Hello and welcome back. This episode I simply call Advice. Itās based on a recent decision I made, and so it all stems from that. And it was a decision I made around all the advice I was getting.
And Iāll start by saying, as I reflect and think about this episode, I think I may be an expert on advice. And what I mean by that is thatās because I receive and take in a lot of advice. And I also give a lot of advice. A lot of people ask for my opinions on things. It makes me think of a funny line my dad would always say when it comes to advice. Heād say, the best way for somebody to not take your advice is for you to offer it to them. So take that with a grain of salt and think about that one. But itās people genuinely asking me for advice. And so with receiving so much advice in my life and giving so much advice in my life, Iām deeming myself a relative expert for the sake of this fun little conversation weāre going to have.
And so as growth-oriented beings, as we commit to freeing and being our True Selves in the world, we must accept insights along the way. Itās the only way we will continue to grow. And two examples to anchor it in the Shine content is in Discovery Number Two, Level Three, when youāre removing energetic blocks, when youāre removing blocks, things from the past, you may very well need some help doing that. And then in Discipline Number Three, Know Thyself, as you do the beautiful work of knowing yourself, dig, dig, dig, digging down deep into who you really are. Itās all advice, every layer, every level of clarity. Itās all advice, especially when you dig into the good stuff and really start shedding layers.
And for the sake of this conversation, Iām going to reference three types of advice. The first type of advice is too much outside advice. The second type of advice is too little outside advice. And the third type is what Iāll call inside advice, for lack of a better term, your intuition. And so Iām going to do a little drill down on each one of those, get your gears turning a little bit. But here we go.
So starting with the first type, too much outside advice. What Iām talking about here is when that advice that youāre receiving is just a little more than necessary. There is such a thing as too much advice. I know this with experience. There is a lot of advice out there. There are a lot of opinions out there. Many people want to give you their opinion. And if you take everyoneās advice, it will twist you in a knot. Because hereās the reality. You could literally get a hundred great pieces of advice. I mean, gold, pure gold. But if you try and implement all 100 pieces of advice in your life, you will actually be worse off. You will potentially fail.
And so with too much advice, your job is to discern and decide what is the best advice for you. You have to apply what I call your decision-making filter to this dynamic because one size does not fit all. The boiling water that hardens the egg softens the carrot. I love that line. And so for you, where someone may have received seven great pieces of advice that changed their life, those seven may not work for you. And so your decision-making filter is based on many things, things like your growth rate, how fast are you ready, willing, and able to grow. Your core values, your belief system, what you really want, your timing in life, money sometimes. Do you have enough money for that investment right now or do you not. And again, an investment in that education, in that advice. It also depends on your current state of mind.
And so when you run all of this advice through your decision-making filter, the perfect answer is going to come out so that you can decide what the right advice is for you. And sometimes youāll say, well, wait, it worked for that person. Why isnāt it working for me. Thatās exactly why. Again, using that word, you have to discern what is best for you based on all factors at this exact moment in time. Sometimes the advice isnāt the right advice today, but two years from now itās perfect. And so itās all about timing in that case. You also have to learn to trust yourself. At the end of the day, you gotta listen to yourself when you discern and pick from those hundred great pieces of advice. The other thing that happens with too much advice is you can lose confidence and you can lose clarity because it just starts to get so overwhelming. And so more on that topic of confidence in just a little bit.
Now on to type two type of decision, which is too little outside advice. And so this, there are lots of reasons for why this happens for people. For instance, one might be, you might be overconfident. Arrogant, a little cocky, a know-it-all. So you donāt seek any advice because you think you know it all and therefore you might be stuck in the same spot for years. Another reason might be that youāre not interested in growing. You just have no interest in growing. You might be scared, afraid, you might fear putting yourself out there and taking a risk. You might not know where to find advice. In other words, you may want to grow, want to learn, want advice, but you just donāt know where to look. And I promise you itās out there. And if thatās you, just start asking. Start asking people. Do the research. Do an online search. Just put it out there to the universe that youāre looking for advice. And I promise you, it will come to you.
You might be waiting. You might simply be in a liminal period where youāre just getting ready. I remember back in high school, I graduated high school and I was doing my last summer hurrah. And I was a wild man and had a blast and was very irresponsible. But I knew what was happening for me is that was my last hurrah and I was going to get to work. And then thatās exactly what I did for the next 25 years, 35 years. And so you might just simply be getting ready. And when the student is ready, the teacher appears. So it might all be right around the corner for you. Thatās possible.
Which now takes us to the third type of advice, inside advice. This is where you advise yourself. This, quite frankly, is the whole point of this episode, or at least the aha that led me to sharing this message in this episode because I made a really big decision back in August and I decided to start taking my own advice, start listening to myself.
You see, Iām a seeker, as Iāve shared, and so Iām always looking for new information, advice, as weāve been talking about. And one of the things Iāve always looked for, and this has been going on for 20 years for me, is Iāve been looking for this entrepreneur whoās spiritual. So this spiritual entrepreneur. And I yet to have found it in exactly the form I was looking for. Iāve seen entrepreneurs who were spiritual, who were making money off teaching their spirituality. And thatās not what I was looking for because Iām looking for a good old-fashioned entrepreneur with a good old-fashioned business who just happens to be highly spiritual. And so in that seeking and searching, my hope was that Iād find this person and that heād become a great mentor for me. And in that, two things happened. One is, as I was sharing this with someone just three or four short years ago, they said to me, what if youāre the mentor youāre looking for. What if you are the mentor youāre looking for. And then the second thing that came to me is be your own guru.
And so in that, I made a decision. And like I said, in August, I decided, and looking back at all of the advice that Iāve received, I was on a little bit of advice overwhelm. I was over seeking this year and it was getting overwhelming. And Iām a sponge, so I was loving it. But then again, in August, I just had this aha moment during my sabbatical that I decided to just stop for a while and be my own guru, be my own mentor.
Now, hopefully this makes sense. I donāt know if Iām right. Iām just in the middle of this thing right now. Iām four months into this thing. And so again, as everything, Iām just discovering real time with you. But the plan is to listen to my intuition for a while, and it has been profound. So what I did is just simply go back to old notes, old teachings, looking inside, trusting my gut, paying attention, observing, listening, and just really tuning into me and just kind of listening to my wisdom, listening to my intuition.
And as a result of all of that, there has been incredible peace. Iāve been experiencing some incredible peace around this and some nice ahas. And thereās one particular aha I want to share, and Iām not going to get too specific, but specific enough that hopefully it makes sense. And so this one kind of flashed in. It was only a week ago as I was tuning in and paying attention. And what I saw clearly with something going on in my life is I saw my people pleasing ways. As Iāve shared in the past, Iāve discovered Iām a people pleaser in my personal life, not at all in my business life. And so this all shows up in my personal life.
And so I saw in this flash, this clarity around my people pleasing ways and had this insight into this exact situation and moment where itās like the moment that the people pleasing way shows up, itās a decision I make at that moment. Itās a thing I do, itās a thing I say, itās a reaction that I have that is where I sacrifice myself, is where I sacrifice that boundary. And I saw it with the exact people that I do it with. So just an incredible aha moment. So fingers crossed that I can now apply it the next time this situation happens. But it was so clear and nobody could have taught me that. I could only see that by again observing, listening, and looking inside.
And so all that said, I just felt I was getting a little too much advice and doing a little too much seeking, so I had to take a break from it. But maybe consider in everything Iāve been sharing, maybe consider becoming your own guru for a little while. Maybe itās time for you to do that because youāve been taking in too much advice. Become your own advisor. So wherever you are, some of you out there, youāre just getting a little too much outside advice. Some of you out there, youāre not getting enough outside advice. And some of you out there, itās time to become your own advisor. So itās up to you. Only you can determine what the perfect amount of advice and where it comes from right now. Youāre the only one that can answer that. Itās a balancing act. And for me, I know Iām going to go back to seeking advice again and probably knowing me sooner than later. But right now Iām in the perfect advice sweet spot.
Now, I mentioned earlier confidence, and I was going to come back to this word confidence. So I want to leave you with this last little nugget around advice because as I thought about this content, thereās this confidence piece, this confidence spectrum inside of all of this conversation around advice. And I want to really articulate it and create some awareness around it.
So for lack of a better term, Iāll call this the confidence challenge because doing this work, receiving advice, growing and receiving advice, again, wherever itās coming from, it can rattle our confidence. If you do really good work and you open yourself up and youāre truly vulnerable to learn, to go inside to those sometimes scary places, it can rattle you. Thereās a form of unraveling that happens when you do good, deep work. Thereās the dark night of the soul, if youāve ever heard of it, as you shed your ego. You do sometimes lose yourself for a little while, but thereās no question itās worth it.
And sometimes this work can also lead to depression. And so sometimes depression is misunderstood or misdiagnosed as just simply growing. Growing pains. Itās the contraction period. Nonetheless, this is hard work and it can rattle your confidence.
So when it happens, you tend to spring back more confident. But again, as I keep saying, this is a balancing act and only you can determine how far youāre able to go. Because on the flip side of that, if you are insecure and you are rudderless and you get swept in too much by outside advice, you may end up in a cult. And Iām not kidding when I say that. So very vulnerable, insecure people can get swept up in some bad things. So this is where you have to be your own barometer in terms of what you can handle. Too much confidence and not enough confidence, very dangerous. So itās this happy medium.
So if we are overconfident, we then miss the learning. So thatās the irony. Sometimes weāre so confident that learning just goes over our heads. We miss the lesson. And so in that case, thatās where we have to empty our cups. As the saying goes, when you get open and honest with yourself and vulnerable and receive advice, you will potentially lose some confidence during that growing phase of internalizing that advice. But in my experience, itās worth it.
And so there it is, the episode on advice. Love and hope that you do some soul searching and decide where you are on your journey and what type of advice is most appropriate for you at this moment.
Thank you for listening in today. We truly appreciate you taking the time to spend with us, and please tune in for the next episode. Until then, we wish you all the best in freeing your True Self, stay focused, and much love.
