Research shows that 85% of people hate their job. But the expensive truth about that is they don't hate the work that they do. They hate the version of themselves that they have to pretend to be just to do the work. I want this episode to be raw. I want this episode to be uncut because it is time to stop playing small. It is time to stop allowing people to tell you who you are. It's time to start moving in purpose and living the life that you actually should be living. The life that you are designed to live without the critics, without people trying to tell you who and how you should live. And that goes for on the job stuff too. Now, over the last few episodes, we broke through a lot of barriers. And it's now time for you to stop wishing that you can fly and actually start flying. So, what does this new you look like? What does it feel like? What does it move like? Because right now, something might feel off, and that's where it's going to get real for you because you might feel stuck, but you're not stuck, you are out of alignment. So I want to take you back. When I got my first real job, and when I say a real job, I mean this is the first job that I ever had where I actually made money, like the most money I've made hourly at that time. My title on that role was senior advisor, and I know that sounds pretty deep. I know it sounds real good. Like, what? You were a senior advisor. Yes, I was a senior advisor, but guess what? That meant nothing. It was just a title. And I mean, it was good while it lasted to have that title, to have that role against my peers, but it meant nothing in reality because I was struggling with something, and that something was a huge identity issue because who they needed me to be all day was the babysitter of entitled people and their emotions. And if I could spend this whole episode going through all the things that I went through with these grown adults in their temper tantrums and the things that I had to deal with, you won't fall out of the chair, but I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna bore you with those details. The main role that I had was to basically fix technical issues. That's what I was hired for, and to make final decisions. But instead, you know what I was doing? Before I can even get to the technical issues, do you know what I was doing? I mean, I was the counselor, I was the punching bag, I was the trash bag for people who just was ready to unload all of their trash. I was the doctor that had to fix every single thing emotionally, mentally, immediately. And I'm smiling now because I'm thinking back of how far I came, but I know for a fact that when I was going through that situation, I was ready to just quit. But I know that you catch my drift at this point, right? I was everything, I was all of those things and above. But you know what I wasn't? I was not the version of myself that I was designed to operate in. That strategist, the visionary developer, that person that executed and got stuff done. I had to go through all of those steps, all of that nonsense. And I mean, don't get me wrong. Yes, I got promoted, and I mean, every month I was getting like a new promotion, literally, like it felt that way. Like three months, new promotion. Every year, increase, raise increase. So I know I was doing something right, and because of those raises and those promotions, I just kept doing it until I couldn't do it anymore. And that was the problem because by the year seven, something changed. And when I say it changed, it shifted, it was out of my control. The money, it no longer felt like a benefit anymore. It it actually felt like a burden, and that is when I realized that I am compromising the integrity of who I am, and you know what? That was all at the expense of somebody else's happiness. I was burnt out, ready to give up. I felt like I was suffocating, I just couldn't breathe, walking on eggshells. I'm I was drowning in this illusion of being top flight security craig. You know, that's my favorite movie too. In every area in my life, I was doing it all wrong. So I had to reassess and self-evaluate and ask myself, what am I protecting? Am I protecting my reputation? Am I protecting the results? Because internally, I wasn't even aligned in my purpose at all, and that was eating me alive, and I had to break this down to the simplest form. And now this is something that I actually teach my clients. The one thing is identity has layers, and it actually has five layers. You got self-concept, you got core values, strength patterns, emotional drivers, you got standards and boundaries. And if any one of those layers is corrupted, your whole system is gonna feel it. That's why you can say one thing and then move differently. And it's not that you're lazy, I could tell you that right now. But what it is is that that is a system failure, and here is where it gets very expensive because it's gonna cost you, it's gonna cost you your health because you're carrying stress from being somebody that you're not, it's gonna cost your wealth because you're playing small in areas that you should be leading in, it's gonna cost your time because you keep delaying decisions that you already know that you should have made. And the root of all of this is called incongruence who you say you are versus how you actually move. And that gap right there is what I call the gap effect, and I'm not gonna go deep in that right now, but that is where your results get stuck. And I want to take this a little bit further for all of my leaders and my business owners out there. This isn't just a personal thing, this shows up in businesses every single day. I've seen it many times over, and it's also the same reason why businesses plateau, it's also the same reasons why your employees keep making the same mistakes, you find yourself dealing with putting out fires over and over again, the same issues over and over again. You know that saying, everything rises and falls on leadership because it does. If you're not clear what type of leader that you are, your decisions are gonna be inconsistent. One day you're gonna be strong, the next day you're gonna second guess yourself, then you're gonna have moments where you're setting boundaries, then the next thing you're letting stuff slide. Does that sound familiar? And then let's not bring the team in because the team is gonna feel all of those changes, they're gonna fill everything, and your business, your bank account is gonna reflect that because leadership is not about what you say, it's about how you show up consistently. And if your identity is off, your execution is gonna be off. I know this sounds backwards because we're so used to hearing that the best way to make money is through systems and strategies and things of that nature. But if you're not clear on who you are, you're gonna be making all the wrong decisions. You're gonna be hiring the wrong people, you're going to be delaying decisions that you should have made a long time ago. You're gonna tolerate things that you should not have tolerated, and then you're gonna wonder why your results aren't matching your effort. And we can't blame that on a motivational issue because it's not, it's a leadership issue, it's an identity issue, and that's why it gets expensive. This is not one of those episodes that is going to be quick tips and tricks on how to scale your business, how to run your program, or how to uh lead your employees. This is something that we need to get down to the bottom of because if you do not know your identity, you don't know who you are, how can you lead, how can you take your business to the next level when you don't even know what you're supposed to be doing because you don't you're out of alignment. Not only are you out of alignment, but many times you're at the right place but with the wrong identity, and that's why you're not growing. A lot of people think that because that they are in business and just doing things, that it's automatically going to work for them, but that's not how things work, it's not another strategy or another system that you need. What you need is to be very clear on who you are and not trying to be mimicking what the next person did in their business to get to from zero to a hundred. The secret is not new strategies and new systems. That's what I'm trying to relate to you. The secret is identity. Once you can master identity, then you can take your business to the next level, you can lead a successful team that does not have a high turnover rate, and you can see that your efforts actually match your success. So, as you see, this isn't just about your personal life. Once you have your personal life together, then you can do anything in business. But this is also about your business, it's about your money, it's about your team that you're leading, it is about the impact, your impact. So I took time off and I actually went and got myself a therapist. I started soul searching and I started doing things that I actually love to do. These things made me feel like me again. And I always I know that I've always loved helping people, I always like solving real problems. So, what I did in that time off was I started my own business helping people with their computers. It felt so good because now I control the narrative. I wasn't pretending, I wasn't performing, I was producing. And I knew in that moment that I would rather be free than to be paid to perform and be somebody that I'm not. But if I'm really honest with you, I wasn't ready to let go. I wasn't ready to let go of the money that I was making. I wasn't ready to let go of that stability that I had for seven years because I was still attached to the money. I had stocks, I had savings, I had all kinds of investments. I was comfortable, but I was not happy. I was depressed, emotionally unavailable. I was disconnected from what I was doing every single day. I was just existing. In that seventh year, things started to change. There was a major shift. And because I had so many warning signs to pull the plug, and I did not pull the plug, guess who did? God did. And I don't want you to be like, oh my goodness, let me get off of this uh episode. I don't want you to do that because I'm not trying to persuade you into anything, I'm not trying to get you to do anything that you don't believe in. I'm just telling you my part of my story. I do follow Jesus Christ, and I respect you no matter what you believe in, because there is no religion in business. It took me a long time to understand this, to figure this out. And I'm not gonna allow you to go through the same things that I've been through, wasting time, wasting years just to find out that you could have found this out a long time ago. Now you've wasted your time, your energy, and your money on all the wrong things. If you just heard yourself in that story, if you've been producing, performing, getting results, but carrying a version of yourself that doesn't fit anymore, and if you're showing up in your business, your leadership, your decisions, then you already know thinking about it isn't going to fix it. You need to see exactly where you're out of alignment, what you have been protecting, and what needs to change today. That's why I created the seven-day identity reset. Seven days, one focus per day, one action, one standard. It walks you through exactly how to see the pattern, interrupt it, and lock the new identity so you stop going backwards. This isn't a course, this isn't overwhelming, it is the honest next step. Link is in the description. Go get it because you said that you're done being somebody that you're not. Prove it. Alright, so now let's talk about what this actually looks like in real life. The number one thing that you have to understand is you're not stuck, you are misaligned. You want me to say that again? You are not stuck, you are misaligned, you're doing things, no doubt about that. But they don't match who you actually are, and this shows up in small ways first. Like you're waking up and already feeling irritated, right? But there's nothing really big that's wrong. Or if you're in business, you're working all day, you're checking things off, but nothing is actually moving forward. You are busy, but you're not aligned. So I want you to do this. I want you to write down what you did in a day, personally or in business. What did you do in one day? Then, after you write that down, ask yourself does this actually match who I say that I am? The next thing is being good at something doesn't mean that it's for you. I was great at my job. I handled pressure, I solved problems fast, I met my quota, I got results, but I hated how I had to show up. I hated the person I had to be to do it. And this shows up in your business too. You might be good at closing deals, managing people, running operations, doing all those things, but you really dread it. And now your business is slowing down, not because you can't do it, but because you don't want to do it. And if that's you, I need you to identify one thing that you're good at, but it drains you. And start either delegating that one thing or restructuring it or just reduce it. Now, this next thing is pretty big. You're protecting something and it's costing. This is the yes that you didn't want to say. The extra work that you took on, you really didn't want to do. The moment that you let something slide because you didn't want the conflict, that's what that is. And personally, you don't want to look like the bad person in business, you don't want to upset a client or your team. So instead of correcting something early, you let it build, you just sweep it all under the carpet, and now it becomes a bigger issue later. So here is what you need to do if you see yourself in this position. The next time that you're about to say yes, you gotta pause and you have to ask yourself, what am I actually protecting right now? The fourth thing is your boundaries expose your identity. And what do you mean by that, Juanita? What I mean is that it's not what you say, it's what you allow. You can say that you value peace all day, but if your phone rings and then you answer every single time, and then someone crosses the line and you let it go, that's your real standard right there. And that's the same thing in business. You can say that you want a high-performing team, but then you tolerate missed deadlines, you tolerate people coming to work late, leaving early, you tolerate poor communication, half effort, and now your culture is gonna reflect that. So if this is you in that position, I want you to pick one thing. Pick one thing, personal or business, it doesn't matter which one, whichever lane that you're in, that you will no longer allow. It's no longer allowed. Write it down. Do that right now. You're gonna want to do that right now because this next one, which is the last one that I'm gonna give you today, is gonna hit you. It's gonna hit you hard. You're choosing the version of yourself. That's it. I know it's not on purpose, but through your decisions, every delay, every I'll do it later, every time that you go amongst uh, every time that you go against what you say that you already know, you are reinforcing that old version. And this is what shows up heavy in business. I've seen it. You say you want to grow, but then you keep avoiding the one decision that will actually move things forward. Hiring, letting somebody go, raising your prices, changing direction. You already know this, but you're not moving. So the best way to tackle that type of situation is you need to make one decision today. You need to figure out what aligns with who you actually want to be, not who you've been yesterday, last year, two years ago, seven years ago. Who do you actually want to be? And I want you to understand this. I know that this episode probably was unorthodox. It was one of those episodes that you probably weren't expecting. But just like the title message is forward forever is backwards never. I can't let you continue to go in circles like a hamster on the wheel. I need you to understand that this core foundational issue is what is keeping you stuck, it's keeping you in the same spot, it's keeping your bank account looking like it's not breaking through or break everything, is you know, it's it's keeping you where you are and not where taking you where you need to be. Here's an execution push that I want to give to you. It's very simple. You're gonna write this at the top of a blank page. I shouldn't have to tell you to put it on a blank page, but hey, you can put it at the bottom of the page, but just put it on the page. I am no longer available to this version of myself. And then here is the part that I want you to do. List everything underneath of that sentence. The people pleasing, the overperforming, the silence when you when you should be speaking, the yes when you mean no, the version of you that outperforms instead of operates, the leader who tolerates what they should correct, the business owner who avoids the decision that they already know they should have been made, all of it. And then after you write all of those things, and it doesn't have to be the stuff that I've mentioned, but put what actually matters to you. And when you're done, I want you to write this forward forever, backwards, never, and then sign it. Yep, put your John Hancock on there, make it official. And if you're listening to this and you're like, what's John Hancock? And how do I sign something or put a signature? I can't help you with that. I'm sorry. Put your name on it. And the reason why I'm doing this is because a decision without a declaration is just a thought. And if we're honest together, my friend, you had a whole bunch of thoughts. We don't need no more thoughts. We need execution and we need action now. So it's time to make it official. What you gonna do? And remember this you didn't lose your skills. What you are doing is updating your self-concept. You move different forward forever, backwards, never. And if this hits you, do me a favor. Don't just sit on this by yourself. I want you to move on it. But while you're moving on it, get moving and follow. Leave me a review, share this message, and I'ma see you in the next episode. Because staying where you are, that's just a decision.