300: What It Takes to Truly Change Your Life

Steve Haase  0:01  
Welcome to the Superabound podcast with master coaches, Erin Aquin and Steve Haase, where entrepreneurs and leaders learn tools to help you build a business you love. You are listening to Episode 300 what it takes to truly change your life. Welcome, everybody. Thank you for listening. We have a very special episode in store for you today, episode number 300. We're going to talk a little bit about how Erin had the perseverance to get to 200, whatever when I joined, and then how I had the perseverance to keep on going for the last 100. And it's not just about perseverance, it's about joy, impact creativity. If you're into those things, you are going to love today's episode, we also talked about our upcoming book that is being released this month, July 2024, we are so excited to be offering that to you. And along with it, we have a companion course so that you can take the material from the book and put it to use in your life to truly change in the ways that matter most to you. You can learn more about that course. It's called light your next lantern, the Superabound book course. And it's available at besuperabound.com/course. Head there now, check it out, start changing your life in all the ways that you want to today. Let's dive in

Erin Aquin  1:29  
Episode 300.

Steve Haase  1:34  
You've been at it for a while. What's the secret?

Erin Aquin  1:37  
Many name changes. This podcast has so many names. And then it for a while didn't have a name. I don't know. And a lot of people who will like start a podcast and then they stop it and they started a new one and all that stuff. I just this was never about having millions of listeners or like having it be a super, super marketing machine. I think originally what happened because I had done a podcast called elemental yin yang yoga. For my second book, I did like kind of a limited series, I think it was like 15 or 16 episodes. And it was really fun. And then when I was starting to kind of get more into working with people in a coaching context, I started a live with purpose, which is like if you scroll way back to Episode One, that's what it's called, and different music and at some point, through the evolution of going through the relationship, podcast phase, and then being very kind of spiritual and mystical. And now I feel like we're just kind of doing it all. And then you joined officially, I think it's always been an exercise for me in creative abundance. You know, I don't know that we will do this forever. Where that 300 episodes, I feel like it's a milestone, but at some point, feeling like, Okay, I have nothing to say I have nothing to teach. I don't know what I want to talk about. And then knowing that, hey, the podcast comes out this week, it like draws upon the deeper recesses of like, what I think I'm capable of, and what I think is possible, and it has really I think helped me be creatively abundant.

Steve Haase  3:27  
Yeah, I love that. For me,

Erin Aquin  3:29  
I've been asked him sorry. Well, now what's it been like for you joining I haven't been here for like 100 episodes, or so.

Steve Haase  3:37  
Similar. My twist on it is that it's a recognition that the magic happens when the red light comes on that there is no end to the gold that can be mined when we come together with the intention of creating something valuable for the people who listen. Yeah, I love that. Really fun.

Erin Aquin  3:58  
Yeah, and, you know, it used to take me eight hours to do this podcast, would really sit down and like take a lot of notes. And then it would take me 1000 years to like, I would just sit there and edit every single breath or, or restarting a thought. And now the way we do this is we decide what we're going to talk about mostly the topic. And then I usually don't talk about it. I want to hear what you say on the podcast and it's very spontaneous. It's live. You know, we put this on YouTube, very unedited, unfiltered, I sometimes do a little light trimming up of the audio for those of you who listen elsewhere, just so that there's not vast amounts of space as we are thinking but it is very much off the cuff

Steve Haase  4:48  
off the cuff and in the flow in the flow.

Erin Aquin  4:50  
I like that better off the cuff seems like I'm gonna just swear for the hell of it. But no, it's in the flow. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Steve Haase  4:58  
So that's fun and I think Get, it ties into our topic this week, where we're talking about what it takes to truly change your life. And, you know, if if you're looking to make a change, this podcast is for you. So that was Oh,

Erin Aquin  5:16  
I like that you're doing that. But it's, it's

Steve Haase  5:19  
like, why should I listen, we're gonna go into what we've done to create things that we're really proud of. And I think reaching 300 episodes on this podcast is one of those. And so we sort of shared one of the one of the secrets there is, make sure there's energy, make sure there's magic to it. There's something that keeps your attention, a commitment that you've made that keeps you engaged and growing through the process. And when you look back, you'll say, Oh, my God, now I'm a content creator. I'm a podcaster, with 300 episodes like that is very different than the you three or four years ago.

Erin Aquin  5:57  
Yeah. Um, I think it really also starts with knowing yourself, like really knowing what your deeper motivations are, what your vision is, I am a person that you know, you will, if you read our new book, which is coming out very soon, so many milestones this month for us personally, this podcast 300 episodes, official episodes, we have lots of bonuses as well. It is our anniversary 9.2, our 10th anniversary is coming up, we got we two weddings, but our 10th anniversary is coming up in September. But this listening is kind of our like spiritual anniversary, we we had our ceremony with all our friends and family. That's coming up this week, and our book is coming out this month as well. It's just like a lot of things kind of coming together. And I would say that when I kind of look back at how we were able to have these long term projects like podcast, book, marriage, marriage is a long term project. Everybody knows kids. Yeah, all of this stuff, I think something that is really clear to me is you have to know yourself, you have to know what motivates you, I used to be the kind of person who would be very motivated by showing up for other people. If there was a way I could help somebody else, that way, there was a way to connect someone else I would do it. And that was a double edged sword. Because of course, I spent a lot of my life in helping professions, without charging what I needed to charge to make sure my business was thriving. I burned out which you will read in the book, it's the first story we tell is my tales of woe, and burnout. But I managed to do that in a context where I really thought I was doing good in the world. And the big lesson that I learned from that was, I have to also look after the internal I also have to look after my environment, I have to look after my body. And that was not something I mastered. So with any big project, knowing your own tendencies, your own patterns, the good and the bad, is really step one to creating a life you deeply, deeply love. Because you know, then how to change those habits and not even change them, but just like transform them and use them for good. Knowing other people were counting on me, we talked about this last week. That's how I work out I work out with telling people sometimes in our membership, sometimes I have a friend I work out with who lives in another country, but we tell each other every day when we complete our workout, knowing that we're sort of this reciprocity of of smart accountability is happening. Pulls upon my need to be helpful and useful in someone else's life. But I'm using that tendency in a way that actually supports my longevity and hopefully, and and my wellness.

Steve Haase  9:28  
I love that right. So kind of starting with what am I like what are my tendencies, what really gets me going and then tap into those things. Like point those in the direction that you want to go right? There's a part of us that's not very bright. It's just kind of churning along doing what we do. And then there's a part of us that's like, I want to go there, right it's it's the it's the thoughtful ability to plan ahead and kind of our human brain our higher brain and connecting those two and aiming them in the direction you want, I think is a fundamental part of truly changing your life. Because if you're going to say, All right, I'm someone who likes to really geek out on on a topic go really deep with something and, and have that become a big part of my life. But I'm not going to do this for you know, for this other thing because, you know, I don't have the time for that I don't have the space for that, or, you know, my teacher says I shouldn't do that, you're going to fail, you should do it your way you should, you know, align with how you like to do things in order to make that change. And one example that that I've kind of found from my life is also around fitness. But I think it can tie it into how we created the book as well. And that is to really just create the space for something to breathe in my life. So with for me, it's been cycling, and is doing a lot more riding, I would not be doing it, if it were just me on my own going for bike rides, the thing that has made, the difference for me is having, like you mentioned, other people to do it with having a community in my life,

Erin Aquin  11:13  
but other people who bike rides.

Steve Haase  11:18  
And so that kind of that gets me out there more that gets me into the sport that gets me very active with something that I find really enjoyable. And likewise, when we were writing the book, creating space in our calendars to actually do that writing, and having a book coach that had us, you know, that kind of smart accountability, that feedback loop that we both found, hey, this is how we work really well, we want to write a book, let's line it up with how we both resonate with the process of work. And we were able to make consistent progress over time. So kind of lining up who we are with where we want to go, rather than trying to force it, like punch it in there in some kind of unnatural way, has led to some really big changes.

Erin Aquin  12:06  
Yeah, so I kind of feel like what you're saying is, correct me where I'm wrong here. But I feel like it's to change your life is not actually like changing who you are. And that might sound weird, like a lot of people like I have to change, I have to change all my patterns and behaviors and like become a totally different person. But actually, it's learning, we and we will teach you this inside of the Superabound book, and the course that we've created, that goes along with it. But it's really learning how to utilize the wisdom of the habits, the patterns, the internal static, that maybe isn't always so supportive and helpful to you, but actually hear why that might be present in your life, and learn how to transform that into energy, or to re program that within yourself. It sounds like we're not robots, but to really like I guess we've felt like rework it like to bring it back down to its essence its clay and mold it into something new. Learning how to do that, so that you're not trying to change your whole internal landscape. At the same time as you're trying to make all of these shifts in your life. I think that is actually many times the issue with people who want to make big changes all at once is they don't actually allow themselves the option to be a human about it. Humans are we're not robots, we cannot just say I've decided upon a lantern. And I will do all of the very strict things every single day with total consistency and no obstacles and no drama. No, we have obstacles, we have drama, we need a toolkit that will help us deal with that internal static, and then we wish we will teach you in the book. And we also need a more spacious as you said process for how we kind of put one foot in front of the other to create big shifts in our life, which we call the five our method. It's how we deal with challenges, how we solve puzzles and make progress that is also in the book and doing those things, those like kind of really mastering those two categories where you are handling your internal stuff, and utilizing the pieces of your own patterns and habits that actually do work for you. pairing that with learning a system that helps you make progress in a really spacious way. It's a miracle kind of like when I think about Where are we We're even just at the beginning, before, you know, when I was kind of I had the idea of this podcast, gosh, life look different. Yeah. It wasn't bad. But I had no idea what we were capable of and what my clients were going to create what they were capable of what, what kind of magic the universe had in store for, not just us. But for like everyone in our community.

Steve Haase  15:32  
I feel like we just have a little sign that says it's in the book.

Erin Aquin  15:37  
But know I love it, you could assign, the book wouldn't exist without either, like a lot of the concepts that we put into that book. Having to kind of be here every week, we really helped, that that really helped us formulate ideas that are now full blown tools and concepts that we've created. No,

Steve Haase  15:59  
but and I think one of the core pieces that you were drawing on there, which is also honestly would be the biggest change for most people's lives, is self worth. Self love, self acceptance. Because when we talk about how to truly change your life, the first place most people's mind goes to is the external stuff. More money, better work, more love, bigger house, whatever, fill in the blank for what you most want to change in your life, those things are all great, they're awesome, I highly endorse them all. But the thing that makes all of them worthwhile, is actually your own experience of yourself on the inside. As you make more money, change the kind of work you do live in a bigger house to have more love in your life, whatever it is that you must dream about. When you show up to that place, if you think that you're not worthy, if you think that you're not good enough, if you are focused on how someone else is doing it better or has more, then none of that is actually going to make a difference. And so the place that we start from in the book, and in the course, and just that we're recommending right here is from total self embrace total self worth. And that is the single biggest change that you can make in your life. And it's also the one that allows the others to flow and and really take root and grow in a way that is values aligned vision aligned, and just hold the positive for your life. And that just another attempt to fix what you think is broken.

Erin Aquin  17:50  
And that is everything. Because if you're only making changes, because you're trying to fix what's broken, I think you can do it. I think I've seen people do it. In some pretty tough situations, they've done it. But it's really hard. Because it's not done with a lot of joy. It's done with a lot of self loathing, self criticism. And an experiment that I ran a few years ago, if you've been listening to this for a while you know this. But a few years ago, I decided I wanted to grow my business, but I didn't want to do it with anything but self worth. So I had a kind of a moment where there were two courses or programs I was thinking about doing one was a very felt like very big hustle work. It was like the promise of you're gonna make this amount of money in this much time. This is hardcore business dedicated to that, like whatever I thought business was at the time. I was like, okay, maybe I should do that. Because I think what I need is someone to kick my ass and push me in like I need to be surrounded by people and in competition in comparison with them. And then a friend of mine offered a training that she actually said in the copy. This is not a business course. This is going to just deepen your ability to coach I'm going to teach you how I coach and I do have a successful business but the the reason I have that is because I'm a coach like no other and I'm going to teach you how to coach in this way that very few people actually understand. So of course, I ended up doing that. I was like I don't know how deepening my skills is going to help my marketing. But I think that a big missing piece right now is I'm not feeling confident in who I am. I'm not feeling confident in my skills. I want to like I want to teach self worth from actual Having it, I want to teach my clients to love who they are and build the life of their dreams. But know that I'm a living example of someone who loves themselves and is living a life of their dreams. And that is what happened in it seemed so roundabout. But I had friends that went and did this hardcore business thing. And they still haven't resolved like, loving who they are. And I just think, Gosh, more people just want more people to feel the way that I feel about their business about themselves. To have the confidence to create their own tools and their own vision in this world. I think it comes down to being honest with where you are on your own inner journey. And also, knowing what it is that you really want. So that the change doesn't have to be, I just need everything in my life to change and hope for the best. But the change comes from maybe experimenting, like I did with what happens when I prioritize my own well being my own self worth, and I let that inform my vision and values for my business. It's made me very successful,

Steve Haase  21:32  
what it's so radical. Right money is not the thing that's going to create the life of your dreams. We live in a world that says that it will. So it's easy to believe that it does. It makes things possible, it opens up opportunity, it removes pressure, all that good stuff. But it's not going to change how you feel about yourself. And that love is everything. That ability to love yourself and others to be generous with your love. And that withholding is the thing that matters most when it comes to truly changing your life at the heart of it all is that experience. And, and, and capacity for love. And so if you feel like that's missing, weaving that into your practice, and this is like a core part of the book is the ability to heal static, that voice in your head that says no, you know, screw us Do I need to push harder, I need to earn my worth, you know how I'll just get lazy if I just love myself unconditionally. Hugging that voice, accepting your whole self, including the parts of you that say, Never, I'll never be kind and gentle with myself, okay, that's fine. Give that part of yourself a high blood start there. That is the path to making a big change in your life. Because anything that's going to bloom from there will be a product of that love, it will be a product of your own warmth. And it will be received as such by those who resonate with it.

Erin Aquin  23:11  
And that's everything, especially if you have a business, I think on a practical level. Being the kind of person who's really able to be present with themselves and with other people, usually makes you the kind of person people want to do business with. If you've ever been in the room with a business owner, or a leader who's really uncomfortable in their own skin, it's hard to take anything they say deeply seriously. It's hard to feel like their attention is on you. Like they're there to help you and support you it actually can erode trust, we've talked about this on the podcast before. If we are so self focused on our own traits we don't like about ourselves, we're really self critical. We're always, you know, trying to do something in the world make change in the world, so that we look better to other people for our own lives. There's something about that energy that just will feel off. And I actually think you make it harder to do business with you. So not saying like, You should do this for the growth of your business. But I you know, I really started I started out that way I was like who wants to work with a coach on like, their inner position who isn't totally sure where she's at. And so doing that work supported me to be a person that people who resonate with this stuff generally find they want to be with? Well,

Steve Haase  24:54  
that's why we say business is a spiritual practice. Because you come back Is to face with all of your hesitations, limitations, self judgments, all of that stuff. So

Erin Aquin  25:06  
feel your rejection. Yeah, this is

Steve Haase  25:09  
a chance to bring it to light and grow in the areas that matter to you.

Erin Aquin  25:14  
Yeah. So the book is coming out. If you have not pre ordered your copy yet, please head over to besuperabound.com/book, where you'll find a bunch of the online retailers that are selling it probably you can find it at any indie bookstore, you just have to ask them to order it as well. And on that page, we have a form you can fill out once you've pre ordered, and we will send you some free resources, including that heal static practice where you can start to connect with the parts of yourself that maybe you tend to want to push away, or you think are super bad. We think if I just changed my life, and had more money and better, I don't know, a better car, I'm going to feel better about myself. Absolutely have those things if you want them. But it's way more fun to give yourself those things from an interposition of self respect, self worth self love. And that practice is how you will get started on learning how to heal those rifts within yourself. And

Steve Haase  26:26  
then if you want to take it to the next level in terms of having our support in going through the book, we have a course available at besuperabound.com/course. It's called light your next lantern. It will help you make progress on making those shifts in your life that matter the most. And it looks like progress towards your next achievement your next big milestone what we call lanterns. And we hope you can join us there in the course

Erin Aquin  26:54  
yeah, we're gonna walk you through the entire book step by step and teach you not just how to like sit there, read the book and like feel good about the concepts which we hope you do. But actually bring them into your life so that they are useful to you, our book will do you no good. If you don't actually start to work with those tools and find ways to bring them into your life. The course will help you do that. And hopefully through that, that specific course you're going to light your next lantern.

Steve Haase  27:24  
Wonderful. Thank you for listening. Hope to see you there.