Owning Your Brilliance: Be Your Own Wizard and Create Impact with Nancy Juetten | 006

thanks. Marcus, grief. It's great to be here. I am so

Yes, let's do beautiful,

beautiful. So you describe a profound wake up call that changed everything for you. Can you take us back to that moment and what went through your mind when you heard the words boring, benign and unremarkable in a totally new context.

Alright, so that's a perfect segue, because I was thinking about the cake zone versus the cringe zone, which is one of the reasons that I love being in your love, your business, love, your life, inner circle. Can you explain what that means and how we can start living, shifting from the grind zone into the cake zone in our own lives?

Sure, you know there's, there's some things that we do as marketers that are we're told to do because it, it's indicated that it works. But if you find yourself doing these things and feeling misaligned or incongruent or just plain old, quote, unquote icky about it, I think we really have to lean in and say, Is this really the method that we want to pursue to grow our business in a way that feels right for us. And so as I mentioned, I was just preparing for this big, huge launch, and I had 12 150 people signed up for my five day challenge. And did I suit up and deliver the goods and make it happen? Because that's what professionals do. Yeah, I did. And did I enroll people into the thing I was inviting people to do. Yeah, I did and did I deliver like a pro? Because that's the way I am. Yeah, I did that. But when it was over and I had this prospect of, do I want to do that again? The answer was a clear and decisive Absolutely, not. No. I. Don't want to do that again. It's so it's it's just not, it's just not for me. So for me, that was cringe. And so what is cake? Well, what is the equal and opposite of going after lots and lots and lots of people all at once in some kind of a enrolling event? The opposite of that is to reach out to amazing, awesome people that you admire and respect, and having real conversations that lead to opportunities to extend genuine invitations that could be of great service. And so that was really what it is that I decided to do. I had this beautiful program, love your business, love your life, inner circle, and I just didn't think it was going to fail by making a big, huge event of it. I wanted to have a more intimate approach which would match the more intimate nature of this particular offering. And so that's exactly what I did, and I enrolled the most perfect people into the program, and 75% of them are still in the program over a year later, which indicates to me that people are happy and satisfied with what's happening and how we're working together and the results that they're getting. 75% retention is is meaningful, I think, in our business. So cringe for me was going big when being intimate and connected would be more aligned and congruent with who I am and how I want to serve and the difference that I want to make. Well, I'm

one of those 75% and again, it is really about how we create community and what it means to love your business, love your life, and the idea that you created a but you're called the anti launch, to really fit in alignment with how you wanted to show up and how you wanted to do things. And it's such a great example that there are so many ways to partner and to collaborate, but you don't want to try to squeeze a square peg into a round hole. And as you always say, if it's not a fit, don't commit. And that goes for even creating a strategy. If a strategy isn't a fit for you, it's not the right one.

I 100% agree, and I also think that what happens is, I mean, I don't mean to hound on this, but if you're lucky enough to get a second chance at your life, for me, this level of clarity that came to me about how I wanted to show up. I mean, honestly, I think before it was a little reticent to show up in my full brilliance, all my foibles, missing pieces, I would want to hide them, but I'm much more unbridled today than I've ever been. I'm much more confident about who I am and how I show up. I don't make apologies for my quirky nature. I figure, why not just let my freak flag fly and show up fully and fully expressed? And that means that I'm not a karaoke singer teaching some standard method that's been taught a million times before. I'm an original creative entrepreneur, attracting original creative entrepreneurs who are like minded and appreciate what's special, different and preferred about me. You know, if you mentioned the whole boring, benign and unremarkable, if you've ever had a negative, if you've ever had a medical test and and you get this result, it's cause for celebration. But if you get this result, and that's what how you describe your life as boring, benign and unremarkable? Well, that's not a good outcome. And so, you know, we moved to a whole new city. We changed the kind of house that we wanted to live in. I released 40 pounds, and I'm in the best shape of my life. I make time for friends. I have white space on my calendar. If you're going to say you're going to love your business and love your life and you're not the walking, talking poster child of what that is, well then shame on you. But I am living in full color and without apology, and loving all aspects of my life and feeling really good about success on my own terms,

you have dropped so many little seeds and easter eggs that I want to share about kind of the evolution of Nancy Dudden, especially over the last three years. Each year you've done a talk at the soulful leadership retreat in the afternoon of day two. It's very inspirational, and it's about this conversation about, you know, how we're blending our work and our life, and this past year, just a month ago, just seems like such a weird time work there. I. You did a whole talk about being your own wizard that was inspired by wicked, and in your talk of the social Leadership Retreat, you connected the story of wicked to stepping into your own power. So I'm curious, how can we stop waiting for someone else to grant us permission and start being our own wizard?

Well, first I want to say it's been the distinct honor of my life to grace your stage three years in a row. And the first two talks were standing ovation talks deeply personal about the health journey and what I learned from it. And this third year, I think it was really a great big breakthrough, because we didn't really talk about any kind of health breakthrough. We just talked about letting your freak flag fly and greenifying ourselves and letting ourselves show up fully. And it was just such a high to deliver that message, especially on the heels of this blockbuster musical, which has touched the hearts and minds of 10s of millions of people, there

are still about 10 or 20 people that may not have seen it. Maybe you can summarize this message of what that means to be your own wizard like we don't want to do a spoiler alert. If you haven't seen it, go see it, and this won't ruin the message.

I'll borrow another what it means to be your own wizard is sometimes we're waiting for some icon of influence to send an email on our behalf that's going to put us on the map. Or we're waiting for some influencer to hear us on a stage and pluck us off of the stage and say, You're the amazing person we've been looking for all of our lives, or you're doing a one woman show, and you're thinking that somebody's going to find you and that the whole world is going to turn on a dime because they found you that day. We're giving our power to other people to discover us, to find us, to give us another chance to be even more brilliant than we are. And I think what my stand is is Be your own wizard. Don't wait for someone else to open the door. Open your own darn doors. Place your own trail. Take responsibility for the message that you most want to deliver and the conversation you most want to lead, and step into it fully, because somebody needs to hear it, and you don't need to wait for somebody to give you permission to do that. And I think that the more along the lines of our age and wisdom that we grow, the more unbridled we become. I mean, I don't have time to waste trying to mold myself into somebody else's vision of what success looks like. I'm going to pursue success on my own terms, in an unbridled manner, and I'm not waiting for someone to show me the door. I'm going to walk through that door myself. And I think that others should do the same. And

I'll be honest, Joe, I'm one of those people who has waited for the night on Shining Armor. We always called her Oprah. It was everybody's big vision, like, if I just get on Oprah, my message will be out there. I'll make the impact I want, and I'll make the income that I want, and it'll change everything. And it's very interesting, because one of the things you're known for is being a great champion for your partners and your clients. And so it's very interesting to hear you, you know, saying, Yes, I can be a great champion, but you gotta, nobody's going to be a greater champion than you can be for yourself.

And you know, that's kind of funny that you should bring this up, because I I've been a publicist, a trained publicist, all my life. I grew up in the shadow of my dad, who was an actor in Hollywood, who needed to be the star. I know what it's like to amplify and promote people that are bigger than I am. I'm very comfortable in that role, and it comes very naturally to me. And yet, when you decide to help your own star rise with the message that is the most important to you, I think that's been a really big shift that I've been able to make as a member of your meta mind, is to just sort of take responsibility. This is the story I want to tell. This is the message and the flag I want to carry. I'm not going to wait for somebody to give me permission. And I just have a feeling that this be your own wizard idea. Is something that's going to take flight as we all hop on our own rooms and accomplish more things together that are less formulaic and a little more original, a little bit more creative and perhaps more memorable. And that's kind of the space where I want to live in at this particular stage of my life.

Oh, that's such a good question. Well, being one of those A for effort, kind of people, I have always been a very good student. And if there was a limiting belief that I wish I could go back and unpeel it was that I had to start with low ticket offers and circle the drain that way for an extended period of time before stepping into a more premium way to be of service is just as hard to sell a low ticket item as it is as a high ticket item. But if you when you sell a high ticket item, you get to work with really cool people that are happy to make the investment and are ready to do the work and take responsibility for their results. And that's been a big shift for me. You know, don't circle the drain with low ticket offers. Go with a high ticket offer that you're super excited about, that you would personally invest 10 times the value to get the benefit yourself. Because when you feel that way about your high ticket offer, you're unstoppable and wanting to talk about it, and you can attract the right people to it who are glad and and honored to be a part of it. So that was a big that's a big cake piece for me, where cringe would be the low ticket. Other cringe would be too much complexity when I prefer a much more simple model. Another thing that was cringe for me is this whole I have to go to millions and millions and millions of people, versus maybe there's a treasure box of amazing people that I get to work with and go deep with and serve, as opposed to submitting myself to this big, huge audience. And that's not to say that I can't do it, because I've been on television multiple times, and I can certainly speak on a stage and have confidence and poise and delivering a message. You've seen it several times, but I think what happens for me is my nervous system gets assaulted by all of that noise, and it's just not where I want to live day to day. So if you have a choice, are you for the many and not for the few, or are you for the few and not for the many? That was first said by Rhonda Renee of divine navigation, and it hit me squarely between the eyes, and I have been repeating it ever since, because not everyone is destined to have a massive business with a massive following and the zeros and commas that are associated with that you can have a great life and a great business working with a boutique collection of treasured people who love you and you love where the transformation is very real. So those are just a few things that were cringe for me, that I've turned into cake in my current iteration.

I love that. And it goes back to what you were saying earlier about having an aligned strategy for me. You know, the strategy is just a piece of it. There are all different types of marketing strategies, and doesn't really matter too much which one you go with, as long as it's aligned with who you're being in the process. I

just want to say this about alignment. I mean, those people who know me for any length of time, maybe I'm more right brain than left brain. You know, more less woo than more Woo. You've heard these expressions before. I think the very first time I heard this word alignment, it kind of went way over my head. I'm going, what are they talking about? Alignment? Alignment. I don't get it. I get it now. I definitely get alignment. And so if anybody's watching or listening, this is wondering alignment. You know you're resisting alignment? You know that it doesn't fit when you feel sick doing it, or the people that you're hanging out with aren't the people you want to hang out with. You wouldn't cross four legumes of traffic to go buy somebody a cup of coffee if you don't feel aligned and connected and attracted to whoever it is you're going after alignment is missing, and you need to listen to that and do the opposite,

absolutely to me, that it is all about alignment, which starts for me with being able to discover who you are and not try to fit into somebody else's box of who you are or what makes you happy, and even the whole strategy thing, it all comes back to like, what is the life that you want to live, and then being able to create a business that supports that instead of the other way around?

Well, since you brought up that a life that you want, this is very fresh and new. All my life, home has been so important in. Me, and we grew up in very modest circumstances, and the house that we lived in was not beautiful, and it wasn't well appointed, and it wasn't full of designer furnishings, and it wasn't even in a very nice neighborhood. And I remember growing up in this environment and thinking, I don't feel very good about where home is for me, and someday, when I have a home of my own, I hope that it will be beautiful and well appointed and full of beautiful things that will make me happy. And so I've been on this journey of buying homes and outfitting them and watching all the home and garden shows all these years. And you know, we had this gorgeous home with the beautiful furniture and the whole shebang and all the rest of it and all the maintenance that goes with it. And I think it's sort of interesting that I've come to this place in my life where less is definitely more. I would I'm so happy that we have been released from this beautiful home that we just sold, and that we are living in more simple circumstances, because it buys us so much choice and so much freedom and whatever it is that the work is that I get to do, I can go in with both feet and feel so excited about it without any pressure around having to be desperate about making a sale. I mean, we're well set. We can do whatever we want, but the work I get to do is the work I love to do. And that's really the greatest demonstration of walking your own talk. If you want to love your business and love your life, look at all aspects of all of it. And you know, it may take more than 20 minutes to shift the ship so that it's aligned and congruent with the direction that you are headed. It's been three years since I had cancer. I don't have to talk about it anymore. I'm happy, but my whole life is better. Everything about my life is better, everything about who I am is better. Every bit everything about who I'm showing up to be is better, and the kind of business that I'm building and growing and pivoting to is so much more rewarding for me. So it does require some courage and some brains and some heart and some soul to really go deep and say what matters to me. And how can I build something that will be even better for this final or next chapter? And I wake up every day thinking about that. How can it be even better and more satisfying and more rewarding? Because I want to love my business and love my life, and one without the other is just not good enough, and we've both been around long enough to know that there's a lot of divorce out there and a lot of kids that aren't talking to their parents, and a lot of dead and a lot of all kinds of drama, trauma and chaos. It's not necessarily happily ever after. I don't want any part of it if I can avoid that, and I'm being very deliberate in my choices to make sure that's not the case.

You have made a lot of wonderful choices, and you just shared a few different parts of leadership that I was thinking of. You talked about your son, your husband, your business, your community, and these are all different ways that you show up as a leader. And I'm curious. Our show is called leading with purpose. What does leading with purpose mean to you? Nancy,

leading with purpose means that you have named and claimed your super skills and found a way to live in that cake zone of being in your super skills 90% of the time so that your light can shine bright, your impact can be great, and the people you Get to work with can be blessed by it

beautiful. And if somebody was to do one thing, what is the one thing that people can do to create this shift? Because, again, it's been a big shift for you.

Well, I just created somebody's face. I just created this new special report. It's called wizard syndrome breakthrough checklist, and if you have found yourself wishing that you wouldn't be waiting for someone else to blow open the door to opportunity that you want, this special report will help you in a very whimsical, magical way, identify to what extent wizard syndrome is holding you back and guide you to take steps forward so that you can be your own wizard, let your freak flag fly and fly your own broom to achieve success on your own best terms. So we can drop a link to that in the chat if people are interested. But I would love for people to run and not walk to get the wizard syndrome breakthrough checklist, because not only will it get that report, but if they want to see the Be Your Own wizard keynote that I was so lucky to share from your stage, it's available for watching, and people did say really wonderful things about it, and I'd love it to welcome a much wider. Audience. Well,

that is a perfect segue, so I'll put those in the show notes, both for the podcast and YouTube channel, depending on where you're watching. And we would love to see your comments. So please do comment below based on the interview. Here, go watch the interview or the Nancy's talk that comes with Tell me again that this resource is it a checklist,

the wizard syndrome breakthrough checklist. And it is. It's brand new, hot off the press, and I'll get you the link for it, but it it basically helps you figure out whether or not you are a victim of wizard syndrome, and what you need to do to step out of it so you can, as I said, fly your own broom, let your free fly, fly, Greenify yourself, and just be unbridled in the way that you show up. Because we don't need more karaoke singers doing the same thing out there in the marketplace. We need people that are doing unique, powerful things that create powerful transformation, and we're all capable of it, if we just unleash our things that we might be fearful of concealing. You know, don't conceal your magic. Release your magic.

Such a powerful message, because, again, so many of us want to get out there and make an impact, and we think that the best way to do it is to copy and repeat. But what you're saying is no find the uniqueness in you, and while other people might shun that, the more you bring it out, the more that's what makes a big impact for other people's lives and for yourself to find that joy and peace and as you say, grace and pace, or the other way around, pacing

and grace. You know, that's the other thing, hustle and grind, or pacing and grace. I would much prefer to live in the pacing and Grace zone. It's just more aligned with where I am in my life. You know, I would also just say one more thing is success does leave clues. There are people that are succeeding on a very big level, and we're smart to study the people who are succeeding in a big way, and in the beginning, follow the rules and learn the basics and build a solid foundation. But if you've been at it for a while, which I have, 24 years, I've sourced the courage to break rules and feel great about it. So, you know, everything comes in its perfect time, just like fine wine, and that's where it is for me right now.

I love that again. I feel so full and complete with the like fine wine, because this is where we are. It's such a delicious place, and I'm so grateful to be on the journey with you, and there's so much ahead of us on this yellow brick road, but I just feel like we've already achieved so much together, just in the experiences

well, and I'm so grateful you know, none of us succeeds alone, and when you find people along your journey that You feel like you should be journeying forward with look after those people, champion those people, advocate for those people, care about them personally. I mean, you're a gem in my life. I you know there's reason season and lifetime, I really see you as someone who's going to be in my lifetime, forever, and that's the way I treat the relationship and and I'm, I'm, you know, believing that that's what's going to happen.

I'm definitely with you on that again. So happy to just have these conversations with you, and really grateful to be able to share them with our audience here at leading with purpose Nancy, any last word before we say goodbye.

Well, thank you so much for having me, and I'm congratulating you on making podcasting an important part of your own visibility strategy. And I wish the show nothing but amazing, escalating success. Thank

you so much. And again, that is a big specialty of yours. So if you are somebody who is an aspiring guest, podcast guest, or even a podcast host, please drop comments below. We would love to hear from you, and you'll definitely want to connect with Nancy. Thank you so much, Nancy. Love you so much and so grateful to be with

you. Thank you, my pleasure. Bye for now.