Jennifer Walter (00:00:00) - Priscilla Stephan is an intuitive business strategist, spiritual guide, and creator of the soul-fluent leadership archetypes who help soul-driven woman entrepreneurs create sustainable, world-changing businesses that support the greater good through a powerful combination of practical business strategy together with soul guidance and the Akashic Records, she excels at helping people identify their zones of genius, step into powerful leadership and lift their purpose profitably. Priscilla's holistic and pragmatic approach to business and leadership allows her clients to lift their dream lifestyle while confidently sharing their soul's work to make a big impact and increase their profit and growth. She is the author of the international best-selling book Soul Fluent Leadership Business Guide. Amplify Your Message visibility and profits by Leveraging Your Archetype. So today, on the Scenic Route podcast, I. Welcome, Priscilla. Priscilla, how are you?
Priscilla Stephan (00:00:52) - I am well. Welcome everyone to our call today. It's going to be a good one, so buckle up. Yeah.
Jennifer Walter (00:00:59) - Oh God, yeah. Buckle up because we're going to talk about all the things we feel a lot during your entrepreneurial journey, but we don't necessarily sign up for that.
Jennifer Walter (00:01:07) - And that's the shitty feelings before we really dive into this head. But first, Priscilla, can you briefly walk us through your story, like how you started and how you got where you are today? The pivotal crossroads, the big light bulb moment.
Priscilla Stephan (00:01:22) - Those are great milestones along the journey. I would say, first of all, that I always was eager to know what I was meant to do with my life, and that was a constant search and ache. And I could never have imagined that I would be using the Akashic Records and would be an entrepreneur, and I would be helping women create world-changing businesses from the soul out. You know, like, how on earth do you even find out that that exists? Right? And so I was like, Whoa.
Jennifer Walter (00:01:56) - It's surely not like taught in any business book I read. There you.
Priscilla Stephan (00:02:00) - Go. And you and I agree that we have tried, you know, the formulas to success only to find that they fell flat. Yes. And that we needed to be inserted into our own businesses or personalities or values, or beliefs.
Priscilla Stephan (00:02:14) - And so it's been a long and winding road. So there have been three pivotal career changes with multiple dark nights of the soul. I started in the environmental policy field, where I had a graduate degree in international environmental policy. I did that for a decade. Wow, we're in doubt. It crushed me because I because the whole industry kind of crushed my spirit. I just didn't feel like we were doing enough, and I didn't feel like what I was the role I was playing was really making a difference. And that was something I just couldn't handle. And so, you know, ten years of experience, very expensive graduate degree internships, courses, and then what do I do with that? So then I started a business importing fashion accessories from my native Brazil. And that was three years that I did concurrently as I was still working in the environmental field, that's when I realized that I'd put my heart and soul and my sense of identity and worth into starting a business and after three years, just financially was not viable.
Priscilla Stephan (00:03:20) - And so closing, it felt like I had closed a part of my soul and a part of my hopes and dreams. And that absolutely, utterly crushed me. So it was two successions of I'm burned out from the environmental field. I couldn't succeed in the business that I thought was going to be my escape route into a life of freedom and greater prosperity and creativity. And so then I spent five years in this muck of searching. And so what that meant was ask me, well, how what transferable skills do I have in the environmental field, which can be a very topically specific niche into other areas because I've got to make money and still got to find a way? And so I, because I've done a lot of events, I stepped into event management, which is a stressful, chaotic and neurotic industry. Yeah. And that did not do didn't go well either. I had I was fired twice within a year. I even tried to be an executive assistant, which was, you know, I knew it was a tragedy waiting to happen because I'm not. That's not me.
Priscilla Stephan (00:04:24) - I so admire people that do that. But that's not my thing. Yeah.
Jennifer Walter (00:04:28) - And so always good to know what's yours. Yeah.
Priscilla Stephan (00:04:31) - So, you know, after all these gut punches and just the pain of, like, feeling like I was waiting in times, just waiting for the next thing to appear. Then I got a postcard for Tony Robbins events, and then I went to one of those. And then I was able to, because I had some money set aside, take a sabbatical for a year, and then came across a health coaching certification, which I thought, Well, I need some help with my own emotional eating stuff, so I'm going to do that. And then, of course, after a year, you got a health coaching certification. But I really did it because I wanted to learn about food and for my own benefit and hadn't planned it. But again, the freedom and flexibility of entrepreneurship seemed kind of like a good idea. I tried that for three years, but I knew coaching people on food, wasn't it? Because really what I was coaching them on was their careers, which actually let me up because if you're, you know, disordered eating or eating too much or comfort eating in their cases, they were doing it to compensate for the fact that they weren't happy at their jobs.
Priscilla Stephan (00:05:34) - They weren't, you know, really prioritizing themselves. And so then I was again, waiting for that next thing to emerge. And then the Akashic Records kind of fell into my inbox literally one day when there was. Look, these past promotions, you know how you.
Jennifer Walter (00:05:50) - Have a lot of things falling into your inbox? That's curious.
Priscilla Stephan (00:05:53) - I know, I know. I'll have more, please. Thank you. And so good. Good things. And so then it was the thing about the Akashic Records and healing your body story through chemical level.
Jennifer Walter (00:06:07) - Could it's just like there might be listeners who have no concept whatsoever about the Akashic records, and if that's you, fear not, that was me, I don't know, I think six months ago, eight months ago, when I first heard of Akashic Records. Could you just briefly give us an idea of what the Akashic records are?
Priscilla Stephan (00:06:25) - Yeah, some people call the Akashic Records like the database of your Soul is like the Google of your soul where you can connect to your guides and ask them about anything about you.
Priscilla Stephan (00:06:35) - Is it.
Jennifer Walter (00:06:35) - SEO optimized?
Priscilla Stephan (00:06:37) - It is. Thank you. I'm going to say that it is definitely soul optimized. Love it. It's really a way to connect to your soul guides and to ask them to help you live your best life. You know, live your best potential. And the guides are there to clarify your direction, but not to predict or to impose or say this is your path and this is your destiny. It's more a sense of how we can co-create your journey of life together from the perspective of your soul and what your soul can offer you and help you with. And so, really, when you learn to access the Akashic records, you're learning to connect to the energy of your guides, who are then going to impart wisdom and guidance and insight for you and the energy of the records because it is in a higher realm of love and truth means that you're getting very loving, kind, supportive energy, that you feel different. And it never is there to be predictive or psychic or to tell you anything that would not be for your good.
Priscilla Stephan (00:07:40) - You know, like it's not going to be unless the reader is really messed up. But there's a high level of integrity and empowerment when you come to the records, and anyone has the ability to access their own guides; people do it, you know, through journaling, through meditation, through prayer. Usually, the Akashic records are accessed through a personal prayer that you set and right. And now I teach the Akashic Records how to how to read your own, how to read, read the records of others and other things of that nature. There's so much you can do in the records. Healing guidance supports so much, and you can download entire bodies of work in there, which is what I did. So, in any event, so working with the records, really working on the soul level, it was the piece that I was the missing piece for me that I didn't know was the missing piece. And then I shifted out of health coaching and realized that my gift in the records was working with business owners and helping them design and build and grow so informed businesses, you know? But there are people in the records that do healing, that focus on so many different things.
Priscilla Stephan (00:08:46) - You know, this is my lane. I mean.
Jennifer Walter (00:08:49) - It's a tool, right? Like, it's not.
Priscilla Stephan (00:08:51) - It's a tool.
Jennifer Walter (00:08:52) - And a tool looks different regarding who is using it, Who is using it for what, Like it's it's shapeless. It's a tool.
Priscilla Stephan (00:08:59) - And it is also a deep, profound space for spiritual growth and development. For sure, you will grow spiritually as a result of connecting to your soul, which is the infinite energy of you and an energy of love and truth. So it was this, this, this all describes about 20, 25 years. You know what I'm kind of describing here?
Jennifer Walter (00:09:18) - Give or take a good elevator pitch for sure.
Priscilla Stephan (00:09:22) - Yeah. I've been a coach now for 12 years. 3 to 4 is a health coach and then switching into business and leadership coaching today. So it's definitely been a journey, and it's been a very hard journey because I've always been crippled with self-doubt. I'm sure that there were some trauma-informed issues that led to perfectionism and fear of visibility and of all things.
Priscilla Stephan (00:09:48) - Here, I am feeling drawn to spiritual work, which has its own set of stigmas and perceptions. You know, you're to who you're to this. Imagine me in New York City at a networking event saying, Oh, read the Akashic Records. Can you just imagine that? Like we're down at a Wall Street event? Like, I can say that people would be like. Like what? You have five heads. What the hell, Akashic What? Yeah.
Jennifer Walter (00:10:10) - People are still getting used to, like, what is a life coach. So let's go easy on them.
Priscilla Stephan (00:10:16) - So of course, you know, you learn that you know, like help people, you know, build businesses. So you got to really kind of come at it from a language that they can understand. So it took while, but I'm not sure. Sometimes I wonder what I've done anything differently. I don't know if I could have, you know, because I was so curious to see what I could create on this level, you know? And it's been beautiful.
Priscilla Stephan (00:10:42) - Like, I have my book. I have an entire body of work, have hundreds of hours. Guiding people in their records to live a life of purpose and fulfilment and meaning and prosperity. It's been a very hard and very rewarding journey at the same time.
Jennifer Walter (00:10:59) - Yes, Yes, I agree. It's hard, but the rewards are there. Even if you might not immediately feel they are available to you, are you really sitting here and saying it's hard? Right. Because we see we hear so many stories of apparent overnight successes, and it's like, well, good for you if that was your story. But most of our stories look a bit different. And I love what you said, that after your first fashion accessory business failed or didn't fly as it took you five years, as it took you quite a few years to kind of, like, regroup and rebuilds trust in your abilities to do or to run a business too.
Priscilla Stephan (00:11:45) - Yes. I didn't want to. I realized that I definitely didn't want a product-based business because of all the inventory at the time that that, you know, And I did so many craft fairs, and I would, you know, carry these huge pieces of luggage up the New York subway and all different kinds of places.
Priscilla Stephan (00:11:58) - And I was like, this is not what I envisioned. I have a much, you know, here I had ideas of going online to the online shopping shows, and I'm like, I'm legging, you know, this is not it. I always dreamed big. I always had big visions of what I could accomplish. It just the gap I couldn't close for whatever reason.
Jennifer Walter (00:12:18) - Maybe it wasn't meant. It wasn't yours. It wasn't meant to be.
Priscilla Stephan (00:12:22) - Or, you know, if I'm here to elevate consciousness, I guess I could do it in the fashion industry, which I'm sure with its neuroses could benefit from it. But I just don't think it was the most aligned. I didn't feel aligned with the industry at all. I thought people were weird and rude, and my experience really wasn't a positive one.
Jennifer Walter (00:12:40) - Nope, no room for for that.
Priscilla Stephan (00:12:42) - But it was good because it really got me to explore entrepreneurship and what I liked about it and realized that I really did like entrepreneurship. I liked building things from scratch.
Priscilla Stephan (00:12:53) - I liked building things of my own. And I think the double-edged sword in that it was this feeling of it builds my ego, it satisfies me that I built it, I did it. But as we know, in business, it's often a collaborative effort, right? It's not about us. We need to detach enough to let the business take its own shape and form. And so I would get to attach because if things weren't going well, you know, my sense of identity and worth was too involved and too entangled in the business for success. And that was a big lesson that I had to learn, even in this business was, Am I willing to let the business have its own journey? And for me to be the visionary or the steward of that without being the controller of it, you.
Jennifer Walter (00:13:41) - Know, and without letting success define who you are and what you like. Yes.
Priscilla Stephan (00:13:46) - Yes. And that was a big thing because when there's a trauma sense of, you know, think too often without even realizing our sense of identity, value, success and worthiness deserving or entangled in whatever creation we have.
Priscilla Stephan (00:14:03) - And that's understandable and normal. But the problem is then that means that we become highly attached and dependent to whether something doesn't go like, you know if I'm £10 lighter, I feel good. If I'm £10 heavier, I feel bad. Like we're, again, depending on something external to us to determine how good we feel about ourselves. And that's usually not always a good, great proposition. So I had to really look at, am I willing to do this work no matter what? Am I willing to stay committed to it and to the journey it wants to take, no matter where it takes me, no matter where it goes? And that's been a process, really, of trusting the process versus, Oh, maybe I'll just go get a job. And this is not what I imagined. You know, this is not what I wanted. And it's really, you know, more and more now. And, you know, because every business has a consciousness, every business has a soul of its own or an Akashic Records of its own.
Priscilla Stephan (00:15:01) - So you can connect to the energy of your business. You don't need to be in there. Akashic Records to know, just connect to the energy of your business and ask a business. What do you want? What do you want to create today? Where do you want to go? What would you have me do? And listening to what the business wants feels a little scary. Yeah.
Jennifer Walter (00:15:19) - Versus maybe what you want.
Priscilla Stephan (00:15:21) - Yeah, I want because I can control it. And I decided that's better. And so right now, I am very active after years of resisting connecting to the energy of my business for only 11 minutes a day if I try to make it any longer, I don't connect make it bigger than it needs to be. And so it's been really interesting to see what my business wants for me and wants me to go play. It actually wants to. You go to other things. And, of course, my logical brain is like, you are out of your mind. You just need to tell me what to do.
Priscilla Stephan (00:15:53) - But you know, think you know. But again, this higher energy can see beyond what we can see in that very linear way. So it's been really a practice of devotion and surrender and commitment and releasing the reins at the same time, you know, expanding the possibilities.
Jennifer Walter (00:16:11) - How did you start that process of letting loose, detaching? Well, it.
Priscilla Stephan (00:16:17) - Came from the pain of realizing that if my sense of identity was linked to anything inside of me, that I would never be really happy. Yes, that was putting way too much pressure on it, whatever that it is. My body. A relationship, a business, a job, a career.
Jennifer Walter (00:16:37) - Oh, God. I'm so happy that you say that. I see that so often, especially in a bit more experienced entrepreneurs, that they put all their mind, all their meaning into their business. And I don't know if it goes well, then they feel great. Yeah, that's lovely. But every so often, when anything happens, it completely crushes everything around them.
Priscilla Stephan (00:17:02) - Oh, and it can also mean that you really kind of you can even I've seen people go into subsistence levels. I was talking to someone a few months a few months ago, and she was really kind of barely getting by at all because she was determined. You know, there's this mentality that if my business is my purpose, then I have to make it work at all costs. But there comes a moment of reevaluation. Like, do you have basic survival needs? So you're not really enjoying your life. If things aren't moving forward. Could it be an opportunity to pivot, to maybe take some part-time work? You know, think there's this notion that if I don't make money from my business, then it's a hobby or that I'm a failure, then all these things. But you don't know what path you're being asked to take and how that can shape you. But if you insist that it's got to be this way and the money has to come only through my business, and this is the only way for me to prove and show that I'm committed.
Priscilla Stephan (00:17:55) - I think that's a faulty thing especially can happen in the coaching world that can really screw up our minds and also our bank accounts, you know, and let people really go into a lot more debt and really not take care of themselves in the process as well. You know, because money is available through multiple and infinite resources. It's not just through a business or your business, at least at a certain period of time. And so to say no to money, you know, sometimes maybe that is the right choice for some people. But I think it's time to have that honest conversation. What do I really need right now? Yeah, what will support me and what will support the business? And that means kind of, again, detaching the claws of control and attachment to look at things from a wider, healthier perspective.
Jennifer Walter (00:18:41) - Yes, I love that because I mean, I remember when I started out, I mean, the first six months were like, holy fuck, this is awesome. And then I'm like, Oh, okay.
Jennifer Walter (00:18:53) - So this is now the valley of despair. And like, all the shitty feelings were like, Hello, hello? And I was really like, okay, if I feel like my back is to the wall, I will not make the decisions that are right for me and my business in the long term. So how can I get myself away from the wall again? Like what? What does it need? And for me, that was taking on a part-time job, like a job where I'm like, I'm not stressed, not worried, clucking cluck out fair enough. For like, and had still loads of time to build a business slowly in a way I wanted to without like the added pressure of this must work or else because that energy it's a lot to handle if you're constantly with every day, every week you're like, This must work, or else it's a lot to handle a lot of shitty feelings.
Priscilla Stephan (00:19:56) - It is. And that's, you know, burnout, adrenal fatigue, you know, anxiety. Like that's what can easily come out of perpetual pressure, you know, self-imposed or external terrorizing situations, you know.
Priscilla Stephan (00:20:13) - And so think it's important to always ask, what does my body need? What does my bank account need? What does my business need to really thrive and be okay? And that can shift, you know, week to week, month to month, year to year.
Jennifer Walter (00:20:25) - Absolutely. Yeah. And it's allowed to shift. It's supposed to shift.
Priscilla Stephan (00:20:30) - Yes. It has a life and an energy all of its own. And being able to honour that, you know, maybe like with a child that children like to honour, that they have their own path, that they have their own wisdom, that it has its own desires. Then you become the steward. You don't become like the taskmaster of the business. You know I know best now you don't. Yeah.
Jennifer Walter (00:20:56) - Yeah. And especially you have no control like I always that usually like the control thing usually comes up when I talk with my clients about okay, what, what kind of goals do you set? Like, what kind of goals do you have in mind? When we're working together, they usually have what I call lack of goals, right? Like goals that are ultimately out of their control.
Jennifer Walter (00:21:19) - Like, oh, I want to have like 100 K launch, or I want to have like 200 K a year or whatever. And ultimately, you have no control over who is actually buying. You can only control what effort you are putting in and kind of like what you are building that leads up to whatever it is you want. And, but it's ultimately about letting go of that control. It's not ultimately up to you. And it's hard for a lot of people to be like, Well, but I'm building this. And especially in a coaching world where we have service-based businesses that are so tied to our personality, and we're building these personal brands and then at the same time we're like, Well, but now you got to detach from that.
Priscilla Stephan (00:22:06) - Yeah, That's why I think kind of really being in communion with the energy and the spirit of your business and your own soul and what they want can keep you connected to a feeling, right? Because every goal, I believe, has an embedded desired feeling, right? So if you're so if you think 200 K is going to be your magic number, what is the feeling you think that's going to give you a feeling of success?
Jennifer Walter (00:22:31) - And what is the story you will tell yourself about yourself to be true or not true if you if you get that?
Priscilla Stephan (00:22:38) - Exactly.
Priscilla Stephan (00:22:39) - And so that whole notion of can I be happy now? Can I embrace who I am now? That's the deeper, harder in our work. And that's the one that I hate hearing. You know, remember when I was single, people would say, you know, I you know, you have to love yourself before you can love someone else. And I was like, I hate that crap. You know, I don't want to do that. I just want somebody to love me into that, to be it. I just want to be successful so that I can be successful and just stop worrying about money and all these things and hate marketing and whatever. But at the end of the day, we have access to these feelings that we can give ourselves and cultivate now through gratitude and appreciation as we aim for more. I'm all for more; I'm all for ambition. I'm all for the sky is the limit. I'm never telling someone, If you want to be a multi-millionaire, don't be a multimillionaire.
Priscilla Stephan (00:23:33) - I am asking what is the motivation. What are the drivers behind you wanting to do that? Is that so that you can prove something to yourself in the world, which is fine? Is that because you really want to impact a greater change in the world? Like what are the true, genuine motivations? Because if it's only to a sense of proving a feeling like a sense of safety that you'll get from having more or being more, chances are you're building it on like a stack of cards, right? That's very flimsy, and it can fall.
Jennifer Walter (00:23:59) - Yeah. One gotcha win. And it's like.
Priscilla Stephan (00:24:02) - Again, it's based on external markers versus internal feelings that you can have for yourself. And so that's the harder inner work to be done; you know, what is the motivating factor? What are the motivating factors behind your goals, Right? I believe a desire, when it's true, it's pure. You just know you would like to have it. You know, your brain isn't involved. It's a feeling that kind of encompasses you, and it feels really good.
Priscilla Stephan (00:24:33) - But goals that are brainy or that are more externally driven, for me at least, they feel more hollow. They don't feel as nurturing or nourishing. You know, when I wrote my book, and I published it this year, I did the book fully with Joy, and it was such a satisfying beautiful because you know how people say, you know, write a book and then you'll become an authority in your field, and you'll make more money, blah, blah, blah. Those might be nice icing on the cake. But I wrote the book because I knew the book would help people, and I knew I would. I wanted to enjoy the process, and I did. And it has. And the rest will come of it, you know because again, a book is a creation. It has a consciousness and energy, and a soul on its own. So I kept communing with the energy of my book to see what it wanted to be. And it was this beautiful and enjoyable happy experience for the most part.
Priscilla Stephan (00:25:23) - I mean, it was work, but it was happy work. It wasn't soul-crushing. I got to do this in order to.
Jennifer Walter (00:25:30) - Yeah, pushing, pushing, pushing chapters out or.
Priscilla Stephan (00:25:35) - And that's the thing, right? If you're following the scenic route, right? If you're going to be choosing the path less travelled, which is likely what your listeners are, right? If you've done the formulas and they haven't worked, if you're sick and tired. Being either shamed or ridiculed or made to feel dumb. Because even though you know you're super smart and you work really hard.
Jennifer Walter (00:25:54) - And you're a high achiever because most of my people are like.
Priscilla Stephan (00:25:58) - We're super high achievers. We're super smart; We know how to work. You know, we've been around the block. We've invested more than we could probably say. So the point is that there's nothing wrong with us. We have to stop listening to all this bullshit, and we have to start giving more credence and space to what our inner ecosystem, our intuition, our soul, and our desires are speaking to.
Priscilla Stephan (00:26:20) - Right. I always tell people our desires are a soul whispering to us. True desires.
Jennifer Walter (00:26:24) - Are pure. You have your desire because it's not a flimsy thing. You have it because it has a meaning to it. Right? It's not just it.
Priscilla Stephan (00:26:32) - Has a purpose.
Jennifer Walter (00:26:33) - Yeah, exactly. It's not just like, oh, I don't know, someone rolled the dice, and now that's your desire.
Priscilla Stephan (00:26:37) - And the beauty of doing soul work is that oftentimes what I hear people say is that I'm validating what they already know. I'm not telling them necessarily something, you know, in terms of the direction of the business or their role in the business or what needs to happen, both in terms of the nitty-gritty mechanics of it to the energetics and the overall purpose of the business. I'm usually telling them what they already know, but there's a way that the soul communicates, right? There's this way in how it's conveyed that really lands as true, right? That lens is deeply validating, and from that space, the person can say, okay, now I have the courage, Now I have the deeper clarity, I have the deeper conviction, I have the deeper strength to go and actually follow that path, which I know is mine to walk on.
Priscilla Stephan (00:27:21) - But that most likely goes against the grain of what everyone has told you, you know, and that really allows you to a soul-driven business as a business that honours your health, your sanity, your pocketbook, and your sense of purpose. In my mind, it's holistic success, right? And that truly is the alignment of all of it. And so if you go from that perspective, look at your business now and say, how much is my business supporting my bank account? How much is it supporting my well-being?
Jennifer Walter (00:27:48) - What is what is serving and what is not?
Priscilla Stephan (00:27:50) - What is not? And so then there are opportunities to do tweaks or pivots in there, not necessarily throwing everything out the window. This week I had a client, and she's been if you.
Jennifer Walter (00:28:02) - Must burn it to the ground, feel like you must burn, you must.
Priscilla Stephan (00:28:06) - And that was the case. I had a client this week, and she is just really pretty much done with her business. And her line of business would be one that would be ordinarily, especially in our times of mental health issues, really successful.
Priscilla Stephan (00:28:18) - And it hasn't been for her. And what came through in her session really was about her taking a significant pivot, staying in the healing world as a mystic, but in a completely different arena that would be deeper and ancestral healing and all these things. And she said, you know, none of what you're telling me is different, but it is a completely different path and configuration of a business and what she has created. And that is really her soul's expression. That is really where she's being called to go. And it's a stretch. It's a real stretch for her because you would have to close down what she has done and embark on something different, not knowing how she's going to make the money, how she's going to build all of it out. You know what, the gifts are within that realm. But it was a starting point to get her moving in that direction. It was like, here's the point in the map for you to focus on, and then we'll guide you from there. So it's really it can be really beautiful when you listen to the soul of your business and what it really has to say.
Priscilla Stephan (00:29:15) - It's not a fluke. It's not a side note. It really is the essence of who you are and what the business wants to create in the world. But it creates takes time, and it takes trust to believe in yourself and to believe in what you're being given because it doesn't provide certainty.
Jennifer Walter (00:29:31) - Yeah, that's such a good point, right? Like, I mean, there is rightly so a lot of conversation about intuition and following your intuition and so on. But I love that you said self-trust because I found that older people, have to start with trusting themselves more or again to actually be able to be like, Yeah, okay, I hear this voice, and I trust it enough to accept it, to comment, to let it in and to like to execute with it in mind.
Priscilla Stephan (00:30:06) - It's a daily practice, right? Because our mind can go, Is this really my fear? Is this my ego? Is this my intuition? You know, there can be resistance because your mind is like, Oh, this doesn't make sense.
Priscilla Stephan (00:30:17) - This is not familiar.
Jennifer Walter (00:30:18) - Oh, ego talk.
Priscilla Stephan (00:30:20) - Danger, danger. Don't think you know; I'm not one to bash the ego at all. Think every part of us fear ego. They all have a purpose. But.
Jennifer Walter (00:30:27) - Oh, God, they all have. Absolutely. Yeah.
Priscilla Stephan (00:30:29) - And it's also just a matter of being able to discern how much of this is going to be helpful. I truly believe that business is a beautiful spiritual guide and teacher to show us, you know, old patterns and habits and stories and narratives that we've had about US monies, you know, all the things.
Jennifer Walter (00:30:47) - Those were all a lot of shitty feelings that came up in my entrepreneurial journey that I did not expect. If someone would have told me six years ago. You know you can start your own business, but be prepared to deal with a lot of your own shit. I would be like, okay, I'll be fine, and I am fine. It will. You'll always be fine. But man, there were a lot of things coming up.
Jennifer Walter (00:31:12) - I mean, the usual scarcity mindset. Obviously, we all have it in some form or another childhood trauma. Like there was.
Priscilla Stephan (00:31:21) - Self-doubt.
Jennifer Walter (00:31:22) - Oh, God, yes.
Priscilla Stephan (00:31:24) - Fear, money, stuff, debt, mistakes that we make, investments that didn't pan out, clients that are difficult.
Jennifer Walter (00:31:32) - What was the biggest mistake you made? One way you're totally fucked up.
Priscilla Stephan (00:31:36) - Actually, I know this is going to sound odd, but I don't like, I've never had, like, spent a ton of money on a coach and not be the right one. I've never spent thousands of dollars on launches and had it not go. I will say that I wish that my journey hadn't been so painful for this long, but every part was needed to help me get to where I was. I didn't have any major crash-and-burn scenarios. It's embarrassing scenarios like sometimes I would pay for something. I didn't have enough money in my bank account or had to have my family bail me out, or there was always a lot of shame, especially around money.
Priscilla Stephan (00:32:15) - I didn't feel like I made big mistakes so much as I've felt a lot of shame around. I should. I should be further on by now or should have made more money.
Jennifer Walter (00:32:25) - Oh God, yes. Everyone is probably now nodding how like that insane notion that we should be further ahead than we are.
Priscilla Stephan (00:32:35) - Well, because I think we were going in the scenic route means that we haven't taken the Express Highway. We're not on the HOV lane, right? We're not on the express lane. And so that means that, you know, we live in a society of rules and regulations around money and what you say for retirement and like it feels like you either are on the lane of money and tracks and success or you're not. And it feels like very much a black-and-white scenario. And that can really mess up our heads in the process, I find. And so for me, it was always a shame, the shame of, you know, success was related to a certain amount of money doesn't mean that I haven't made money every year in my business and by no stretch, I have.
Priscilla Stephan (00:33:15) - But it was never as much as I would have liked. And so that really did screw me up a lot in terms of my sense of self, my sense of purpose. And it made me question my path a lot. I had to untangle these notions that, you know, money could only come through one place through the business versus multiple avenues and had to even be willing at that point to say if my contribution in the world is best suited outside of the business model, I am okay with that. And for me to be able to genuinely tell you I would be okay with that took years because I wasn't, because I had it needed to look a certain way in order for me to prove certain narratives about myself in the world and money and, you know, and all the things. So it's not easy. So I don't think I've made some really big mistakes because investments were discerned, they were well thought out, and they were really positive ones. They really were. And I spent thousands and thousands, you know, between training and courses and business coaches, and they were all valuable.
Priscilla Stephan (00:34:19) - But it was the shame. The shame was the tough part, and the doubt. It might, you know, because there is a huge opportunity cost if you look at it from a sense, right, potentially if you were working somewhere else. So I think there was a great sense of, gosh, did I have really made the best decision to keep going? You know, and I evaluate the decision every year. Is it still the best course for me? I think not staying attached to things is really important to evaluate the energy, to evaluate your priorities, to to evaluate your health and family life. Like what do you need? Like to be whole and happy and sane and abundant, and that can change from year to year. I had a friend who said she felt shame for me this week because she really took a conscious sabbatical, you know, to take a really beautiful life. Events happened to her, and they were great. But she consciously chose to take a step back and take care of herself and all these things.
Priscilla Stephan (00:35:17) - And just like, but when somebody asked me how many clients I had just that felt really ashamed, I was like, But you took a conscious sabbatical. I don't understand, you know? And so I think it's just understanding that, you know, each year, each cycle, each season of life is a different thing.
Jennifer Walter (00:35:33) - And honouring is.
Priscilla Stephan (00:35:34) - To be a robot. Yes. They all got to produce. I got to produce. No, you've got a life. A whole life with health and family and desires and dreams and hiccups. And we need space to heal. We need space. Integrate. We need space to reevaluate, you know, and if it's okay if someone can do all those things and still make a gazillion dollars, great for them. But you are you. So you've got to stay in your own fucking lane. And I think that's the biggest message for you. You've got to stay in your own lane. You can admire other people, take what you want.
Jennifer Walter (00:36:03) - God, yes, there's always admiration, but focus on the path you're on, and you want to be on because, ultimately, it's the path you've got to walk.
Jennifer Walter (00:36:12) - And the other people you look up to, they're not walking your path. You also don't know that's a part of the online business world that also kind of bugs me. You never know what everyone is dealing with, and it's okay, right? Like you just don't know. You always see just the highs on social media. Yeah.
Priscilla Stephan (00:36:31) - You don't see all the things at the lows. You know, health scares, family issues, deaths. I mean, there's so much, and I don't. I personally haven't really fully recovered mentally from the pandemic. And I don't think many of us have fully from the extent of the terror and the fear and the isolation.
Jennifer Walter (00:36:50) - The unknown and.
Priscilla Stephan (00:36:52) - The unknown and the fact that the world feels different, at least to me it does. It doesn't feel the same. It does that sense of innocence. It doesn't to me. It doesn't. Or my mind and my nervous system haven't been able to fully just be happy, go lucky the way I used to be.
Jennifer Walter (00:37:07) - I feel like our nervous system every time I, like, I don't know, I'm in a bus or in a bigger, crowded space.
Jennifer Walter (00:37:13) - My nervous system is like, you're always kind of like, Oh, danger or danger. Ooh. Like it hasn't self-regulated with some aspect of public life, I feel, you know?
Priscilla Stephan (00:37:22) - And a friend of mine said this, you know, she was doing an intuitive reading for me. I do something called Theta healing, which is really powerful but soft. And she said this week, she said, But, you know, just remember, your nervous system has been dysregulated for quite a while now. And I was like, Oh, yes. And then I did an evaluation of how many times I went to the emergency room just this year alone, you know, all the repairs we had to do in our house. The fact that I live in a completely different area than a year ago launches and family issues and deaths of friends and family like those are no small things. And every month, there's been something, and I haven't quite found my yoga studio, haven't found my happy nature spots, you know. And so I think sometimes when we're like, why do I feel this way? Sometimes it might not be a bad idea just to do a quick list of what's happened month to month in my life that could be causing this.
Priscilla Stephan (00:38:19) - And sometimes you just don't need a reason. If you don't, if you feel off, you feel off. Yeah. And that's okay.
Jennifer Walter (00:38:25) - Like sometimes I also feel there's also shame around that, you know, like where I sometimes have people like clients or people that are friends talk to me like, Oh, you know, no one died. I don't know. But. But I still feel bad, or I still feel dysregulated. Yes. Like there is no ranking of trauma. There is no hierarchy. There's no price to win. Like whatever sends your body into a trauma response is deeply personal. And it can be, for me, could be something minor. It can be something big for someone else. Like it's, there's no hierarchy and classification of big. Like if your body reacts, then it's big for you to stop.
Priscilla Stephan (00:39:08) - Yes. And that's it. Compound that with anything else that was still lingering pre-pandemic that might not have been handled. You know, it's a lot people are going through a lot collectively, individually in their lives and, you know, learning to handle grief and fear and unknown and different ways and to become familiar with ourselves when we realize that we're just feel different, like, who am I Now, those are not simple questions.
Jennifer Walter (00:39:37) - That's that I don't know. That's never an easy question, right? Because we have we were so many hats and we are so many things to so many different people. And we want to be even more to ourselves and to the people we love. And well.
Priscilla Stephan (00:39:50) - It comes down to what's the truth for you? Truth with a capital T, the undeniable. I always tell people the truth is simple. It's not easy. The truth isn't complicated, right? The truth is, if you're not really happy, you're not the situation, you're not. So the question is, do you want to tolerate it? How much could you even tolerate it if you wanted to? Is that the best choice, or is it time to make a difficult but important pivot? Yeah.
Jennifer Walter (00:40:14) - Or even the tolerate question because I feel it's a tricky one because, most of us, we are too good at tolerating shitty things.
Priscilla Stephan (00:40:22) - Yeah. Especially if you have trauma in your life, which most of us have. That means that we have a much higher threshold, I find, for pain and for pushing through and just ploughing through.
Priscilla Stephan (00:40:32) - And so one of the questions I ask my clients often is, what are you tolerating? Right? And from the little things, yes. You know, my fridge door doesn't close.
Jennifer Walter (00:40:43) - Do the same.
Priscilla Stephan (00:40:46) - Yeah, yeah. And so that gets us to thinking about that. But some people aren't ready to make the shift. And then when I ask them, how much capacity do you have to tolerate staying where you are, that's when they go, Oh, God, Like, I can't even think like when.
Jennifer Walter (00:40:59) - We're like, No, none like subzero.
Priscilla Stephan (00:41:01) - Well, then, okay, then. So then you need to have to have a little heart-to-heart with yourself about what you know. Let's break down the fear. Let's break down the steps of what it will take to make those changes, reminding you that alignment will always get you to a better place than where you are now, Right? Thinking yourself into a whole of continued misalignment will never get you where you want to go.
Priscilla Stephan (00:41:22) - We'll just get you deeper in a whole of going against yourself or betraying yourself, you know?
Jennifer Walter (00:41:28) - Yeah. And yeah. So ultimately, it's your way inward is your path forward.
Priscilla Stephan (00:41:34) - Always love that. The way inward is the path forward.
Jennifer Walter (00:41:37) - You to write it down. It's really good. It's a good one. Yeah.
Priscilla Stephan (00:41:42) - Yeah. Kudos to you. Snap, snap, snap.
Jennifer Walter (00:41:45) - Yeah, Like. Okay, like a mic drop. No, but it's really. It's really. It's like, I feel this. This has, this has been like part fireside chat, part coaching session. I'm like, there's a lot of things I like. There were a lot of new thoughts that sparked, and I'm like, I got a process. I got to think, put on my thinking cap, get my thinking chair and be like, Have to think after process.
Priscilla Stephan (00:42:09) - Yeah, Let it let it percolate and integrate for sure. I'd like to go deep. I don't like to mess around.
Jennifer Walter (00:42:15) - That's my kind of woman, I tell you.
Jennifer Walter (00:42:17) - Like, yep, this is our life.
Priscilla Stephan (00:42:19) - This is our sense of joy. And that's so precious, and it's something that is within our control. And that means regulating what we need regulated, listening to what needs to listen to, honouring what needs to be honoured and going way more inward so that we can go further, you know, forward, that we.
Jennifer Walter (00:42:39) - Can inward, that we can go forward. Seriously, That's like a new headline website. Like that's like done, right? Like you're like, Yeah, yes, that's it. So, so if you ever ask yourself what what we're branding people do, that's what branding people know exactly. Like, tell me, if someone wants to go hard and go deep with you, where can they find you? Online?
Priscilla Stephan (00:43:06) - Yeah, Priscilla stuff, and I have a free three-minute quiz to help you identify your soul leadership archetype. There are five. I also have my book, The Soul Fluent Leadership Business Guide, which helps you How to build a Business around your innate soul-level gifts, which is your archetype.
Priscilla Stephan (00:43:23) - So that's that's also on my website.
Jennifer Walter (00:43:25) - So quiz first, book second.
Priscilla Stephan (00:43:27) - Unless you really want to go to because. Yeah, but the book also has the book.
Jennifer Walter (00:43:30) - Fair enough. So you can.
Priscilla Stephan (00:43:31) - Just and my speciality is working with established soul-driven women who are mostly service-based, you know, coaches, consultants, attorneys, bookkeepers, CEOs of conscious businesses, and they help them grow sustainable and profitable businesses that are actively changing the world to make it a better place. I love that.
Jennifer Walter (00:43:52) - Priscilla, thank you so much for spending time with me on this podcast. It has been a great joy. Thank you so much.
Priscilla Stephan (00:44:00) - Thank you so much for having me. We had some kick-ass moments here and some insights.
Jennifer Walter (00:44:05) - Yeah, light bulb, light bulbs. I'm like, yes, yes, yes.
Priscilla Stephan (00:44:08) - The way inward is the path forward.
Jennifer Walter (00:44:11) - Seriously, I cannot believe how fucking amazing this is.
Priscilla Stephan (00:44:14) - Yes, Jennifer. Walter. That's it. Yes. Do I have your permission to give you credit for that? And I can share it? Yes.
Jennifer Walter (00:44:21) - Yes, absolutely.
Priscilla Stephan (00:44:22) - I'm saying yes. Yes. I'm ready to say yes. I'm taking that. It's up to you.
Jennifer Walter (00:44:26) - It's a good pro chakra. Yes.
Priscilla Stephan (00:44:27) - Thank you so much. And to all of you listening, trust your path, trust your way. Stay in your own lane, and don't ever compromise compromising sex.
Jennifer Walter (00:44:38) - Yes, Beautiful words. Thank you so much, Priscilla.