Welcome back to the podcast, my friends. I am back to work after a fun getaway with my family. So it was Wesley's birthday and Father's Day, and we went to Las Vegas. Some of you may or may not know, but we used to live in Las Vegas when Teagan, my oldest, was a baby. And so we like to go back once or twice every year and we call it like our food tour.
So we stayed in a resort and we eat at all the restaurants that we miss now that we live in Utah. And the girls swam every single day. It was so fun, very relaxing and chill. And I just got to watch my brain do brain things. If you are like me, I have had to learn how to turn my work brain off, you know, so that I can enjoy kind of like the fruits of my labor, enjoy my time off, enjoy my family.
And so when Teagan was, let's see, three or four, I remember I was putting her to bed one time and she was like, Mom, I know how to X out of my dreams. And I was like, what are you talking about? Please explain. She's like, well, if I'm having a bad dream, I just X out of it. So I had her like kind of walk me through.
And basically the way that she explained it to me was as if the brain was like almost like an open window on a computer, you can just kind of scroll to the top and hit the X. Maybe she was five. Actually, she was five because she was in kindergarten because she was using computers anyway. And I was thinking about how I do that sometimes when I'm not working and don't want to be thinking about work. I X out of it in my brain.
And so I had many opportunities to do that and just relax into the vacation. And so I'm back and I've had a lot of things to contemplate and process like our brains do. And so today I'm calling it Pit to Peak. And it's a big conversation. I am not going to get to everything that I want to say today just because this in and of itself could be a book. It's about expansion.
It's building on our conversation from last week called Allowing Expansion. And it's this idea of growth being infinite. We don't really get to a place where we are done growing. If we do, we call that being one with God and the cycle starts over. Progress is eternal. And so I've been thinking about that because I've been contemplating and thinking about some of the cycles that my clients are in, some of them amazing cycles, some of them painful cycles.
And what's the thread? What's the thing that I can share that would be useful to them, that would be useful to you? And so what came to my mind was this framework that I learned from one of my mentors called Pit to Peak. And so the pit is scarcity. The pit is failing.
The pit is things are not working, whether that's in your relationships, whether that's in your health, whether that's in your finances or your business, whether that's in your personal life or your career. Pit is like the low point. And what's funny is we are always doing the cycle of pit to peak. So peak is where we want to go, who we want to be, what we want to accomplish, what we want to create. And expansion is the endless cycle of moving from pit to peak.
What's ironic about this is once you get to a peak, where you want to be, over time, that becomes your new pit. And that can be frustrating for people who are high achievers until you realize this is the game of life. This is the game of creation. This is why we came here. This is what we actually want as souls, is to move from pit to peak, from pit to peak, pit to peak, pit to peak.
Because new peaks become regular everyday life, regular everyday life eventually becomes a pit. Because you want something new, you want a new peak. And so this cycle never ends. Which is why many teachers, spiritual teachers, business teachers, life teachers, will talk about, like, the joy is in the journey.
And that has become cliche, but it is true because of this truth that peaks become new pits over time. Because once you hit one milestone, you'll just want a new one. Once you buy one house, you'll just want to go on a different vacation or buy a new house. Once you buy one car, you'll just want a new car in the future.
Once you hit one business milestone, you'll just set your eyes on a new one, right? Like, that's growth. That's what we love. In fact, one of the quotes that I've quoted a lot from Tony Robbins is like, he's like, I can sum up happiness in one word, progress, right? What we actually care about is the journey from pit to peak.
So I have good news and I have bad news. If you're listening to this and you're in a pit, this will be the perfect episode for you. The bad news is, if you are in a peak and you're celebrating and things are feeling great, you will find yourself in a pit at some point. And then the cycle restarts. And that is the joy that we all actually care about, is the growth. It's the journey.
It's the lesson. It's the becoming. It's not actually getting to the summit because once you get there, you will just set your eyes on a new summit. And this can be disheartening because it's like, oh my gosh, I'm on a hamster wheel. It's like, no, no, no, you're not on a hamster wheel. If I picture a hamster wheel like repeating, repeating, repeating over and over and over again, never getting anywhere.
But expansion is like, you do go somewhere and then you go somewhere else. And then you realize oh, I'm going to continue picking new targets, picking new places that I want to go to, new things I want to create. This is a game of creation. And so I have some thoughts that I wanted to share. The big one is this is an endless cycle.
And so the more comfortable that you get with the pit to peak, the more this process will go smooth. The other thing that I'll share is when you can find your connection to your creative source, to God, this whole process feels a lot better. It could be your relationship to a higher power. It could be relationship to Jesus. It could be your relationship to God.
It doesn't really matter what your belief system is for this concept to be powerful. Because when we're in a pit, when things don't look good, when things feel hard, when things aren't working, we call out to something bigger than ourselves. That's what this whole journey is about. And the sooner you learn to partner, or what we're going to talk about today, plug in, the smoother this journey will go, is what my experience has been.
Now everyone has to come to terms with their own relationship with God. But I promise the pit to peak gets easier when you partner with him. There are painful lessons. So I wanted to speak to that for a second because some of you are in very painful seasons right now, whether it's a failed lunch, a failed personal relationship.
I don't want to be a downer, but this is how life works, right? We go through seasons where hard things happen, where we experience contrast. This is by design because contrast creates clarity. A pit helps you refine what your peak is, what you're working towards, who you need to become, which is the most important question. Who are you being on your way to the peak?
Well, sometimes that is shaped by what you have to go through in the pit. And the quicker that you can learn the lesson, and more importantly, embody the lesson, the quicker you can move from pit to peak. This is the endless cycle of growth. And so one of the questions that I've been contemplating, and it's a passage from Way of Mastery, kind of building from last week's episode, is what are you committed to?
And so this is what I wanted to read today. Because in that dark night of the soul, in a pit, or what I've talked about in past episodes, your entrepreneurs, refiners fire. We have to go through these things because it helps us be the kind of person that can climb to the peak. We have to learn lessons. We have to develop skills. We have to strengthen beliefs. We have to let go of ego. We have to become and reach for the greatest vision of ourselves.
And sometimes pits are how we find that. In fact, I would argue that like most people find it in the pit, right? And then the peak is a result of who we become. And so whether it's a slow season in business, whether it's wallowing in sadness, whether it's a loss, whether it's a failure, it doesn't matter, right?
We all go through pits and then we find something to keep going, to help us become, to get clear about what we're really capable of, to unite us with our source, to connect us to God in a way that is new, in a way that is better than before. And so this is the passage that I wanted to read because every pit, we get the chance to plug in.
And depending on how long it takes you to plug in or another word that I've used is align, right? To get into alignment, that feeling that rushes over us, the feeling of love, of expansion, of trust, of it working, of truth, of growth, of abundance, that feeling of alignment comes when we plug in. And so there's this passage in Way of Mastery.
He says, imagine a light bulb in one of your fixtures that looks out from its little filaments and says, hmm, well, I hope the person that just walked in the door is the right one. If I could just reach out and grab them, maybe my own light would come on. Isn't it a lot easier to simply take the cord and plug it into the right socket?
How many times are you going to insist on trying to plug your cord into the wrong socket? Well, that one didn't work. I'll try this body. I'll try this person. I'll try this career. I'm not getting very much juice from that either. Ah, well, there was a little juice. And then you get angry because it's not giving you enough juice or it gave you enough juice yesterday, but not today.
So it must be its fault. Hmm. There is one little tiny socket into which you can plug your cord. It's the only one that it fits in, and it's the only socket wired to bring you the flowing and living waters of grace. And that socket dwells only within your heart, not the physical heart, but that which is symbolized by the physical heart, the core of your very being.
But how many times in each day do you check to see that the cord is still plugged in? How many times do you remember to ask, is my commitment to love or is my commitment to fear? Fear is the act of disconnecting your cord from the only socket that can truly satisfy you. In running about trying to plug it into somebody else or something else, then I would ask you to consider this one question as you look upon the whole of your experience.
Has it ever worked? Can it ever work? Imagine trying to hold flowing water in the palm of your hand by squeezing the fingers together. How much are you left with? Doesn't it just run through your fingers no matter how hard you try? It finds little holes and it flows away. You open your hand and there is not enough left there to wet your tongue.
And so he keeps going, basically explaining you have to plug into your source, to your relationship with God. Because if you don't, it doesn't make you a bad person. It doesn't mean that you've done something wrong. It just takes you longer to learn the lessons to become who you need to become.
Because sometimes when we're trying to plug into a methodology or a person, maybe it's a training that you went to, maybe even like podcasts that you listen to, we plug in. And I think about this a lot because I'll like tune in, I put my airpod in, I start to tune into a teacher or a person or a concept or a method or a framework. And that's part of what works. But what really works is staying plugged into that big question.
Are you committed to love? Are you committed to fear? Where love is, that's where we feel connected most to God. That's where we feel most connected to ourselves. And in the pit, if we keep rejecting that, if we keep pushing it off, if we keep demanding that we do it ourselves, or we keep demanding that it works the way that we say it should work, and we miss the chance for co-creation, we miss the chance for alignment or lightning bolt clarity, we stay in the pit.
Because we don't learn the lessons and we don't become the person that we are meant to become to summit the peak. And so there's a lot of different questions that for me, I'm contemplating for myself, but I also am inviting my clients to contemplate of like, what are you meant to be learning right now in this season? What is life? What is business? What is your partner?
What are the people in your life mirroring back to you about your beliefs, about your commitment? Because what's interesting is if we're committed to fear, we will stay in the peak because we're afraid of being seen, of getting it wrong, of failing one more time. And I think what the peak demands of us, whatever our peak is next, right? Whatever we're working on, it is a commitment to love.
And so one of the things that I've learned and one of the ways that I talk about love is like, love is expansion. Love is possibility. Love is forgiveness. Love is grace. Love is co-creation. Love is alignment. And so there's things that we can be committed to that expands us, that gets us out of our comfort zone in a good way, that gets us into service, that gets us shining our light like the lighthouse.
And there are choices that we can make that reflects a commitment to fear of staying small, of constriction, of not being seen. We know that we're committed to fear when we ask ourselves questions like, who am I to do this? Am I good enough? What if people blank? What if people judge me? What if people leave me? What if people don't understand? That's a commitment to fear. And I know that this is spicy. I need to hear this too.
So like this is coming through me, but it's also for me because every level of pit to peak, we have the chance to do this work at a deeper level. We face and confront new fears. We face and confront new worries about what people will think, our own judgments, new financial levels, new success levels. Like this is the work because the painful lessons are for us. And so some of us, you know, we are trying to build something that we've never built before.
We're trying to create a situation with our finances or our families that hasn't been modeled to us. And so there's going to be these thresholds of pits and peaks where we're moving from a pit into a peak and there's a threshold of wisdom that we have to embody before we can pass through. And so that's where the commitment conversation comes in.
We can only pass through the threshold if we're committed to love and expansion. Means we're willing to face ourselves. It means we're willing to do the inner work. I posted this on my Instagram a while ago, but it really resonated from people. I said, the lesson will keep showing up for you until you show up for the lesson. And so if it feels like you've been in a painful pit for a long time, sometimes we have to face the painful lesson head on.
The thing that feels uncomfortable, the thing that feels hard to look at in ourselves or in our relationships, but this is the stuff that sets us free to pursue what we're capable of to expand, to create, to succeed. And so some questions for you to ponder if you're in a pit right now and if you're not right the second, come back to this episode when you are. It'll land different.
What lessons are asking to be embodied at a deeper level? Where have you plugged into the wrong socket, right? Whether it's a methodology, whether it's even like this is an example that I think about and see a lot. It's like if you are plugged into success being something that will make you whole. I'm going to say that again because this is landing for me, so I know it's landing for you. If you are plugged into a socket, right?
Like if you're trying to be a light bulb and you're plugging into a socket that is like success will make me whole, it will be a very painful awakening that like that is not where our wholeness comes from. It's not where we feel complete. It's not where we feel most aligned. It's not where we feel the most love. I have learned over the years and I've seen many times that wholeness, that success comes from a feeling of love.
So one of the reasons that I named my podcast The Abundant Heart is like it's a combination of like abundance and money mindset and love, right? Heart. And so I think that's the sweet spot for us is like this feeling of expansion that comes from us, not because anything is missing, not because we think some new financial number will make us feel better or make us more worthy or make us more powerful.
Success comes from the knowing that you already are those things. It's like an awareness. That's one of the painful lessons that I've had to learn. Like it was never in something external. It was never something outside of me that was going to give me that peace of mind, that feeling of love, that feeling of wholeness. Like it didn't exist outside. It existed in me plugging into my source and co-creating with the powers of heaven. That changes everything.
And I watch my clients learn this lesson and then that's when it's like a huge unlock. That's when money flows in. That's when the client signs. That's when the launch works. When you don't need it to complete you. When you don't need it to validate who you are or what you do or what you offer in the world. And we learn this lesson in many different layers, right? Like I said in the beginning, like pit to peak is endless.
And so part of our work is to show up for the lesson that's showing up in this moment. And the way that I see the word mastery is about understanding who you are in relation to the pit and the peak. Like the pit doesn't change you. You change yourself with your agency, with who you choose to become, the skills you develop, the beliefs you anchor in, who you serve, who you become is the inner game. It's not something that's changed from circumstances.
That's circumstantial power. Pits give us the opportunity to tap into personal power. Pits give us the opportunity to choose who we're going to be in relationship to the circumstance, which is everything. It makes you fearless because it doesn't matter what circumstance is happening. You get to decide who you are going to be regardless of circumstances. That makes the pit to the peak almost like a game. It makes it a journey that you want to take.
You feel less like a victim and more like someone who's a mountain climber, right? Like you choose to be here. That's something I say a lot to my clients who are entrepreneurs. It's like, no one has to be an entrepreneur. You are not a victim to entrepreneurship. You chose this. For some of you, it's like a soul's journey. Entrepreneurship is a catalyst to your awakening, to your understanding of who you really are, what you're really capable of, how God works in your life.
Many people have a spiritual awakening when they're in entrepreneurship because of this, right? It exposes who you really are and what you're really capable of. It also exposes where we have beliefs that we are weak or that we are not good enough, and those are exposed so we can heal them. I'll give you an example. Let's say what you've exposed in the pit is you have a belief that you are not good enough or that you are not cut out for this.
The reason that that feels so bad is not because it's true that you're not cut out for this or that it's true that you're weak. It's exposing an old story, a story that's not true, which is why it feels so bad. It's possible that your lesson that you are being asked to embody at a higher level is remembering who you really are and what you're really capable of when you're plugged in, when you're tuned in.
Sometimes for some of us, it's a really painful lesson that your worthiness does not lie in a number that you hit in business, that your validity of being in the industry does not come from a certain number in your bank account or whatever. Your soul is up to something, and it is about growth and expansion and love. We learn this at every level of Pit to Peak, at least so far. Right?
It's like a remembering who we really are, what we're really up to, that the pit doesn't mean we are disqualified or not good enough. It is for us to remember actually how powerful we are, the good kind of powerful, the kind that's rooted in love and expansion, not force, not coercion, not trying to have power over other people, but like personal power, power regardless of circumstances. That's the opportunity I've had at every pit.
It's like I get to remember who I really am, what I'm really capable of, what co-creation really means, and what the real purpose is because love expands. And so at every pit, we have the chance to check in with ourselves. Is my commitment to love or is my commitment to fear? Will I climb this pit and become who I'm capable of becoming or will I shrink?
And what's funny about this is because it's an endless cycle, even if you shrink, you'll always have the opportunity to expand. You'll always be reminded of what you're really capable of. And then you have a choice to make. What I watch is a lot of people choose to shrink because of fear, because they see people fail or because they see how hard it is or because they've gotten burned before.
But what I think mastery is about is truly making the conscious choice to choose expansion despite circumstances that feel hard, that you choose to keep going here until it works is how you ascend pit to peak. And so some questions for you to contemplate is what are you committed to? Are you committed to love and expansion? Are you committed to fear and constriction? Are you embodying the lessons that are showing up?
Who are you plugging into or what are you plugging into? And is it getting the results that you want? Not just from a financial standpoint, from like a life enjoyment standpoint, from an alignment standpoint. These are the kinds of things that I think about often, because one of the things that I know, I think I learned this from Byron Katie.
I don't know if she was the one that said it this way, but like pain is inevitable. So when I think of pain, I don't mean like it has to be like so awful, like growing pains, you know, like learning a lesson, going through a failure, having a launch that didn't work, having a hard conversation, being rejected, moving through real things in entrepreneurship, things that maybe it's not working. Maybe your marketing strategy sucks. I've been there. That's painful.
But suffering is optional. Suffering from pit to peak is something we do to ourselves, even if there is pain. And understanding that has changed a lot for me and my clients too, is like I don't have to suffer my way from pit to peak. Like I can actually enjoy the journey, even if it's a little painful. Like I think about hiking a mountain, right? Like my shins might feel tight or my heels might hurt, but like that's growing pains.
I'm becoming someone new. I'm becoming someone I've never been before. I'm expanding my capability and my capacity to create. Those are the kinds of growing pains I choose on purpose. Now, suffering is something we do to ourselves through the stories we tell. And so there's a lot at work here. Like I said, this conversation is too big for one episode, but I wanted to kind of introduce the concept pit to peak. Who are you becoming? What are the things that you're up to as a soul? What lessons are you embodying? Who are you here to become? These are really deep questions.
But I think if you're drawn to my podcast, like this is kind of how you think about business. It's like business and entrepreneurship were training grounds for lessons that your soul wanted to experience and embody here. I think a lot of people's case because entrepreneurship holds so many lessons about freedom, about potentiality, about co-creation, about synchronicities, about abundance, about who we really are and what we're really capable of.
And so the pit to peak is a framework that I think you can come back to over and over again. Like I said, if you are in a pit, this is really going to land for you. If you're not in the pit, it might land or it might give you context for what you've been through, but like it'll really land when you're in a pit. The only way you can fail in this is if you stop in the pit. Some of you really needed to hear that. It's only a failure if you stop here.
But if you open yourself up, hand on your heart, help me see this differently. Like say that little prayer. See what comes up. Notice how you can see something differently, even if it's painful, even if it's confronting, even if it challenges your perspective about yourself, about God, about the way the market works, about your clients. Because a lot of times the lessons that we need to learn is like you actually need nothing. You don't need another client.
You don't need your business to work to feel joy. That's a huge realization for many people. Then what's funny is the success, the clients, the money come as an expression of you remembering who you really are and what you really need, which is very little compared to sometimes what we think we need. Sometimes the lesson is that there is unconditional abundance, to kind of hint at a lesson that I shared a few episodes ago, that like you can feel abundant long before your business takes off.
In fact, I think for many of you, what you actually need to learn is how to feel abundant so that your business can take off. Some of you, your business has taken off and abundance still feels far away because you didn't master the inner game of spiritual connection, based on your own understanding of co-creation, of alignment, of purpose, higher purpose in business beyond finances. I love to blend both worlds. If you've been listening to a long time, you know that's kind of my jam. I like to blend the outer game with the inner game.
Sometimes it's like, let's talk to the right ideal buyer. Sometimes it's like, hey, what do you need to need nothing? Huge question. Some of you, it's like, what do you need to heal? Who do you need to forgive? Maybe it's yourself. Maybe it's someone who burned you in business. Maybe it's a launch model that you adopted that didn't work for you. Maybe it's forgiving someone for not believing in you. I don't know the answer, only you do, but like sometimes it's the inner work.
So we can tune back into the abundance that's already here. Because what's funny about the pit to the peak, one of the things that I have genuinely learned to do is like find the abundance in the pit, which makes me grateful. I mean, that's like the first word that came to me. Like I genuinely love even the pit. When I find myself in a quote pit, because there's ups and there's downs on the way up. So when you're in a down on the way up, we call that a pit.
That's not forever because a pit is not forever and neither is a peak. It's the pit to peak cycle that is forever. And so who you're being in the pit, who you're being in the void, who you're being before it works is everything. And that's the lesson that I've learned. And I'm sure I'll learn it in many more ways to come because this game is endless and expansion is forever. But one of the things that I love is that I feel pretty fearless.
I can go into any situation and know I'm going to be okay. In fact, I posted a reel a few months ago of my daughter Riley saying, I'm good, I'm brave, and I'll be okay. And we joke that that's like our family mantra. And I think about that sometimes in a hard time, in a season of unknown, in the void, I get to choose who I am going to be. We are here to create ourselves. And so what will you choose? Will you be committed to love? Will you be committed to your expansion?
Regardless of circumstances, regardless of what's happening right this second, can you zoom out and see the much bigger picture that you're being invited to plug into source to co-create a world, a business, a life, a family situation, a home that's better than it was yesterday? That's our gift. That's what we get to do. That's expansion. Okay. Very big conversation.
Thank you for being here for it. I look forward to hearing from you. If it resonated, if you had ahas, if you're one of my clients who listened to this, please feel free to message me. I know this was a big conversation. Okay. Thank you for being here. I look forward to hearing your response. I look forward to hearing how it landed. Thank you for being a listener. Thank you for sharing the show. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.
