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If you want to achieve a goal, you cannot stay the same person you are now; you have to evolve. So rather than reaching for your goals by taking the actions that you think will get you to the goal, Betsy suggests asking yourself, “Who would I be if I had that goal?” Because if you can get clear on your identity and reach for your goals by being that person, everything else will fall into place.
* Connect with Betsy on IG @betsypake
Welcome to the Art of Living big podcast. My name is Betsy pake. I’m an author, a speaker and a trainer of NLP and hypnotherapy. And I’m focused on helping you understand and design your life with the power of the subconscious. This podcast is designed to help you think differently about what could be possible for your life. Now, let’s go live big hello fellow adventurers. Hi. Welcome to the show. Today I’m recording from my car. I’m recording from my car today. I am in Jekyll Island every year. My husband has a meeting here. So every year all of the solicitor’s offices all over Georgia come to Jekyll Island for like four or five days of continuing ed. So. So I came with him. And it has been quite the adventure. I want to give you the rundown on what’s gone on just since I’ve been here, and then I have a little story for you that I hope might kind of shift the way that you’re thinking and the way that you’re going towards some things that you want. So alright, so we came down. If you’re not familiar, Jekyll Island is off the coast of Georgia. And so since I live in Atlanta, it was like maybe four, maybe four and a half hours to get down here. So we are staying in St. Simons Island, which is another little island. There’s just more there. St. Simons Island is a little island. It’s superduper cute. There’s no like big hotels or high rises or anything. It’s like this little town. Do you know that show? Her of Dixie did you guys did you ever watch that show art of Dixie? Okay, so Heart of Dixie. I never saw it when it was like on TV, but I saw it when it was on Netflix. And I was obsessed with that show. And the show it takes place in this little place called BLUEBELL, which is really, I think supposed to be like Fairhope, Alabama, anyway, it it could just as easily be St. Simons like it’s this little tiny town. There’s no big buildings, no big anything. It’s all little mom and pop hotels, like Mom and Pop ins. You know what I mean? Mom and Pop restaurants like no chain stores like nothing. And it’s small, you know, we were driving around this little island. And I was talking to my husband about how big it was. And I was like, Well, how many people live here, I grew up in Vermont in a little tiny town. And I was like, it’s got to be about the same size as the little town in Vermont that I grew up in. And to me that feels significant because it’s like by the beach. And typically when you go to the beach, it’s like all high rises and like loads of people and overrun. But I think because this is an island, and it’s kind of isolated, you know, it creates a little bit of a different environment. I think all the houses there are probably pretty expensive. It feels kind of high end, a lot of the cars are high end, you know, as you drive around. So it’s been a little bit of a different experience and, and really fun to get to be here. Then every day my husband drives over the bridge to go to Jekyll Island where there isn’t a lot of like restaurants and things like that. So we didn’t stay over here. But there’s a big convention center. And I think some people rent Airbnb is maybe over here. So I came over here today, because I wanted some of that good convention center Wi Fi, because it has been really hard to get Wi Fi on the island. Like it’s super spotty. I mean, it definitely would be a great place to vacation. I came for a few days to work from here. And so that now I know isn’t like totally the best investment of my time. But anyway, I’m over here. It’s been a weird thing I got here the night we got here. I was fine. But I was starting to feel like a little dizzy. There was a couple of times I said to my husband like, do you feel kind of dizzy, we stopped at a gas station on the way here and I went to the bathroom. And I was like It felt weird in that bathroom. Like I literally was like, there’s some kind of negative energy. The bathroom but really, really I was getting sick. And so on Sunday, that was Saturday night Sunday. I mean, I woke up and I was like kind of nauseous. Like, it was weird. I was so so sick. I just I felt like I had the worst hangover ever, but I hadn’t drank anything. And the whole day I just felt awful. And then the next day I was totally fine. I don’t have COVID I think I just was rundown. You know, I just was overdone. And so
then it was like a shock to my system when I woke up on Monday and I was totally fine. But I got a little bit of work done and I got a chance to go into the ocean. And so that has all been really, really nice. Now, the interesting thing is, you know, I mentioned I grew up in Vermont, in this little tiny town in Vermont, which I looked up the population today and I grew up in a little place called St. Albans, Vermont, and St. Albans City, St. Albans city, which is like the place I grew up, there’s a town which is like the outskirts St. Albans town, but I grew up and went to the city school and all that. I looked it up today. And the census for 2020 was like 6500 people that lived there. I remember it being like 14,000 people, but that may be including the town, right? So when I went to high school, like the town kids came, we all went to the same high school. So anyway, just to kind of give you an idea. So I looked up St. Simons, and it’s about that same size. And so as the as St. Albans and St. Albans town, so same size. So I grew up in this little tiny town, but there’s a kid that I went to high school with that lives on St. Simons Island. So this is the weird thing, because part of me was like, I should reach out to him, right? Because, like, I’m in this place where he is. And it’s this little town, and I’m from this little town, and I knew him in high school, I knew he was a year younger than me. So but we grew up together, like we went to the same grade school, you know, we went to the same high school, all of our friends are the same. And so I was thinking about it. And I had this like interesting thought, and this is why I wanted to share this whole story with you is that I started thinking about what if I reached out to him? I haven’t seen him since high school. Now I graduated from high school in 89. So I don’t know how many eons ago that was, it was a long time ago. And I started thinking I had not like, who would I be? Right? And like, I want you to think about somebody from high school. If you’re around my age, right? And even if you’re not like, even if it’s only been 10 years, you know? Who are Who were you in high school? And who are you now like, chances are, it’s quite a bit different. And so many times, I think that we default back to like who we were, when we were in any kind of certain time in our life, when we go back into that environment. Let me explain what I mean by that. You know, I think we grow up, and we learn and we evolve and we change. And many times we might even leave the place where our parents live, or our families live. And then we go back for Thanksgiving. And why does everybody fight at Thanksgiving? Because we’re being pulled back into that old version of ourselves. Those people that we used to know see us through those same eyes, you know, we’re still that kid that does the stupid thing or pees their pants or whatever the heck it is. And, you know, I’m the youngest. I’m the youngest of two. So I have an older sister. So I’m the younger sister, like always be the younger sister always be the baby, the one that wants attention in that part might still be true, I’m not sure. But like, I get pulled back into that old version. And I want to say like, I’ve evolved a lot since then, like I’ve changed a lot. That’s all come when we go back at Thanksgiving, we’re like, oh my god, they’re driving me crazy. Because they’re treating us exactly the same that they did when we were who we used to be. And we do the same thing to other people. Right? Like, that’s because that’s what we know.
Hey there, I was curious, did you know that I had online courses on my website, if you go to Betsy pake.com. You’ll see at the very top menu bar, there’s a link called courses. And when you go there, you’ll see I have a variety of courses. There’s a hypnosis library, where there’s a whole collection of hypnosis, from everything from spiritual hypnosis, to weight loss and everything in between. There’s also some classes on subconscious programming and really getting to understand your unconscious better. One of my favorite courses that I’ve ever done is called the infinite soul project. And this is all about spirituality and how that really connects in with your subconscious mind. And if you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page, there’s some free courses there too. And when you log into that, you’ll be able to have access to my online community that we’ve moved away from the Facebook Group in into this new platform that I’m really excited about. And we hope to be doing some more free classes inside there as well. So jump in, find it over on my website, Betsy pake.com. And I’ll see you there. And so I was thinking about my friend, Eric that lives on the island, and I thought that would be fun to see him. And then I thought, or would it? Like, could that be uncomfortable for him? That could that be uncomfortable for me? Like, who are we now that we weren’t when we were in high school? Like, how have we evolved and changed and grown? And yeah, absolutely, we could get together and we could meet each other at this new place. But my point is, is that I started thinking about identity, you know, and who we really are, and how we’re showing up in the world. I had posted something on Instagram, I don’t know, a week or so ago, about how when we get an idea of something that we want, oh, I want that thing. That’s my goal. That’s what I want to do. What do we immediately do? We immediately get into action of like, what would I have to do? Okay, so these are the things that have to do to reach that goal. And I think that is the total wrong way to do it. Because what did we already just talk about that I’m hoping that you agreed with me is that when we evolve and change and become somebody new, we aren’t the same kind of person. So if I want to evolve and change and become somebody new, or reach a new goal, then why would I want to be the same person? I couldn’t be? Right, I’d have to be somebody different, to get that goal. And so I want to start at the level of my identity of who I really am, I want to start and look and say like, who would I be, if I had this goal, start there, don’t start with like, these are the action items that I’d need to take. Because I think when we can get clear on our identity, and we can focus there, all the other things fall into place. Our values, our beliefs, right? What we think we are capable of, right? our behavior and our environment don’t matter at all. When we are acting as the person who does the thing, then none of that other stuff matters. Because everything else trickles down and works in correspondence with who we’re showing up as with who we actually are being. So instead of focusing on what you are doing, we’d want to focus on what we are being. And I think that’s one of the big shifts, right? It’s one of the big shifts that we make when we when we grow up, right, we are being somebody different than we were when we were young or when we were in high school. Right. And I know, you know, when I think about my friend, Eric, like, we are probably being very different people. We weren’t being parents then we weren’t being like workers, like employees or business owners. You know, we weren’t being homeowners, we weren’t being married people. We weren’t being any of those people and those identities, those roles, those are roles and partially identity to those change how you respond to things and how you act.
I was looking recently on Instagram, which you know, I have the love hate relationship with Instagram, and I was on Instagram, and there was this woman that I was following. And I was like, I am so intrigued that she has built her business so quickly, you know, and sometimes I have that like clench where I’m like, Am I doing things fast enough? Am I doing things good enough? am I building it big enough? Right? Like all those normal things? And I was, and I was like, what is it? How does she do that? And then I caught myself and I was like, Who is she being that I’m not being? Right? Who is she being? She’s being confident in a different way. Right. So I really started watching. Who is she being? How does she actually think? Right? What when she makes a decision, what’s the filters that she pushes a decision through because I’m guessing it’s totally different than my filters. That’s why her results so different. So I started really trying to think about who she’s being. You guys might remember me talking years ago. It was one of the episodes. It was like 5051 one of those episodes it was when it was like a live big lab episode where I talked about having a virtual mentor And I’ll give you the rundown. So you can listen to that episode if you want to. But the rundown is basically that I found every month I would find a mentor, a virtual mentor, somebody I wanted to learn from Sara Blakely was one. And if you guys remember last year, I met her in person and told her this story. And she actually Instagrammed it, put it on her Instagram Stories, right the thrill of my life. So I would pick somebody like Sara Blakely. And then I would find everything that they had written, everything that they had been, every time they had been interviewed, every podcast interview, they had been on every time that I could listen to them for the whole month. Okay, so I would basically immerse myself in that mentor, I did this for maybe like 12 or 13 months. So I ended up having, I think it was 13 mentors. So everything total immersion, I didn’t listen to other people, I only listened to them. So that I would get this really good idea of who they were, like who they were being, how they were thinking, how they made choices and decisions. And then I would find a photo of them that I loved. And I would print it out. And I put it in these little black frames. And I had those on my bookcase. And once a week, I would have a meeting with my group of my board meeting a group of advisors and I would pull the pictures down for the people that I had already. That were already my virtual mentors, and I would put them on my desk. And then I would go over and I would I would actually have an agenda. And I would go over what were the things the decisions I was trying to make. And I would ask each of them, I would look at their picture and say, Sarah, what would you do if you needed to enroll people in this program? Or in or get publicity about this thing? Or? And then I would just be quiet and just answer as if I was her. Now I had spent so much time with her that I would get a pretty good idea. And she would answer quite differently than someone else would answer. Right? So I could get like this range. And I thought of it kind of like Shark Tank, you know how like, if you really had something that would be good on QVC, you’d want Laurie as your advisor, right? So if it was something that was that was more geared towards something, Sarah would be good, I would ask her and get her feedback. If it was something you know, Tony Robbins would be better at, I would ask him and get his feedback. You know, if it was, you know, if it was an author, or if it was somebody else, I would ask them specifically, because I’d want their advice or their feedback. But really what I was trying to do is get step into who they were being right so that I could be that. It was it was partially like what’s the action that I take, but it was through the lens of being.
So as you guys start thinking about maybe goals you have for the second half of the year, or things you really want to do, or maybe you’re already starting to think about stuff for next year, I know I am I’m starting to think about some things that would be fun to plan for next year for next spring, maybe some live events and things that I want to do. And as I’m thinking about those things, I want to put it through the lens of who I am being. And I want you to do that too. I think this could make a huge shift, if you’ve never thought of it this way, in terms of in terms of how to get there quicker, how to get their way more simpler, like with way more ease, how to make it a lot more fun, right? Because it’s always more fun when you feel like you’re progressing and you’re seeing changes and you’re you’re viewing things differently, and how to make it there with a lot more growth. Because when you get there and you’re in a place of oh, I’m being somebody different, then all of a sudden, it becomes much, much simpler to continue that right to build momentum, and to keep changing and growing and, and expanding on that. And I think that could be a really powerful shift. You know, as we start to think about what I really want to accomplish, is who do I want to be? Who would I need to be when this is accomplished? And that, I think is how we build a big life. So let me know if you’re going to try this. Thank you so so much for listening. I love you all so much. I will talk to you soon. See you next week. Hey, thanks so much for listening to today’s show. And thank you for sharing the show with your friends. I love when you guys do that. I appreciate it so much. And thank you for leaving me a review on iTunes. I know that it matters because when I go to find a podcast I always look to see what the reviews are. So it really means means a lot to me that you take a minute to like figure out how to even make that happen. Now, if you want to find me find me on social media, I’m usually on Instagram, starting out on Tik Tok. It’s just my name. Betsy pake, and that’s my website to Betsy pake.com. And you can find out all about the work that I do, having me speak for an event that you might be hoping to plan or getting trained inside my alchemy Institute, but to make it really easy, if you want me just shoot me a DM shoot me a direct message on Instagram and I will be at your service. Thanks again for listening. And I will see you all next week.
