Crafting a Life Aligned with Genuine Ambitions with Vivienne Joy | EP235

Have you ever chased a dream only to realise it wasn't actually yours? Join me Donna Eade and the fabulous Vivienne Joy as we unravel the complexities behind understanding our true desires in business and personal life. This isn't your run-of-the-mill Mindset Monday – it's a reality check in podcast form! Viv recounts a tale of a client caught between the dream of a massive house and the freedom of a camper van, sparking a conversation that's all too familiar to entrepreneurs entangled in expectations set by others.

This episode is more than just a chat; it's a journey through the entrepreneurial landscape that Viv has navigated over the past two decades across four different businesses.  Get ready to be inspired by personal anecdotes, hard-earned wisdom, and that crucial "aha" moment that shifts your perspective. If you're ready to align your ladder with the right wall, this conversation with Viv is the compass you need to point you in the direction of true fulfilment.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:30

You're listening to the Mindset in Action podcast, the place to be to grow and streamline your business. I'm your host, Donna Eade. Let's jump into the show. Welcome back to the podcast, everybody. I am so glad to have you here for another mini Mindset Monday. Viv is in the house. Welcome, Viv, Hello, hello. We are going to be talking today about something that I think is a really, really important topic, especially for business owners. So, Viv, the question of the day how do we uncover what it is that we really want?

Speaker 2: 1:13

Oh, beautiful question. This is what we call a future-based question in coaching, but actually a lot of it is rooted in the past. Uh, I've got I've got so many stories we could be on here for hours, donna but um, a client quite recently I'm just going to use a recent one, literally last week who thought that she wanted this massive house. She thought she wanted a half million pound house. It was massive to her where she lives she lives up north, so in London it's a room, isn't it? But up north that's like a five bedroom detached house.

Speaker 2: 1:41

So she wanted this massive house and she couldn't work out why she was inhibiting her own earnings. She couldn't work it out because we created a plan for how she could afford it and she could. We worked out what she needed to do in her business and she wasn't doing it. And when we went really into the depths of here, we worked out that she never really wanted this house, but her dad did. Her dad was the one that wanted the half million pound house because he would make that mean. Remember what we said in the last episode about making things mean things that he had made it but for her she didn't really want that. In fact, what she wants is a camper van to travel around the world. Quite the opposite, if you imagine that right. So quite the opposite so okay, hang on a minute.

Speaker 2: 2:15

Then, whoa, we're climbing the wrong ladder. So there's there's all sorts of books out there around this um, you know you can find those but there's one, particularly where there's a guy climbing and climbing up the ladder and he gets to the top of the ladder. Everybody's trying to stop him. Why are you climbing the ladder? And he gets to the top. I've got to climb the ladder and he gets to the top. Oh's like, oh, took a look, and he's climbing the wrong ladder. And that happens such a lot and it's happened to me.

Speaker 2: 2:36

I'm on my fourth business in the last 20 years. Ask me why. So one of them it was very market kind of representation representation at the time one of them is because I made it. You know, I got where I needed to go with it. I had a quarter million turnover and was bored and lonely and on my own and hated every minute of it and actually fell out of love with it was a product-based business. And then I set up a recruitment business and did exactly the same and had announced I got a whole team of people and I actually wasn't even needed in the business. So actually the thing that brought me the joy in the business I had kind of almost abdicated from. So it's really really.

Speaker 2: 3:09

This is the most important thing in business is to work out what you really really want. Otherwise, as you say you're building a business for someone else, your mum, your dad, the person you wanted to say to that told you couldn't make it at school, university, college, wherever you went, jobs that have made you redundant, relationships that have told you you're shit and you're never going to amount to anything. So a lot of it got a lot of revenge stuff and in fact, my recruitment business was built from. I was made redundant from a company who I was setting up a recruitment division for and I said, well, I'm going to do it for myself. And he said, go on then. So there I was. So my whole recruitment business was based on I'll show you a good energy for a business. It's not, and you know it did last. I did show them, absolutely showed them, but actually wasn't really what I wanted to do. So working out what you really want to do Absolutely wasn't really what I wanted to do. So working out what you really want to do absolutely pivotal and working out who you want to be is my question for you right now, so not what you want to do and what you truly want, who you want to be.

Speaker 2: 4:05

So I do lots and lots of future visualization on this and you can do this really easily yourself. Call it the dream state. You'll call it that daydreaming that's what most people call it. But just sit quietly with you know some nice music on. If you can do that, you might be the sort of person where things fly in your head, just let them fly out the other side and just really dream of the future, who you want to be, what kind of person?

Speaker 2: 4:27

Because it starts with identity. In NLP we have something called neurological levels. If you Google that, you'll find lots of information about neurological levels. It's not mine, it's NLP and it tells you about identity being at the core of everything we do. It's a triangle and at the top of the triangle is identity. Underneath it values and beliefs. Underneath it skills and behaviors, environment and behave like everything around it. Which is why, when I work, I work up a deep structure, which is the identity of somebody. Because once you work out who you want to be, like Donna, if I was to say to you do you want to be a multimillion pound podcaster that will bring up a thought and feeling for you. You can try not to react to that that was my freeze face or absolutely.

Speaker 2: 5:13

That's where I'm aiming for. I can do that. Why couldn't I be Stephen Bartlett, like you know? But actually what we believe in ourself comes from who we want to actually be. So many people say, you know, if I had to run, I did a thing on this recently myself where I coached someone and she said, oh god, if I was earning a million quid I'd be a bitch. She said I'd be a rich bitch, but I'd be a bitch. I'd say is are you a bitch now? She's like no, I'm like what do you think is going to happen to you between then and now, between that amount of just they're just numbers, it's just currency, they're just people you helped. Do you think it's going to make you worse if you help more people? She's like oh shit, no, it's not going to make me worse, it's going to make me more charitable, it's going to make me more kind of anthropological, it's going to make me better as a person.

Speaker 2: 5:57

So we've got all these ridiculous beliefs that sit around. You know why do we want to have money? The money is taught to us, you know, back in the day. You know we've got to. You know, have the pension, have the job, have to own the house. Thanks, maggie Thatcher. But to own the house, it's not true for a lot of people. And if we look at the younger generation kind of the people that are coming in now from the 20s and 30s, that's not their goal. Their goal is to influence. That's why they've got jobs as influencers. They want to make money without having to work hard, whereas our generation well, you're a lot younger than me, but my generation is work hard, you know, pay your taxes, get a pension, buy a house, so, yeah, what really drives you?

Speaker 2: 6:34

You can work out. So a little exercise. Now Get yourself a pad and pen. If you're listening to this Hope you've got time. It is very short, by the way. Ask yourself what you value and just give yourself a minute, put a timer on, maybe your phone or your watch or whatever you use, and in that minute, everything you know a couple of words, not massive sentences, so you'll probably put things like I know my, my husband or my children, my dog, my job, my co-workers, my friends, my loyalty, my confidence. These are like the emotional feelings, the things inside you that you value and the things outside of you.

Speaker 2: 7:10

Get all out onto paper and then reorganize it because some of them will probably sit together and then make sure that you've got a finite list and then prioritize them. Which one is at the top and you'll find. So, for example, you know my health should be number one. It's never even in the top 10. That's why I'm dieting. It's never going to be my focus. I'm never going to be a diet coach. It's never going to happen. Never going to be a health coach right, I know it should be number one, because if I'm not healthy or I'm dead, I can't serve people. But actually there is a whole load more.

Speaker 2: 7:41

The things that are high in my list. Being valued is really, really and authentic is much higher on my list of things. So actually, when we work out what those top three are and you can test it by saying if I only had those three and not the rest, would I still be okay, would I still be happy, would I still feel joy, would I still feel content? Because actually, if you do, you need to make sure whatever you're doing in your life hits at least one of those. But if you can hit all three, that's where we have ultimate joy. Obviously, my business is, she enjoys. So if we can hit all three value sets.

Speaker 2: 8:12

Recognition is at the top of mine, hence why I want to help people change the world right. So when not just my clients say, oh my god, that's genius you've made, you're amazing, you've changed my life, but I'm teaching people to do that for other people, so I get the compliments that come back and the testimonials from their clients and I know that wouldn't have happened without me. So it's not even from outside of me. That feeling, that kind of recognition feeling, is really high. So when I was in a business, recruitment business where I didn't get any of that, I was dead, literally emotionally dead. And so if you're feeling emotionally flatline, that means you're not hitting your core values. But when you hit all three, which I do now, you'll do it. You'll do it for anything. It literally drives you. It doesn't matter how you feel. So if you're resistant to whatever's going on in your world, you haven't hit your core three values. And if you need any help, give me a shout. It's a very easy session to test it oh yeah, brilliant, brilliant.

Speaker 1: 9:03

I love that. And one thing that I sort of picked up when you were talking about that doing that brain dump of what do you value and you saying about the dieting knowing that health is like should be a value for most people, in effect, and should probably be the top for most people. I thought about it and I was like, well, actually that's another way. In a few weeks ago we talked about this working out what your blocks are is another way of finding out where you've got blocks, because if you know that your health should be a priority, yet it doesn't even reach your top 10, there's probably a block around there somewhere that we need to work through right.

Speaker 2: 9:41

So, uh, good or it's not valuable enough. This might not even be a fear, it could be. It's just not valuable or we don't know how. Like if I thought that marathon running was going to give me recognition. That's how we start to in nlp. That's how we set the values with people. Make sure they're on target, make sure you don't need accountability coaching. You need to get a higher value in your mind. So if I put those two things together, I'll probably do it.

Speaker 2: 10:04

If I thought I was going to change lives by running a marathon, I would learn the skill. I haven't got a clue, honestly, wouldn't even know what to put on my feet not a clue. I would learn the skills. It would become more valuable. I would overcome that fear fear of not being able to run because the skill would do that. So this is how we can align ourselves with our values. It's really, really important. Um, you know my wife tells me off all the time because I should go for a walk. But I'm just going to do this thing at my desk, just going to answer this call, just going to do this thing.

Speaker 2: 10:30

Why Recognition and client service and changing the world so high on my value set me going for a walk and feeling calm, low down on my value set. So if I can move that up my value set, knowing I could serve better and be a better person, then'm more likely to do it. So I spend a lot of my time trying to move it up, like I've just signed up to a swim challenge to move that up the ladder. Now it's valuable. Now I'm raising money for diabetes and my wife's a type one diabetic. You hear why I do that. So I want to start exercising. It's a 22 mile swim. I've got to do that now three times a week and I'm not not doing it, so I've had to get myself a motivation way of doing it. It's why we can sometimes lose weight for a holiday or a wedding, because we've got a motivation at the end of it.

Speaker 1: 11:11

Brilliant. Love that, love that. Thank you so much. So what do you value? And there you are going to find what you truly want. Guys, so love this episode. Thank you so much, viv, for joining me. Thanks for listening. Guys, don't forget to be subscribed so you don't miss any more of Viv's Golden Nuggets, and we will speak to you very soon. Bye for now.