Elyse Archer: Aligning Identity and Financial Goals for Quantum Sales Growth

Your new life is going to cost you your old one. If we want a new life, if we want a new reality, if we want new results, we must be willing to die to the old self to become a literal new version of self. Hey, everyone, welcome back to Make It Happen Mondays, where we talk about sales, business, entrepreneurship, personal growth, mental health, and everything in between with guests who I truly respect and I think make a positive impact on the world around us. And ooh, do I have a great one here for you. Somebody who is absolutely making a positive influence out there, Elise Archer. She's the founder of Superhuman Selling and She Sells Movement, which empower entrepreneurs and sales professionals to revolutionize how they sell, explode their income, and achieve quantum leaps in all areas of life.

And I've known Elise for a while now. We're both part of the Salesforce.com Sales Blazers group for a few years going. And she's always been somebody I admired and wanted to get on the show for a lot of reasons. But this was jam-packed with so much value. And she gives out a lot of free stuff that's actually an offer at the end that she can join to take her free course. But we talked about her origin story as usual and how money really drove her and was in her mind a representation of her self-worth. But she really just reached a ceiling for that and was not very happy as a person in general. Internally, she was struggling with a lot of different things. And she made a decision at one point to restructure, to reset.

And her income and everything and her life and happiness went to a whole different level. So she walks through kind of four stages or four quadrants of sales growth of mind over matter, money, masculine, feminine, and method. And we dove into those, but really more about her journey and, you know, how we have to do that inner work when we don't really even have the money, right? We get stuck in a lot of ways of, you know, money doesn't buy happiness. But in a lot of ways, you always hear, oh, money doesn't matter from super rich people. It's like, yeah, it kind of mattered when you were dirt broke. So how do you shift your mindset when you're struggling every single day to pay the bills? And then we just stopped having so many different areas, limiting beliefs, talked about financial set points and how that actually limits us in a lot of ways and goal setting.

You know, she's a goal setter, but we talked about smart goals, right? Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely and how she hates them because she, again, thinks they're limiting and how you can reframe that. And then talking about getting out of your comfort zone and how a lot of ways your new life, the vision of your new life is actually going to cost you your old life in a lot of ways. So there was so much to unpack here. Really think you should all listen to this one and go take that course, go get her book because this was a good one. So I hope you enjoy their conversation as much as I did. Let's make it happen. Elyse, how are you? Welcome to the Make It Happen Monday podcast.

How have you been? I'm amazing. Thank you, my friend. I'm happy to be here. Yeah, I'm excited for this conversation. I think it's been too long coming. I mean, we've both been part of the Salesforce salesblazer thing for a while, see each other on those little meetups and everything else, but haven't actually had a chance to really talk with you. So I'm looking forward to this one. Yeah, me too. Me too. It's going to be good. Yeah, perfect. So let's start with, I always started the podcast off with just kind of your origin story, right? Not necessarily what we can all read on LinkedIn, but I love to just kind of figure out where you came from, right? And I mean that like parents and growing up and all these different things.

And because you obviously have an entrepreneurial itch in you that you had to scratch. And I'm kind of trying to, I always try to figure out where that comes from and what made you, you, and then we'll dive into some of the background from a business standpoint and everything else, but you could give us a little context here. Yeah, I love it. Absolutely. Well, what I will say is I actually went to school for journalism and now this is going to date me and be kind of embarrassing because I went to school thinking I was going to be a newspaper reporter. And I always just loved communication. I loved media and I have this very vivid memory of sitting in my news ed class and I was probably, I don't know, 18, 19.

And I remember my professor sharing how much you would make as a newspaper reporter. And I remember even at that early age in my life, having this feeling of there's just no way that's going to cut it. And I had, um, yeah, I had always loved sales. I'm just one of those weird people who always loved sales. I, uh, I think my first entrepreneurial endeavor, I was maybe four years old. Now this is also going to sound terrible, but I'm just going to spill like all my dirty secrets right away on your show. It's probably pretty tame in the grand scheme of things, but, um, no, I just remember we would, my sister and I, my younger sister and I, we would get those, uh, McDonald's happy meal toys. I think a lot of your listeners probably remember those and we had a bag of them.

And, um, I remember one day thinking, I want to go make some money. So I took hers and I sold them door to door around the neighborhood. And that was my first experience of like, man, I can make, I can make some money off. It was amazing. Now, granted, I think, you know, I learned in adulthood how to do it legally and how to not steal things from other people to do that. But so I had, I'd kind of fallen in love with being able to control my own destiny, I think from an early age. And I just always had that drive. I think probably a lot of your listeners can relate to that. I'm guessing you can as well. Um, but so even when I was in college, I was, you know, blessed because I know not everyone has this, but my parents paid for my school.

I didn't have to work, but I, I worked five sales jobs at once in college. Cause I just loved it. And I remember getting my diploma and, uh, there was one class I remember getting my diploma and be like, really? Like I didn't really go to school. Are they sure they want to graduate? So, um, so anyway, that was just, that was kind of my upbringing. And so after I decided I wasn't going to do, um, the news ed route and go the reporter route, I graduated school, went into, uh, media sales and I found that I did really well at it. And I rose up the ranks in my, in my late twenties, I found myself, um, you know, top of the leaderboard in my corporate job. Like I'd kind of checked all the boxes for what I thought was going to make me successful and happy.

So I was top of the leaderboard, um, doing well, had a nice house, a nice car, all the things that I thought I was supposed to do to be successful. Um, but what I wasn't telling anyone was inside how much I was struggling and I was struggling with panic attacks and eating disorder. I had anxiety. I had a lot of fear around money too. And this obviously impacted kind of how I showed up on sales calls where I would be nervous to close. And even though, again, I did well and I performed well, it was this inner struggle that I was going through that I wasn't telling anyone about. Um, I was in a marriage that was really unhealthy. And, um, I just remember kind of one day, this is right before I turned 28 and 28 has always just been a special number for me.

And I remember kind of looking around at my life and saying, I built up and I like this life. And I did everything that I thought I was supposed to do to be happy and successful, but I'm miserable inside and just thinking there has to be another way, but it's going to require me to unravel everything that I've built in my life right now. But I didn't want to go into that one 28th year of my life that, uh, that I get at least this go round and live it out the same way I'd been living the previous years. And so I made a lot of quick and dramatic changes, left the marriage, changed a lot of things with my friend circle as well. Um, left the corporate job. I knew that I wanted to become a sales, a business coach.

I had one client who had paid me $300 to review a presentation for him. Best $300 I ever made. I charge a lot more now. So no one don't, that doesn't mean anything. Yeah. And I just remember saying it's proof of concept. I can make money outside of corporate. Let's go. And, um, and I, I leapt and I jumped and that was 10 years ago now, almost 11 years. And, um, a lot has certainly happened since then as well, which I'm happy to speak to. Uh, but that, that is the origin story. And, um, I have since done a really beautiful deep dive into, um, neuroscience power of our belief systems, money, energy of money, masculine and feminine energy, and really uncovered why I was outwardly doing pretty well, but struggling inside.

And it's a lot of the foundation, um, of what we teach our clients today. So you can take that wherever you want to take it, but that's the origin story. Hey, I hope you're enjoying the conversation so far. I want to take a quick minute to share with you what I'm working on these days with my new JB sales membership. It includes live monthly training delivered by me on my two signature courses, which are filling the funnel and driving a close that cover all aspects of the sales process. It also includes monthly workshops that I'll be running on specific sales skills and different tech skills like ChatGVT and how to leverage AI throughout the entire sales process. Finally, the membership gives you access to my entire online catalog with every course and every tip I've ever done.

And as an exclusive offer to my podcast listeners, if you go to JBarrows.com, click on the individual membership link and use coupon code podcast at checkout, you'll get 25% off. Now let's get back to the conversation. I'm going to back up a second and then jump forward. But like, what were your parents entrepreneurs? Like what, like, where did you, I guess, you know, a lot of people didn't even know they were entrepreneurs, but there was some DNA in there and other people just kind of found it because it lit them up. So did you have examples of entrepreneurship growing up from them? Or was this more just like an inner drive for you to kind of represent yourself? I would say a little bit of both.

So my mom was actually a stay at home mom. So she raised us. Um, and then my dad was entrepreneurial. Um, what I will say is that I didn't have a lot of proximity to him and his work growing up because he was on the road a lot or at work a lot. So I wasn't, um, I wasn't raised or like indoctrinated with a lot of entrepreneurial principles, even though I think you could say my dad was pretty entrepreneurial. Um, what I will say is I always had a very strong drive for freedom. And I shared that earlier. And, and I, again, I think that's something that probably, you know, your listeners and no doubt you as well can resonate with. So for me, it's always been, I've always had a driving force of like, how can I control my destiny?

How can I can not control my time? Cause I don't think we can really control time, but how can I be, have ownership over my days? Um, have the freedom to be able to do what I want when I want. And I think, um, I think sales can provide a lot of that, but I also think entrepreneurship, if you're willing to do it, can provide even more depending on how you structure it. So, yeah. So with that, as you were growing up, you know, and I'm reading through some of the notes in your site, you talked about money in that, in that moment where you were, you know, you hit six figures, you know, you had a quote unquote, had it all from an outward standpoint, but not inward. You talked about how money validated your self-worth at least at the time.

Yeah. Why do you think that was, was it because of kind of the perception versus reality, what you saw on TV and what money should look like? Why do you think you were using money to validate yourself? Oh, this is a good question. I love this. Um, I'll, I'll share. And then I'd, I'd love to hear anything that you might add in about your own journey or even what you see with your clients. Um, but I'll, I'll, I'll say too, and I can maybe even share. I had a real quantum leap experience with money about four years ago, which maybe I can share afterwards. Cause it was, it required this shift in perspective. Um, but yeah, for most of my career, I placed all of my self-worth on how much am I bringing in?

Um, now in terms of why that is, that's a great question. I think no doubt there's a lot of conditioning, especially if you're in sales, it's like, everything is about where, you know, where do you stack on the leaderboard? And for me, I, I came as someone who didn't feel good enough inherently in who I was, I did not feel good enough. And so I thought, okay, if I can just be top of the leaderboard, outperform everyone else, then I'm going to feel good enough. But the crazy thing that happened was no matter how much money I made, I still didn't feel good enough. And so what we actually teach in our, in our programs now, and in our curriculum is this concept that we call selling from wholeness, which means that you take away everything outside of you.

So take away the amount of money you make, take away how quote unquote successful or not successful your business is. How whole do you feel as a person, right? Do you, can you feel abundant without money in the bank? Can you feel successful on your lowest sales month? Right. And this is, this is the game because when we, the outer world is just going to mirror to you how you're feeling about yourself inside and what your self-concept is, what your self-belief is. So I will talk to clients all the time and you may as well, where it's like, if I can just get some sales in, if I can just make some money, if I can just launch my business and have this successful launch, then I'll feel validated.

I'll feel successful. And what I tell them is you've got it backwards. You've got it backwards. I mean, we, I love the external results. I appreciate money. I love money. I love sales. I love all of that. And it does not define who I am because when I, when you make it define who you are, there's always a gap, right? Where it's like, you're not going to be good enough unless you're here. And then that, that target keeps moving as well. When we do the inner work to feel whole and abundant and successful, regardless of what's happening outside, then you'll actually make more money. You'll attract more sales. You'll attract more people, but you won't feel like you need it to be successful. I'd love to hear your, your thoughts on that or your own take on that too.

No, I totally agree. The challenge I always have with it though, is it's like, you know, you always hear from super rich people like, oh, money doesn't buy happiness. Tell that to the single mom with three kids working a day, day job. Who's stressing like at the highest level of where that next paycheck is coming in, you know, coming from. So I look, I always try to figure out like that, you know, that sales rep, you know, it's funny. I talk to a lot of like sales influencers and trainers and stuff. And they're always like, oh, you know, just, just do this or just, and I'm like, yeah, that works for you and your brand and, and who you are because you're 20 years into the industry. Like people, like even, even me, I have a hard time telling people about my results because it's been 28 years in the making.

And so I built my brand in this industry. It's a lot easier for me to send an email or make a phone call and get a response than it is some 22 year old kid who's going after CISOs and trying to understand even what a CISO does. So when you're in that almost constant panic zone of money, of where's it coming from? How do you take the step back and, and do that inner work to make you know yourself worth when you might be kicked out of your apartment next month? Totally. Yeah. I love it. I love it. And I'll share, I'll share a story of when I was in a similar situation and how I use this. Um, so I think that helps too. And I agree with you, right? It's like, Oh, it's easy for you to say, John, or at least to say like, Oh, you know, buddy is easy and blah, blah, blah.

But that's not how I'm feeling right now. That hasn't been my life experience yet. I'm stressed about this. I actually think that is exactly when you have to do this work because it will not change unless, and until you do this work. And in those times when we're at our lowest and I've had them, I've had plenty of those times and our times where we don't know how we're going to pay the bills when we're stressed, like I'm the breadwinner for our family. So I like, I understand, you know, I understand in those times where we don't know how we're going to pay the bills or take care of things. That is actually the time when you have to get really real with yourself and look at what am I thinking?

What am I believing? How am I showing up? Um, and it, cause it's, you're not going to want to do like, you don't want to say when things are really easy, right? When things are just flowing, when it's just going, we don't have as much motivation to change in those moments. Right? So I remember, um, and I shared, you know, in my corporate job and then as an entrepreneur, I always had like a, a decent level of success. Like I hit low six figures early, but then I stayed stuck there for over 10 years, which was really interesting because I wanted to do more. I wanted to grow. I wanted to be able to do things like, um, you know, retire my husband from his night shift respiratory therapy job, uh, which was a crazy schedule.

Shout out to any healthcare families out there who are listening. Cause yeah, that schedule is nuts. Um, I wanted to provide a different lifestyle for us. I wanted to have greater impact. Um, but no matter what I did, no matter how hard I worked, no matter how many hours I put in, I could never break past that income threshold. And so this actually happened when my oldest son was four months old and I was sitting up late night, uh, nursing him. And you know, when you're doing that, you've got one of two choices. You can either doom scroll and compare your life to everyone else on Instagram or Tik TOK, or you can read. And so I, I chose to read and I was reading, um, this book by Bronnie Ware called the top five regrets of the dying.

Have you ever read it? No, I haven't. Oh, it's a powerful book. And I would, I would also encourage any, I would encourage anyone to read it, but especially if you're at a point where you're like, I'm stressed out. I don't know what I'm doing with my life. I feel like I'm in a lot of contrast, right? Read this book. Bronnie was a hospice care worker and she sat with people on their deathbeds. And what she said was that right before people die, they would share with her their biggest regrets. And there were five most common regrets that people shared. And the number one regret was, I wish I had had the courage to live a life true to me rather than what everyone else expected of me. I get chills saying it now.

And like, when I remember when I was reading that, um, you know, I wish I had had the courage to live a life true to me rather than what everyone else expected of me. That's great. Yeah, I know. So I was reading that and kind of had this major self-awareness moment of how much I'd been hiding in my life and how much I'd been playing small and how much I'd been buying into a lot of limiting beliefs where I would look at other people living life the way I wanted to live, making the impact, having the company, um, you know, leading, being on the big stages, all of that, making more money. And I, I remember that I would look at them and say, well, yeah, but they can do it because this or that. And I would make excuses.

And I also remember around that time, one of my dear friends, who was also my podcast co-host, his name was Greg Heyer. He passed away in his sleep at age 39. No way. And I wasn't, yeah, left behind a wife and five kids. He just didn't wake up one morning. Yeah. And I wasn't that much younger than him. And I just remember thinking, I don't know how much longer I have on this planet. And hopefully I have a lot longer, but I'm not going to play small anymore. I'm not going to do what I now call putting my life on layaway. I'm not going to wait for someone to come give me permission to tell me it's time or I'm good enough or I can change. And I just said, I don't care what it takes. I am going to, I'm going to start living life as that fullest version of me, that fullest expression of me.

And the full story could take the rest of the interview. So I'm not going to share that, but I'm going to share the very highlight CliffsNotes version. Um, I made a commitment in that moment that I was going to do whatever it took to get out of my comfort zone where I'd been staying for so long and to finally eliminate all the money limiting beliefs that had been ruling and controlling my life. Um, the fear about playing a big game and I was going to, I was going to go for it. And so very shortly thereafter, I'm listening to a podcast from a woman who mentors moms to become millionaires. And I was like, I'm a mom. I want to be a millionaire, great branding. And so, um, so I had, you know, I'd made that commitment.

I'll do whatever it takes. So she says on the podcast, Hey, um, I happen to have an opening for a private coaching client. If you're interested, DM me. And I'm like, all right, universe, I'll bite. This is resonating. So we, we get on the call. It's a clear yes for me. I know I need to invest in myself and get out of my comfort zone and find out how she thinks, you know, mom of three working a couple hours a day, running a three and a half million dollar business. I was like, I need to know what she's doing because I want to do that too. And then I find out the investment to work with her is $50,000 for six months. Yeah. And insignificant investment, not insignificant. Right. And it was half of what I had made the whole year before.

I hadn't saved the money. I was the breadwinner for the family. Didn't have it, but I had a knowing that I had to do it, um, to get so out of my comfort zone that I had to face every limiting belief I'd ever had about money and about myself and what's possible. So I found a way to scrap together a deposit on a credit card, freaking out thinking, Oh my gosh, I'm putting my family in financial ruin and jeopardy. I don't even know how I'm going to pay the full coaching. I don't know I'm going to make the payment next month. But what I will say, John, about that experience is it made me get so out of my comfort zone and so face to face with every limiting belief I've been holding about myself, about money, about how life works for me, that I had no choice, but to look at all of it.

And I went on a six week period from the moment I made that investment of doing a real deep dive into the power of the subconscious mind and how it affects our results, the energy of money, all of these things. And I studied under, I studied neuroscience, like all of it. And I still, to this day, love studying these things. Um, but in six weeks of kind of laying it all out on the line, feeling a lot of feelings of fear and scarcity around money, but deciding I'm changing this, I went from having been stuck at a hundred K years for over a decade to having a hundred K months and it, but what I want to say with that was it was an inner shift first. Yeah. The money came after I changed internally.

Does that make sense? How I'm sharing it? Yeah. I tell sales reps all the time. There's this moment, uh, that you wake up in sales and you just kind of call it the inflection point, right? Like where you don't know what happens, right? But, but it's when you stop pitching your solutions and having conversations about your solutions and you start caring more about what the client needs, then you do your commission check. And when that happens, your commission check tends to go through the roof. Um, so I think there's, there is a kind of a moment. Sometimes it's a very stark, like decisive moment. Other times it's a gradual understanding. And so when you talked about, like, I want to dive into limiting beliefs, the energy of money, but one of the ones that stuck out, cause you talked about that five, you know, that a lot of sales reps, I think just whether they consciously or subconsciously know it, um, you know, once they hit six figures, it's like, yes.

Right. And, and very few, quite frankly, elevate above that because there is just this kind of set point of, in our society, that means, you know, you're, you're doing okay, that type of thing. And, and, and even they want to go to that next level, the motivation to get to that next level is, is just not there or the drive isn't there. So could you talk to me about like, well, going back to validating yourself with the money, what's a financial set point? Yeah, such a good question. So when I mentioned earlier that I made the same amount of money for 10 years, no matter how hard I worked, I did not realize that we all have a financial set point. So it's just like, and we can kind of relate it to body and weight right now, whether someone's listening in their body is where they would like it to be or where they would not like it to be your body, unless you make a consistent conscious choice to change is going to have a weight range that it generally stays in.

And it's your set point. And it's just what feels natural and normal and comfortable to you. It's based on your self concept. It's based on your identity and it informs your habits and it informs the actions you take around food and exercise and health. It all boils down to self concept. So we also all have a financial set point. And that's the amount of money that feels normal or natural for you to bring in. And if you're curious what yours is, look at what you've been making for the past couple of months or year or more, that's going to tell you what your financial set point is. Now, again, what's powerful about this is it very likely may not be what you would like it to be. All right. So just because it's your set point, it doesn't mean it's what you would love.

But if you want, and this is a missing link where it, and I'd be curious to hear your perspective when you work with clients on this, because if you want to grow your sales, if you want to grow the amount of money that's coming in every month, or you're an entrepreneur, you want to grow your revenue, it is not enough. My opinion, it is not enough to just put a new strategy into place because your results will never supersede your identity. So this is why two people can have the exact same strategy. You've got a very successful podcast, a very successful brand. There are others out there who also have podcasts and brands who are maybe doing a lot of the same things you're doing every week or every day, maybe not to the same level, but they're not having the same results.

Why it's their self concept. They haven't accepted the identity, the self concept of someone who has a brand with X number of followers with X amount of money flowing in every month. And so if we want to grow our sales, our team sales, our revenue, we have to start with first, what is the identity? What is the self concept of someone who has that? And that speaks to the financial set point piece and something else that I'll ask clients. Uh, and well, let me, before I go into that, I'll share, we can raise our set point. How do we do it? We normalize and naturalize and naturalize new numbers, higher numbers in our life. You can do that by getting in proximity with people who are performing at a high level.

Like if you've been stuck at six figures for a long time, like I was and you're like, you know what? I want to bust through this hump and get to another level. Go start hanging out with seven figure earners who can't imagine only making six figures where they're like, uh, I don't know what I would do. Or seven figure earners who want to go to another level. Hang with eight figure, nine figure earners who are like, I can't, I can't imagine. Right. I worked with a billionaire client recently and it was the amount of money flowing into his business every single day. Most people can't fathom, but for him it feels natural and normal. So I'll say one other thing and then I'll turn it back to you. But what's powerful about this is again, it's an inner shift first where you play with the numbers you play with.

Okay. If I was bringing in a hundred K a month, how would I be thinking? What would I use it for? What would that look like? How would I carry myself? How would I show up in client conversations? How would I feel? Forget your outer reality. Your outer reality is just a mirror of the past. It's how you were thinking, feeling, acting in the past. What you're, how, who you are being today is going to inform tomorrow, next week, next month. They have nothing to do with each other. So forget what's happening right now. You start embodying the version of you who's at whatever level you want to be at. And you'll start to feel more natural and normal about whatever the number is. Once it feels natural to you is when it will happen.

So I ask clients a lot, think about whatever your goal is for this month, your sales goal, your sales target. How would you feel if it came in today? And usually I'll get responses like, Oh my gosh, relieved, excited, um, thrilled, overwhelmed, tears of gratitude. And I'm like, that's beautiful, but you're not a match for it yet. Because when you're a match for it, it would feel like an, of course, it would feel normal, but we got to do the inner work first to normalize that. Um, so hopefully I explained that and how, but let me know if there's follow-up thoughts or questions on that. No, I do. And I think the, you know, my question on that is, is do you have to come to, you know, a lot of people in any scenario, right?

You, you, you hear, you have to hit rock bottom before you can really make that choice to take that next step. Right. And I've, I've explored this topic a bunch on the podcast here with people about, you know, do you need to go through really troubling times or, or trauma, if you will, to develop grit and realize you need to make a change. You know, it's, it's just like the health, like I'm 48 years old. You know what I mean? I've treated my body like a trash can for 48 years. And, and, and so, and I've been fortunate that my body has been able to take a lot of abuse, but you see people who have the same mentality and then all of a sudden they have the heart attack. All of a sudden something forces them to pay attention to their body.

And their health and they, then they shift. And I always try to like, what can I do before my body forces me to make that shift, to do that shift. But again, it's comfort level. It's like this. I, I mean, you said it, like I, I've fluctuated between 195 and 205, literally my entire life. Right. Yeah. And so to me, I'm like, all right, I still good. I still look okay with a t-shirt on, you know what I mean? That type of stuff. But where do you, I guess where, if you're in the neutral zone, I'll call it of, of like, I'm comfortable, you know what I mean? I, I make a good amount. I want to make more, but I make enough money to pay my bills and live a lifestyle that I'm okay with. My health is all right, but you know, you want more.

You're just not sure how to go get it. I guess without the forcing function of trauma, of losing everything, how do you go through the process of, of, of transformation without that forcing function? This is so good. We love this. This is so good. So I don't know if you're a, um, a Joe Dispenza fan or follower, but I'm a, I love his work and he does a lot around kind of combining science and spirituality for transformation. It is a lot around health. Um, I actually healed skin cancer with his work, but there's also, um, I've had amazing experiences with abundance and, you know, relationships and all of that using his work, but he has a quote and it's going to be a rough paraphrase, but he says something to the extent of we can grow and change in a state of suffering and trauma, or we can grow and change in a state of joy and bliss.

And it's, it's our choice. It's your choice. And so I think to your question, no, we don't have to have a traumatic event happen where, you know, we're in an accident or there's a health diagnosis or you lose all your money to, to kind of wake up and say, man, it's time to change. But what I will say is if you're in your comfort zone and you've been there for a long time, and there's something in your soul that's saying there's more, I want more. I believe there's a point at which your comfort zone becomes a cage. And if you do not consciously decide that you're going to start shifting things, you will manifest a scenario that helps you look at what, who you've been being and provides the context for you to change.

That scenario will probably feel unpleasant in the moment, but it's an opportunity that highlights where you get to grow in health, where you get to go, it grow in wealth consciousness and mindset. So whatever that is that you're, that you're seeking. So I think that we are wired for expansion. I think that we, we came here to expand and grow and experience more of who we are. And so if we have stopped doing that, and we're not consciously changing, there will often be a wake up call moment that can feel like that dark night of the soul. But what I've also heard that dark night of the soul called as a dark night of the ego, where you have to actually look at who you've been being. And is this how I want to keep living the rest of my life?

If not, I want to change. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. So with that, where are you on goal setting? Because I've heard a lot of mixed feedback these days on goal setting. Sometimes it's limiting, right? You do smart goals, specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. And it's like, okay, so those are super tactful. And then there's dumb goals where it's about audacious, ridiculous things and go from there. You know, and I, and I always, you know, reps who come to me and ask me about like, Hey, you know, John, I'm thinking about a new job. Like, I don't like where I'm at right now. My question to them is always, well, what's your plan? Kind of what's your, what's your vision of, of yourself?

And I use the five-year mark because I think it's really hard these days to look anywhere past five years and not like the interview question of where do you want to be in five years? And, you know, I want to be a manager, but no, take a step back and just lifestyle wise, where do you, where do you see yourself? And then, you know, regardless of job, regardless of anything like that, do you want a partner? Do you want a house? Do you want kids? Do you want all these different things? Do you want to be traveling? What does that look like to you? And then once you have that vision now back into what kind of job do you need to, what kind of money do you need? And therefore, if this job that you are doing right now is going to help you get to the next level, then, you know, then do it, you know, if it's not, then go find one that will.

And so, you know, and then you write down the goals, it's like you back into it. Okay. How many, and you get all the way down to how many activities do you need to be doing on a daily basis to be able to measure that. But the challenge with that is always to like stretching people beyond even that of, of their limiting mindset. And, you know, a simple thing I do is like, okay, take your quota, say it's a million bucks, uh, take your quota and double it at least. Right. And then back into the numbers of what you need, because you, you might not hit that million dollar, $2 million quota, but you'll crush your million dollar quota because it's a mentality-wise. So long-winded question about, but focusing on where are you personally with goal-setting smart versus breaking through whatever limiting barriers you have?

Yeah. Hate smart goals. We're not, no one asked me to come in and train your team on smart goals. I'm not your, not your girl. I think they're way too limiting. Um, I love goals. I love goal-setting. I love how you shared that you do it with people who come to you. Um, here's my take on it is for a lot of my life, I set goals based on what I thought would make me look good to other people. And I think that's how a lot of people do it. If I just make this amount, then I'll be successful. We kind of talked about this earlier in the show, right? And I get a lot of people who come to me with that. What I have learned to do in terms of goal setting is similar to kind of how you prompted when you were talking about it, but I'll say, pretend that you're living on an Island.

No one's ever going to know. No one's watching, but you're designing your life. What would you love in every aspect of life in terms of how you live? What sort of home are you in? How are you spending your time? What's your family? Like what's your health? Like that helps you get down to the truth of what really matters for you. Because so often we're setting goals based on what we see other people doing. But again, it's that, are we, are we coming from a place of lack or wholeness? A lot of times we're coming from a place of lack. We want to get clear on who is that fullest expression of you? Who did you come here to be? Some people will do that exercise and they'll say, shoot, I want to go live in Portugal where there's a great exchange rate and I want to go work on the beach and have a simpler lifestyle.

And that would feel amazing to me. And holy crap, it's not at all aligned with my life right now. If I'm in New York city, I'm committing back and commuting back and forth every day, this and that. Um, and they realize I don't actually need as much money as I thought I did to achieve the goal. Other times people do that. And they're like, you know what? I'd be living in a very different type of house. I'd be driving these types of cars. I'd be serving at this level, making this type of charitable impact. It's going to require a lot more money. One thing I want to say with money before I share more, more about goals is we don't want to make money itself. The vision money is the how of the vision.

This is really important. So I think it's important to have goals around money, right? It's tangible. It helps us measure, but it's just a measuring stick and it's designed to be the how of your vision, not the vision itself. So we want to get clear on what is that fullest expression of you. We can reverse engineer from there into, okay, what are the, how much money is required and more of the tactical how of it. Um, but I also think, and this is not an Elise Archer original. I think this is Bob Proctor who said this, but goals are not to get there to grow. So when we make, when we make the goal kind of the end destination and which is important, we want to have a goal, but when we make that our success barometer and we think that's it, when I'm there, I will have made it.

What'll happen is you'll achieve your goal and then you'll say, well, what am I going to do next? Right? Cause we're wired for expansion. This is why people run a marathon. Then they want to do an ultra marathon, not speaking from experience in any way, shape or form. But so, and, and this is also why people can get into fear and scarcity and doubt around their goals because they get so attached to the end outcome. So have the goal, have the target, make it, make it something that excites the heck out of you that you don't know how you're going to do right. Otherwise, why are you getting up every day and trading your life for it? Right? So make it something that is worthy of trading your life for, but then make your focus, make your, your goal becoming the version of yourself who would naturally have that goal as part of their life, who would naturally have accomplished that not so much the end goal itself.

So if you say, I want to go from six to seven figures in my business this year, great, let's do it. And then you make your daily work. Who is the version of me? My goal is I'm going to be the person who has a seven figure business today. I'm going to think like her. I'm going to feel like her. I'm going to act like her. The goal will manifest. It will happen. It's a by-product. We don't control the timeline. It may take less. It may take a little more. It'll happen, but make your, your goal manifesting the version of yourself who has that goal accomplished. And you won't feel that fear, that attachment around, is it happening? Is it not? Cause your focus is actually on who you're becoming in the process.

That's, that's my take on goals. No, I love it. I, so I'm going to nuance on this one. Cause what you said there sounds a lot like, you know, the manifestation and the visualization, but I think it also can be confused with fake it till you make it. So how do you do that? Cause I, I'm not a fake it until you make it guy in the sense that I don't think anything should be fake. Right. So how do you, what's the difference? And I'm guessing there's a, I know there's a slight difference in faking it until you make it. Like I'm that rich guy. I have that mentality. I'm going to be a million dollar, you know, I'm going to actually even go rent a Lambo so I can feel what it's like to drive a Lamborghini.

I'm going to go hang out with the people that are the millionaires. So I can be feel, you know, I'm going to buy the expensive watch to, to, to feel like I am that millionaire that I want to be versus putting in the work to do it and shifting the mentality to be. So how, how do you, uh, those two things? Absolutely. No, good question. I love it. So what I would say is, and this is where I think a lot of people get vision boarding and manifesting mess up. Cause they think it's like, Oh, I'm going to sit on a cushion and I'm just going to think about what I want and it's going to come in. Now I'm a, I'm a pretty spiritual person. Um, I do all of those things. I have had some things come into my life with little effort on my part.

And I'm like, wow, thank you. That was amazing. Now here is, but here's how it works in life. We don't get what we want. We get what we are. You don't get what you want. You get what you are. So there is, I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with someone going and doing the things that you said, if they want to practice aligning with a different frequency. So that's how I would think about it. So I want to go from six to seven figures or seven to eight. All right. What would I be doing at that level? How can I get as close proximity as possible now? So I can start to feel what that feels like. Cause again, we do want to naturalize and normalize the new level. My feeling on what you said, and you can tell me if I'm wrong, but I think there are people who do that, but the energy they're in is like graspy lack.

It's, it's like it's, there's that right. And they also may not be willing to do the actual work and the inner work. And then the outer strategic work to become the person where that's natural and normal for them to have those results. Yeah. So when we have clients come into our programs, the first thing we have them do is something called new personality, old personality. And this is another, another Joe Dispenza quote for you. He says, your personality determines your personal reality and your personality is composed of your thoughts, your feelings, your thoughts, your feelings, and your actions. So it is going to require you becoming a new person, a different person to have a different level of results because who you've been being up until this point has created your current level of results.

There's another powerful quote and I forget whose it is, but she says, your new life is going to cost you your old one. So if we want a new life, if we want a new reality, if we want new results, we must be willing to die to the old self to become a literal new version of self, but we have to have awareness first of how have I been being in the past? And then who would I need to be to have these new results? So we, it's a, it's a really simple process. We usually use a spreadsheet, but we have them do two columns and new personality, old personality. And we say, okay, for the person who has the results you want, just guess what thoughts do you think they're thinking? What feelings are they feeling?

What actions are they taking? Write it down. And then we want to look with no judgment, but just awareness at, well, what are my current thoughts that I would not be thinking if I was there? Maybe it's a thought of, oh my gosh, how am I going to pay my bills this month? Where's the money in the bank account? These clients are annoyed that I'm following up with them. Would you be thinking that as the version of you with your end goal accomplished? No. So we want to get aware of those thoughts that are cycling on repeat in your head. Just because you think a thought, it doesn't mean it's true. So we got to listen and be aware of those because those are the programs that are running your life right now.

We also want to tune into what emotions am I feeling on a regular basis that just feel like me? Maybe it's for me, it was low grade anxiety all the time. I was like at my next level, I'm not feeling that. So let me become aware that my body's addicted to some cortisol that's running through right now. And this feels like me, but it doesn't have to stay that way. And then what actions are you taking today that you wouldn't be taking from the end? Maybe it's procrastinating, um, holding off on launching that thing you want to launch, you know, whatever. So we become aware. And then every day the work is, and some people might call it fake it till you make it right. I would say it's more about embodiment.

It's about, I'm going to practice today being the new me. And there's going to be things that feel unnatural. There's going to be things that don't feel right or feel way out of my comfort zone, but I'm going to practice that. I'm going to catch the thoughts when I think something that I wouldn't be thinking from the end. I'm going to notice my emotional state. I'm going to do my best to take action as the person with the end result accomplished. When you do that consistently enough, you wake up one day and you are that person. Yeah. That's my take on it. No, I love it. I think that's, you know, cause I think there's so many people faking it right now. And I'm like, what are you, what are you faking?

Cause I can sniff fake all day long. You know what I mean? And, but the genuine factor, the authenticity of, of wanting it, but willing to be able to put in the work. And I think that's the challenge I have is a lot of people aren't willing to put in the work. They have this vision of themselves, but they're not willing to put in the work to get there. Uh, and so, and I think that's a big component to this is like, there, there's really no secret to success other than working your ass off basically for what you want. And again, success is different for everybody. Um, let's in the, in the few minutes we have left here, I want to take a little bit of a shift. Um, you know, she sells, uh, you know, your four quadrants of sales growth, talk about mind over matter, money, masculine, and feminine, the feminine component of this in sales.

Um, I was asked the reason this week, as a matter of fact, uh, in a training with a woman who would raise, raised her hand and said, John, you know, how do you deal with kind of basically, uh, this guy who has this, you know, everything, she did everything right, got champions and everything else. And then she's dealing with this guy who's this procurement guy. Um, and he's very masculine in his, uh, approach to women in the sense of you could just the way she described him. I could, I could envision who this was. And she's like, how do I deal with somebody like that? He just won't budge. And she's mapped out all the things. And I was like, I, I hate to say this, but we can't ignore the male female dynamic in sales and in life in general.

I wish we were, I wish it was all equal and it didn't matter, but sometimes you have to play towards the male ego. Um, and, but there's that line of crossing your own values to get a deal, right? For me, for instance, you know, I had, I had a lot of female trainers and every once in a while there'd be that guy who like in their sales process would treat them like shit, but be willing to sign that a hundred thousand dollar check, you know, whatever. But as they kind of transitioned it to me and said, well, John, yeah, this guy's ready to go. But you know, if you want to do it, you can, you know, I just, I don't know if I want to do this one. I'd be like, why? And then they'd explain why, you know, treated like shit or whatever it is.

And I get on the phone with the guy because I'd say, fuck off. Like, I don't want your money. Oh, come on, John. You know, it's all right. Just we're ready to sign the checkup. Fuck you. Because you made her feel like lesser of a person. Now I can do that. It's my business, right? I can turn down money and whatever else, but you know, to those, to those female, the women out there in sales who are dealing with such a male dominated world of sales in a lot of ways, how do you, I guess for you, where's the line of, of, and again, I think you and me business, we can, we can choose who we do business with, but that rep who's trying to hit their quota. Yeah. Specifically women. I wanted to tell her, tell the guy, go fuck himself.

You know what I mean? And stand up. But the other part of me said, you know what? Unfortunately, this might be where you got to get your male boss to come in and have the conversation to play to the guy's ego. So I guess, where are you on the line of, of values versus revenue, I guess, when you're in a situation like that? Yeah, absolutely. Um, I'll, I can speak to my own experience and I can speak to kind of short-term how I might approach a situation and then also long-term. And I'll, I'll say some things that people might not agree with as well, but I'll kind of speak to my own experience with that too. So I used to get a lot of that. And when I was in my twenties, you know, early twenties selling in corporate and then even, um, as an entrepreneur running my own company, I used to get a lot of crazy stuff for men.

Um, I don't get it anymore. What I will say is just like everything else, just like the money scenario in my life, just like everything. It started with an inner shift in me first. Um, so I had to start to be myself differently. I had to start to view men differently as well. I have a belief that I'm surrounded by amazing people. I have a belief that I'm surrounded by incredible men. I have a, like, I, so I say that to say kind of bigger picture. There is inner work we can do if we're getting a lot of those types of experiences with other people around us. And it can, we can have shadows. Women have shadow sides too, right? Men have shadow sides, women have shadow sides. So we get mirrors of what we are believing about ourselves, what we're available for from other people.

And that can happen from men or from women. Um, what I will say is when I had not kind of shifted my consciousness in this area, and when I was getting a lot of kind of weird stuff or unwelcome stuff, like what you were talking about in the scenario before, I wish I had had stronger boundaries. And I wish I had known my own worth to know that there is no client worth taking on who stresses you out, makes you feel like you're compromising yourself, makes you diminish yourself. Cause I took on a lot of clients because I thought I have to, I have, and I would sacrifice my self-esteem, my, my self-worth, all of it for the sake of revenue. And I kind of shared with you where I ended up with that, you know, doing okay financially, but panic attacks, eating disorder, crippling self-doubt, health issues.

So I don't think any client is worth it. I, I, and I understand if you're working within a company, within an organization, sometimes it's like, there's pressure. Okay. How can I set the intact boundaries possible here with this client? How can I, you know, be very clear about what I'm willing to do, what I'm not willing to do, et cetera, so that I can feel good going into the scenario. Maybe I pass it off to someone else, whatever it is. But I think there is no amount of money that is worth compromising your values or who you are. Uh, that's, that's my belief system. And when we operate from that standpoint, we, we are actually in a mindset of abundance, which means you're, you're going to attract different clients.

You're going to attract more. That's not your only opportunity. You got to be open to there's more, there's better. But what I will say is in the bigger picture, um, shifting your self-concept to be someone who's just like, you're just not available for that type of stuff. You actually won't get it anymore. You won't have scenarios like that with people. Um, but it, it, it's a, it's a longer game. So that's, yeah, that's what I would say. That's the thing. It's like, I wish it was easier, right. To, to tell that 23, 24, 25 year old to stand up and say, you know, how dare you treat me, you know, or just walk away quite frankly from the opportunity. Um, and I think it is a journey. I think for all of us, I mean, but I've been thinking a lot about women in sales, quite frankly, over the years and understanding the privilege that I have, um, where I walk in the door and, you know, just like a trainer, you know, I won't mention her name, but she reached out to me a little while ago and said, John, do you get feedback from your, from your clients?

And I was like, what do you mean? Um, and she's like, well, like after your trainings, do the, does the managers and the executives come in and give you direct feedback on good, bad, what I could be doing better? And I was like, actually, no, you know, I mean, unless I screw up something big, you know, unless I swear too much or say something really off color or something like that. Um, and she's like, it's interesting. She's like, cause I get feedback all the time and she's been doing this quite some time. And, and she was struggling with the fact, she's like, I'm, I'm, I don't want to think it this way, but I, I, I'm struggling that I, it's a male fee. It's a female thing in the sense that they feel like they're coming and like need to tell me how to do my job.

Even though I've done this for years, I know what I'm doing, you know, that type of thing. And my feedback to her is one, I think, yes, there, there's absolutely a component to that too is I think you just need to go to your point, attract the type of customer that appreciates your style versus mine, for instance. Right. Because, you know, from an ICP standpoint, I always say if, if they're a, if they're a pain in the ass in the sales process, they're going to be a pain in the ass customer. And so, and if you don't align on the front end, you're never going to align on the back end. And I think, I think it's this conscious of like, again, I go through life, like, Oh, I don't, I don't give a shit.

You know what I mean? Like this world was built for me, a white six foot white male, um, in America for crying out loud. And so, you know, I, I, I don't, I can only give advice from my perspective of what it's like to be a guy and, and hopefully a guy that's somewhat empathetic of understanding, but also understanding the male psyche. And, and I'm, I always try to, you know, with my daughter and everything else, give a glimpse of that, but, but also let them know that there is a reality here that we have to face. And so I guess for the woman who is, is, is there and listening to this potentially, who is in this situation where it's maybe a mostly male dominated environment that she's in, she's selling to males.

How do you, how do you help guide her through, um, the, the conflict of values and, and numbers and revenue and everything else who's, who's so young that they might not be there yet. Hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Um, and I am about, I want to always pick a belief that's going to empower me most. So what I'm going to say here is about empowering a woman who's in a scenario where she's getting a lot of feedback or getting, you know, unwanted, whatever from people is, like I said, I am someone who got a lot of that and I no longer get it. My reality has shifted one 80 in terms of experiences with other people. We get what we're available for. So I am, I am also a female trainer. I've been doing it a long time.

I don't get feedback from clients like that. Like, I just don't. Um, what I would say, and I'm not saying I'm not minimizing the experience. I'm not saying, Oh, that's good. But what I would say is anything that someone gives us that triggers something within us, or we're like, Oh, that didn't feel good. Or they made me feel this way. The opportunity where we can really step into our power is saying, okay, what part of me is thinking I'm not good enough? Or what part of me is thinking, I need someone outside of me to say this training was good or bad or this or that, because those people are just mirroring to you, the part of you that's available for that. When you shore up that self-belief and you're like, I know what I'm doing is amazing.

And there's no question or doubt in you about it. You're gonna, you're either not going to get the feedback. Someone will give it and you'll be like, Oh, thanks. That's fine. It won't affect you at all. Or you'll start attracting different clients who aren't going to give that to you. So this is a more, again, it's like, it's, it may not be the popular answer to give, but I want to give the answer that I think is going to most empower people to shift their reality and their experience. So that's, that's what I would say. I love that. I think it ties to inferiority complexes, a lot of things. It's like, I, I, there was a point in my training where I just stopped even doing surveys after the fact, cause I'm like, I know I'm fucking good at what I do.

And for the right scenario, I always know. And that's why I only these days work with ones where I know I can hit a home run because if it's average, I'm like, that's when I get self-conscious. I'm like, Oh crap, this isn't like, uh, this is a kind of outside my wheelhouse or whatever. And then all the self-doubt comes in when it hits that sweet spot. It's like, I got this, you know, like it, and I know I'm not going to get negative feedback because it fits. So yeah, I love it. Awesome. Well, at least we could keep talking all sorts of directions on this one. It's been a blast having this conversation. I think obviously I really think people should take a look at more at what you're doing in the book and everything else.

So, so tell the audience here where they can find out more information from you about you, about what your training programs, what books, all that other stuff so that they can find out more information about this. Yeah. Thank you so much. I love this conversation, John. Um, so we have a free training for all of your listeners. If they want to go deeper into some of what we talked about today, it's a deep dive into the four quadrants of quantum sales growth, which is what we teach to quantum leap your sales results. So if you go to elisearcher.com slash John Barrows, you can grab that. And it's a seven day free video course that'll walk you through all of the four quadrants. And you should have some pretty big transformation just from that course.

So elisearcher.com slash John Barrows. Elise, this has been a pleasure. I'm glad we did this. And like I said, I think it was too long coming. So thanks for jumping on here. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. And everybody, I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. And like I said, on all these podcasts, go out there and make somebody smile today. Cause no matter how bad your day is going or how bad you think it went, you make somebody smile and you know, you had a good day and the world needs a lot more of that right now. So thank you all very much. And I will see you on the other side. Hey, everyone. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did with your support and our incredible guests.

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