Full Ignite Power Webinar Video Transcript Below. Content has been broken up by headers for reading ease.
What is Ignite Power About?
Thank you for being here. I am Margaret Graziano. I go by Magi and today we’re going to have a conversation for igniting feminine power and leadership in every area of life.
There was a time not too long ago, that if you wanted to buy a house, you needed your husband as a co-signer on the mortgage application. Same thing for cars, same thing for any major purchase. And that was just in the last two decades.
We now have more women in leadership than we’ve ever had, but it’s taken a massive effort on many women’s parts to make that happen.
What is Ignite Power about?
It is about you owning who you are and the life you want to live in every single area of life that’s important.
In fitness and in health, in being a mother or a wife, in being a working businesswoman, in being a leader, in being a teacher, in being an architect, whatever is important to you. Health, fitness, wellbeing, state of mind….
That’s what Ignite Power’s about.
Setting Intention
We’re going to begin with intention. And I’d like to read you a poem by William Ernest Henley:
Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.
That’s Invictus by William Ernest Henley.
The key to igniting power, whether you’re a man or a woman, and in this case women leaders, is getting in touch with who you are at the core.
I was talking to my coach yesterday and she said, “Tell me about how the mind works.” And as soon as she asked me that question, it was clear to me that everything I needed to know already was inside me and that’s the same for you.
I’m here to talk to you about igniting power, but the reality is you don’t need anything to ignite your own power. You need to have an intention. That’s important to you.
You need to be clear about what that intention is, and then you need to live your life in accordance with that intention.
Magi’s Story
In the year 2000, my sales coach, Tom Shouf asked me to go do a program with Jack Canfield. Back then it was called Success Principles. And in that year I did many different programs, but Jack was one of the programs.
I also got into the coaches training Institute. Both journeys took me in the future 20 years, and the future would have been 2020.
Back then, I owned a recruiting company and the only future I could see before doing the work that I’m about to share with you was a better form of recruiting company. Oh, I was going to be better, different, smarter, faster, unique, but I couldn’t see outside the four walls of being a recruiter and owning a recruiting company. And then when I did this workshop, I had the opportunity to visit myself 20 years in the future and sit down with myself and have a conversation with myself and create the future that I wanted.
And out of that active meditation, came that I would live in Northern California, where the weather suited my not just mental health, but physical health.
And out of that active meditation, came that I would live in Northern California, where the weather suited not just my mental health, but also my physical health.
And not only would I live in Northern California, I would lead mind, body, and spiritual retreats for executives who wanted to create environments that were a manifestation of their own core values. And not only would I live in Northern California and would I do retreats like that, but I myself would be living my ideal life and operating at my highest level of consciousness.
And after I created the intention, I stayed recruiting and I stayed in Chicago until one day when I was leading a seminar for an organization that I used to lead seminars for, and it was called Velocity.
And in the Velocity seminar, we look at areas of our life that we had a goal, we had a dream, but we forgot about it. We stopped thinking it was possible.
And in that Velocity seminar, when I was declaring what I had given up on, I realized that, “Oh my God, I think California is something I have to do when I retire after I’ve been successful.”
And I realized that no, I could exponentially get whatever I wanted in the moment. And from that point forward, I’ve been making choices congruent with that intention.
And that’s really what Ignite Power is about. It’s tapping into your essential, essential wisdom and tuning in to your core values, and turning on actions that will get you exactly where you want to go when you want to go there.
And that’s what we’re up to today and in our workshop. I want to tell you about Tiffany Tremmel.
Tiffany’s Story
So, Tiffany was in one of my initial cultural transformation programs. She and her boss reached out to us because there was trouble in paradise where Tiffany worked.
There was a manufacturing company, there were 500 people there, and the new general manager had done things that were not in the best interest of the employees and they knew it and they were ready to mass exodus. So Tiffany got in her bosses ear and said:
“This is a culture issue. We need to call this woman.”
So we met with them and they hired me and my team. We went over there and we did a Level Set, which is one of KeenAlignment’s initial programs. And a Level Set is a version of a leadership immersion, not that different than Ignite Power, but Ignite Power is focused on women.
But in this Level Set, we gave them opportunity after opportunity, challenge after challenge to solve problems as a team, and they couldn’t get it done and they couldn’t get it done and they couldn’t get it done.
They were arguing and they were frustrated and they were giving up and Tiffany would like raise her hand and ask for permission. “Hello, I have an idea and nobody would listen.” And then she would say, “Tiffany, have yourself be heard.” And then she would yell and they still wouldn’t listen.
And finally, after four hours of them trying to solve these problems back and forth, coaching out of coaching, Tiffany got grounded by one of my teammates and got access to her internal power and she’s pregnant, she’s ready to have a baby.
She gets on a chair, somebody holds the chair for her and she said, “Listen, you guys, you are never listening to me and I have the answer. And if you would stop working for five minutes and hear me out, I have the answer.” And everybody was silent.
From standing on this chair, looked down at these people and at the challenge ahead of them and walked them through how to solve the problem. 30 minutes later, they were done with a four-hour challenge. And that was Tiffany’s beginning of her journey. And if you want to see more about her, you can check her out on my website.
She started with us and with that company as a labor relations manager, and she’s now a chief talent strategist. And it was a year and a half of her doing deep excavation on who she is as a leader and what’s in her way.
Now we’ve boiled that down to two and a half days in Ignite Power. But we learned from the people that we coached of what was needed and how to get the message across in two and a half days.
Promises of Today – Three Things to Focus On
So let’s talk about the promises of today and the promises of our two and a half-day retreat.
But before I do that, I want to ask you, why did you register for this program? We had an excess of 115 people register for our program. I’d like to know why.
You’re not going to have an opportunity to share with me because it’s a webinar, but write it down.
What would have the next 45 minutes be absolutely and totally worth your time?
What do you want for yourself in the next year of your life?
What would have this year be worthy of your time and take a minute and write that down?
With or without COVID, with or without whatever it’s called, a vaccine. With or without your ideal job, with or without the power that you want others to give you.
1. Tap into Motivation
So, first of all, what we want you to get out of your time with us is we want you to tap into your motivation to make this year, the year that there’s no looking back.
This year, the year that you own your power, that you are clear where you’re headed and you don’t have to have any buy-in from anyone else, that it’s the right thing to do.
What would have this year be the year for you? Whether it’s the best year yet, or the year you stake your claim, having no holes barred.
What would have to happen?
2. Daily Disciplines
Second, we’re going to talk about daily disciplines or the power hour that some people in the industry of transformation and personal wellbeing talk about.
But what would be the disciplines that you use to tap into your innate wisdom, to turn on your internal power and to move forward in action, taking the right yeses and the right nos to get you where you want to be.
“To operate in peak performance” as Tony Robbins says.
3. Our Invitation To Go Deeper
Three, we’re going to give you an invitation to go deeper and join us in our Ignite Power retreat, February 18th, 19th, and 20th, 2021. It is remote and it’s an extraordinary experience that we hope to share with you.
Our Four Fundamental Needs
Right now, and in the world, it’s important to know that people have four fundamental needs, four fundamental ingrained needs, whether you’re aware of it or not.
1. Certainty
People have a need for certainty. The brain, your executive brain, your prefrontal cortex has a need to know what’s happening next and next and next and next.
And that need for certainty has been disrupted in the year 2020 and early 2021 already more than it’s probably ever been in your life unless you lived in New York during 9/11.
So this need for certainty, we have pathways in the brain and the brain loops, and it needs to find patterns. That’s why with children or puppies, I have one right now, they need structure.
They need to know what time bedtime is. They need to know what time lunchtime is. They need to know what time dinnertime is, what time storytime is.
2. Structure
The human being needs structure at some level. And some people need more structure than other people. Also, people have a need for uncertainty. If you don’t like that word, variety, change, excitement, novelty. It’s part of the five keys to neuroplasticity in order to grow, you need new experiences.
3. Physical Touch and Connection
Well, if you’ve been in your home for the better part of a year, and if you’re normally used to traveling and you’re not traveling, or you’re normally used to seeing your friends and family, and you’re not doing that, you don’t have a lot of uncertainty right now.
So whenever we’re not getting our fundamental needs met, there is this ease in our body, in our spirit, in our mind. Also human beings, human beings, like you and me have a need for connection with other people. This need to hug and touch.
It releases oxytocin in a chemical in our brain and has us feel safe. Well, if you haven’t been touched or touching or connected any other way, but Zoom, the mind, the body, the spirit is in disease.
4. Significance
And then significance. A feeling that what you do matters. So these are fundamental needs, and most of us are not getting our fundamental needs met at least in the last 12, maybe 11 months.
And so in Ignite Power, we’re going to talk not only about those needs, but you’re going to dig deep about what are your fundamental needs and what do you need to do to make sure those needs are met?
Because you see, if your needs aren’t met, you can’t operate at your highest level of effectiveness. If your needs are not met, you’re not going to be as self-expressed as you are.
If your needs are not met, you’re not going to be as loving and warm and kind as you normally would be because you’re a human being and there are chemicals and hormones that run your body, whether you want that to happen or not.
How to Envision Your Future
Next, we’re going to have you envision your future. And there’s a great article in Fortune Magazine about the owner of GOT-JUNK.
GOT-JUNK, think about it.
Those guys come into your house and they get three, four, $500, $1,000 to take your junk and drag it away. That CEO happened to be a man. That CEO not only created his vision, he painted it.
He literally went through an exercise of creative self-expression, tapping into the right hemisphere, the part of our brain that is creativity. And he envisioned his future.
We’re going to do something like that in Ignite Power. But right now I’m going to give you a mini version.
This is from the book Journey to the Heart by Melody Beattie. And it’s called discover your own truth. And if you want to participate, please close your eyes, settle into your seat, feel your bum on the chair, your feet on the floor, rub your feet on the floor so you can feel yourself grounding, feel the skin beneath your clothes and go on little mini journey with me.
No truth is ours until we make it our own. All the truths in the world don’t matter unless we discover them to be true for ourselves. This is what the journey is about.
A New Adventure and New Lesson for You
An insight, a lesson, a new belief is at the end of each adventure. Whether that adventure happens in a moment, in an hour, in a day, in a two and a half-day retreat, or in a year.
This lesson doesn’t come from books, although books might help. This kind of lesson only comes from an experience. It doesn’t come from classes or lectures, or really well-meaning friends telling us what they think we should do.
The lessons we are seeking come from inside us, from our hearts, from our deep abiding connection to consciousness and truth. It springs quietly from as we notice one day that we believe something new, something different, something more freeing, more fun, and more life-enhancing than we believed before.
For a moment, we may turn back and say, “Why didn’t I get that? Why didn’t I see that? How come I didn’t know that before?” But then we have a choice to step back on the path, laugh at ourself and go on our way understanding we have now grown.
We are now new and we can begin again.
We don’t need to know everything in advance, but we need to allow ourselves to go freely through all the lessons that teach us so we know who we are and where we’re going. You’re on a journey of discovery. The journey begins in 2021.
Find out what’s true for you. Remember, a truth isn’t a truth until it’s yours.
Imagine Yourself a Year from Now
With your eyes closed, imagine it’s a year from now.
I want you to think about your relationship with your significant other, what would have this be a pivotal year in your relationship? What kind of things would need to be happening?
And please don’t go down the road, “Well, COVID would have to be over and I’d have to have a vaccine,” because you have no control over that.
The only thing you have control over is you and how you interpret what’s happening around you. And you have all the control in the world because your thoughts control your experience.
Nobody controls your thoughts, but you.
What would have this be an extraordinary year for you and your kids? Maybe you and your parents.
How about at work in whatever career you’re in. What would have this be the year that you’re fully self-expressed what would need to happen? Maybe in fitness.
Envision that and write that down. Keep coming back to that vision.
We don’t have time to have you paint. Otherwise, we would do that.
Next, I want you to look at what’s in the way? What’s in the way for you?
We all have limiting beliefs, we all have limiting behaviors, we all have strengths that we overuse to the point of, we are really good at one thing, but when we use that strength in our relationship with our significant other, that doesn’t feel too good to them and it doesn’t wind up very good for us.
Beliefs, Behaviors, and Attitudes that Constrain Us
What are our beliefs, our behaviors, our attitudes that constrain us?
I want to share a big one for me was at the beginning of, so last year, my goal was I was going to lead 14 Level Sets. We were going to transform 14 companies, which would be double what we normally do.
By still serving our existing book of business, we were going to add 14 more. But we had $700,000 were the contracts on our books as of March 1st.
As of March 20th, everything evaporated. All speaking engagements, all Level Sets, all retreats, everything evaporated. And I felt like I was not standing on firm ground. I felt like I was on a flagstone that was moving like an earthquake and I had to balance myself and I talked to one of my coaches, Ken.
And he said, “So you can’t do anything about COVID. You can’t do anything about the pandemic. You can only do something about your thinking about the pandemic.”
In that moment, it rang true for me from my past that whenever we are self-absorbed, “I don’t want to get sick. I don’t want my business to go under. I don’t want my kids to get sick. I don’t want my mom to get sick.” Whenever we’ll self-absorbed, our thoughts take on a life of their own, and mostly they’re a spin-out cycle.
So, I started thinking about how can I contribute.
How can I contribute to other people? And instead of having my open schedule be a roadblock for me, my team, and I started leading ResponseAgility workshops, and we started doing it online and we led over 30 of them for free.
We taught people how to navigate stress, pressure, disappointment, uncertainty.
Then, I started enrolling in all these classes and doing all the things that I never had time for. But it took me first looking at what was in the way in order to dismantle it.
So for you, when you think about that future, you want to live into what would have this year be the year that you breakthrough?
What’s in your way?
Are you addicted to the news?
Are you waiting for the vaccine?
Are you waiting for permission that the new president is going to make everything okay?
Are you waiting for somebody from your family or your boss to tell you that you got that raise or that you’re going to get that job?
What’s in the way for you?
Write it down so you can get really clear about it.
Our Life As it Is VS Life As We Want It
Now, let’s talk about what we wish life looked like and what life actually looks like.
20 years ago, I created my future. I decided I’m going to live in Northern California. I’m going to be in the world of transformation, leading mind, body, spiritual retreats.
How 9/11 Changed My Business
I didn’t know they’d be called Level Sets. That was my future, right? And then what happened is something called 9/11.
My first big dip, I had a 14,000 square foot office. I had a bunch of employees and in one day we went from being busier than we’d ever been because of the Y2K expansion of everybody that was doing recruiting, then blew up in our faces after 9/11.
We were not busy at all. We went from 70 open job orders to two. Very similar to what happened in COVID. But I had a choice.
Many of my friends went out of business that year.
Many agencies in Chicago went out of business. Friends and colleagues, I mean, just disappeared. Moved out of the area, gave up, but I didn’t do that.
Because I had this future that was calling me, I negotiated the lease on a handshake and I got out of this 14,000 square foot lease and I went into a small office space on the first floor and the business made it.
We survived, not that different than I think about it’s a wonderful life with Jimmy Stewart when they had the $8,000. We made it and the business sustained for another eight years until I sold it.
The Housing Crisis in 2008
Now, the next big hiccup I had was the housing crisis in 2008.
I had a staffing firm, I had a McMansion in Illinois. Now, I had been going to financial webinars and workshops, back then they didn’t have webinars, workshops.
And they said, “You should not be having a McMansion. You should not be driving a new Lincoln Navigator, pair down. And I heard it, and I heard it, and I heard it. Well, one day I woke up and I said, “It’s time to sell the house.” Put the house on the market. This was an Arlington Heights, Illinois. And in five days, my house sold.
I got $999,000 for that house. It was enough to pay off my mortgage in the line of credit and all the stuff I had to have.
And five days later, the housing market hit, and that house was now worth $545,000.
I escaped because my house was bought for cash. I got really lucky, but was it luck? Or was it that I was tuned in and I knew when to listen and when to act?
Tap into your innate wisdom, turn on your power, and move forward.
Was it that? Maybe but I got lucky. Same time period, I sold my staffing firm, and then during that time I wanted to do consulting. And so our Keen Hiring program and started consulting.
My First Customer
The first customer I went to with Keen Hiring was Norman Brooks. I did this role analysis process that I used to do for free, but I said I was charging for it now because I wasn’t in staffing anymore.
He not only paid us $2,500 for that process. He said, “You guys don’t do coaching, do you?” And I said, “Yes, we do.”
He gave us 13 coaching contracts in two days. Like a miracle.
I was thinking I was going to have to live off my retirement and here’s Norman Brooks giving us 13 coaching contracts. So it was a whole divot whoop just learning this new software. It was a divot and we climbed out of it.
For two years we worked with that company and coached all their leaders and helped them reorganize HR. And even some people on this webinar I met during that time period. Then, I had the opportunity to move to California, but it wasn’t like somebody said ‘move to California.’
It was a calling that I had, the time is now.
Now, maybe the timing was off a little because it was 2010 and people still weren’t hiring and I was moving to California to turn Keen Conscious Hiring® into a software.
Everything I had sold, I put in storage and the rest of it, I brought in a four by six truck and moved out here with nothing, but maybe $20,000.
And I started interviewing people to turn Keen Hiring into a software. And I thought this is going to happen.
Losing My Intellectual Property
I had the best coach ever. I found the right person. I went into an engagement. I brought my partner, Stephane Marbury. She kept flying here back and forth and we built the software.
One year later, the week before it was going live, Stephane said, “I’m tired of working for free. I want you to pay me.” And he didn’t consult me at all. I was his partner. He fired her. So I’m getting a strange text message and I’m not answering it. And the phone’s ringing and finally I answer and it’s her and she said, “I’ve been terminated.”
I walked into his office. I said, “You don’t have the right to do that.” And he said, “I have the right to do anything I want and if you don’t like it, you can leave because we have your intellectual property. We have your son and we don’t need you and we don’t need her.”
At that moment, I knew who I was, you know what? I went home.
I was in a deep, deep, deep state of despair. And I didn’t know what to do.
My son came into my room, the same kid who worked at that company and he said, “This is not what the woman who raised me would do. Get up and stand up for your rights and do what you need to do.”
And so a week later, I filed a lawsuit to get my intellectual property back, and to make a long story short, it took two years, but I got the intellectual property back.
It’s now in the queue as a beta for a software for behavioral interviewing. And I got a little bit of money, but the point is I’ll share later if there’s time, but I certainly share in Ignite Power.
The washing machine spin cycle I went through during that process, the majority of the people in that company were men, actually, her and I were the only two women and they fired her.
The board was men.
It was venture capital-backed. And when I was telling them that I wanted out, they kept saying, “Don’t abort the baby. The baby’s going to be born tomorrow. Don’t abort the baby. You would never abort a baby in the final trimester.”
Who would ever talk to a man like that?
I started to see how women were treated when they acted in a principled way and stood up for what they believed in and it wasn’t pretty. But at that point, I wasn’t prepared to do anything about it until Tiffany entered my life.
Seven Levels of Effectiveness
I want to talk about the seven levels of individual, group and organizational effectiveness.
And I want you to consider these seven levels as you’re thinking about your life and the future you want to create.
Level 1: Operating in Hopelessness
The first level of ineffectiveness is hopelessness. This is like the sound if you heard it, like just exasperated. Like I was when I was laying in my bed, not wanting to get up at 11 o’clock in the morning.
I didn’t know what to do. I had already spent the time to build the software. We were ready to go to market and I didn’t have a leg to stand on. I think I told you that we went into development on a handshake.
And if I didn’t, I’m telling you now. There was no contract. So he could fire me at a whim. He could fire Stephane. He could take me out of being the owner.
As a matter of fact, after this whole thing happened with Stephane, and I said I’m not bought into that, the day before we were going to go live, he said, “You’re no longer 50% owner. You’re 10% owner. Oh, and by the way, we’re not going to do behavioral interviewing and workflow for interviewing. We’re going to compete with LinkedIn.”
That was not at all what I wanted. So I was hopeless and I didn’t know what to do about it.
What I wound up doing about it is going to see a therapist. I called Kaiser. I got in to see a therapist. And that was my first step.
Level 2: Operating in Fear
In my whole life, I had never gone to therapy or counseling, but I thought I was losing it. I go to him and he says, “Honey, you don’t need happy pills. You don’t even need therapy. What you need is to take action so you can get out of the fear that you’re in.”
He was the person that told me to file the lawsuit. Not that I needed him to tell me.
That was already in the back of my mind, I was already thinking about it, but I was afraid and I was afraid and I grew up in recruiting. People who file lawsuits have bad reps. It carries with them forever. So I had some blind spots that I even deserved to get my IP back.
So the day I filed that lawsuit, the day I called CLC and said, “I want to get my IP back.” The fear dissipated, but before that, I was running, I always used to run in this Vasona Park, a beautiful loop in Northern California and I’m running and everybody I ran across, like, you know, you run by had this frown and they seem sad and they seemed worried. And even the guy at Starbucks seemed sad and worried. And at that point, I didn’t get that I was sad and worried. Projecting it to everybody I see.
By the way, that how the mind works.
When you are sad and worried and afraid, what you resist, persists, think about, you project.
When you’re below the power and freedom line in this model, all of your negative energy, all of your hopelessness energy, all of your fear, all of your frustration, everything it touches is projected back to you.
I didn’t know it at the time. I just thought everybody was really crazy.
I will share how that shifted for me just a week later after I filed the lawsuit in a minute.
Level 3: Operating in Frustration
The next stage of any effectiveness is frustration. This is when you are pissed off, angry, annoyed, had enough, you’re not going to take anymore in the corporate environment.
When this happens, you see a lot of fighting, you see a lot of blaming, a lot of shaming in personal relationships. You see parents yelling at their children.
When you’re in frustration, you are at the highest level of ineffectiveness and it’s still ineffective because you can’t see straight.
Remember you got adrenaline. Maybe you didn’t know this, but I’ll tell you now, adrenaline and cortisol shooting out from your amygdala, which is sandwiched.
Like if you were to drill a hole from the top of your head, above your ear, it’s like a little almond-shaped organ in your brain. And it was created originally, but it’s the only part of the brain that hasn’t grown up or evolved.
And so every time we are angry, fearful, or hopeless, our brain reacts the same way as it would react if a saber-toothed tiger was coming to kill us.
There’s no sense.
Common sense is not available to us and this is really important for multitaskers, and people who work at a level 10 at a pace of one to 10 all day long. Common sense is not available.
Wisdom is not available when you’re operating in a durable machine, it’s just not available.
And this is not just Margaret or Magi talking. This is neuroscience talking.
Common sense disappears when adrenaline and cortisol are flooding our executive brain. We have no access to it. And remember below the line, it metastasizes like cancer, and we give it to everybody we live with.
We give it to our kids. If we’re afraid, your kids are afraid. If you’re angry, your kids are angry. You might not believe me, but take notice after this call. So let’s talk about better days. We move into courage.
The day I filed the lawsuit, I went running on the same path. It was the same time of day. It was a week later, nobody looked angry or sad.
Everyone looked happy.
As a matter of fact, I would swear to God, I saw halos around their head and then when I went to Starbucks, they were so nice to me. And I didn’t even get it at the time. I just said, “Wow.”
And then my coach had to say, “Honey, you’re projecting.” And then I started learning more and more about neuroscience.
Like heavy neuroscience in the last seven years because the brain and the mind are pretty powerful more than we ever thought. If you haven’t watched Limitless or Lucy, even though they’re wild and crazy stories, they give you a sense of what happens when people are operating above the line in courage and in engagement.
Level 4 & 5: Operating in Courage and Engagement
When we’re operating in engagement and courage and innovation, which is coming and synchronicity, hormones are released.
Hormones like oxytocin, serotonin, dopamine. These are like the ‘feel-good.’
That’s where they got the word dope from dopamine. Some people have to smoke pot, some people just go running or do yoga and they’ve got this experience of ‘wow, everything is possible.’
Just like below the line, the negativity metastasizes above the line, but the power and freedom, you just see so much more expansively in engagement. If you’re in an organization and people are in engagement, you don’t really need a diversity program or an inclusion program. It’s already happening.
It’s in the DNA of the organization. You can’t fake engagement and an engagement survey isn’t going to tell you if people are engaged, their contribution is going to tell you if they’re engaged.
Level 6: Operating in Innovation
Next is innovation. This is when people are working together beyond all limits.
They don’t see limits, they see opportunities and they’re collaborating and they’re connecting and they’re pushing up against problems and challenges and they’re truly giving away their agenda and their personal identity for what’s possible.
And when we do this in our personal life, we start to do things like register for a program we’ve never registered for before, or we sign up for a triathlon and we’ve never done a triathlon or we just finally decide we’re booking that trip for 2022 to Patagonia and we’re going forward, or we’re going to Machu Picchu.
We’re doing something we’ve never done before and we have zero evidence that we will know how to do it, but we’re going forward. It begins at courage and innovation is where it’s a slam dunk and finally is synchronicity.
Level 7: Operating in Synchronicity
This is when we realize that everything that’s happening in the world, everything, if I’m having a hard time finding the right man, then I know I got to look at me.
Why aren’t I finding the right man?
Why am I dating people who are not qualified for the job of husband?
That’s my issue. It’s not their issue.
“Why is my boss not honoring his appointments with me? Why didn’t I get a raise? Why am I making less than my counterparts? How come nobody listens when I talk?”
When you’re in synchronicity, you get that life is a mirror and everything that happens is just an opportunity for wisdom to emerge and for growth to emerge.
And that’s the seven levels and we go deep into this in the Ignite Power retreat. We also do it in all of our corporate work as well.
Addressing Our Own Limitations
Let’s move on to limits. So when you are in frustration and hopelessness, in fear, what gets in your way?
Yes, the thinking and the behavior, but what is your flavor? Who are your saboteurs?
In psychology, your first psychology course in college, everyone has a golden shadow, which now they talk about that’s the highest level of consciousness and a dark shadow, which is like your saboteur the coaching schools. We’ll talk about that.
Or your dark shadow. Well, mine is a drug addict and I live in Santa Cruz, California, and there are a lot of drug addicts in Santa Cruz, California.
I find it interesting that I could face it every day if I wanted to. But here’s how a drug addict showing up in my life is a deep, deep fear of being homeless, poor, on the street, not being able to pay my bills.
What is a person who has a little devil on her shoulder? “Don’t fail. You can’t fail. You can’t fail.”
She books herself solid. There’s a book, Book Yourself Solid. I don’t need that book. I am book solid. I need to learn how to do better with less. So maybe I need to raise my rates.
That’s a possibility, but when my limiting thinking is taking over, I’m scheduled from 7:30 to 8:00, from 8:00 to 8:15, from 8:15 to 9:00, from 9:00 to 10:00, from 10:00 to 11:00, from 11:00 to 12:000, from 12:00, oh, wait, I have lunch maybe from 12:00 to 1:00, but then one o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock, four o’clock, five o’clock with no break to pee, no break to get a drink of water and that is completely limiting.
It’s something I am working on and I do this for a living.
So I ask you, what are the limiting behaviors or beliefs in your way? And not just what are they, but how do they show up?
What do the saboteurs say to you?
Like my saboteurs say, “If you don’t take that client when they want you to take them, they’re going somewhere else.”
So now I’m working Saturday mornings and Tuesday nights and even Stephane who works as my partner, a different Stephane. But she was around back then too. She even has the same thing. “We have to do this. We have to do this. We have to do this or they might go away.”
But that whole conversation of the scarcity of time is a limit for me.
My question for you is what’s your limit for you?
Precious’ Story
I’ll speak for Precious since she’s not here right now, but precious is one of the women who took Ignite Power last time. We had it in September. It was the first remote Ignite Power that we ever did. And Precious as a CEO of multiple hospitals. Now we’re in COVID. So the fact that she took time on a weekend to do a retreat for herself is miraculous and in the retreat, and I wish she could share, but she’ll share in the next retreat if she realized she wasn’t taking care of herself.
She wasn’t putting her own oxygen mask on. She was so busy being of service to everybody else that she wasn’t taking time to nurture.
And now for our next Ignite Power, Precious has come back as a group leader, and she sending 11 women on her team to this retreat, because it was so impactful for her.
So you’ve got the vision for your future. You have a list of your limits. What’s in your way, your beliefs, how they show up in life. Is that your mother when she calls, ‘Oh God, there it is.’
But write it down, make sure you have it.
Now, what it’s going to require is for you to tap into your highest level of effectiveness every single day.
The Importance of the Power Hour
There are people in the industry that call it the power hour. I call it a morning ritual.
One of the people on this webinar used to work for me and I share my calendar with everybody. And she goes, “I’d like to understand what this Magi practices her morning ritual is.”
And what it is 20 years ago, I started doing five sun salutations every single morning when I woke up.
Then I added eight-minute abs to the five sun salutations.
Then I added five pushups per sun salutation.
Now, we get 25 pushups, eight-minute abs, which is about 140 abs, and then we have this sun salutation, which I’m learning to do it much slower as I learn more about how the mind works.
And then the last two years I added meditation and I really turned on the meditation strong during COVID because I needed to ground myself.
I needed to come home to me, to my innate wisdom, to my highest level of intelligence, to my core values. I needed to tune in and turn on because left up to my own devices.
It’s get out of bed, grab the iPhone, look and see who’s called because after all I have to succeed and I don’t want to miss any emails. And then a latte, and especially if I make my own latte, it’s even better. I can have two.
And that’s my morning and there is no connecting to my highest self. There is no, who am I today? What do I want to create? It just right away, goes into action.
And there is scientific evidence that says that this thing that we are, this human being needs time to connect mind, body, soul. The soul, the human spirit, to what our vision is and what’s important so we can be behaving in a conscious manner, not our habituated behavior that we’re dragging with us from grade school or high school, or six years old, or eight years old.
So the power hour allows us to tune in, turn on, tap in, and move forward effectively.
What is Your Power Hour Like?
So what are you doing? What can you do for that time?
Maybe you start with five minutes, maybe you start with 15 minutes, maybe you start with 20 minutes. And by the way, I’ll give you something that’s made a bit of a difference for me.
His name is Bob Roth and he’s part of the David Lynch Foundation. Every day at 6:15 Pacific, or you can do the math for central or Eastern, he gives a free meditation.
There are over 6,000 people, every single morning. It’s a 20-minute meditation.
He talks about neuroscience for five minutes, then he does meditation, then he reads a poem like Invictus or one of the Marianne Williamson’s, or he gives us a word of the day. And it makes a huge difference for operating from this level of consciousness.
What Do You Mean By Consciousness?
I know some of you might be saying, “What does she mean by consciousness?”
Consciousness to me is being aware and awake to what your actions are, your reactions are and who you choose to be, and how you show up.
And it’s not right versus wrong or good versus bad. It’s just an opportunity to be aware and say, “Was I at my best?”
Do I get to apologize for something because I don’t really like the way that came off?
See, if you’re operating on autopilot, waking up, looking at the phone, responding to text messages and emails, really hard to be present, really hard to tune in.
You’d have to be a machine.
Even the Dalai Lama says he doesn’t operate in synchronicity more than 1% at a time and the guy meditates all the time.
Attending Ignite Power with KeenAlignment
So let’s talk about attending a retreat with KeenAlignment. I want to give you a little glimpse of the video that was made from the last Ignite Power.
We teach you how to tap into your internal guidance system and really understand this thing called mind, thought, and consciousness.
We call it the IGS, the internal guidance system, and then you get an opportunity to work with a community of women and a coach and a group leader who work with you the entire weekend to accomplish what you want to accomplish.
For every three people that register, we are giving one scholarship away. If you know of any women who could take advantage, who this would make a difference for, and they would want to come to the retreat, but they can’t afford it, they can apply for a scholarship on the Ignite Power.
The last time we had five people that came on the scholarship and it really, really, really was awesome.
Eileen’s Story
Eileen Freeman:
Hi. That was super exciting seeing the video of what we went through, it brought back so many memories.
Before Ignite Power, I would overthink everything in meetings, and more often than not, I would keep my thoughts and my ideas and opinions inside because I lacked the confidence to tell that voice in my head to step aside.
I was too comfortable being the support in the background and I couldn’t enjoy being the face of my work. I was also embarrassed to be good. I would get told by people who knew what I did, that I was a bad-ass and honestly, that would make me go further into my shell.
I don’t know why complements made me so uncomfortable but they did. I let that voice control my thoughts and my emotions and my personality and I lost my authentic self.
It was impossible for me to be present in the moment, let alone contribute to the moment.
One of the most important takeaways from that weekend was knowing that I wasn’t alone.
I would be listening to these amazing women, share their stories and be vulnerable, but talking nervously and expressing their lack of confidence.
And I remember thinking like, “Wow, you guys are incredible.” And then I took a look in the mirror and a light bulb went off like, “Oh, shit. Maybe I had an incredible too.”
I’m now able to recognize when that voice tries to creep back in and override my true thought and I realized it’s okay if I don’t know the answer. It’s empowering to just put myself out there.
Ignite Power helped pave the path for me to be a better version of myself and trusting in myself and finding my voice.
I’m having conversations and building relationships. I’m initiating conversations that I never would have before. Initiating conversations is huge for me.
I’m talking to my kids about being true to themselves. I’m goal-setting.
Personally and professionally, I’ve never been a goal setter and I’m doing that now. For the first time in my life, I actually can see what I want and I’m going to make that a reality. I’m holding myself accountable.
Margaret Graziano:
Eileen has been so inspired by Ignite Power that she’s a stand to bring it to her company, which is predominantly male-dominated and they have 60 women who want this and want what she has. And so thank you, Eileen and thanks for being here today.
What Are You Taking Home With You?
I would like you to consider what you experienced today with this information, what you learned, what you can take away with you. And thank you very much for your time. I’ll be quiet so we can see if anybody wants to share.
Speaker 5:
Margaret, as always you’re inspiring.
I just enjoyed my takeaway words. We’re all challenged with challenges and it’s really important that you’d let it in and be your true, authentic self and with Ignite Power and all the messaging you’re giving to really help empower women is so meaningful and so on target.
So I just thoroughly enjoyed my time today and I just want to say thank you. And I’m excited to continue your journey of self-discovery.
Margaret Graziano:
Thank you. All right. Thank you everybody very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
