money and a speaker about money? Every time I got to speak it is like my ego has a heyday and wants me to just shut up. It is like – because what protected you and what helped you survive as a child will suffocate you as an adult.

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Jessica: Now, money for many people, is very taboo. Whether you grew up with money or without money, there are many families that you would just never talk about it. And there is also this idea that money isn’t spiritual. It is this kind of dirty thing so here you are writing a book called Sacred Success, which is really bringing in these spiritual principles with money. So can you tell us the old belief that people have? Why do you think people have this struggle with spirituality and money? How do you feel it needs to evolve?

Barbara: Well, I claimed this word called ‘metafiscal.’ It means the blending of the

spiritual with the practical in regards to money. And I really believe that when you invite the divine into your relationship with the almighty dollar, financial success becomes a healing journey, a transformational process. And I believe for women it is a rite of passage into our power. And there is no better way, as you read this passage earlier, to take away our power than to take away access to money, which is what I think the world has been very scared f, women’s power. So they have deprived us access to money. It has only been the last 100 years we were even allowed to work and keep our money, that we could have a bank account in our own name.

Jessica: I think you said in the book it wasn’t until 1975 that women could get a bank

account without a male cosigner? Barbara: Yes, 1975. This is the fear. See, men and women – I am getting away from your

question. What is your question? Jessica: This idea that money is no spiritual, that it is kind of evil and bad to want to have

money, and where are we evolving to? How do we create a spiritual relationship with money?

Barbara: I had a line in my Sacred Success book that I kept putting in and taking out,

putting in and taking out, because I was so scared how people would react. And one of the first reviews of my book was from Publisher’s Weekly, which you know is like the Bible of the publishing world. And it was a great review and they used this line as the first line of the review. And the line was, ‘I believe money is God made visible.’ And I believe that money allows us to pursue our purpose and to really do the work we are meant to do in the grandest way possible. And I believe that the lack of money – the love of money is not the root of all evil. I think it is the lack of love, of self-love and love from our families, that creates evil. So I know one of the ways that the church and the patriarchy try to control us

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is by limiting our access or ruining our relationship with money. If you put $100 bill on the floor, it cannot shoot a gun or [inaudible – 00:47:41]. Money can’t do anything. It is us who do it. We can change and look at all the philanthropists out there like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet who are doing amazing things in this world with the money. And more than that, in order to become financially successful, in order to become wealthy, it is not just having the money, it is who we have to become to reach that level of success, and it is who we have to become and how we can use money to make a difference.

Jessica: One of the things I thought was so interesting was that you shared that for many

women, and I related to this. Making more money is not motivation enough but if you tie the making more money with serving more people that is what tends to really create that motivation that leads to success.

Barbara: Let me just refine that a little, not exactly making more money. Here is the big

difference between men and women. Research has proven this over and over again. You tell a man to go out and make more money, I don’t care how much he has. He is all over it. To a man, men are very motivated by and large by perks, profit, and prestige. It is just a big incentive. A woman – once she reaches financial stability and has food on the table, a roof over her head, and perhaps some disposable income to have her mani-pedis and buy a few pairs of shoes – but once she has financial stability she is no longer motivated by money. We just are – and like you said, it is not about money, I am not motivated by money. What motivates us is the opportunity to help another, to give back to our community, and to make a difference. And so for me my definition of sacred success is pursuing our soul’s purpose, what we are here to do. We are pursuing our soul’s purpose for our own bliss because it brings us joy, and there is benefit to others because we love helping and being richly rewarded.

Jessica: One of the things that my brother has often said, which I love, is he said, ‘If you

see all these pharmaceutical companies making so much money and some people are dying from it, but some people are helped. There is also a lot of bad. Why can’t someone who is teaching personal empowerment make just as much money?’

Barbara: Yeah, why can’t the healers and caretakers of this world make as much money? Jessica: Because I think for many healers and caretakers there is this kind of martyr

mentality of well, if I am helping somebody I shouldn’t charge them for it. I

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should just do it out of the kindness of my heart. What do you say to someone who is struggling with that thought process?

Barbara: I see many things but one, make a lot of money and then give it away. Give it to

causes you feel passionate about. But it is – you talked earlier about self-worth and self-value and there really is a connection between our self-worth and our value. It was so interesting when I interview women who made six figures. I asked all of them, ‘Are you doing what you’re doing for the money?’ And 95% of them said, ‘No, no, I am not doing what I am doing for the money. I am doing it for the recognition, the passion, the challenge.’ But this is what was important to me. At the same time they all said, ‘But I damn well want to be well-compensated because I know I am worth it.’ It is that understanding of the value that we bring to the table that is what is really critical. It is understanding our value in the world, what we bring to the world, who we are as individuals, that really ups the game for us.

Jessica: Yes, I got goose bumps. I love it. So Barbara, I have some rapid fire – and

actually not even that rapid, but some questions that I like to ask everybody at the end of the episode. Some are serious and some are just silly and funny, but they tend to be enlightening. So my first question as we switch gears here is what is something that nobody would know about you unless they went to middle school with you?

Barbara: What nobody would know unless we went to middle school together? I am really

shy and I am really introverted and people scare me. Jessica: Really? Now this is interesting. What advice do you have for other people who

are introverted but feel like they have a message they want to share with the world?

Barbara: Spend lots of time alone. We introverts – it is from spending time alone that we

get juiced up, that we get the energy and the courage to go out there and spread the word. It is a combination of having a really clear passion and a really clear purpose and really spending time alone.

Jessica: I love that. When you have a craving for fun and you just want to do something

fun and you want to let loose, what do you do?

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Barbara: Wow, I don’t know. My life is so fun. But on the other hand, when you asked that I was thinking, ‘Do I let go?’ Maybe I don’t and maybe I need to do that because I married a man who really knows how to have fun. He is teaching me how to play. And I think that is something I need to do more of to really let go.

Jessica: I love that. So listen, it could just be, ‘I go hang out with my husband and spend

time with him.’ Barbara: Yeah, well that I do but that is very fun. Yeah, I go and take a walk in the woods.

I don’t really – I gotta cut a little loose more, no, this is good. Jessica: Awesome, then okay, next question. It is a really hard one so I just want you to

say the first answer that comes to your mind. What is one book that has changed your life?

Barbara: A Course in Miracles. I have been reading it for 32 years, and Sacred Success and

all my work is based on principles of A Course in Miracles. I continue to read it every day and that book has virtually and literally changed my life.

Jessica: And last question – if you could be any kind of animal, what would you be and

why? Barbara: I would be a bird. I would love to be able to sing. I can’t carry a tune. I would

love to be able to sing and I would love to be able to fly. Jessica: I love that you said you would love to sing first because people tend to go right to

the flying. Barbara: Yeah, I would love to sing. Jessica: I love the singing. Barbara: I like that quote and you have heard it – a bird doesn’t sing because he has a song,

a bird sings because he loves to sing. And I have often thought about that with my books- I love writing. I don’t have to write because I have a book idea, I just write.

Jessica: Yes, and thank you for writing because I think books are spiritual and they tend to

have this life of their own. They come into your life at a perfect moment and your

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life really came into my life at the perfect moment. If there was one thing that you wanted to tell those who are listening about your work or your book or something you hope tomorrow that when people are brushing their teeth they will think about in regards to this interview, what would that be?

Barbara: I have this philosophy of life and my children, whenever they ask for advice, I

always tell them this. They always know what I am going to tell them. If you ever feel stuck, if you ever don’t know what to do next, this is how I live my life. Do what you fear because that is how you grow. So whenever something is not working, look at the thing you are most scared to do and that is what you do.

Jessica: I love that, Barbara. Thank you so much for spending time with us today. I really

just appreciate it. Barbara: Oh, Jessica, you are just adorable and it was so fun to hang out with you. I have

never met you in person so this was really fun.

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myself.’ ‘Fine.’ That was the discussion.ts-podcasts.s3.amazonaws.com/AdventuresInHappiness/... · Jessica Ortner: Welcome to Adventures in Happiness. Nick Ortner: Are you recording