EP 210: Innovate your life by design - Shana Francesca

Shana Francesca is a speaker, writer and entrepreneur and is also known as author, Maeve Marin. Shana helps people live more joyful and connected lives through the principles Of life design.  Shana believes our present and future are transformed when we infuse our lives with intention, we design our lives and realize the power in accepting ourselves as the author of our story.

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EP 210: Innovate your life by design - Shana Francesca

Shana Francesca is a speaker, writer and entrepreneur and is also known as author, Maeve Marin. Shana helps people live more joyful and connected lives through the principles Of life design.  Shana believes our present and future are transformed when we infuse our lives with intention, we design our lives and realize the power in accepting ourselves as the author of our story. 

In this episode Shana and I talk about life design, the impact of life design on innovation and leadership. 

Guest Links: 

Web: https://www.concinnate.world/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/concinnate.world/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Concinnate/

Email: shana@concinnate

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Transcript:

(This Transcript is AI generated)

Shana Francesca

[00:00:00] Hello Innovators and welcome back for another conversation about human innovation. Today's guest is Shayna Francesca. She's life designer, keynote speaker and workshop facilitator, and the founder and lead designer of Concinate Shayna and I talk about life design, the impact of life design on innovation and leadership.

[00:00:24] Please welcome to the show, Shayna. Francesca.

[00:00:27] Hello Shayna. Welcome to the show. How are you doing? 

[00:00:30] I'm good, Jens. 

[00:00:30] How are you? 

[00:00:32] I'm good as well. Looking forward to learn with you today? Yeah. Specifically about life design. You have a fascinating story. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how did you get to where you are today?

[00:00:45] I grew up in America in New Jersey specifically, and. Grew up in an extremely alt-right, religious now I understand it's a cult. I didn't necessarily understand it. You know, when you're a child, you don't really know you in a cult . I went to school there, went to church there.

[00:01:07] My whole life was surrounded by the church once my parents kind of dove in. And my household was extremely abusive. Both of my parents were physically violent. Both were, you know mentally and emotionally abusive. Eventually my mom got help but my dad never did. And so I had this deep sense of need to feel safe and seen and heard and understood within my own home.

[00:01:32] Hmm. And having no sense of safety anywhere in my life really made me very sensitive to how much we depend on feeling safe and our happiness and our joy being grounded in our sense of home. Yeah, and I think it directly affected why I decided to become an interior designer. And then ultimately my interior design work led me to life design.

[00:01:58] And I love to help people to get clear that in the top three most important things in our happiness. Number one is our mental health. Number two is our home. Okay? Number three is our physical health. And I, I argue that, that the three are reflections of each other, but I especially really focus on the first two because I think the first two affect the third.

[00:02:21] We need to feel safe and seen and heard and understood within our own home. It should not be a reflection of what other people want or think or desire or their rules or reflections of marketing. Especially in America. Everybody's like redoing their home every five years based on whatever's trending on Instagram or some social media platform.

[00:02:42] And and it's non. Because it has nothing to do with who we are. And I think we deeply feel that. And I think as the world shut down around the pandemic, people sensed that more than they ever thought that they could. But four years ago, right before the pandemic is when I took my business full-time and really started focusing on the principles that I used as an interior designer.

[00:03:04] I launched group coaching in over two and a half years. I worked with over a hundred people on these principles of intention and curiosity courage and defining excellence for ourselves. and really exploring a world of possibility. And after like two and a half years and working with a hundred people, I was like, I think there's something really powerful here.

[00:03:25] And I think it extends far beyond what I can do as an interior designer. As an interior designer, I can only take on my maximum. My absolute maximum is like 12 clients. Yeah. But I can work with, in group coaching, I was working with 20 people at a time per session. You know, for five to six months at a time.

[00:03:42] I now shortened the sessions because I realized I can't extend group coaching 12 months out of the year. It's just like I need some time off for me. Yeah, yeah. But I loved it so much that I did it like nonstop for two and a half years but taking those principles. And it was actually a client of mine who said that it really like clued me into how powerful it was.

[00:04:01] You know, talking about life design, he's like the head of the neuro anesthesiology department at a massive, very powerful institution here in the United States. One out of every six doctors in the world is trained there. And he said, I tell everyone, you're my life coach and interior designer.

[00:04:17] And I was like, you do. Oh my God. Yay. Okay. And it was like one of those moments of like self-actualization where you're like, okay, what I'm doing is powerful and it's helping people and it's and it is as powerful as I think, and I know what it is. 

[00:04:33] That's awesome. Life design.

[00:04:35] What is life design for people who have no idea what can they imagine of life design being. 

[00:04:44] The simplest way is casting off of the rules. I think we have to get to a place, especially in hyper western culture, we have to get to a place where we recognize that there's so much that forms our lives.

[00:04:58] That is a given, right? That we've assumed needs to be there because it's always been there because we grew up within it and we can't even. We don't even recognize that we're living within such tight constraints, right? That tell us who we can be, what we're allowed to do, all of these things, religion, politics, all this categorization that's forcing us to view what's possible for ourselves through its lens.

[00:05:23] And so the first part of life design, Is learning to get curious. As kids, I was always taught curiosity kills the cat. Curiosity killed the cat. It was an effort to make it sound so innocent, because curiosity is in direct conflict with authority. with people who decide that they get to tell you what to do with your life.

[00:05:43] But what I've come to understand is the only thing that has authority in my life is that which I give it authority. There is no such thing as rebellion. I'm not rebelling against anything. I simply refuse to acknowledge it's authority period.

[00:05:54] I would like to use that, talking about innovation and bringing innovation angle in.

[00:05:59] because one of the limiting factors of innovation is authority as well. Yes. Where you work in an organization and there is a big boss who says, no, that's the way we do it. And then everyone is just stopping us. Okay, now we just do what the person's saying. 

[00:06:18] Yeah. Again, America is built on, like America's lifeblood is hierarchy.

[00:06:24] It is nothing other. Asinine hierarchy. People at the top who don't even know anything, , they don't know much at all. They were just kind of handed the keys to the kingdom, and so it was a given that they belonged there because of their gender, because of the color of their skin. All of it.

[00:06:43] Constructs of non. Yes. And so, you know, there's this assumption of power by certain groups of people, and because there's an assumption of power, there's no accountability. They're not grown up into a sense of accountability, of curiosity, of understanding, of authenticity, of connection.

[00:07:01] They just, their rule is absolute because they say it is. And we, we've come to a place in the world where everybody's just like, no, you have no power over me if I don't give it to. , collectively we're being like no . 

[00:07:15] Yeah. Is that a little bit, if we just take the time, we are recording this in end of 2022.

[00:07:20] Yeah. Is that a little bit the impact of the pandemic where people realized that, hey, there's something off, or is that just a time where we are living in 

[00:07:30] from your perspective? 

[00:07:31] I think everybody realized it before then. I think the key in the pandemic shut down was that all of a sudden the world in some.

[00:07:39] Got quiet. Hmm. And in other ways it got loud, right? Because we were suddenly confined to a specific space and, and forced to face the actual reality of our lives rather than, because so much of our life, so much of what's around us is crafted to distract us from reality, to keep, to placate us into submission, to those authority, so they can extract resources without our rebellion..

[00:08:07] I say rebellion with air quotes because I don't believe there's any such thing . But, but to extract our resources with minimal pushback on our part, right? It's why you see in America that wages have been stagnated for decades now, meanwhile, the cost of living has continued to go up and up and up and up and up.

[00:08:26] And you see the wealthy getting wealthier. You see, during the pandemic shutdown, you know, a hundred billionaires were min. During that time, meanwhile, other people were just trying to pay their bills. And you see more and more people hoarding wealth in an astronomical rate. It's oligarchy all across the board.

[00:08:46] When that happens you see the stagnation of innovation. You see great political upheaval. You see, war, you know, and, and if you look back at history, you know, this is what happens. You see? . It's not good for anybody, right? Yeah, yeah. Powerful people get afraid.

[00:09:03] Their power is going to be taken from them. The, the whole concept of power in and of itself is absolute crap. . 

[00:09:12] Yeah. A agree. If we crap, if we, if we dive even deeper into this, so if we say power, and there are people you mentioned already that a mental part is key influencer of. So how do we give people the opportunity to dive deeper into their mental being when we look into life design, to be able to say maybe to today, I'm thinking about power, but how do I learn?

[00:09:40] To understand my mental being and where I am and where I want to be to unleash the opportunity at least to step out and say, Hey, power is nothing I want to do if I'm a leader, as an example. . 

[00:09:55] Yeah. Power and leadership have nothing to do with one another necessarily. Yeah. Like you don't need to be a powerful person to be a leader.

[00:10:01] We all lead someone, whether we recognize it or not, right? There are people in our lives that look to us for wisdom and guidance, no matter who we are. And the reality is that you know that understanding that we are in community together, like getting curious about what's possible in the absence.

[00:10:19] The hoarding or the creation of power or the, the obtaining of power, right? When we look at indigenous communities, we can see community, we can see groups of people making decisions together. We see conflict being resolved by group discussion and being supported by elders and wise leaders and so on and so forth.

[00:10:38] We don't see imprisoning, we don't see all of these things, many of these things. Our functions of this industrialized world that we lived in. When, when we can step back and get curious when we. Learn our history, we can get back to our roots, understand who we are, lean into one another, listen to one another's stories.

[00:11:00] Listen to the stories of those who came before us. There was so much beauty in that way of living. I'm not saying that we have to abandon the, the, the, you know, contemporary world and go back to living without electricity or any of those things. I'm not saying any of that. I'm not, I'm not.

[00:11:16] Extremism one way or the other. But what I am saying is that there's, there's a way to move forward while looking back learning things from the past, and recognizing that if we don't know the past and we aren't curious about what's possible for ourselves, And we don't find the dovetail between those things.

[00:11:34] We are doomed to repeat the lessons of the past over and over again in more and more painful ways because technology keeps moving forward and we keep not learning the lessons of the past. And so technology keeps forcing us to learn those lessons over and over again in ever more painful ways. 

[00:11:52] If we use the doctor you mentioned and you as the life designer and interior designer for that person, how did you help this person to understand going into that steps? And that's maybe related as well to your group coaching. What you're doing. Yeah. How do you help people to step into that?

[00:12:13] There's a really powerful thing that happens in group coaching, and I learned this. I was a semi-professional salsa dancer for four years, you know, performed and competed in my late twenties and my early thirties. There was like three main groups of people. There were the people who only took lessons, private lessons, one-on-one with the director of the dance studio, right?

[00:12:33] And those people, , learned but they didn't learn that quickly and they usually tended to be a little bit more insecure about sharing whatever they did learn with anyone else around them because they learned it in an encapsulated environment. Then you had people who took group lessons and in group lessons, everybody changes partners.

[00:12:52] you know, you change partners three times with every new move made or learned, every new move, right? So in an hour lesson, you've gone around the room multiple times, danced with everybody, probably a dozen times. Every new move, you're dancing with three different partners. So each time you're learning something new, you're having that.

[00:13:08] That conversation, right? Because dance is just a conversation between two bodies. Mm. You're having that conversation with three different people and seeing how it was translated by each person. And those people learned a hell of a lot faster. And then you had people who not only took the group lessons, but then went out dancing afterwards.

[00:13:25] And they applied that knowledge into the real world right away. Yeah. And those people learned the fastest interest. I think of group coaching the same way. Yes, you can hire me to work with you one-on-one, but when I, I see the transformation the quickest in people's life. When we have conversations in community together, when we can see and hear the way that each other has interpreted the same information.

[00:13:51] Because we're getting the same information, but each one of us has a unique perspective on the world and a unique set of stories that we're filtering that information through. And then when we can have that discussion, how did each one of us interpret this piece of information? Because when I conduct group coaching, it's not just, you know, we're sharing and everybody's in group.

[00:14:09] Something I ask everyone who is part of group coaching to commit to is sharing. They have to share at least once throughout the conversation. Doesn't have to be profound, and it doesn't have to be long-winded, and you're capped off at two minutes anyway, , because there's 20 people that need to share for each aspect of the conversation, but by every person being heard, each person's voice is valued, right? And each person gets to hear that their voice and their interpretation as part of a greater conversation and is valuable because then they get to hear how other people took in, not only what I said. But what they said, right? And so this beautiful chorus of conversation is happening and we learn from the way each other interprets and the way each other understands, and through each other's stories.

[00:14:54] And so that for me is what's so powerful about what I do and how I choose to do it. And the same thing happened for my client who was a doctor. I came into his house and I had a specific interpretation, and then I brought my team in and there was eight of us in his house at the same time, and taking in all that needed to be done.

[00:15:13] And I was able to cast the vision and then each person was able to say, you know what? I really have my own interpretation of your vision for this aspect of the house. Can I take this on? And so that is how, I'm able to tackle my interior design work in the same way that I do group coaching is that we're doing it in community and we're doing it together.

[00:15:34] Are you always combining the interior design part or is this separate when you talk about the group coaching or is it an integral part? . 

[00:15:43] Typically, actually there's no crossover . Yeah. So typically my clients who hire me as an interior designer, if they're working with me through coaching, typically they end up hiring me just one-on-one.

[00:15:53] Yeah. Yeah. They're, I'm just working with them privately in their home. And then I'm doing interior design work for 'em as well. People who engage with me through group coaching have hired me as an interior designer later. Hmm. Typically they're not going on at the same time. It's interesting how that dynamic kind of has worked, 

[00:16:12] It's quite interesting as well because you said the mental part and the home part are connected and then the physical part comes after that.

[00:16:18] Yeah. So there is always, and I've worked in one of the most famous home furnishing companies in the. Yeah, you taught me , so I understand at least I was brought up and worked there almost 12 years, so I understand the importance of home and still see opportunities on a personal level because I've been moving six countries and understand when you move home, you step out of one life and go into a new life.

[00:16:44] Specifically if you then do that across country borders in different cultural context and so on, it's super interesting. So when you do this in the group coaching, how do you get started? Imagine I'm a new person, I'm coming into a new session, is that always when you started a new program?

[00:17:01] Is that. , every person is new and everyone gets to know each other. Or is it already there are people who have started earlier and someone new is joining. How does that work? 

[00:17:11] Yeah, this session, it'll probably be all new people. These two new sessions, because I took a break. I took a year off.

[00:17:18] I needed to like recuperate, , and I . Also, in that time, rebranded my business and kind of relaunched things, so I needed to take that breath. But over the two and a half, When I first launched group coaching, at first it was a brand new group, and then there was like half of the people would stay on, or a third of the people would stay on, and then it would be all new people.

[00:17:37] And you know, I thought that there might be, like, I, to me, it just flowed really well because of the way that I conduct things. Because in fact I ask each person to stay committed and I and go around and share, and it's not anyone allowed to dominate the conversation so each person is limited to two minutes for their sharing.

[00:17:58] And I keep that really. really strict. I will literally cut someone off. I'll like, you'll kind of get a warning. I'll like look at you. You'll get a warning and then if you keep going, I will literally cut you off because there's , there's a need for everyone's voice to be seen as equally important.

[00:18:13] But in so doing that, it, it creates equity in the conversation. Not just equality, but equity. Equal investment. Hmm. In the conversation. And so in so doing, it really levels the playing field and allows everyone to see each other and feel one another as equals and know that one another are equals.

[00:18:33] And it really creates a sense of community really quickly, actually. It's just the way I chose to do it. , right? Yeah. From the beginning. Like, I want everyone to share. And I, and it doesn't matter what you share, whatever you share is valid and important. It is you and we wanna see you and I wanna see you, and I want, and I want you to know that you're safe here.

[00:18:52] And so there's like, you know, a, an understanding I send out to everyone ahead of time. No conversation that is had in coaching is to be had outside of coaching. You're not allowed to ask permission of someone to share their story with someone else. It's only theirs to offer. You know, there's a whole criteria that people send ahead of time to understand the, the boundaries around the conversation, and so that there's an expectation of respect and privacy and so on and so forth ahead of time.

[00:19:19] And then before each session. I'll send out maybe a short reading or a, or a, or maybe a YouTube video or something that kind of sparked or reinforces whatever conversation we're going to have for that week. And I usually send it like two to three days ahead of time so people have a minute to like marinate on it and, and dive into it for themselves and then us to have the conversation together.

[00:19:42] So, , you know, it's it, and then also most of the time I'll provide like, some kind of additional reading. Maybe there's a book or a paper or something that someone has read that somebody can then dive into it even further after the conversation. So it's this multi-level process that people can choose to engage in it whatever level that they want to.

[00:20:01] And you obviously, you're gonna get out of it what you put into it. But yeah, to answer your question, I, when it's a whole new session, it can feel like. Awkward at the beginning. I think for people coming because they, nobody knows each other. I don't feel that way, and so I just kind of usher everybody into the conversation pretty quickly.

[00:20:19] Yeah, and what I do typically is when people sign up, I reach out to them individually and tr and if they're open to it, I'll schedule a Zoom call with them, like for just 10 to 15 minutes so I can get to know them on a personal level and why they decided to join group coaching and what they're interested in getting out of it so that I understand who they are and they have a connection, a direct connection to.

[00:20:40] Yeah. And at least so I, they have at least one anger point in the conversation before we're kind of diving in. Makes 

[00:20:46] sense. Are you then doing that physically or online? these days? 

[00:20:50] Online , Google Meet or Zoom. Either way. Yeah, it makes it easier because at first I was doing it in person for the first two years I did it in person.

[00:20:59] And then for the last half of, you know, the last six months I did it it was during the pandemic and so we couldn't meet or yeah, I guess maybe about a year before I ended it, we started, we started doing things via you know, zoom and it changed things, but not as much as I thought it would. It is better in person, but by doing it via Zoom, then I can work with people all over the world.

[00:21:20] You know, they could be anywhere they wanna be or need to be, and so it makes it a little more convenient for everybody. 

[00:21:26] What I've seen run running communities not in a coaching sense, but just connecting people from different parts of. It's also giving way deeper diversity and more breadth to a discussion.

[00:21:39] Especially when you talk, I guess at least about life design and how different we are, but how similar we are as well. Even if you live on different continents, you have never met each other. Grown up in different cultures. Yeah. There's. , like you mentioned similar limiting beliefs which you get taught through the system you work in, your system you grow up in. 

[00:22:00] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and the thing that I love about it is when I first launched it, I thought that the group would probably end up being mostly women, but it wasn't . Interesting. It ended up being a 50 50 split for the entire time that I conducted it.

[00:22:17] It. Almost exactly every new semester. And I would like open it back up every six months. See who wanted to stay on and see who wanted to step away. Now I do it for three month cycles. Each time it was almost down the line, 50% people who identified as male and 50% people who identified as female or as non-binary or so it was like this interesting, beautiful.

[00:22:44] Representation and also like ethnically different and you know, some people were from all over the world. One person was from Venezuela, a couple people were from Nigeria, like all these different backgrounds. Yet we were ha able to have these like beautiful conversations Grounded in what connected us.

[00:22:59] One of the profile topics I found about you. Yeah. And your headline says. Here to be myself in all my glory. Yeah. That's one of one of your introduction pieces in the podcast connection platform. Yeah. How did you get to that state that you say this is who I am, this is what I am representing.

[00:23:23] I think I just got, can I say bad words? Stan? ? 

[00:23:25] Yeah, you are. You are welcome. 

[00:23:28] I think I just got to the place where I just said, f it. Like there were so many rules. Placed on me by so many people, and I just started to see that it, the rules had nothing to do with me. They had everything to do with the other person's fear.

[00:23:43] Yeah. Of, of, who they were and who they allowed themselves to be and how they were perceived, and whether or not they felt powerful in a moment. And I was just like, f all of it. , I am here to be me. I'm not here to make you happy or you happy because I'm always gonna piss somebody off. I'm always gonna make someone uncomfortable, and you know what?

[00:24:02] I'm gonna stop paying attention to whether or not I, I'm gonna just focus on my life being one that I am, and I am, you know, beautifully and intentionally living my life. You know, capturing nuance in moments and connecting with different people from around the world, experiencing different cultures and different things around the world, and really diving into the whole world of possibility.

[00:24:27] And I'm gonna do so from a place of not. Not exerting myself over others, but just letting myself take up space without taking away from other people. That's the beauty of intention is that we get to understand what's meant for us and what's not meant for us, and we're not sitting here in a power struggle taking from other people.

[00:24:47] We recognize what is meant for us and we release. the rest Because that's meant for other people. And we also understand that each one of us, everything we do has a ripple effect into every other living being's life, every other living being's life. And when we recognize just how powerful we truly are just in that, we don't need to take away from anybody else.

[00:25:08] We should be spending the rest of our life wondering how we actually sit with that reality. That we are powerful beyond measure, just as we are 

[00:25:17] loved. Because when I work with organizations as a coach, as being the leader or manager who is helping people inside of the organization, one of the things I have seen and what as, as well, what I've learned as an educated coach is a lot of things that you reflect today are parts of your past, of course.

[00:25:42] Being yourself is always a reflection of your past, but in that moment, and some are better off in the way that I truly understand, linking that to your glory, which is truly understand. Yet I can be who I want to be and I don't need to be someone else because of someone else asking me or reflecting to me to be.

[00:26:04] Exactly. Yeah. I think it's interest like at, at any given moment, we have to understand that the way we perceive the world is unique to us. The rest of the world doesn't see the world the way that we do. Yeah. Only we do. And, and then when we can sit with and understand that, we can understand why different people react to the world in different ways than we do.

[00:26:28] And then we can sit with and get curious about why they react to the world in which they do, and we can begin to understand their perspective, which expands our own perspective and changes the way that we can connect the world around us and makes us understand the difference between leadership And being power hungry or, you know, demanding a, you know, demanding or being authoritative.

[00:26:52] Because people wanna follow a leader. They wanna follow a leader. They people will willingly because they know they can trust you. That's the difference. A leader is trusted. People know they're safe with you. You've established that even when you mess up, even when you fuck up, because you do as a leader, like there has to be an understanding that as human beings, we constantly mess up, right?

[00:27:16] That's just the reality. We're human. 

[00:27:18] That's part of the learning process. . 

[00:27:20] Yeah. And if you're not messing up, you're not learning anything. And I'm scared for you, right? . I'm genuinely scared for you as a human. So the thing that differentiates is, . that You have people who manage, people who, who are authoritative, and they've be, they've decided they're an expert.

[00:27:37] They don't need to learn anything. They don't need to know anything more. They know and they're the authority. And then you have leaders who are constantly curious about the world around them. They might make mistakes all the time, but it's how they manage how they deal with and own up to their mistakes and how they choose to.

[00:27:56] learn Not just from the mistake, but learn so that they aren't going to make that mistake again. And, and, and seek accountability in moving forward and, and so on and so forth, that people know that they can trust them and then choose to follow them as opposed to the person who stands on the mountain, plants the flag and says, you have to do what I say.

[00:28:16] Yeah, 

[00:28:17] agree. 

[00:28:18] It's a huge difference. It's a chasm between those two things. . 

[00:28:22] That's at least my opinion. That's where we need to go back to. Yes. Because I think there have been times in history as well where a lot of leaders have been like that. And then now we are in a world where a lot of leaders.

[00:28:38] Have been chosen to be successful or be, let's say, climbing the, the ladders of a lot of large organizations where it was more about the power, the hierarchy, and you, you have mentioned that already about the us There are a couple of countries, one of the countries where I grew up, in which Germany, where this is as well, very much still the case, but then I've had the chance to live in Sweden where this is the opposite, where it's more.

[00:29:04] It's less about hierarchies it's about truly connecting to each other and trusting each each other just from the get-go. You are already kind of seen in a completely different way. It's fascinating. . 

[00:29:18] Yeah, exactly. And that's, I think, you know, when I look at countries like Sweden, like Finland like Iceland and even Scotland is making a lot of strides to, you know, you have these countries that are making strides to, to, to reconnect with their own humanity, right?

[00:29:38] And to see each other as human beings, not something to be. or lorded over, right? Yeah. And that each person, like when we, and, and like this is why I, I'm so passionate about what I do as a life designer. When we recognize how powerful we are as human beings individually, we recognize how powerful each one of us is.

[00:29:57] It's not all of a sudden this ego trip, right? When you realize how powerful you are. And how everything you do affects everyone around you. You suddenly realize that that's the same for every other being on this planet, every single thing. We are all so intricately connected that the minute we recognize that it shifts everything and we can no longer desire to have power over anything.

[00:30:22] Because we understand that it diminishes its light and its ability to affect everything around it, to the way that it needs to, the way it was born, to the way we are born to, because by diminishing someone else's power, we diminish our own. Yeah. 

[00:30:37] The challenge to get to that state means you need to step back and reflect.

[00:30:44] Yes. And in our. Crazy busy world where we live in, a lot of people are just not taking the time for themselves to reflect, step back. Yeah. And truly think about themselves because we are just busy. 

[00:30:59] Yeah. Well, busy is a curse word. And busy. Yeah. Is busy is what we do to keep up with others' expectations of what our life should look.

[00:31:11] Because when we really have to have to like, and that's again a part of what I talk about as life design is busy, doesn't need to be part of our repertoire at all. Because Busy keeps us from joy, busy keeps us from connection. Busy keeps us miserable. Busy is, is a is a tool of hierarchy. Yeah.

[00:31:32] Think about all the things that keep us busy. , they're all distracting us from true connection. No one's gonna get to their end of their life and say, I really wish I had spent more time, you know, on TikTok, or, I wish I had met, spent more time, you know, sucking up to my boss so that they would like me more, even though like, You should never have to do that.

[00:31:54] Who you are is enough, right? If your boss can't recognize that, well, I know we don't always have the right or the ability to like just leave a, leave a company. But we certainly don't need to spend our time trying to convince that person. We're great. People either are willing to recognize your greatness or they're not.

[00:32:08] So we don't need to business ourselves with trying to prove that we're great cuz we are simply because we are. So like when we start to shed all of these beliefs, we suddenly find time we didn't know we. and busy doesn't exist anymore because we don't want it to exist. We wanna truly connect with ourselves and with one another.

[00:32:24] So, you know, I know it can feel like making time to be involved in group coaching is something you just don't have time for, but you don't have time not to make time for it. Yeah. Because you will find so much more time in your life as you start to shed all of these beliefs that are keeping you busy. , 

[00:32:41] I was just listening the other day to a podcast episode for was focused on entrepreneurs and startups and it was about investing and one of the main things of a very, very, very successful entrepreneur and investor was the number one thing you need to invest in is into yourself.

[00:33:00] Mm. . It was not about how do we invest into your startup and get millions and it was invest into yourself. That's the number one thing. 

[00:33:09] A hundred percent. Your business will not grow if you don't. Yeah. Business is a reflection of you are of who you are, just like your home is. Everything we create is a reflection of who we are, our beliefs about ourselves, and our beliefs about the world.

[00:33:21] So if we aren't investing in learning more in, in, not just more expertise in what we already know, but literally un gaining deeper understanding of the world around us and more complex and nuanced understanding of the world around us, our business will not grow because we haven't. Yeah. 

[00:33:40] It's that simple.

[00:33:41] I, I see that with myself as well, so I'm, sometimes you have these times where you're not a hundred percent, well, you just. Yeah. And he's like, yeah, I'm powering through it, and you know, it's the wrong thing. Yeah. , I was just having this moment yesterday where I did another 14 hours day and was like, oh, man, that's, that's too much.

[00:34:01] It's not good at all. Yeah. And I know it's not good. Yeah. And. Then I just, this morning I was just turning off the alarm clock at 5:00 AM So normally I'm getting up at five and it was like, fuck it, I'm not getting up now. I'm taking care of myself and sleep two hours longer until my daughter wakes up.

[00:34:21] Good, good. Yeah. You need it? I think. You know, there's so many people who like latch on and I think we feel like we need to latch onto these founders' stories who they just like preach from the mountain times. I got up at four or 5:00 AM every day and that's how my business became successful. That's not how their business came successful.

[00:34:38] They were born into privilege. 

[00:34:40] Yeah, most of the time true . But, but on the other hand, 

[00:34:45] they weren't, they were surrounded by people. They had a specific amount of privilege because they, who they were in society. But like there's also other founders who didn't get up till noon every day and work till 4:00 AM like you.

[00:34:57] Your success is not based on what time you get up in the morning or any of those things. Your success is based on your a, your perseverance. Be your cleverness and curiosity, your personal growth and, and your ability to, you know, cuz your curiosity, your curiosity is tied to like how you can respond to a moment, right?

[00:35:18] The business isn't doing well and it's not doing what I thought it was gonna do, and I'm not connecting to people the way that I thought that I could. Well maybe, maybe the reason I got into business or maybe, maybe the reason I chose this particular line of business is because I thought it would be profitable, not because it's actually connected to.

[00:35:33] right? Yeah. And you're getting curious about what's actually connected to who you are and will actually allow you to pivot the business, get closer to what's really powerful inside of you, and it will automatically become profitable because it's connected to who you are, right? And these shifts are necessary as you grow a business and as we change, so does the business, and it has to necessarily, so like all of these things are just so intricately tied.

[00:35:58] Yeah. It's if, if you just follow the, your passion and what you truly believe in and your, let's say vision perspective, it's always going to be more successful than if you just go after the money. 

[00:36:10] Because you'll find your community. When people see you passionate about something, you, you'll find your community, you'll find people who help champion that.

[00:36:17] And it can be really hard. There are, I'm not gonna say that, just because you find your passion, all of a sudden you're gonna find your community. It doesn't work that way. Yeah. It certainly didn't work that way for me. But the further I get into things, the more I know what I, I know what I know and I know what I don't know.

[00:36:32] And the more people come alongside me to help champion. They see my comfortability and they see my passion and they see my connection and they are like, yeah, I wanna be a part of that. Yeah. So that's really, it. It, that's why, you know, I'll always come back to just what you said is that it's about a personal growth.

[00:36:49] It's not about anything else. , 

[00:36:52] Get into the last part of the podcast where I'm asking a couple of questions that I'm asking every guest. If you can work with a project that is impacting every human being on earth, what project would you choose to work with and why?

[00:37:07] I would do exactly what I'm doing. Empowering people to reconnect to their curiosity and to possibility is a deeply powerful thing. And watching how it changes people's lives, over the months and over the years of working with them or, you know, after their we've done coaching for maybe a year or something and then they move on and then we stay in contact and like, you'll never guess what happened, right?

[00:37:33] I took this new opportunity, or I got into this relationship and I've really moved to a new place and I found all these incredible people who I love to connect with. . Staying connected with people and seeing the joy that shows up in their life as they dive into the work is incredible. It's my favorite thing and I know that it's, you know, has its part in changing the world.

[00:37:53] So I am fully invested in what I'm already doing, . 

[00:37:57] Great. Next question. What advice would you give to a young innovator?

[00:38:04] Take a deep breath. And don't be afraid to wander. Don't be afraid to go and try something without any desired outcome. That's what curiosity is, right? When we just approach a situation without any specific desired outcome, there's so much that we learn when we can just sit back and.

[00:38:29] that we are enough and that our brain and our being is capable of so much more than we've thought it is. And when we just take a breath and can take a moment and sit with that, we accomplish so much more than when we stay busy. 

[00:38:45] Love that. So important for young people. Yeah. , where can people find you?

[00:38:51] Find me on my website, all of my social media and all of that is there. But you can also email me. shayna@conseight.world. Absolutely.

[00:38:59] I love when people reach out and have questions, so don't be afraid. I'm the one who checks it, so coming directly to me. I used to have my assistant check it, but it was just so much more powerful for me to check it myself, so it'll come directly to me. So don't be afraid to reach out. Yeah. 

[00:39:14] Super.

[00:39:15] Shayna was a pleasure to have you on the show and really loved our conversation. Thank you very much for being on the 

[00:39:21] show.