when i'm making choices that have a financial incentive a lot of the times i'll ask myself if all the money was off the table do you want to do this i found that when i when i re-met like you know 18 19 year old alicia um she really didn't have the time yet or the opportunity yet to become doubtful i'll say like you know yeah
you know of course of course we all go through different moments in our life and and we surely feel doubt and insecurity and all those things and that's supernatural but i think she had like that 19 year old alicia had a certain confidence about her that was really sure she knew what she didn't want she knew who she didn't want to be she wasn't trying to trying to
bend too much to be that person that other people might have thought would do better for her because she was very very very very clear and she hadn't yet had the taste of of of uh acknowledgment to it to to then start to change or to feel the need to please or whatever happens i think sometimes when in different parts of our life
we find ourselves in and for me i think after after that time some of me changed in a way and i realized that now i've found my way back to where i was then and i found that to be so interesting because in a way i started out more clearly myself and then maybe lost my way through the middle yeah interesting and then have found that i've been able to find my way back
and and when i look when i look at myself today and i'm like oh okay uh i realize i'm most close to the original me which was probably you know right before everything started to pick up take off you know success and things like that and so that's that's to me really really interesting an interesting revelation and that makes me smile because in a way i kind of
already had it yeah yeah it's it's that's that's that's so funny isn't it i realize that it's it's crazy to think that it's almost a process of unlearning and rewiring and and reconnecting back to who we were or what we knew and letting go of all the noise and the layers and you talked about in in part one of the book you talk about
and you say this and when you say it through the story you share it's so powerful when you talk about i no longer belong to myself and when you said that and and what you're sharing around that space the question i had is when people say the phrase don't sell your soul to achieve between how do you interpret that now like how do you interpret that in context of
you saying i no longer belong to myself um you know i think when you when you hear that phrase don't sell your soul you automatically assume that it has to do with financially right you automatically assume that you know okay you know people might offer you some absorbent amount of money and to do all these things that maybe you don't want to do
and and so automatically you kind of think financially don't sell your soul literally don't sell it for a certain number which is a great guiding light and i agree with that as well because i think that a lot of times when i'm making choices that have a financial incentive a lot of the times i'll ask myself if all the money was off the table do
you want to do this if you had to do this for free tomorrow would you be passionate about it and to me that's like the equalizing space and question that really makes sure that your soul and spirit and heart is in the right place you know and that you actually are in love with something you know so so but but going back to the point that's not the point i digress the
point it's beautiful keep keep doing it be free the point of what you asked was yeah so i think when i now when i hear don't say your soul i don't think so much financially i think more spiritually because there is like there is a wealth and a richness that you have by protecting the beauty of who you are and your sanity and your wellness and the
specialness of who you are and each of us are special in this really beautiful one-of-a-kind way and a lot of the times i think you will find that i found that in order to maybe ensure that this dream that i've always had could be be real or be obtainable or continue on or whatever i didn't value enough the beauty and the and the safety and the and the
importance of my worth and and my and my the need of being good to myself and so in those ways that's why i didn't belong to myself because i started to want to do things from the best intentions by the way i did it because i i wanted good things to come from it i wanted people to be happy i thought it would make people feel good you know it
was all from the best intentions but i didn't put myself first in that equation and therefore in some ways you know i i started to not belong to myself yeah i think that's a beautiful distinction you've made there between selling your soul usually being a financial reference or you know i think you're spot on that's what we usually think we go okay that means i'm not
gonna sell out financially what about it's so much more of an existential spiritual question and and i think that that's a really beautiful distinction that that are not a lot of people make and and it almost feels like the one you're more tested on and then that's actually harder to maintain because you may still be able to stick to your passion but i'm
fascinated that since you were four years old there were two constants i noticed in your life so one was and i wanted to share both of them because i think both i admire in different ways one of them was you say you knew that one day you'd be a singer and you knew that in your gut since you were four and and i'm fascinated by how you
not knew that because i think you're right i think when we're younger we do know things but what i'm intrigued by is what made you trust your intuition at that age because i think when we're young we're more malleable and moldable and we're more go along with what society or family or friends or noise tells us but you knew but what was it that helped you
continue to commit and follow that um um i didn't feel that you know i think that back to this similar theme about like we kind of start out knowing the truth and then we start learning the lies and the lies start to get in the way and start to make it really or inheriting the lies maybe and you know and and again it's not because somebody actually lied to us
it's because they just told us what they knew and what they knew was probably not really the truth either and each person has their own truth anyway and so it really doesn't matter what other people tell you because you have to find your own truth and each each person's truth is different and so i think that at that four-year-old place i was very very
clear i was super clear that i didn't have that interference yet i didn't have that kind of societal oppression yet because i was just so pure and so you know open and my mother has always been a performer and i remember us doing like there were these cute little talent shows at my little kindergarten and we would perform together and we'd practice
these different routines and it'd be me and her and and she's such a you know she's such a performer and she's always you know had such a passion for the arts and that's what she came to new york to do and you know so in so many ways i've always said that i'm i am her dream manifested in some way and and so and so she always had that spirit
to her and and i think because that was her dream as well she was excited when she saw that spark in me too you know and so we just were a good match you know we just were a good match so so i think it wasn't until later that i started to get out of that you know sweet innocent that really i think where this truth lives um just because you know you start meeting
more people when you start being more exposed to different things and and then maybe you start the doubt creeps in or the fear creeps in or the you know whatever else comes in to try to un unseat us but in that four-year-old space i definitely knew and there was no doubt and i'm clear i'm clear about that yeah and i love what you said there we
we start with the truth and then we learn the lies we inherit the lies that inherit the lies i think that's such a beautiful statement it's poetic but it's so true as well and the the other constant that i noticed in your life as i was reading through the pages was your friendship with erica since you were four yeah and when i saw that i'm blown away
by anyone who can have a friendship that lasts the changes of life the seasons of life the the ups and downs of life like and you work together right yes yes so many seasons how do you maintain a friendship through that time since four years old someone who's known you your whole your whole life basically like tell me tell me what that's like
through the journey you've had of maintaining a friend who's been a part of your life the whole way yeah you know i think it was quite natural you know we we knew each other from very young and and just because we our fam you know her family lived in the building that i lived in and so that's how we kind of connected and met and then we and then we had similar
trajectory just meeting up in that way and then we were reintroduced to each other um later when she was in college and and our her uncle norman was the one that said you know hey erica is doing music and i know you're doing music and maybe you guys can connect and so we reconnected because we already knew each other and and then we realized how much we
understood each other which i think is so rare you know it's like i can literally count on my one hand the amount of people that actually understand me and i'm sure that and that i understand them and there's like a real a real connection there that that's that's so genuine and pure so so you know you when that happens you know that it's rare and it's special and
so from there we just continued to conversate and and she was you know really smart and finishing college and i was just about to embark on this whole crazy world and touring and you know and and and and it just the timing was just as it was meant to be and so then we started transitioning from kind of all the friend only to the friend and
colleague and growing together in this in this space and it was very comforting for me because i it was nice for me to have somebody that i knew and trusted and felt you know close to my age and to my experience and that type of thing and so it just was all timing man you know so i think that for most of it it was quite easy yeah you know as i think the best
relationships are you don't have to make sure all relationships take work to maintain to understand to have the you know communication that's necessary for them but i think the best relationships are always quite easy and fluid and so that was that was one of them oh yeah that's interesting you say that the best relationships are generally
meant to flow naturally like it's almost like it doesn't it shouldn't have to be incredibly hard work right yeah yeah that's that's beautiful it's it's a nice way to look at it because i almost feel like we're programmed as humans to believe like if we're working harder for something then it's more important you know what i mean i don't understand that yeah
we feel like that we feel like if i'm not working hard then it can't be worth it like we have that conditioning that that storytelling in our mind and so sometimes i feel like people stay in relationships because it's harder work and they wear that as the badge of honor and we see that as like we've achieved something today oh my gosh it's so
no i i you're so writing in fact in the you know more recently have i truly truly like in the past four years to be honest have i truly said like if it's not flowing i'm not doing it because i had to finally understand that it's like this whole idea is driven swimming upstream and this whole idea of like it's just the most difficult thing ever
and and and yet we still fight for it and fight for it and fight for it i did that for so long for so long and and finally i realized like wait if it's not flowing it stopped flowing for a reason yeah it's quite hard it's quite hard because even you know but i listen even to you know two months ago when i was preparing for the grammys i had i had you know the
hosting um all of my ideas for that and this one very particular idea that i had was absolutely not coming to life and i could not let it go i could not i kept fighting and pushing and finding another way and i'm gonna find it and i won't give up on it and i kept on i kept on i kept and i i you know here i was telling myself previously that you know you know if it
doesn't flow just let it go but here i was back and i said no this is worth it i'm gonna fight for it i'm gonna find it this they won't defeat me i'm here i'm gonna do it i mean and and finally it took my husband one night he was like alicia i i'm watching you and and this thing is consuming you i mean you can't even think about anything else
because all you're working on so hard is this thing that it's obviously not coming together i think you should let it go and he finally had to bring me back to like my own promise to myself yeah wow it's it's so crazy that you touched on that because i'd actually taken an excerpt out of the book that i wanted to to read to the audience
because it it just it just really like it was like a punch in the gut when i was reading it in a good way and it was exactly this piece so this is reading from the book more myself and alicia says oh wait i'm going to find the exact piece that i love here we go sorry it would be much better in your voice but i'm reading it out because i've picked it but it's uh
at the time i wouldn't have described it that way nor did i truly understand that there was a flow with my name on it but from this side of life i can see how every moment every experience every pivot even my supposed missteps have been life's way of getting me where i have always been meant to go rather than resisting the current i've learned to surrender
uh and you know i i thought that was absolutely beautiful so i guess my question there is like how do you give that because i i agree with you on both sides and i see both in myself too and and i want to learn from you here how how do you know when too much is too much for yourself and i don't mean as a principal i mean as a principal for you how do you
know when it's worth the fight because there are times in this book where you have to stand up for your values you have to believe in what you're doing and there are times where you're like actually i just have to surrender how do you find that balance between those two places man i i still struggle with that you know i i sometimes i'm so clear
and i know yeah you know this isn't it and i i have to let it go it's better to let it go sometimes i'm so clear and a lot of times i it takes me quite a while and i find myself like i just explained you know having to remember and relearn what i thought i already knew and i thought i already knew i didn't want to fight or have to go against the
flow you know um so sometimes it's quite clear and sometimes it's not it's not as clear to me and i guess that's okay you know that's okay but i know that if i'm if i feel it if i'm if i'm feeling i know i definitely have learned to trust really much more that that that sensation in the gut you know that thing that kind of just really tells you no
you know or or yes you know whatever whatever it is i've definitely learned to pay a lot more attention to that and that that is a part of the the piece of what you're asking like how do you know when it's when it's enough or you know what's your own personal kind of barometer there but you know i think that i think that that's pers that's personally something
that i'm i'm constantly working through to really drop into my to what i know to be true and you know because i think we're all around so much noise and we're around so many damn opinions like lord the amount opinions it's like how do you navigate yourself through all the opinions because part of it is great it's wonderful to
have these different perspectives and it feeds you and you kind of can see it from different points of view and that's really great but then there's another part of it that it can just become so noisy so to drop into that space in your gut that literally like if you don't feel it you do know you don't feel it you do know that and yeah you can try to convince i'm good i'm a
good convincer i try to convince myself that i feel it and i try to explain in myself then i try to rationalize myself but i do know when it's not when i'm not feeling it and so i'm learning much better to just be comfortable with that and to know that that's for a reason and even if i don't understand that reason right now there's a reason why
it's not feeling right and to really just trust that yeah no absolutely and i appreciate your honesty with that it is such a hard thing to know and that's why i asked you because i think we we all struggle with that in in in where the book gets gets you know it starts to get really uh just where you just open up even more and you get such an intimate look into
how you've got to where you are today and the relationships in your life in in one of the chapters you talk about your relationship with kerry and and what i find fascinating about that is just how you're able to understand how different people come into your life for different reasons and you talk about how women and men but we choose someone you
know you talk about women specifically to where you choose someone that's either like your father or not like your father right like that extreme and a lot of people can relate to that and you know me and my wife often talk about that we talk about the similar traits we have to our parents and how i complement some of those things that she loves in
her father or you know the differences that we have and we start to see that tell me what you were able to learn from from these different people in your life at different times that that helped you with the relationship you have now right you've got two beautiful kids and happily married like what were the things that you learned that helped you build
the relationship you had now oh man and just overall with anyone and everyone uh wherever specifically wherever you feel comfortable to go with it so what so so what situations or what relationships have shown me or helped me to get to where i am now where i'm able to have a really healthy you know just loving reciprocal relationship is kind of what
you mean yeah yeah what i mean is sorry if i'm not explaining myself well what i mean is that when you talk about your relationship with kerry and you talk about you know how you feel that how he was brought into your life to teach you certain things so i'm fascinated by what some of those lessons were and how they continue to be useful in your life now
oh my gosh yes so i mean the biggest one definitely and it's just so incredible and and again back to that self-reflection and and back to that being able to look you know look at it from this clear vantage point now it's so apparent what kerry and i were brought together to create and and and what he was brought to teach me was very very very important deep stuff
and i and i know one of the stories that i share in the book is um you know i like like i said we inherit all these things and i i had this habit of uh that my mother is she does all the time and she it's kind of like this this self-deprecating thing but i guess it's like a little bit of you know it's a little bit of like takes the weight off
and kind of maybe it's sort of a joke but it's actually you know just uh you know and and i would do this thing that i picked up from her where i would say well you know my luck you know and it was it was almost like it's almost like protection so that if everything if something didn't go right i already knew that that was okay you know and well because you
know my luck so you know it was like a disclaimer or something and and i didn't even know i was doing that and i didn't even realize i was doing it and it became just like it became just a habitual thing that i would say and so we'd be talking like well because you know my luck and that and he was like why do you say that and i was like what and he was
like why do you what is making you say that and i was like what are you talking about it's like it's not that serious what he's talking about he really pointed out to me that you know by me using those words i was basically asking the universe to give me bad luck because i was saying that well since i was claiming that my luck was not good
yeah and i was doing it in a joking manner that i thought was that i had picked up so i didn't think it was a big deal but in actuality it was blocking me and i mean i was probably at the time like 16. wow and i was able to receive that message so loud and clear you know from him and i know that it changed the trajectory because i started to learn early
the power of words and how what you say is definitely a million percent what you gonna get i mean and so i didn't know that and and so when he opened my eyes to that it really changed a lot for me and so so things like that he really you know he gave me those kind of gifts and and and it really helped to shape a lot of my you know um the way that i looked
at things and the way that i started to say things and and what i would remove from my vocabulary or just remove from from the things that i learned you know before him so it's so there's so much that he shared with me and taught me that i know has contributed to my you know my mindset my the way i see things yeah that's beautiful thank you for
sharing that it's when you talk about in the book and you look like just how it's it's shocking to me because the things that you're talking about and then i look at how old you are in that section i'm like what no way like you know it's it's almost like that there's so much wisdom in your soul and you're you're so mature and then at the same time you're reflecting so
deeply at you know choices or decisions that you saw leading you the wrong way and it's so interesting just to see that juxtaposition of of just rechecking i'm like oh wow you're only 16 then you know it's and and there's so much there and one of the things i love about the book that i think has been done beautifully is you have these short
notes at the beginning of some of the chapters from people in your life like your father your you know sound engineers like so many different roles and yeah those could be an incredible window into the scenario and situation when i'm reading it and i was wondering how you know because i think this is such a common thing for so many people like as they grow up
their relationship with their parents either strengthens or weakens how did this process help you heal your relationship or or further or deepen your relationship with your parents of you know going through this process of reflecting on all of this again or how is that journey taking place for you through your spiritual growth yeah no definitely i mean
i think in so many way in in in a lot of ways um it's done so much of that so much of that even hearing the stories that my mother shared and realizing her perspective and realizing how things must have been for her during these different times you know especially when she talks about kind of you know choosing to have me and you know it wasn't the
it wasn't the kind of traditional scenario when she got pregnant and she wasn't kind of on the trajectory to marry my father and it just it wasn't you know it wasn't the you know what we are told is kind of the way things are supposed to happen it didn't happen like that and and that could have been really really difficult for her and and surely it was
and and she had to make some really hard choices and so just hearing kind of her perspective and her story and but then still understanding that regardless she in essence you know chose me she chose me you know that that is what uh that is like things like that just as a daughter you don't i mean of course if you step back of course your parents like guests choose
you because once they choose to go forward they chose you and they're gonna stick it out for good bad or indifferent but as a daughter you don't think like that like you don't really think like that and and so to have those moments now on this side um and also being a mother and understanding like the weight of what that actually means
is it just deepened my respect and my you know love for her so so much which i don't even know how that can get any deeper because she's literally my one and only like truly you know in regards to consistency and actually being there for me for real it's her and that's it you know so she so but to learn more about that and her you know
doubts and insecurities and and things she had to overcome really just brought me closer to her i think just as a woman you know as a woman so that that was that's really cool and really powerful and and then and then for my father as well you know we've definitely been on a deep um a deep journey to understand our relationship and and it's taken many incarnations and
it's taken many turns and taken me many places that have had to do with anger and rage and worthlessness and and many many emotions and and even and and and even you know moving towards gratitude and and definitely like a deeper understanding of his journey and his difficulties and what he's had to endure and experience and and his upbringing
and you know he also was raised by his mother only and he didn't really have he had a he had a he had a father figure in my grandfather who my grandmother married later on you know what i mean but in regards to like him having a father figure you know how does one learn how to be a father what are you just born knowing how to be a father like how do you and how do you know how
do you know so so or how does one learn how to be a mother you know same so it's just it's just so deep in this kind of this kind of place of empathy and understanding and really you know as opposed to just only seeing everything from your view and your perspective i think that's what i that's what it's given me the most of being able to see
it from multiple perspectives and multiple views and to your point even those intro chapters and things like that create another perspective of how to look at it how to see it and ultimately that's our experience i think is how we see it is the experience we have with it so it's been really really dope and great and beautiful and you know my father and
i are really in a very wonderful place and closer than we've ever been and and really able to be friends and just like humans and without all of the extra attachments or without of the extra us what i want to call it it's almost like the the pictures were painted that we assume we're supposed to live up to and and then we hold each other to these
images of what it's supposed to be but we each have to create what it is and you know hey you might not be the daddy that was in my life at four years old and threw me up on your shoulders and walked around and then tucked me into bed at night that might not have been of our experience but that doesn't mean that our experience isn't valuable and
that our experience isn't special too in the way that it was meant to unfold so that that empathy has definitely come through in a lot of ways and um and and i love that this book has assisted that wow that yeah that's so powerful to hear that that the the pictures and the visions that we like our fiction writing brains create what it should look like and
what it should feel like and then you start realizing that no one has what it should feel like or look like like it doesn't really exist and that our experience is different and what i'm hearing you say also is when we develop the emotional skills our parents didn't have that's when we realize how hard it is right like it's it's almost like
there's an expectation of your parents to be a certain way but then when you try and become that yourself you realize how hard it is to gain those qualities and and and those perspectives does that make sense yes absolutely that does that does man and you're a mother now so you know you must see it from that perspective again like almost like a
the 180 flip of being in that situation and seeing that in your children it's oh man that yeah no that that's definitely a a mind trip it's really interesting and i think the biggest the biggest part for me comes back to what we talked about already with the unlearning yeah and the you know just the what the truth is for you and um and just really
recognizing what it is that you want to bring for it toward them for them you know what what do you want to let go of even in yourself because i think there's constantly that's one of my favorite things about being a parent is that they're teaching me so much about what i want to let go of and what i what i no longer want to bring forth you know and and that is so
interesting and crazy and so it's it's something else yeah it's it's always nice hearing that about how much i don't have kids yet we don't have kids yet so we haven't we haven't had that gift in our life yet but to to hear that from your perspective of how much you're learning back from them is is phenomenal and i know that my my community loves hearing about
how relationships form especially partners and husbands wives or marriages or partnerships of any any form and what i found fascinating was that you and your husband actually go way back but it's funny to read that you were actually turned off by him because of how flashy he was and the fact that he'd brag about completing a beat in 10 minutes
and by the way i've been a big fan of his beats for a very long time music too so i was kind of like i i you know it's it's tough this way so what tipped the scales in his favor like what was it that that allowed you to recognize that this was the person you wanted to be oh it was like it was so interesting it's such a journey because you know like you said
and we talk about it i actually love the story of us in the book a lot because it really i think comes through really purely as to the experience and um and and and we've known each other for so long um you know since we were like 15 and 14 and we've seen each other through these different incarnations in our lives and we've watched each other become
successful without even really you know not you know we knew each other in the sense of we'd met in these different places and we of course were happy for each other's success but you know it was kind of in passing in so many ways and so i i found that with him i i really was quite judgmental about him which is something that i think we do
like as humans you know we just are super judgmental about a person and you know and and so i i always had this idea about what i thought that he was in my mind and and that particular thought that i thought that he was was something that i didn't find to be something i wanted to really get to know more of or you know i i didn't i thought it was to your point
like i wrote quite flashy very over the top very kind of obnoxious ostentatious it was completely the antithesis of what i who i believe i am or who i believed i was and and and and just what i the energy that i carried and so i was always so like ah there he goes again and like he can't just have a fancy car he has to have the white phantom
you know he can't just have like a really nice chain he has to have like five diamond chains like it was just like so over the top and so much so i drew these conclusions about him and every time that i um connected with him i was always like wow he's so cool like huh i didn't realize how cool he was and i'd always be introduced to the real him because as we
do a lot you know we we judge each other and assume that we know something about people and we don't and and so it wasn't until that i actually started to communicate with him or conversing him that uh then i started this i was like wow he's he's quite interesting [Music] he's he's always thinking about something that's so interesting and so
that it was it was it was that it was the the actual getting to know him and really just the peeling away the layers of what i assumed and actually getting to know the spirit of the person and i think that when i look at it from now you know um and i look and i look i i know for a fact that the universe and god definitely knew what they were doing
when they brought us together because it's completely this we both have what each other didn't have before us and so there's this beautiful thing where he's taught me so much about like greatness and bigness and being unafraid of this this this enormousness that we have within us and you don't have to be afraid of it you don't have to
not step into your five diamond chains now you might express that in a different way and you might want to express that brilliance and brightness in another way but you don't have to be afraid to express it you don't have to hold it back and repress it you don't have to not want wonderful things for yourself you don't have to be afraid of
anything not your wealth in any capacity not the wealth of the love that you have that you want to give not the wealth of the ideas that you have that you want to create not the wealth financially that you want to be able to have and give and share you do not have to hold it back and i only held everything back until i met him and he was a really really big
teacher to me about how to walk into my greatness and not apologize for it and and it was and it's really deep it's really deep and really amazing and i'm so grateful for it and i've also given him a sense of grounding and a sense of deepening and a sense of really looking at things from a a a a more expressive place or a more you know intimate place because
because i'm more internal he's more external and so it's it's really uh it's really been so special to witness the way that we were both obviously meant to bring each other this energy and so we complement each other so beautifully and and it continues to be that way i'm and i'm so blessed for that yeah i'm so glad you shared that because i feel like in this
in this online dating world or you know social media dating world that we missed i i often find that people are judged so quickly and we make decisions over whether we could or could not have a future with someone so instantly and it's almost like you you guys wouldn't have been together if it was just based on that initially [Music]
and then like you're saying like you can see the greater reason for you come together you can see the abundant life that you've been empowered to live for yourself through through both of you coming together and it's incredible to think it wouldn't have happened because of an initial judgment and one of the parts i love is where you talk about this so it says you know
that uh your husband said for years that you wouldn't take your wedding ring off even after he presented you with an upgrade and i quote that's alicia for you less is more and and you know so i was like but so it seems like you've you're still you've still stayed to that like less is still more for you yeah but you've been you've been able to
appreciate more right that's that's kind of what i'm hearing yeah i'm still who i am yeah and i am i am a person that does prefer simplicity i realize you know it just feels better for me um but i also have learned to appreciate and within that simplicity to find that that the simplicity doesn't mean i have to want nothing for myself as well you know
it's like it's like a beautiful line you know but so yes there's a much more i think a much better balance although still at my heart that's the type of girl woman that i am i am i'm a quite simple person i love that one of the big things that you see in in your life that shift is your experience in in egypt and when you returned to new york from egypt
your whole team noticed that you you changed you shifted and you go on to say that you started using the single most powerful word a pleaser can ever speak and no right and i think so many of us today have a challenge with that word in in so many areas of our life tell me what the experience was in egypt that led to led to you getting that confidence
because i think for a lot of us it's just we're not giving ourselves the permission to say no because we don't want to let others down because we want to be seen as good people and caring people tell me about the importance of using that word and how it's changed things for you oh my gosh it's so important man and it's like you know we just we associate
so much guilt with looking out for ourselves you know and i don't know why we do this like well we're so comfortable to make sure that we're doing all the best things and the right things for everybody else for that it feels like you're you're you're you're you know you're completely in the right in the in your rightness but when it comes to looking out for
what's best for you we are so guilt-ridden about it and i think it's just i am so finished and done with that i just i would really like to rewrite that whole story it is whack and it's not real and i don't know what it is and i don't know who told it and i don't know if it's like women like really deal with this even more difficultly than men i don't know i'm
not a man i can't speak for men all i know is whoever feels like how i feel in this place where we suddenly are racked with guilt when it has to do with protecting or taking care of yourself i want to rewrite that narrative because it's just awful and so and it's totally counter-intuitive and counterproductive and it's just kind of
totally stupid and i don't even use that word i don't like that word but in this case relevant it's relevant in this case and and and so i think that you know that trip to egypt was definitely a really big big marker in in my journey to start to understand what it is that felt good for me and how to build things around me that um that
that makes it uh build things around me that that that feel right and feel good and and be okay with the change that has to come naturally like nothing can just continue on forever and ever it would it wouldn't even work so so that that trip was a big part of me arriving to the place where i could finally start to say no and and that definitely
took a long time and much much more after that before i actually got the hang of it and before i even understood why it was so valuable and so important but um but i think i started to recognize just the the things that were happening in my life that that i needed to let go of and and that was the beginning of me recognizing this pleasing tendency that
i was carrying with me um that i that i had that it was time to start shifting away from yeah it's so powerful hearing you share that and i i know a lot of people listening right now will get so much strength from that because you're right men men and women and and maybe women more like struggle with saying no and i think we struggle with our work we
struggle within our relationships we struggle with it in our families there's so many places that we struggle with it that that it's such an important skill and habit to learn and and be able to become comfortable with ourselves and and making that space for ourselves so i think i think you're going to give a lot of people a lot of
strength hearing you talk it through and calling it stupid um you say that in life we don't get what we are sorry in life we don't get what we ask for we get what we believe and i i thought that that sting was so powerful when i read it i'm going to read it again guys because it it may sound like something you've heard before but it's not so so listen to it carefully
in life we don't get what we ask for we get what we believe and when i when i read that i just thought you know that's that's so true because there's such an asking movement and manifesting movement and you know just asking for things from the universe god whatever whatever anyone has a belief in i'm intrigued by when you came to that realization
and what you're believing right now so how did you get to that realization and then what are you believing right now oh oh my gosh we're going there today i'm sorry oh it's so good it is so good and man um how do you i just i just have seen so clearly and even up to quite recently you know that even i was i was operating from these places that i didn't
recognize my value and i thought that that was humility wow but i was wrong and it's absolutely not humility to not recognize your value it's it's it's issues with self-worth and it's issues with you know things that we all have inside of us that we definitely have to pay attention to and think about and work on and practice all the time to this day i have to
practice saying i deserve this i am meant to have this special moment and i do not have to feel like you know i was doing this thing where i would uh you know say i don't need that the similar to that thing that i did when kerry told me why do you say you know my luck it was just a different version of it it was like a more evolved version of it where
i was you know i was saying no i don't need it to be too complicated it's cool i'm just simple i'm just i just need it easy and i don't need much just a little this and a little that and i was i was telling the universe that i didn't need much and there's a difference yes difference between you know recognizing that you're content and and telling the universe you don't
need much because once again i was blocking off the blessings i was blocking off my potential to reach a greater greatness and i realized man look how blessed i am to have reached so many beautiful plateaus and places and and amazing spaces and still i am struggling with the belief that i deserve more and and when i talk about this every
morning i'm not talking about financially deserving more which i deserve that as well by the way and i really encourage us i encourage us to not be afraid of financial success i really do i think that that's also another fallacy that that's another narrative we've thought that somehow there's something to be ashamed of by achieving you know any number of things
we might achieve so i just i just so but that's not what i mean what i mean is like the the greatest visions that i have yet to vision for myself the greatest visions i have yet to envision for the planet the greatest the the greatest contributions that i have yet to to actualize all these things if i'm telling myself i don't need much how can
i reach those unimaginable places and and so and so that's what i meant when i was saying that it's not the experience is fully because what you believe you deserve what you believe who you are that's how you walk into a room and that's how you speak to that person and the words that you use to them that that you feel you belong there with them or
you don't and we all belong there you know i don't just belong there we all belong there and in this in this highest greatest space that we have yet to imagine because it's that big we might not even be able to see it and that's and that's what i wanted that's what i want to feel so i don't want to say any longer that i don't need much
i need the greatest version of myself that i can possibly manifest so that i can be the greatest version of myself for the entire planet and that is what we deserve so well said so so beautiful so powerful so so amazing to hear you say that i can resonate with it so much because i talk so often about how i grew up in in a in the rhetoric of i always had just enough
and i always and it was always about just enough which meant you never had enough because it was just enough right it was just and it ended up leading to so many challenges in so many areas of my life where you end up not realizing that there's a difference between selfishness there's a difference between sufficiency and then there's a difference with
service and that's what i'm hearing you say is like selfishness is where you just want more for yourself sufficiency is like i've got enough and then there's service where it's like i want more for the whole planet i want to be able to you know give and serve and do bigger and extend myself thank you so much for watching that video if you enjoyed it here's another
one i think you'll love for me personally it was because i didn't have a choice there was no other option that was taken away from me with the passing of my son's father that i was forced into i'm alone now who do you trust when you don't have anything else to lean on and stand on all you have is what you came here with it's you and the divine