Sustainable Success and Purpose-Driven Leadership with Carolyn Cooper

Hello, today I'm leading with purpose. I'm joined by Carolyn Cooper, a leadership mentor, podcast host, and creator of the AIM High system. Far more, for more than four decades, Carolyn has helped purpose-driven professionals align passion with purpose, lead with authenticity, and build businesses that create both meaningful impact and sustainable success. We want to talk about that. So, what does sustainable success look like? So, if you've ever wondered how to grow your influence without compromising your values. This conversation is for you. Hello, Carolyn. Welcome to the show.

Thank you so much, Mark. I am jazzed to have this conversation, and I already know it's going to be totally meaningful, so fire away. I am ready.

I love it, and I know we've already got started. I wanted to quickly hit the record button, just because just conversing with you lights me up. I feel your enthusiasm, I can feel your excitement for the work that you're doing, and I'm really excited to jump in. I believe that every great leader has a defining why behind their work, and when you look back over the four decades of helping visionary leaders grow and succeed, what inspired you to dedicate your life to this path, and what continues to fuel your passion today?

Wow, well, well, what inspired me the most in my life, and continues to, is my family. family disability, my mom suffered from mental health issues my whole life growing up, and I knew I was going to find an answer to what motivation was. I mean, that's where I kind of started, and how I could understand how to be centered, grounded in joy, and find my lane of joy that I could live with purpose, that I could live with passion, and create results. So I met this incredible mentor in my early 20s, and she taught me something called thinking above the line, so I have taken this simple, simple framework and weaved it into corporate training, sales training, keynote speaking in every form that I've navigated through as a business professional, and it is, I think, the game changer in living a life with purpose, with a presence and perspective that is decided in success, and it has a framework. I don't know if you want me to go into it now, but you know, truly, this one woman, Emma, taught me that when I was about 21 and I have been learning it for a very long time, very many decades, I'm not going to say how many, and it's been the biggest success factor in my business, because to me energy is everything, your intention is absolutely critical in your success, and to be grounded in this value and understanding of how you show up to contribute and make a difference, I figured out early on that I have great energy, and that it was contagious with people, so I, that was a gift to me, I think, from God personally, and I have respected that, and nurtured that, and honored that my whole entire life, so I mean, so I think people have an opportunity that they just do not realize in their perspective in their life, and I, I love being a business owner, I always have, and I think it's our greatest opportunity to create abundance, not only financially, I know you have great relationships within your network, so do I. It's, it's everything to me, the

relationships where I get to receive as well as give. It's this incredible, I call it love in motion. It's this incredible circle of energy that's, you know, refueling and the flywheel,

We literally refuel each other.

Yes, and so you know, I love life. I do. I love my business. I am very blessed, and it has been absolutely 100% intentional just to be so disciplined and. Dedicated to that presence and perspective,

But you mentioned a framework, so I do want to jump into that. You often talk about helping leaders aim high, so what does that framework mean, and why did so many heart-centered entrepreneurs struggle to really align with their purpose, impact, and profit, because I love these words, I love purpose and passion, and profit. Sometimes people don't really focus on, like, oh, just focus on the work, but that they play such an integral role. So I'm curious more about your framework of AIMH.

Well, AIM High is, I would say, 45 years that I have created many frameworks over the decades. I'll be honest, and I made it complicated and complex, and then now I've made it very simple, because I think simple principles and concepts land with people. So, the Aim High method is is a three phase process, and they build on each other. The first phase is truth. The truth will set us free. The truth about what's working, what isn't working, where the gaps are, where the limitations are, and also creating that inner clarity of confidence and understanding and knowledge, and it's a journey that I believe we learn to honor ourselves, and it takes radical honesty, though I mean I'm still.. I would say this is a principle that still lands on my lap on a weekly basis. It is something to be completely curious about and open-minded. So, what matters to me, and that leans into the second phase, which is alignment, unless I live my life with alignment on what matters to me, unless I regulate my energy, like I have morning rituals that are non-negotiable. I get up super early, and I do my journaling, I do a voice lesson, I have this voice coach, I do a recording of my journal, then I do magnified healing, then I do my yoga, and then I do my jaunt, and then I have my shower, so that's four and a half, five hours, and I love it, so I have to get up like 430 or five, but I can hardly wait to get out of bed, because I know what the day's going to present for me, but that's alignment to me, but my invitation to your audience is this: find out what truly matters to you in your relationships, in your business, and make the decision to let go to lead, because we need this space for grace that I call in order to have room to listen to that internal voice of wisdom that is absolutely calling us forward and waiting for us to hear that voice, and that's where the alignment comes in. It's clean energy, it's grounded, focused energy, and it's positive energy too,

because people, I think, in the world right now need support, guidance, and help around this so much, and it's, it's simply one decision at a time, and in that alignment is also setting up very clean boundaries to honor yourself and I work mainly with women in business, that's who I work with, and when women realize the significance of setting that line in the sand on what's acceptable and to release the anxiety, the stress. I mean, they find freedom. Oh my goodness, it's like opening Pandora's box of treasures for them, and it's, I mean, it's just beautiful to witness. I mean, that's my juice. I like watching the transformation, honestly. So, the third phase is radiance, and we become embodied confidence, so it's very calm, it's grounded, it's truthful, it's aligned, and it is love-led influence. When we love what we do, it's a natural, organic, flowing energy. It doesn't matter if you are an accountant, you're.. I've got a few lawyers in this, in the sanctuary, I have retreat, huge retreat center individual, it's just.. it's just realizing what our responsibility is here to serve from our highest self. To and the last thing it becomes a magnetic presence, so we attract to us those ideal clients who are looking for that unique value to receive, and it's easy, it's simple, yet there's work to be done along the path of those three phases, and you know that it's just extraordinary, the transformation that happens that I witness,

And I wonder, like with you, especially the women that you're working with, so often have a huge success record, but there's something that's keeping them back. Is it usually a mindset issue, or what kind of blocks you usually find? So many,

So many, so a lot of women that are inside the sanctuary are very successful, very affluent, right, and they have been pushing, forcing, making things happen, and they are the decision maker, usually in the family too, as well as the business, so they have a lot on their plate, and they have this inner worry and stress. How can I keep going like this, I can't maintain this level of control, and that's debilitating, that's losing sleep, that's very difficult to hold that, and they also have put themselves on the very last part of the list, this used to be in my life, that's why I understand it so well. So I was very successful, I was traveling, I was, I had all my kids dialed in, I had Excel spreadsheets, I mean everything ran perfectly, I did, I so on top of things organized, never dropped the ball yet. I could feel my energy just gradually slow, slow, start to drain, start to get less. My focus wasn't quite there. And then I decided to change things up, and that's what women do inside the sanctuary. So they're either pushing themselves so hard they're exhausted, and denying themselves on the list of importance on what matters. They're the last person on the list, or they are so into people pleasing. So, anybody asks anything. Oh, yes, I can do that. Yes, no problem. So, they don't understand setting those boundaries, saying no, and, and carving out that time to, you know, do yoga. See, there's to me it's a mental, physical, and spiritual commitment to oneself as a woman, because we're the love carriers here in the family too, and we understand love in a very intimate way. It's different than men, and I love men too. I do, but it's a different form, and it needs to be safe, and it needs to be in a space that they can speak their truth, and that's what we do in the sanctuary. We have orderly themes, and then monthly themes. Last month was the sacred stop interrupting performance, because there's too many women performing, they're not aligned with their

authentic selves, because that's where our power is right here. So, I mean, so I'm on a mission, because I saw my mom suffer so much with her mental health issues. I'm on a mission to support people, women mainly, to find their, their lane of joy, their space for grace, their freedom,

And you said something earlier that reminded me of one of my favorite coaching jokes, and maybe you've heard it. Do you know how many coaches it takes to change a light bulb?

No,

It only takes one, but the light bulb has to want to change.

That's good, that's good, though, because it's true. You know,

deciding to change, and so I'm wondering, what it takes for women to.. what is it usually? Because a lot of times it's hitting rock bottom, it's like.. or you know, it's a health issue sometimes that whisper, or the two by four, right?

Yep, it is, and it's.. it's different reasons. I find it interesting. I have some women come into the sanctuary, and they think, like the one woman I spoke to yesterday, she's.. she's only been in for six weeks, and she's like, I've never experienced anything like this before. This is exactly what. I need, I don't need a coach telling me how to do a strategy or push and force. I said no, you need to go within to win here. So she's, she's transforming who she is, but I think women come in because they're fed up, they've lost all, they change because they've lost, you know, they, and a lot of successful women in business, have hired a lot of coaches, done a lot of programs. I will tell you, and they just couldn't quite get around that corner, right? So their energy did not change, it just.. it stays the same. Maybe their income increased, but they still felt this gap, I mean, that's how it was for me. I thought, if it isn't money, what is it? Oh my god, I've got the money, I should be happy right now. I'm not, you know, and I've got a beautiful huge home, I have two incredible children, but I'm not so.. but I think it's a place where they're ready and willing to surrender to what is. That's what my mentor always used to say to me, Emma. What is is Carolyn? I'm like, at 20, I thought, what, what the heck is she talking about? But the truth is truth, and the truth will set you free. Yep, you gotta, you gotta look at the truth, and that's looking in the mirror, and that's our theme for this month, honest mirrors. So you got to do the work, and some women come in and just don't want to do the work, so they go, I invite you know, one lady yesterday, she said, "Oh, Carol, and I, I said, you know what, you're welcome here anytime, and I only want women in here where it is serving them absolutely, feel free, and you're welcome back anytime when you're ready.

You also mentioned earlier about control, and this is something that my wife can really relate to around that, and there's a lot of people that the control is driven by success. My wife is in control because she's highly efficient. Very few people can do as much as she can do in the time that she does it. It's hard to outsource things because they don't do it as well, and all of these other things. But sometimes there's this battle between I values and being successful in the world, like if I focus on being successful in the world, I have to give up my values, and how can I stay aligned? Another thing that we have very much in common is around this alignment piece. So, how does alignment actually lead to greater success, instead of it being a conflict?

Well, a conflict, or a heaviness, or a burden, and it takes, I think it goes back to truth again on what matters, but also I mean I believe in source, I believe in God, and I know that when I am crystal clear on what my calling is, what my contribution is, what my role is, what my responsibility is here serving, that's when I attract the absolute ideal support people, and I have, I mean, I can tell you stories that are miraculous. It takes clarity first, though, and that's why truth is so important, and also there's there's this internal struggle between letting go to lead and trusting, it's exactly what you said, so there's a level of self trust when a woman breaks through that, because you can't go around it, I'll just warn you, you gotta go through it, is when they find this new freedom within themselves that it just creates more space for grace. It does. It's absolutely incredible. Yet there's this trust piece to let go, and I just can't quite let go again. So I, what I see, and what used to happen to me is I drain my energy by being so controlling, and being I call myself a recovering perfectionist, because, because I am, you know, I never drank too much, I never did anything, you know, purposely, but I, I had to learn how to release the control, and it's the resistance to release the control, which is the energy drain, and I love energy. Honestly, I'm so greedy. I love having vitality. I'm in the. Last steps of my 60s, and I have more energy than you know, most 40 year old women. I respect that, but I want women to, to have this too, because it's, it's, it's possible. I guarantee any woman that is listening here, that's a high capacity achieving woman, you know there's there's a place within you that knows too what's possible, and that's the truth too,

And so for women that are listening now, or anybody that's listening, really, that has been like you said, reached success in so many different areas, whether that's in their family, in their business, but that they feel that they know that there's something more, but there's something holding them back, like, how do they get started? What's what's the first step? You said, talk about truth, how do people recognize truth, how do people even get on the path of truth.

Okay, so it's making a decision to actually own what isn't working. That's the hardest one. It's easier to look at what is working. Okay, so this is this is good, that's good. This is working well. So it's it's two sides, so this is what I did. This is a very simple exercise for women in business. I have been preaching and teaching this for a long time, so I call it the love it and the let go list. Okay, so it's just, you know, a Google Doc, a full scrap of paper that's sitting on your desk, draw a line down the middle on the left, love it on the right, let go list. So, as you're working through your days, this is what I did for about three months. This is how I attracted the most incredible team of people to work with me, is I did this first clarity, everything I did that I was in flow, that I just thought, oh, just love this. It's so great. I mean, I love this right now. I mean, this is part of what I love. So, oh, you know, meaningful podcast interviews, having great conversations of truth to impact people's. Okay, okay, I'll put that on the love it list. Okay. And then, you know, running my community and groups that I do, okay, that's going on there. The creativity in language of truth, I love playing with perplexity.ai and just getting it, nailing it. I mean, that makes me happy. So, what was on the let go list was all the admin, all the see, I love the creative expression, but it's the, you know, the admin stuff, and the Canva. I would spend, oh my goodness, I go down a rabbit hole, I spend three hours and create something that sucked. It was awful, and it didn't even represent what a waste of energy and time. So, over about a two week, three week period, I listed, and if there was an energy that I felt was draining me, I put that on there too, which is relationships too. If I'm on a podcast interview, or if I'm on, you know, even networking, you know, call that we're doing, I would write that down, so I, I'd read my energy within the

flow and process of the day, and then when I got to a certain place, I thought to myself, okay, so what I did is I took all that information, I condensed it, and I created this incredible description of exactly who I wanted to attract into my business to support me to do all the things that I didn't want to do. Within 10 days, I'm doing one of my big events, and there's this person that stays on after and I've been working with her for five years now, she does everything way better than I could ever do it, and then I know, so I've done this a few times now, I've attracted a, you know, incredible marketing for everything, so it's a matter of sitting down with yourself, telling yourself the truth, but owning it and being willing to let go of that, and there is a little bit of time in the adjustment, but now I mean it's so easy, I get to do what I love to do, probably 80% of the time, or more, sometimes 90, and I put my head on the pillow at night, and I have so much gratitude, because

A lot of that is because you know that you're living your purpose, you know that you're lighting other people up and helping, that you're fueling them to live their purpose. We've been talking about purpose and passion alignment. I'm curious. One question I like to ask each of my guests is, what does leading with purpose mean to you?

It means that I am living my life's legacy. It means that I have transformed all the challenge, the pain, the struggle from my past into meaningful purpose to contribute to the world, and for me, it's love. So, my purpose is to truly show people that love is all there is, and it's always the answer, and it's always the solution in whatever circumstance, relationship, situation, challenge, hurdle, catastrophe, it is always the answer, and it will give you the answer inside yourself, and to take intentional action. So my purpose is just to wake people up to realize, you know, I'm no different than you. People say to me, 'Look at your energy, it's contagious. I said, 'Great, thank you. This is deposited to you, that this is for you. It's not about me. So, and I think all of us have this extraordinary opportunity to be love-inspired leaders in business and in life. And what's more important in our family, what's more important in our business, and what's more important with ourselves? Nothing. In my books, just saying.

I agree, and I'm curious, Carolyn, if people want to connect with you more. You have your own podcast. Where? Tell us a little bit about your podcast, and where else people can find you.

Yeah, my podcast is called Love Inspired Leadership Surprise, um so that's on Amazon, and God bless Michelle and her team for doing such an incredible job of supporting me with all of that, and you can get a hold of me. I have a gift for everybody too.

Okay,

Yeah, I'm gonna send you that too, but you can get a hold of me easily. It's my website is The Inspired Connection, that is my website, and

All these below, so everybody's listening a lot of the in the comments.

Okay, great, yeah. So, and you know what, reach out to me on LinkedIn, it's you know, Carolyn Cooper inspired business development, I started my business, you know, 40 years ago, and I continue to be inspired by the people that I am honored to serve, truly, so it's an evolution, you know, it too, Mark. You live the same as me, like it's like it's ongoing, it's absolutely magnificent. So, feel free to reach out to me. I will.. I have a new, the Aim High Sanctuary has a networking circle that's starting June 18, and it will be every two months on a Thursday, and it's complimentary to any woman in business that wants to come in to experience us. We do journals, we listen to really beautiful music, we have breakout rooms that are so real and so authentic. It's incredible conversation, I guarantee you, and people who are there are incredible women to connect with, so members and guests are a part of my Aim High Sanctuary networking circle,

And you said you mentioned a gift, is that related to the Aim High Sanctuary Circle, or tell me a little bit about that, and we'll put the links in there as well.

Well, yes. Well, I, I have a gift, and that is that anybody here who wants to experience the AIM High Sanctuary for 30 days, they can do that. Complimentary,

Beautiful, yeah. links on how to connect with you directly down below.

Yes, they will, and I have a an application form for that as well. So feel free to reach out to me for that, and my information will be in the show notes below, so.

And Carolyn, again, for anybody that's listening, what's one last word of inspiration that you'd like to leave our listeners with?

It's what I journaled about this morning, and that is that we have this incredible opportunity as human beings to truly release all despair, all fear, all judgment, all doubt. We can, I guarantee you, and the more that you build this muscle of what I call thinking above the line, presence, curiosity, truth. solution, and intentional action. Your life will continue to evolve to be better and better, and you will aim higher and higher, and you will live all those beautiful dreams that have been percolating on that stove, on that back burner. You will be living it, and that's the truth.

I love it. Beautiful, beautiful words. And for anybody that's listening, if you'd like to connect, please comment below. We do like to reply to all the comments here on the page, and we'll have the links to follow up. Carolyn, I'm so grateful for the work that you're doing, grateful to be in your world, and look forward to learning more and connecting more in the future.

Thank you so much. This was an honor. I knew it was going to be good. Didn't I tell you, audience? I told you, I knew it

It would be fun right after that. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much. And we look forward to talking to all of you soon. Please comment and post your takeaways down below. Bye for now, for.