Podcast

Episode 340: The Secret To Creating Emotional Safety No Matter The Circumstance with Alexander James

Episode 340: The Secret To Creating Emotional Safety No Matter The Circumstance with Alexander James

In this episode I’m interviewing my friend and fellow coach Alexander James. I met Alexander through Stacey Boehman’s 200K Mastermind and knew that I needed to share his energy and his wisdom on this podcast. Alexander is a life coach that works with the deep subconscious and I know you’re going to get a lot from what Alexander shares in this episode.

We talk about how to create emotional safety and develop self-trust – as well as all of the practical ways to do that. Everything we talk about in this episode is going to help you get into a growth mindset and out of your own way, especially if you’ve been struggling to show up in your business as your most authentic self.
If you enjoy this episode, I encourage you to follow Alexander on Instagram @thesubconsciousbrand (his stories are insanely valuable) and listen to his podcast The Subconscious Coaching Podcast.

In This Episode You’ll Learn:

  • Why creating emotional safety is so important for perfectionists
  • How to feel safe showing up on social media as the ‘real’ you
  • The self-trust triangle and how to use it to build self-trust
  • Business lessons from one of my and Alexander’s favourite entrepreneurs

PGSD is opening to new students on 27 July 2022:

The PGSD Process will get you out of your own way in your business and have you making more money more easily. The doors to Perfectionists Getting Shit Done will be opening at 6am New York time on 27 July and closing at 11:59pm New York time on 2 August 2022. To find out more about the program and be the first to know when the doors open, join the waitlist here: samlaurabrown.com/pgsd.

Listen To The Episode

Listen to the episode on the player above, click here to download the episode and take it with you or listen anywhere you normally listen to podcasts – just find Episode 340 of The Perfectionism Project Podcast!

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If you’ve been struggling to show up online - and in your business - as the ‘real’ you then this episode is for you. Tune in to learn how to create emotional safety so that you can feel safe being yourself in your business and others can feel safe too.

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Sam Laura Brown
Hi, and welcome to another episode of The Perfectionism Project. A podcast full of perfectionism advice for entrepreneurs. My name is Sam Laura Brown, I help entrepreneurs release their perfectionism handbrake, so they can get out of their own way and build a fulfilling and profitable business. I’m the founder of the perfectionist getting shit done group coaching program, which is otherwise known as PGSD. And for even more perfectionism advice to help you with your business, you can follow me on Instagram @perfectionismproject.

This interview is with Alexander James, he is a life coach who works with the deep subconscious. And in this episode, we talk about how to create emotional safety, no matter the circumstance, and really how to create a business where you feel safe to show up as yourself and others feel safe to show up as themselves as well. I think this is so important for perfectionist, we talk about self trust. And especially we tend to be people pleasers, we’re scared of judgment. And that can particularly show up when we are marketing. And especially if sharing yourself is part of your business, whether that’s your own journey, but also just showing your face and who you are online and with others who might not agree with how you do things or the way you look or like all of that kind of thing, that it can feel really vulnerable.

And we end up watering ourselves down and trying to be the most palatable, most liked version of ourselves. And then we kind of end up just creating this cage that we need to live in. And it’s very unfulfilling and unsatisfying. So Alexander is just such a great example of what it looks like to let yourself actually be yourself. And also, he shares a lot of practical advice to help you do that as well. So this episode, I really want you to listen to it in full as well. Because at the end, we talk about one of our favorite entrepreneurs, I won’t say who, but we talk about and by the way, she’s not a coach or like anyone that I know personally, or have worked with or anything like that. I wish that would be amazing.

Anyway, stay tuned for that, because we share some incredible business lessons that we have both learned from this entrepreneur. And there’s so many amazing stories that Alexander shares, and also his energy. I just I’m so grateful to have him on the podcast. He’s just has his grounded calming energy. And I met Alexander through Stacey Boehman’s 200k mastermind, we’ve done peer coaching sessions with each other, and a whole heap of things. And I just wanted you to hear from him because I know that you are going to find what he shares so helpful. And I want to point you to his Instagram, particularly his Instagram stories that I want to screenshot every single one of them because they blow my mind, they are so incredibly helpful. So go and follow him on Instagram. He’s @subconscious brand. And his podcast is the sub.

Oh my goodness, I am getting all tongue tied the subconscious coaching podcast. So you can find that anywhere you listen to podcasts as well. I know it’s gonna be so helpful for you. And particularly if you are a coach, then I want to make sure you go and follow him because he works with coaches. But in this episode, we talk about so many things that apply to all entrepreneurs, we are really talking about how to create emotional safety, regardless of whether you are a artists, you are an author, you are a real estate agent, you’re a coach like me, you are a copywriter, all the things so if you are a coach, definitely go and check him out because he specifically works with coaches. But stay tuned. No matter what kind of business you have to this episode, I know you’re going to be able to take away so much from it and really create the emotional safety that you deserve. And be able to create that for yourself, no matter what else is going on in your life so that you can feel safe in your business. And that will only make it easier to show up fully. So I hope you enjoy this interview with Alexander James.

Sam Laura Brown

Hi, Alexander, welcome to the podcast. I’m really excited to be talking to you today.

Alexander James
I’m so excited to be here.

Sam Laura Brown
Would you mind sharing what you help people with and also how you got into helping people with that?

Alexander James
Of course. So I am a coach of the deep, subconscious mind. So I work with a lot of yin/yang principles and work on deeper paradigm shifting in people’s lives. So not just looking at the thoughts that we have and how they are creating our feelings and emotions, but the entire belief structures that we exist in that are creating those thoughts. So I love digging in having the deep conversations and my pathway to coaching and getting there was really through my own journey of entrepreneurship. There were so many places where I felt like, I knew all this stuff intellectually, I had what it took, I knew I wasn’t like, you know, just hopeless intellectually, to figure it out. But there’s something that just kept on blocking me. And I just wasn’t able to build my business. And it wasn’t until I went really deep and started looking at some of the paradigms that were creating everything about how I was trying to do business, it’s a lot like the fish in the water that doesn’t know it’s wet, right? It wasn’t until I found that level of thinking that I was actually able to liberate myself and create the multi six figure business that I have today. So I just feel so passionate. I’m like, on the rooftop screaming, I’m like everybody, look at your paradigms, look at your subconscious. So that’s my thing. That’s my jam.

Sam Laura Brown
Amazing. And I really wanted to have you on the podcast, because as I was sharing before we started recording, and I’ve also shared with you before that, I was looking at all of your Instagram stories. And we met through the 200k mastermind. And when we were on the first call that we had together, we were both on, I just felt like your energy was so grounded, and just so wise, and I just felt instantly connected to you. And then I was like screenshotting, all of your stories, and we’ve had peer coaching calls and things like that as well. And I was just like, I need to get you on the podcast, to show you that my people and just so much of what you have to offer. And what you help people with I know will resonate with everyone who is listening. So you mentioned about before we started recording, we’re talking about what you do what we want to chat about, and you mentioned that you really just help people shop online and have a good time doing it. Why is that important to you? And were you not showing up online and not having a good time doing it? What was that like?

Alexander James
Totally, we’ll go to that story. Yeah. So I always like to say that, the way that I was showing up to market my business for the first two years, you know, when it was just crickets and hopes and belief and you know, sitting in my room trying to figure out what was wrong with me. I was like hiding in plain sight, is how I would describe it. It’s like I was quote unquote, showing up and I was doing all the right things. I was saying all the right things and had all the sales formulas and you know, was really showing up in a way that according to everyone around me in the industry at large, I was like I’m looking at all these successful people, I’m looking at all the things they’re doing, I’m showing them exactly like them. But what I feel like was mismatched for me was that there wasn’t resonance that was occurring with people.

So the information was solid, the delivery was solid, all of that stuff, but it’s what I call an X factor of your brand is the resonance that you have with people. And when you inhabit and are actually able to take up space as an energetic being in an energetic field and energetic universe, what you do is you create this very specific vibration, that’s very specific to you, that is almost like a bat signal, is what I like to call it into the quantum field that just magically pulls people in and has them land where they need to be in alignment with you in terms of where their journey is going. So, you know, there’s a couple of things that blocked me on that one was not feeling safe to show up online as my full embodied self. For anybody who ends up on my Instagram after this, you’ll see it’s a little wild, it’s a little crazy. It’s a little wacky over there. People say people get on my page, and they have one of two reactions.

They’re either like, this is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. Or they’re like, who let that out of the zoo. So you’re gonna love it, you’re gonna hate it. And that’s all great because the people who love it really love it. And that’s what my brand was missing was that deep resonance with the people who are going to be my absolute best clients who are going to just be pulling their hair out waiting to pay me. And so it was safety, right, it was one of the things and then the other one was just trying to fit into a mold of entrepreneurship or marketing or business or branding, and kind of like looking at this cookie cutter template, you know, and I’m in the life coaching industry. So I was looking at all the nice cookie cutter coaches, with the nice cookie cutter fonts, and they’re, you know, templates and they’re Canva and not there’s anything wrong with that, right? The world needs those people and you know, it’s whatever is in alignment for you.

But I’m like, out there psychedelic Maverick Burning Man. Irreverent just The fashionista global icon, right? So it just was so not me. And that’s when I kind of had this deep breakthrough in my subconscious in it, it really for me became about, oh, I’ve been limiting myself and thinking, okay, these are the parts of me that are marketable, or that are valuable or that people would trust, right. And the result of that was, I was only half showing up. And then people weren’t relating to me, they weren’t receiving the message. They weren’t fully trusting me. And it wasn’t until I created a brand that allowed me to expand as a person, a brand that was expansive enough for me to explore myself online and be creative and be out of the box. That I mean, it was just kind of like, it was a little shocking. I went from making $30,000 in 2020, to making over $300,000, in 2021. So I was like, okay, clearly this works. And so from there, it’s just been an expansion and an exploration of how do we refine this process? And how do we create more space for ourselves in our businesses in the online space and create that resonance, that X factor.

Sam Laura Brown
How do you measure whether you’re resonating with others? I think that when you mentioned that what I wrote down was that sometimes we think that the best way to measure that is with likes and engagement and all of those kinds of metrics. And my guess is you’re not going to say that’s the best way. So what would you have people think about when they’re asking themselves? Like, is this something I need to be working on? Is this something that I’m doing as well? Am I just hiding in plain sight?

Alexander James
Yeah. So there’s two ways that I think about resonance. So I love what you said about like, likes and engagement and stuff, because, you know, I’m a person who doesn’t like anything, you can write the best content in the world, and I won’t like it. I’m just like, not my thumb isn’t in the habit of tapping, like, I’m afraid of Instagram, you know, getting any more information or algorithm and whatever. So you can have the best, most amazing content, and it can resonate so deeply with people and they won’t like it, right? You can have mediocre whatever content and you’re not your aunt who you know, lives in, who knows where we’ll be, we’ll be tapping that and she’ll like everything you put, right. So I don’t try to look at engagement metrics at all, really, in my business. So the thing that I actually look at, and engage is the, the actual connection that’s happening with my people, and the actual safety that my people feel to reach out and share their experience that they’re having around my work with me.

And so it might happen in a comment. But a lot of times it happens in the DMS, it’s like people reaching out being like, Oh, thank you so much, wow, I can’t tell you how impactful this was, or I just wanted to, you know, drop in and tell you that I applied that tip that you were giving, and I’m having the absolute best time in my business, thank you so much, right. So there’s a piece of it that actually comes from creating a relationship with your people, right. But that’s also not the best way, when you’re trying to find your resonance for the first time, that’s how you’ll know you’ll found it, because people will just be resonating, and they’ll just be in your field being like, Thank you! Wow it’s amazing. This is incredible. Oh, I’m being so fed, and I’m getting results and all of this stuff. But finding your resonance is actually a process of internally finding what resonates within you. And finding and creating the space in your branding, in your marketing. When you show up on lives when you’re doing your YouTube videos, or your podcast or whatever it is where you’re enjoying yourself, and you’re having a good time.

And you’re in the active and engaged process of really just the only way I can describe it is it feels like an unfurling or an expansion, right, when you create that deep resonance, it’s something that goes beyond and that’s why I like the word because resonance kind of gives you the idea of this vibration, it goes beyond here’s the sales strategies, here’s like the the hook of the thing and then a copy you have to put this part in and then you know, you have to write your call to action, whatever. We see hundreds of those every day and they’re all done according to the textbook, right? I’m not saying those things aren’t helpful, but it’s the person who actually like shows up in resonates in their own frequency and is so safe within themselves to expand out in that way that ends up being a scroll stopper and that you end up being like Oh, I feel really connected to this person. And then you listen and you know, all that copy stuff and all the sales stuff is able to do what it’s meant to do.

Sam Laura Brown
Yeah, For me, what comes up when I hear you say that is I’ve recently been exploring this myself. And when I change the question, like the subconscious question from, do they like me, to, do I like me, and that, for me has been really helpful instead of posting as a way to be validated. And not even a lot of times I don’t even doing this consciously. But especially if you are finding that you’re, you know, refreshing and checking stats and that kind of thing. It’s often with this driver of like, do they like me, ie, I don’t like me, so I need them to like me. And when it’s, I like me, and I like who I’m being. And I’m sure and that doesn’t mean that everything I create is going to feel profound and amazing or whatever. But I like me, I like who I’m being, then it’s so much easier, I found personally, to just show up and share my best stuff. But when I’m thinking about do they like me, then it’s just like, watered down, palatable, whatever my view on that is, like it just and it doesn’t resonate. And then it’s frustrating. It’s like, well, no, I need now I need them to like me more. And then it can just kind of be this whole cycle, because it’s like, well, they don’t like the watered-down version of me.

So I need to be even more watered down when like, I love what you’re saying it’s the opposite. It’s like, no more watering down and creating the emotional safety, to feel safe doing that. And to be able to do that, regardless of what the response is. Because often, like when I found at least when it’s finding your resonance, that it is going to take a minute and it’s like having the safety in the container to create that. Like to show up that way. While you’re waiting to get that response back. And I wanted to also add that when there’s like one person DMing you just to remember that there are so many more, who wants to be the person DMing you but also just lurkers who are never going to DM me so to like, see, like every comment every like every DM, whatever, just remembering there’s at least 10 more, if not many, many more people for every person who does that, that are resonating with what you’re sharing, and they’re just never going to tell you about it. But can we talk about emotional safety? What does it look like to create emotional safety? So that you feel safe showing up online as yourself and not this watered-down palatable cookie-cutter template following version?

Alexander James
Yes, oh my god, of course, we can talk about this because it’s, it underpins all of what we do, right. And all of this process of showing up online and really just like pouring your heart out, is the process of creating emotional safety for yourself. And what I find so interesting. And I always come back to when I come into this conversation is that, really, so much of emotional safety is a fear of judgment. And the judgment that we are afraid of is always the judgment that we think someone else is going to have about us. But notice how it’s us thinking, they’re going to have that judgment, which means it’s actually our thought. So what ever you are thinking needs to be watered down is where you have to go within and be like, Oh, these are the subconscious programs that like are telling me that, you know, like, I can’t be wildly flamboyant and queer and have a highly successful, profitable business. You know, that was the biggest thing that I was taming down was just like, I worked in fashion for 10 years and, you know, did editorials and journals and stuff.

So I love expressing myself that way. And then like, there I was in my pictures and like a coffee mug in Banana Republic like, Hey guys, you know, just like, in a way that I’d never dressed in my entire life. And it was coming back to the end being willing to question like, Okay, well, who do I like? Who am I resonating with and finding that it wasn’t that template of a person, and then realizing like, oh, well, if I’m really drawn to these kinds of wacky, offbeat, interesting artistic types, then there’s got to be people that would be attracted to that part of me. And just understanding I think, for me, the foundational spiritual belief that I have, is that, you know, I am very specifically made as a vibratory spiritual instrument on this planet right now, exactly the way I am, to vibrate at an exact frequency that’s going to attract in the exact right people.

And that process, and I also don’t want anybody listening to think that it’s like, I woke up one morning, and I was like, I’m gonna be myself, you know, and then I just like, went for it. Because I think a lot of people come onto my page, and they, they see how expressed I am and how out of the box and wacky it is, and they’re like, oh, that’s fine, you can do that. But I’m not anywhere near there. Right. It was a process and an exploration. And so I think giving yourself permission to be in the exploration publicly, is also really important. Sometimes we feel this like pressure to like, have it all together, have our brand figured out. And there’s no room for exploration and growth and self discovery. And so that’s the other piece I put in is right, you got to look at all your own judgments, and all the ways that you’re kind of not safe and affirming in your own mind and your own brand, right, you have to create a brand that’s safe for you to be in. And that begins in your mind, right.

And once your brand is safe for you to be in, then it becomes a safe space for other people like you to be in and that’s what draws them in. And then the second part is what I was just talking about, it’s really expanding your tolerance to be in exploration publicly and to be changing. And oh, I’m gonna try this color palette. Like, I remember when I was going through this was like 3 or 4-6-8 months. I mean, it’s still going on, right? It’s how I teach branding is you’re always experimenting and exploring new pieces of yourself, but there was like, really like six months where it was just like, you know, six posts in one template and then I’m like, No, I like want to try the 70s vibe bow and like, I’m gonna get myself a mullet and like, let’s try that. And then it was like, you know, all these satins and I was just like a rocker. And then it was like, I found this new designer who I fell in love with and it’s super spacey, and new agey, and I was like, Oh, this is so dope. And so having that space for myself and my brand was just so creative, so much safety for me.

Sam Laura Brown
And I want to offer as well that not to everyone listening though you can take it if you want. But something that really helped me when I was like when I had the realization early on in my business that I would need to grow in public and be okay with being seen to grow and evolve and to not have it all figured out something that really helped me just create that emotional safety was I used to go to the Wayback Machine. I don’t know if you’ve done this, but go online, and you can go to the Wayback Machine, just type that into Google. And you can look at this is particularly what I started as a blog. And so I was looking at other people’s blogs, and I would go back, you could see the first versions of their blogs, their websites, or whatever it was, or their YouTube channel.

And it just really helped me to see that others had a very similar looking beginning. And that, you know, it’s that cliche thing of like, we’re comparing our chapter one to someone to chapter 20. But to literally see it and to really understand like, it was so helpful for me to be able to witness that they had evolved. And this is one of the reasons on the podcast, I’m constantly sharing, like what I’m working on in real time, and all of that kind of thing, because I know how calming and empowering it was, for me, to see others in evolution to not just, you know, if everyone had just figured out exactly how to show up and what their brand was, and all of that stuff. And then they just announced themselves to the world and never changed. It’s not inspiring, it doesn’t resonate. And just knowing that for me, it was helpful to see others evolve and grow in public that maybe for others, it would be helpful for them to see me do that has really given me a lot of permission to share, like the journey that I’ve been on with my business and with my perfectionism and all of that kind of thing.

And that has been something that has created a lot of emotional safety for me, and particularly in the beginning, when I felt like I had zero emotional safety around showing up online. That is something that just helped me to be able to get started and then decide that it was okay to as you were saying, like, have this color scheme, and then the next week, it’d be completely different. And then I’d like go away and hide for a few months, because I just felt like so overwhelmed by putting myself out there. And then I’d come back again. And like just being okay with that being a journey. I love how you talked about it being a process and an exploration of what came up for me and I’d love you to speak a bit more to this is that when we hear this kind of thing about really figuring out what it means to be showing up as yourself and that kind of thing. It can be really tempting to be like, Okay, well now I need to like go away into a cave and figure that out.

And then I’m going to, like get clarity on that. Like, I think this idea of having clarity is is really like procrastination a lot of times that we like, well, once I have more clarity, then I’ll be able to show up better. So the most productive thing for me to do is to go away and get that clarity. But I love that you talk about it being in public that you are doing that experimenting, rather than just doing it all behind the scenes in private. Is there anything you want to say to that, or if someone’s listening to this, like, I know I need to do this. And like all of me just wants to go away and hide and figure this out in private and then come out and, you know, share what I’ve discovered and be the real me online or whatever. What would you say to them?

Alexander James
Yeah, well, the first thing I want to say is, I just think it’s so cool. Everything you just shared about you sharing where you’re at in your process and your evolution with your people, right? Like, that’s what created your resonance is you actually being able to be like, Okay, now here’s what’s really going on guys, like some weeks are great. And some weeks like it’s flaring up and I’m procrastinating and I’m my brain is going crazy, right? That’s what creates the resonance. That’s what created the huge success of this podcast and your business. And so what I want to offer to people is it’s not getting the quote unquote, brand, right, or figuring it out or having it all streamlined, that actually creates the resonance, although that will when you get to that stage, it will help you tremendously. I had people coming into my business just after I made the decision, like I’m just gonna experiment and play and have this space for myself and be a total mess and throw the spaghetti.

You know, in my program, I call it throwing spaghetti at the wall like we’re throwing spaghetti at the wall doesn’t have to be pretty, it doesn’t have to be interesting. We’re just like, want to see what happens on what sticks and have some fun and be crazy with it. As soon as I opened up that energetically, money started pouring into my business and nothing even made sense on my social media. My messaging wasn’t clear, my branding wasn’t clear, but my energy was clear and the space that I was holding for myself was so clear to other people. And I think that one of the most powerful things when you are a as a life coach, a healer or anybody who works one on one with others, right, or interacts with other people, a lot of what people are buying is your relationship with yourself. They see subconsciously, it’s again, it’s like, there’s that subconscious energy field that people pick up on.

And it’s like, because you can tell like from across the room, you can see someone and kind of be like, skeeved out by them and be like, oh, like, what’s up with that creepo, right, or from across the room, you can see someone and be like, Oh, my God, like, they’re just like, glowing, I have to go talk to them, right. And so much of that is their, your relationship with yourself. And when people go out looking to just be around other people, right, no matter what they’re buying, a lot of what people are actually buying is your relationship to yourself. And so when that shifted in me, right, and I was like, I’m going to create a business that feels safe for all of me to be in, and I’m going to hold this beautiful, safe space for myself. People starts flooding in. So just knowing that it’s not, the branding is actually just this, the way I teach it anyways, it’s just like a canvas for self expression, and self exploration. Always, there’s never an end goal. And it’s this practice of cultivating this vulnerability with the self and being in authentic expression and radical honesty and letting that vibrate into the universe. Because your truth is medicine for your people. And that’s what they need to hear.

Sam Laura Brown
Yeah, I love what you said about there’s never an end goal, because I think particularly with things like branding and niche messaging like that, well, the things that it’s easy to get in our mind that like, there’s this end destination, and we just need to get there. And once we get that everything else will click into place. And I think it’s marketed that way, a lot of times that we have this idea that, like if I can just nail this, then everything else will be easy. And I love instead thinking in that much more growth minded way about that isn’t this angle. And that doesn’t mean we’re not going to make a lot of progress and have clarity and all of those things. But that we’re not trying to get to this finite point. And once we get there, then everything’s going to magically be better.

What would you say to someone who is wanting to throw spaghetti at the wall, and to start doing that, and doesn’t want to be all or nothing about it like once to just have that be part of what they’re doing. But it not to be this all consuming thing that they now need to like, go and spend all their energy doing? How could someone start throwing spaghetti at the wall? Like what does that look like for your clients? What does that look like for you? I know you’ve talked about it a bit. But is there anything specifically that you’d share with someone who’s like, Okay, I want to start doing this and like, practicing putting myself out there more as me and like creating the safety to do that. So how could they start doing that?

Alexander James
Yeah, for sure. I think a big part of it is learning how to take your mind out of the equation sometimes. And…

Sam Laura Brown
Tell me more, it was really helpful.

Alexander James
And following either just your desire your knee, you know, like, Oh, my God, like, I just don’t know why, but I’m pulled to that I want to put those shoes on even though like, you know, they’re my most expensive Chanel’s, and I’m just going to the grocery store, right? Or, like when you feel that deep inner wisdom or something pulling you in your gut as well, I think we’re taught in the western world so much to value, the wisdom of the mind. But we really have three different intelligence centers, right, we have our gut, we have our heart, and we have our mind, and all of them give us different information.

And so, so much of the throwing spaghetti at the wall, what’s hard is when you’re trying to do it with your mind, you’re trying to figure it out. And it’s actually a very intuitive process and so you can’t strategically plan out okay, I’m gonna throw spaghetti on the wall two days a week and I’m going to try and plan it out and then four days a week, I’ll do my normal thing and right? And like, that’s where the perfectionist mind wants to go is like, how am I going to do this? It’s you find it in the small moments of just like listening to your fuck yeah, and being like, orange lipstick.

Okay, that sounds fun. Like let me wear it in my post. Or, oh, this like kind of racy topic that I think my aunt is going to be a little like, taken aback by like, it feels juicy. Like let’s lean in a little bit, and allowing your other intelligence centers to come online. And what you’ll find is as you get in the practice of doing that, it becomes a lot easier and you feel a lot safer doing that, and you start doing it in bigger and bigger ways. And for me, the way I teach branding is like completely backwards from anything I’ve ever seen. Because it’s like, you won’t know your brand until it’s already be created.

Because you’ll look back. And you’ll be like, oh, whoa, it suddenly all make sense. Like, it just clicks, but it’s not something you create ahead of time. And you’re like, oh, yeah, I have a bird has my logo. So I’m gonna have like, these little chirp noises that happen and da da da da, it doesn’t happen that way. It’s you follow your intuition, it’s within you. Because I believe that, you know, identity and branding are subconsciously kind of the same thing. It’s like they they serve the same function, right?

Your Branding is just your identity in public. And the more that you can align who you are in private with who you are in public, like, the more resonance you’re gonna have with people. And so it’s being willing to be with, oh, this is just what I want to do right now. So I’m just gonna listen to that, right? Because people you get in this conversation of like, Okay, I gotta be myself, who am I? Like, who am I going to decide to be? And that’s such an overwhelming conversation that like, has people spin out and like, have existential crisis is that people like come to work with me and be like, Oh, I don’t know who I am. And I’m like, you don’t have to know who you are. What do you want right now, in this moment, that’s all you need to know.

Because that’s gonna lead you into some kind of an expression, right? I believe you’re on a little bit of a tangent here. But I believe that who we all truly are, are creators, right? Creators of our reality with our thoughts, creators in the world with our businesses. All we’re here to do in this realm is to create and so when we are in creation, we are in alignment with our true identity or our authentic identity. And it doesn’t really matter what we’re creating and what the color scheme is, or what it is.

It’s the energetic vibration, or vibrational place that we’re creating from, and finding a place that feels fun or interesting or desirous to express from, that’s how you’ll find your authenticity in every moment. And that requires a lot of presence and self attunement, as opposed to going into your head and being the people pleaser and being the perfectionist and think, well, it should all make sense. And it should all you know da da da da. Just allowing yourself to drop into moments of, okay, what do I want next? Or what do I want right now? Let me just honor that and oppose the story that’s gonna piss my aunt off or whatever it is.

Sam Laura Brown
Yeah, something that came up for me as you were saying all that was. I recently wrote out a list of feelings that I want to practice being in, and feelings that are my little alarm bells that it’s my infectious mindset. I’m getting my intuitive those feelings that a little alarm bells to me. Strategic and formulaic. If I’m feeling like formulaic about something or strategic, it’s not that we don’t want to sometimes be strategic, but for me, I’ve just found that when I’m thinking of something in a really formulaic strategic way, that’s really me getting in my head about it and ignoring my own wisdom and my own gut on whatever that thing is, and that I’m in that perfectionist mindset of like there’s a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it. And if I can just get it done the right way, then it’s going to have this result and when I it’s been so helpful that when I find myself wanting to be formulaic, or like super structured about something, and I love structure, I find it really helpful but I just have that little note to self of like okay, let’s investigate what’s going on here.

What energy is that coming from and that I think like that wanting to be formulaic is one way that my brain likes to try to create emotional safety for me that like it’s that kind of you know, if I can just control everything and have like everything in a neat little box and all of that then I can be safe and to know that it’s okay that my brain wants to go there. And I can redirect it into like the feelings I have written down like inviting connected sufficient confident, helpful, committed, determined, at ease accepted, curious, open, grateful, certain loved intuitive, trusting ground did creative flowy into productive, organized, rested decisive in service so like, those are the feelings that I have written on the whiteboard in front of me, as well as some thoughts that really helped to get me there. And I just like, throughout the day, have a think about am I feeling any of those ways? Or what would it look like to access that and how else am I feeling? It’s just been really helpful for me to start to explore my emotional life more because that’s something that I’ve felt disconnected from at times, and I’ve had the realization that like, good isn’t a feeling.

What else could I use to describe that said like that physical sensation, which is kind of like good things are good, and it’s been so helpful for me to start to have more of a vocabulary around it. And yet that just came to mind when you were talking about that. Because I have definitely, at times been very in my head about things. And it really feels like that will make things successful. And it’s like the success I’ve had has been in spite of that, not because of that, but something I want to ask you about when you’re saying about fun? How can we create emotional safety around fun because it’s something that perfection is like, unreal for me even like the idea of fun business, isn’t it? I like for so long, I was like, I don’t even need it to be like, fun is not the goal with the business. And it’s like this idea that the more serious and professional and strategic it is, the more successful it’ll be. And then like, I’ll have all my emotional boxes ticked from that. And this idea of it being fun, just felt like, I don’t even like, sure that’d be nice. But I’m not even like pulled towards it being fun. I think it’s that like, paradigms around what that means all these different things. But what would you say around creating safety around letting yourself have fun in your business and letting yourself rest as well? It’s something I’d love to chat about.

Alexander James
Yeah. Well, I love like, what I’ll pick up on is this idea of you talked about, like alarm bells. And I don’t know if you’ve said this, or if I just heard it in my mind. But you talked about strategic and you almost the way I heard it is strategic as a feeling. And I was like, Oh, what is strategic feel like when it’s in the F line, like when it’s when it’s a feeling in your body? Have I tapped into it? And I was like, oh, whoa, yeah, that’s not a fun vibration. Like when you’re feeling strategic. It’s fun to be strategic sometimes, right? But a feeling is not great. When you feel strategic. There’s something so interesting, like controlling. Yeah, exactly.

And so the thing that we have kept coming around to in this conversation, but I have never fully dropped into is this conversation around certainty. Right. And so, so often what we’re looking for a certainty, and our branding or certainty, and our strategy, or whatever it is. And that’s just another form of control. And all of these kinds of ways that especially like as perfectionist, and as somebody who also identifies as a perfectionist myself, it’s like, I come back to this, this trying to create certainty through controlling, right through things like feeling strategic or feeling whatever. And it’s very hard to want to move towards fun, if you aren’t feeling safe, if you’re getting safe from certainty if you’re getting safe from controlling. And so, you know, one of the things I always talk about is how wherever control is, trust is not.

Sam Laura Brown
I just write that down. I was like, I remember Alexander, I saw it on your stories, I think and I when I saw that I was like, yes, it’s 100% True. Tell, tell us well, please. So relevant.

Alexander James
Yeah. So wherever we’re feeling like we need to control something in our lives, right? Whenever you feel like you need to control your partner to you know, do the dishes or, you know, pick up the kids from school, or remember to do whatever, it’s because you’re not trusting them to do that. Right? It’s wherever you feel a need to be controlling. And wherever, you know, that inner control freak in us, which I have a very strong one that I work with a lot. Whenever they come up, what it actually is, is they’re trying to meet this need for safety through certainty. Right? And what that ends up doing is it ends up really externalizing the way safety works in our lives, right? It’s a strategy to get that safety but to get it externally, it’s like well, as long as you know, so and so isn’t late and you know, so and so does this thing and then you know, whatever, then I can feel safe.

Sam Laura Brown
And I get paid a certain amount per month, like earn a certain amount per month. Yeah.

Alexander James
Yes, exactly. Especially as an entrepreneur, like, as long as I am have all this control of these things, then I’ll feel safe, but you’ll never feel safe. Because all of it is external. And so the thing that’s internal, and the feeling that I have people work on are the three areas of trust that exist, right, and I call this the manifestation triangle. So there’s trust in yourself, right? And I really just like kind of pull that back to resilience, right? There’s trust in others. So kind of trusting and believing in the benevolent good of other people in the universe, and that there’s so many people who want to come in and support you, and that like that support is out there available to be tapped into in others.

And then trust in the universe, which is sort of where I draw in the spiritual trust of like, okay, even if it feels like, I really screwed the pooch on this, or somebody is really not showing up, like I can trust that somehow the universe is organizing this for my highest timeline, somehow, you know, there’s like, something’s going on for my benefit. And the more expansive you feel in all three of those things, the more you can lean into any of them in any given moment, the more access you have to the frequency of trust, which I believe is analogous to faith. And I actually believe that faith is in a very quantum field way. It’s like, it’s a spiritual technology for creation of abundance, right?

I always say, when we’re in scarce thinking, we create less, we enjoy less, we have less when you’re taking action from scarcity, the result is always less. And when you’re taking action from abundance. And these feelings of abundance, we always create more. So when you go and you look at spiritual teachers, and you see how Jesus fed, you know, the droves of people with the five loaves of bread and the fish and all of that stuff. All these are miracles of faith. And that’s why I feel like it comes up so much is because that frequency of faith, that frequency of trust is a frequency of manifestation. And the more we have trust in those three things in ourselves and others in the universe, the more kind of the infinite realm of possibilities open up to us. And the easier it is to manifest through intentional trusting of those three things. So bring it back to fun, which is what you asked me about is…

Sam Laura Brown
So relevant.

Alexander James
Yeah, I always tied up somehow. The thing that happens when it comes back to fun is, it’s really hard to have fun when you’re not trusting anything and anyone around you. Right? Because then you don’t feel safe. Oh, yourself. Yeah, totally. And so it’s one of those things where I work on that. Because I believe that a fun and play is a natural human expression. And it’s an expression of our creativity. And it’s a an expression of our higher consciousness, right? The higher consciousness an animal is, the more you will see it engaging in play.

And I believe it’s the same for us as entrepreneurs and creators, the more we can get into play states and be curious and engaged and having fun and light hearted and feel like it’s all practice. My business this year is practice my business 10 years from now, it’s I’m still gonna be in practice mode, right? There’s no performance, there’s no evaluation, you know, in a way that’s like, oh, you’re a good person, you’re a bad person, the more we can just drop in to that deep sense of play and creation, the more that fun will naturally happen. But you need that foundation to build that foundation of trust first with yourself and with others and with the universe.

Sam Laura Brown
Yeah, so much like it’s so important for perfectionist to do the work on self trust, we do that work in PGSD. And I love the way you’re talking about it there being that triangle and like trusting yourself trusting others, trusting the universe and knowing like trusting is a practice and it’s a feeling and it’s not this all or nothing thing, like you can develop your trust in yourself and like earn that and but at the same time. I think it’s so important, like, we create this really stringent criteria for when we will trust ourselves. And it’s basically like this insane criteria that no one would ever meet.

But we think No, I have to like follow through perfectly and everything I do has to work instantly. And like all of these I have to feel happy all the time, like all of these criteria. And it just it’s so exhausting, and it really denies ourselves, enjoying the journey and having fun and I’m sure there’s only You want to add, but I also want to say the what you mentioned about faith. And something that came up for me when you said that was around how a lot of times we want certainty from knowing the how and knowing how it’s going to unfold. And we tell ourselves like, Well, I’m just realistic and practical. And I like to, you know, my beliefs are evidence based.

So I will believe that I can be successful or whatever, or in my goal, once I know the how, but I don’t know the house, I’m just being logical and realistic by not believing. And if I did have evidence, I would believe it. And I’m sure there’s a lot you could say to that about how our brain literally does not see reality, as we think reality is, but I just wanted to mention that and to have you talk to that, and if there’s something else you want to talk about, please share that as well. But when we are trying to get our certainty from knowing the how it really stops us from figuring out the how and enjoying the how, and trusting ourselves along the way. So there’s anything you could say to that, please do.

Alexander James
Totally. Well. And here’s the thing for me, that’s been true in my relationship with healing. My perfectionism is, the self trust and the like, I the all or nothing thinking, right? Like I can trust myself, if I get up when I say I will, and I make my bed every day and I hit all my goals, like then I can trust myself, really was just an avoidance strategy. And because I didn’t deeply trust myself with feeling disappointment.

Sam Laura Brown
Yeah, that’s huge.

Alexander James
And so I was like, when I trust, and then things don’t go the way I wanted them to in my mind, right? Then I’ll feel disappointed. And I’m not willing to feel disappointed because I actually don’t trust myself to put myself back together again, right? It’s like gonna take all the horses and all the kingsmen to put humpty dumpty back together again, like that was such a heartbreaking experience for me to feel dissappointed the same thing that would happen to my dating life alot and that kept me from dating, right? And it was just like I can’t trust other people but really always came back to like, Oh I don’t just trust myself to like, yes sometimes I’m gonna be disappointed on this journey and that’s okay. And once I really worked and did the workaround feeling disappointment and allowing like not making me feeling disappointed mean anything went wrong in any situation. Because all disappointment is this, I had an expectation and then that’s not what happen in reality, right? That’s okay, that can happen a millions times a day, right?

Sam Laura Brown
And it’s often like I had this vague expectation that I’m not even really sure exactly what it is. And my brain is interpreting reality in a way that that vague expectation wasn’t met. It’s like not oftentimes, like when I’m coaching and we have a look at it, it’s like, oh, actually, your expectation was met, and you just haven’t realized it. Or that expectation was so vague that of course, you’re gonna feel disappointed. And I think that often we can create like, as much as we want to avoid disappointment, we create that for ourselves. So often, like we disappoint ourselves, because it’s, it feels safe to feel disappointed, can feel safe to feel overwhelmed, because those are familiar emotions. I talk about overwhelm being an emotional home for perfectionist that as much as we hate feeling overwhelmed, and we say, like, I’ll do anything to not be overwhelmed.

We subconsciously created because when we’re overwhelmed, we get to avoid other things that might feel more painful, or like harder to put back together than overwhelmed. But when we’re in overwhelm, or we’re in disappointment, we kind of know how it goes. As much as we’re like, I just can’t be with myself in disappointment, there’s so much power in holding space for yourself to be in disappointment, and to not have to solve for how can I make sure I’m never disappointed, but to be like, that’s probably going to happen. I may as well just be okay with it. But really recognizing how often as much as we love avoiding disappointment, we create disappointment for ourselves in our own interpretation of the world and how we’re showing up in it.

Alexander James
Yeah, I think so much of that, I’ll speak for myself, right. And who resonates with this will resonate with it. So much of that was like there’s this fundamental belief that something’s wrong with me. And so when I’m disappointed, I’m somehow like, oh, something’s wrong out there. And it was just this weird way of it, like come coming back in this full loop of subconscious paradigm of like, Oh, if I’m disappointed out there, right. If the guy doesn’t call me back for a date, or if I don’t sign the client, or if I don’t hit my business goal, then that somehow means that like, something’s wrong with me. And it’s like this deeper disappointment wound if like, I’m deeply fundamentally disappointed with myself that’s also very vague. And it’s like, well around what? Like, get deeper, right?

And then you’re like, well, there’s kind of nothing there. It’s just this low lying chronic vague, like, self loathing or, you know, shame really is what it was for me. And what it continues to be able to continue to work through, right, we’re all still in progress. But just seeing that was so freeing for me of like, oh, like, nothing. If I’m me being disappointed, doesn’t mean anything’s gone wrong. It doesn’t mean I’ve done anything wrong. It doesn’t mean anything’s wrong with me, it doesn’t mean I’m not good enough. It just means like, I had an expectation that wasn’t met. Right? And so that’s really powerful. Um, you asked me, though, about reality, and believing and getting certainty from knowing the how.

Sam Laura Brown
Yeah, what would you say to that?

Alexander James
Well, the first thing I always like to say is, you will never know how you did it until it’s done. And you look back, right? That’s the only moment when you how you did it. But when we’re talking about manifesting, and we’re looking at it from a spiritual perspective, I think that what we actually do is we make it less certain that something is going to happen, when we ask for certainty from the how, because what we’re doing is we’re trying to manifest a specific results, maybe, let’s say it’s $10,000, in our business, right. And our idea that the how of that’s going to happen is like, I’m gonna post on Instagram every day, right, and I’m gonna get clients through my DMs on Instagram. And so when we start holding that as our intention, and we start being very set, and calcified, or conscious becomes very calcified.

And that being the how, what we do is the universe is infinitely responsive, it’s an electromagnetic field, we’re sending out signals, it wants to send signals back, right. But what happens is, when we’re super calcified on the how, what we do is we basically tie the hands of the infinitely intelligent Cosmos behind its back and say, No, there’s only one way that you can do this. And you can’t use any of your creativity. You can’t surprise me, you can’t like, no, no, it has to happen in this one very specific way. And so we limit ourselves to a singular timeline where that can happen, instead of trusting the universe and being willing to tap into the literal, infinite amount of potentialities where we could still get that result.

And it would happen in a way that we never even imagined, somebody gave somebody else our business card, and all of a sudden, there’s referrals from this new business, or, you know, like, clients come out of nowhere, right? Like when the energy is like, when your energy is set, there’s, there’s just no predicting a lot of times how it’s gonna go. And so I always am, like, be set and certain on the results, and be so open and flexible and in play and fun around the how, and even if you have an idea, or you want to try something out, right, you’re wanting to see what it’s like to create in this way of doing it this way. Do that, but then also, I every manifestation I ever do. Is this or something better, right?

Sam Laura Brown
Yes. I love that. I love using that one too.

Alexander James
So I’m gonna do this. And then I want this or something better, right? And I trust the universe to like, be like, Oh, okay, well, actually, Little did you know, you’re gonna become like a, you know, whatever, a YouTube star. And it’s like, Why didn’t see that coming? Right? So whatever it is, being open to that. Also if we have a minute, I just want to tell a story about belief. Yes. From my own life, Oh, please. Because I was just in Hawaii. And I just had this huge breakthrough around belief in my own life. Because every time that I am in ceremony or working with plant medicine, like this vision comes through, and basically like my guides, and Buddha and Jesus, and anybody who’s important, right? Like, the whole team comes and they like, sit me down. Then they’re like, listen to us. And I’m like, okay, and they’re like, you can have anything you want.

If you wake up every day and watch the sunrise. And I’m like, what, and they’re like, all that’s all you got to do. If you do that everything else will align in your life, everything will be taking care of itself. Just get up and watch the sunrise, start your day, that way, every day or as many days as possible. It’s the ticket. It’s the golden ticket. And then they’re like, I have all these questions. And then they pack their bags and they leave like Nope, just go watch the sunrise. It’s that simple. Do it. And so I was I was in this plant ceremony in Maui. And they came and they said the same thing. And I’m like, oh my god, this is the third time they had taught me to watch the sunrise.

And so I got so curious. I’m like, I like watching the sunrise. I’d like being up early. But I don’t why not? Like if literally, I can have $100 million business and the partner of my dreams and live in a beautiful Architectural Digest house and all I have to do is wake up at 530 in the morning. Why if it’s that simple, right? So I was like, I was really digging into it. And I was like, oh, man, there’s all these layers of belief, because then I went to go do it. I was like, I’m gonna do it. And I’m gonna watch what happens with my belief, right? So the first is like, I don’t actually fully truly believe that’s true, right? Like, because if I did, I’d be paying people to wheelbarrow my ass outside in the morning, if I can’t get up to see the sunrise, right.

But as I was setting my alarm that night to get up for the sunrise, the following morning, I was like, oh, like, I don’t know, I don’t really trust myself to like, get up. I don’t really believe that I’m gonna get up when my alarm goes off, right? And I was like, Ooh, that’s number one. Right. And so and then the morning came, and the alarm went off, and I got up. And then I went outside, and I looked at it was all cloudy, like, cloudy and raining. And I was like, I don’t believe that the sun’s gonna rise this morning. I don’t even think I’m gonna see the sunrise like I should. What’s the point of even trying? What’s the point of even getting my car and driving for an hour to go to the other side of the island to watch the sunrise like it might didn’t rise, and I was like, Well, all I gotta do is believe, right? Let me believe so I get in the car, and we’re driving.

And then I’m like, looking at the time and I’m, you know, all this other stuff. And I’m like, Oh, my God, I maybe I should just turn around because I don’t even think I’m gonna make it. I don’t believe I can make it in time. For the sunrise, it says it’s gonna rise in 10 minutes, I’m not gonna be on the other side of the mountain for 30. And da da da, right? But I keep driving. And as I’m driving, I come upon this where I’m at. It’s just like, somehow we go up a hill. And there’s this view and this VISTA. And the clouds have cleared just a little bit to where the sun is now coming over the clouds, right? So it’s like a sunrise, even though it’s a little bit later. And I’m just like, oh my god, right, hop out of my car, go watch the sunrise. I’m like it’s happening.

And the thing I realized in that moment, right, it was like one of those beautiful, euphoric, blissful spiritual, like, Oh, I’m watching the sunrise in Hawaii, so beautiful. My guides told me to do this. But it was this deep spiritual lesson about like, you have to believe there are so many chances to not believe. And there’s so many chances to get the certainty that it’s not going to happen by not believing and not taking action. And you have to continually overcome that need for the certainty and to the end, to be able to trust easier to trust that it won’t happen and then not take any action, right and ensure that it doesn’t happen.

Than it is to actually talk yourself into believing over and over and over again, and stepping into the uncertainty and into the great clouds and into the storm. And, you know, then finding a mountain that isn’t where you’re supposed to be going. But it’s where it’s all happening. So for anybody listening, it’s like, belief is the thing that keeps you moving in the direction that your spirit is pointing you when your mind is so full of only limitations. And that’s really how we tap into our deepest, most expanded unlimited potential is when we’re willing to walk that path, and not the path of what’s reasonable. What’s probable, it probably won’t happen. It’s raining, whatever.

Sam Laura Brown
What came up, I love that. Sorry, what came up for me when you were sharing that was I was thinking like, what are someone’s thinking? No, I believed and then I drove to the sunrise and it didn’t rise or whatever. And I was just thinking about how that’s really just an issue of not even issues right word, but it’s just like the timeline that we expected the sun rise to happen on wasn’t what it actually is. And like when we thought the sun should be rising. That’s actually when we were meant to be in the like, we were in the car halfway there.

But we like the sun hasn’t risen, I’m going back home or I’m going to pull over and just stop driving to just like, if someone is listening and feeling like I’ve been believing in the sunrise and the sun isn’t rising, to just trust, it goes back to that trust that it’s going to happen in the perfect timing, and future you is going to look back and be like we’re so grateful it didn’t happen when we thought it should have. And when we really like felt like this tight grip, controlling kind of energy around it like it happened in the perfect timing.

And it can be challenging in the moment to really be with that and to just know that it’s going to unfold but I talk about your future self a lot and how just having that like it’s one way to build a relationship with ourselves which we talked about at the beginning like it’s really about your relationship with yourself. And when you think about your future self and then looking back and coming back to present day you it is I always find so clarifying and when I think about like present day me going back to beginning of the business me that I so wanted to just have confidence in all the different things and like, if I wasn’t in my own way, I wouldn’t now be so empowered, and knowing about how to help people get out of their own way. Like I had to live that experience and like, be in that so deep, that that was part of my journey.

But at the time, it didn’t feel like it was serving any purpose. But it just, it all does unfold in the perfect timing, it’s still unfolding. And yeah, it’s really just about being able to trust ourselves like that it’s safe to be on the journey. And I think when we’re in a rush, and there’s a lot of impatient, it’s because we’re not trusting that we will get there. And so we want to be there now. So we have the certainty and the proof that we will get there. And as you mentioned, when we want that we’re actually holding ourselves apart from exactly what it is that we want. But I love that story. And I think it I love all these analogies, like often there’s a mountain in there and sunrise or a car or something involved. It’s just it’s so analogous.

Alexander James
Yeah, yeah. And it’s, you know, if you get there and the sun doesn’t rise, or it is still raining, right? Or you miss the timeline, or whatever it is, right? You get to trust in the universe and be like, it wasn’t, I wasn’t supposed to see the sunrise, right? I’m supposed to learn something from this experience. Right? I come back to it in the way I think about the sunrise thing, the way I understand it, which I don’t fully understand it. But I’m like, I don’t need to right? Jesus tells you to do something, you just probably do it, right. So it’s like, the way I understand it. It’s like, all the spiritual lessons I need to run my business are probably, or I will probably learn from or within the practice of getting up and watching the sunrise. Right? It might not even be actually be about oh, I saw the sunrise 365 times today. Poof, now I get all my wishes come true, right.

It’s like, sometimes our spirit guides tell us to go in a direction and we’re expecting one thing and we’re like, oh, let me go in that direction. And it’s like, it’s a little bit of a bait and switch, right. And so it’s like, that’s not what I was expecting. But they just got to put whatever bait they need to put so that we’re following in the direction that our spirit needs to go for its evolution. And so that’s, you know, you get there and it’s raining. And it’s like, oh, this is a lesson and like disappointment. Or this is a lesson and you know, whatever showing up no matter what are like building my belief, the next day of like, you know, I’m still gonna go out there, and I’m still even if it’s raining, even if you know, whatever, I’m still gonna show up and believe that it’s possible. And when you hold that, you’re gonna see more sunrises. This is like, sometimes you have to zoom out. And you’re like, Okay, well, if I don’t get up ever, because I don’t believe that I can do it or it’s raining or whatever. I’m gonna see less sunrises than if I do believe it. And some days there aren’t sunrises.

Sam Laura Brown
Yeah. And it just made me think about like, this is the part where I build my resilience, like, this is the part where, and it’s not doing that in a way to diminish or ignore any feelings that we have that we need to process and allow and be with. And it’s not like, oh, just immediately any experience you’re in just automatically look for the lesson. Like what would you say to that? Because I think that sometimes it can sound a bit like Pollyanna, or like toxic positivity kind of stuff, which I know is definitely not what you’re talking about. But what would you say if someone is wanting to be able to reframe and find the lessons whilst also holding space for disappointment? Or any other human emotions that come up along the way?

Alexander James
Yeah, well, the lesson is always within your experience. So anytime we’re trying to get out of whatever experience we’re having, and then go find a lesson somewhere else, right? Like, I don’t need to be disappointed. Like, there’s a lesson in this and there’s a gift. It’s like, no, no, the disappointment is the lesson like be with that. Yeah. Be in that right? The lesson is within your experience. So the way that you get the lesson is actually by being fully embodied in the present moment with your present experience. That’s where we the present moment is a where we have access to all of our power, right? It’s always where the choice point is, is in the now. And it’s where we receive all of the information that’s currently in our field is also in the now.

So if you have all of the information in the now and your current experience and your body, right, all those emotions, all the disappointment, and you have all of the power and all the choice points as well. Then the present moment and your present experience is where you want to be and that’s the most fruitful place to create from rather than try to avoid or get away from, or bypass being like, everything happens for a reason, right? In some kind of a way that’s like, trying to escape the human experience. So when that stuff comes up for me, right, and it’s not pleasant, it’s not like I have some enlightened spiritual attitude. You know, I was like, had this really because on my flight back home from Hawaii, I tried to do this manifestation and it went so wrong. I was sitting next to somebody so handsome, and so beautiful. And I like imagine the feelings, you know, and I was like, because I’m calling in love right now.

And I mentioned the feelings and I imagined that it’s an overnight flight. So I imagined him falling asleep, and then his head being on my shoulder. And like me kissing his low head and then, you know, like, whole romantic thing, right? And then literally, the smelliest human I have ever met, sat next to me on the flight in the middle seat, passes out, start snoring and literally, I kid you not within 10 minutes, their head is on my shoulder, and they’re like, hair smells awful. Their breath smells awful. I was like, Oh my God, how do I get out of this manifestation? Like, I take it back? I did something wrong. Right. So and I was so pissed off the whole flight. And I was like, You know what, like, I know, there’s some lesson in this for me, and it’s probably about love. And it’s probably about non judgement. It’s probably about whatever I’m not there yet. This fucking sucks awful. I hate this like this person.

Like, I want to like, oh, yeah, I was like about to open the exit door and just parachute out there, it’s so bad. Oh, but you, you get to be with it. It doesn’t have to be this enlightened calm, oh, yes, I found this lesson is like, sometimes we just have to be with what is and be present to it and get that information about ourselves and how we’re creating our current experience. And then sometimes it’s present moments in the future, that we’re actually able to really work through it and be with it, but you got to be with it first, so that you have all that information to work with. And now Now as I processed it, I’m like, realize there’s all this stuff.

And I’m like, all this was a test and I fucking failed. It’s so hard. Because I was like, not communicating my boundaries, not like, holding, loving, compassionate space for whatever this person is going through with their hygiene routine or not going through the hygiene routine, right? So it just ended up later I saw but I don’t think I would have if I would have been like, No, it’s all fine. Everything’s great. This is like the lesson right? I got to see that side of myself that, you know, was creating the experience I had of this because you know, every single person would have created a different experience out of them would have had something different. So it’s me taking ownership of myself as a creator of that experience. And in the moment, it was like, I just got to see what I was experiencing and kind of what my default settings are.

Sam Laura Brown
Yeah, to be with it without having to change it instantly. But to just observe. Sometimes you don’t like what we see when we observe ourselves, but I have a final question that might seem a bit out of left field. And I know it could also, you could talk about it for an hour. What are some business lessons from Kris Jenner that you could share?

Alexander James
Oh, oh, my God.

Sam Laura Brown
Because you’re always posting about the Kardashians. I love the Kardashians. And I just think they are Business Mastermind. And you’re always posted about I just feel like it’d be fun to share. And regardless, for anyone listening, whether or not you like the Kardashians, keep listening, because I know this will be helpful. So could you share?

Alexander James
Of course. Well, first off, I want to reveal something about why I talk about the Kardashians all the time, is because one of the things I talk about in marketing, and that I teach in marketing is about creating spaces where people connect with the common human experience. And there’s a couple different places we do that, right. A lot of us have internal experiences that are all the same, right? And that bond’s us. But then there are also these external phenomena that we all also experience. Maybe it’s the sun on your skin, maybe it’s the Kardashians, and the tabloids, whatever it is. And those things also bond us and help us to create connections because we’re all experiencing the same thing, right? We’re all experiencing the Kardashians, but we might all experience it differently. So you know, this is just a marketing tip for anybody in marketing.

When you talk about a celebrity or you pull in some famous story or something, what you’re actually doing is you’re creating common context between you and your audience. And you’re in this level playing field of like, this is both our lives. Let’s see how we look at it. Let’s see what we can learn. We’re both experiencing it the same way, the same way that people go on a first date and they go to watch a movie so that they can have an experience together and then talk about it afterwards, right? In this very quick condensed way to generate intimacy. So you know, that’s just something to play with. anybody’s marketing who’s listening.

So I love Kris Jenner. One of the reasons I love Kris Jenner so deeply is because she, first of all, she never became successful. And she was she was over 40, right? She’d never run a successful business or started even being an entrepreneur until after she was 40. She was like an airline attendant. And then she was, you know, just kind of like a socialite, whatever. So she had no business believing that she could build multiple billion dollar brands, right? Like none, and certainly nobody else believed in her either, right. And one of the things I find most fascinating about her is just the way that she’s so open to learning. And, you know, as I watch her and see her ethos also reflected in her children. And in the way they show up and try things, right. She started over like 70, or 80, different brands, product lines, you know, through all of her children, she was like, Oh, Kim was making earrings. And then Kim had shoedazzle.

And that failed and right, so she’s failed so many times, over and over and over and over again. And she had to fail like 77 times, until she finally had her first billion dollar brand. And then a couple years later, she had her second billion dollar brand, right that she belt. So the reason I’m giving all this context is because it’s mind blowing, love them, hate them, whatever. They know what they’re doing in business, and you can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, there’s so much we can learn. And so some of my favorite pieces of advice from Kris Jenner are, if you keep getting told no over and over and over and over again, you’re probably asking the wrong people. Right. And along with that, she talks about how so much of the trajectory of your success is determined by who you are around and who you surround yourself with, and the rooms you get yourself into, right who your peers are.

And I thought about that. And it was like, the thing I realized is like, we actually do have so much more control than we think, over the rooms, we get ourselves into who our peers become who we connect with, right? Obviously, there’s people who are kind of born with networks and privilege. But even in Kris Jenner’s case, right? Like you talk about evolution, right? You look at her 35 years ago, and then the connection that she has now it’s mind blowing. So get yourself into incredible rooms with incredible networks of people who are up to the same kinds of stuff that you’re doing, doing the same kind of work that you’re doing, because that has such an amazing trajectory on your success. And then I’m trying to think there’s one more, were there any that you that you’ve seen?

Sam Laura Brown
Well, I just wanted to add in terms of getting into rooms, that that’s really about trusting yourself to be okay in the room that we can, like, have that opportunity or be able to pursue those opportunities, but deny ourselves of them because we think that we’re not worthy of that they’re gonna realize we don’t know what we’re doing, we need to be more prepared, we need to have more clarity, like we have this criteria for like, Oh, I’ll be putting myself out there more when XYZ and from what I know of the Kardashians, particularly Kris Jenner, that she doesn’t think about it that way.

And I think in a lot of ways, she’s a great example of being growth minded and being resilient. And as you mentioned, trying things and trying again, and trying again, and even when people laughing at you, and making all kinds of judgments and not being shy about it just trying and trying and believing and believing and trying and trying. And I think it’s that, to me is what’s so inspiring, as well as what you mentioned about that she didn’t start her career in terms of what she’s doing now until she was over 40.

And she’s like, allowed her life to have these different seasons and phases. And like she I heard her being interviewed by think Courtney. And Courtney was saying, like, what advice would you give to your younger self? And she was like, Well, my younger self was just being a mom. So I wouldn’t have any advice for her because she’s just busy being a mom, and like, she’s not doing this business stuff. But I give this advice to someone who is doing business stuff. And I thought that really just spoke volumes as to how she just let it be okay, that that was the season she was in and she loved being in that season.

And then like she’s obviously still all about family, but that she’s been able to evolve in public and like so much of what we’ve talked about in this episode, I think, as well, like her journey has, it’s not been linear, and I love hate, like, give her first billion dollar business. And then like the second one a couple years later, it wasn’t like, you know, it’s all happening at this even pace. Because there’s going to be all this time where it looks like nothing’s working and like the sun isn’t rising and like the sun is fucking risen. So I think that it kind of brings that all together that it’s just such an example of being willing to put yourself have out there and be seen to be really trying something even when it’s not working instantly. Is there anything else that comes to mind on this topic?

Alexander James
Yeah, well, just I think she’s an incredible example of belief. It’s like, she literally sees potential in her six daughters who the world believes are talentless. And she’s like, No, no, no, no, I fucking believe that these girls all have a billion dollar brand within them. And like that, we can do it. And it was just like, for me, as a coach, I was so inspired, I was like, wow, if you can look at like, Kylie Jenner, Kendall Jenner, and just see that potential and believe that you can get there and then take that, you know, relentless action. From that place of belief.

It’s like, you just look at what she’s created. And it’s like, she could not have created what she’s created. Without that belief. It is the energetic base ingredient of everything she’s created, his belief in herself, belief in her daughter’s, belief in her, you know, capability. And so, you know, it just comes back to belief over and over again, I will say she has two other ones that I really liked, that really stuck with me, two last little pieces of parting wisdom, is, first of all, is don’t be afraid to say no to money, or to a deal when the deal is not right.

Because not all money is good money. And she also said, and this really struck me because she just struck a nine figure contract with Hulu for two seasons of their new show nine figures, it’s $100 million contract. And she was giving advice around creating contracts and signing deals. And she said, whoever needs the deal less is always the one who wins the negotiation. So knowing and being clear, and insufficient energy will actually help you show up and create deals in alignment. And be willing to say no, because not all money is good money and be willing to wait and have that belief and hold out for the either the New Deal to come through, right and the price you want or for the person who’s going to say yes, right? Because if you keep hearing No, you’re asking the wrong people, for the person who’s going to come say yes, just say yes to that.

Sam Laura Brown
And I think that distinction as well that is that. When she is saying that it’s not from like this energy of, you know, you’re willing to walk away because you think you’re not good enough, and you’re not going to deliver. And it’s like from this real place of sufficiency and belief that like, I know, it’s going to work out, I know that this is, you know, worthwhile and valuable. And so I’m willing to wait for it to make sense to me. And I’m not in such a rush.

And like I’m trusting so I’m willing to wait instead of from I think it can be hard that if someone was listening to that they could interpret that as, okay, well, I don’t really, you know, like, I don’t want to put myself out there like I don’t really want it and I’m kind of it’s more this energy of like, I’m feeling inadequate. And so I’m willing to walk away versus I’m feeling so sufficient. And because of that I have the trust to be able to have the patience to wait until a deal that makes sense. Does that make sense to you?

Alexander James
Yeah. 100%? Yeah, it’s about not saying no, because you’re actually secretly afraid, right? That you’re not going to be able to deliver your end of the bargain. It’s about being able to hold the clarity that when I’m insufficiency, I’m actually able to show up so much more powerfully and negotiate so much more powerfully. And that’s the precursor of that, right? Being able to get there is the belief itself and the belief in your own ability to deliver and create or honestly figure it out. That’s been the biggest, honestly, if we want to sell it, this whole podcast, the belief that I use all the time is like, I can figure it out. Like, I’ll just figure it out, I trust that I can figure it out. Like, I don’t have to believe that I can do it right now. I don’t have to, I just have to trust that I can figure it out. And that keeps me moving. In times of uncertainty. It’s like, well, I know we’ll figure it out. So I’m certain of that.

Sam Laura Brown
Yeah, it’s such a helpful one. Like it just gets us putting one foot in front of the other not having to have all our ducks in a row and like have everything figured out before we can do anything. It’s just like I can figure it out. And I know the best way to figure it out is through the doing, not being in my head about it and thinking about it and being strategic and formulaic. It always thinks but thank you for sharing those Kris Jenner business lessons, because I think that’s so important.

And I think you’re a great person to talk to them. But that is all we have time for. I want to be respectful of your time and say a huge thank you for being on the podcast and for sharing what you have. And I just resonate with your energy and what you share and I’m just yet so grateful to have you on the podcast. Would you mind sharing where people can find you? I highly recommend you to go and follow Alexander on Instagram. He has a podcast as well. So would you mind sharing your Instagram handle and the name of your podcast? And we’ll link it up in the show notes as well.

Alexander James
Oh my gosh, yes, I would love to party with your people. So if you want to come hang out with me on my wild, wacky and weird little corner of the interweb it is on Instagram @thesubconsciousbrands. And really, all the gold’s in my stories. That’s where I’m just like goofing off acting fool and occasionally dropping some nuggets of wisdom on Yeah. And then my podcast is, The Subconscious Coaching podcast, which you can find on any and all platforms. And so I’d love if you wanted to hang out with me there too. And hear some more of my thoughts and ideas. Thank you so much for having me. It’s so fun. I’ve just had a blast. I felt like we could record 10 more podcasts is just like we both have so much to say about all of these things. But I just had a blast is super fun. So thank you really genuinely.

Sam Laura Brown
Yeah, I was just thinking before, like, how fun that this is my job like this is so much better than accounting for like, getting to just chat with you about these.

Alexander James
Did you use to be an accountant?

Sam Laura Brown
Yeah. I don’t think I wasn’t an accountant. I worked in accounting. That’s, that’s how I frame it.

Alexander James
That’s a good distinction. Yeah, yeah, I totally. I felt that.

Sam Laura Brown
I was a coach working in accounting. Thank you so much. I appreciate you. And yeah, I’ll talk to you soon.

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Author: Sam Brown