Life by Design with Michelle Young

Today’s going to be a really fun show for me because I get to have here with me, and I get to introduce to you the greatest influence on my life, the person who’s done the most, who shaped me over my adult life, the person who’s my best friend, my sweetheart and my wife of 30 years, Michelle Young. Michelle is a life coach. She does all kinds of really cool stuff. She works with clients from all over the world; from regular workaday people to others that are famous, from people that do really high-risk jobs like doctors and firemen and stuff like that, to people that are just doing business, working in offices, and so on. She works with all kinds of interesting folks. She has run retreats down in Tulum, Mexico. She’s just done all kinds of great things.

She’s a wildly successful life coach. She’s also an outstanding mom to our four kids and a great grandmother to our two wonderful grandchildren, Indigo and Pierson. I can’t say enough positive things about my wife. I could spend an hour just talking about how cool she is. Today, I wanted to bring her to you so we could talk about how to really build a life by design. I just heard her give a talk about this a few days ago. I thought this would be a great topic to share with people on The Unshackled Owner.

Listen To The Episode Here

 

Life by Design with Michelle Young

 

Michelle, welcome to The Unshackled Owner podcast.

Thank you so much for having me. I’m actually really delighted to be here. I know the guests that you’ve had on before and I feel honored. I’m going to be honest.

We have had some great guests, but the things that you do for so many people are so important and so big that our audience will benefit from the stuff you teach every day, the things that you’re doing every day. Why don’t you give them a little rundown, maybe a little bit about your history, of course our life history together. Share whatever you want, from where you came from in rural Idaho to where you are now. Just a thumbnail.

I grew up in a small town in Idaho. I really had a very specific way that I thought my life was going to turn out.

Expound just a tiny bit, how did you think your life was destined to turn out as a kid in Idaho?

I was raised in a single parent home. My dad, not only didn’t he have anything to do with us for the most part, but he wasn’t there financially, he wasn’t there emotionally. What I saw at this fundamental church that I belonged to was something very different than that. That’s what I wanted. I wanted something very different than that. I wanted a nuclear family, just the traditional. I wanted what they had on television shows. That’s what I got. Aaron and I got married when I was 19 and he was 22. I stopped working before I got pregnant with our first child. I was busy homemaking and I had a really good time doing it. But I had a very specific idea of what it was supposed to look like for me. I went about checking some very specific boxes, regardless of whether or not they were life-giving to me.

We both grew up Mormon. You wanted to be the ideal Mormon homemaker; serving the church, serve your children, be the room mother at school, and all that sort of thing.

I don’t regret even one minute of that. The one thing that I wish I’d known then that I know now is to ask myself different questions. Because when you ask different questions, you get different answers. The different question that I would have asked then instead of, “Should I do this?” the question would be, “Does this bring me life?” Obviously, serving and giving and loving and building a family, that’s life-giving. There are other parts about that that aren’t. That’s a better question.

Our life got turned just upside down. If one of us should’ve gone to jail, it should’ve been me. I’ve always been the naughty one. When you went to jail and I was running the family and overseeing businesses and working on projects, I overwhelmed myself. There was hardcore overstimulation with all the letters that I wrote, all the things that I was managing. By the time I was coming to the end of what felt like my prison sentence, it was almost like I wish I’d been able to be in jail because I would’ve gotten better sleep than I did, philosophically speaking. By the time I came to the end of it, I realized that I never wanted to work another day in my life. Obviously human beings were built to create and to grow. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to push myself.

You’d been working all those years as a stay-at-home mom and a wonderful homemaker, doing things in the church, doing some stuff with schools as well but you weren’t earning an income outside of the home for the most part. Then came that indictment and all that battle and trying to deal with all the craziness of fighting the government, that I was gone for fourteen months and one week. Michelle, my business partner Lee said, we had all these people that wanted to help out the company, he said to me, “The only person I’d really felt really comfortable putting in charge is Michelle, your wife, for a number of reasons. She just has a great skillset.” Michelle took over and was, from a high level, overseeing the businesses, built several homes, did all that, we got through it. You had done way more than humanly possible for fourteen months and a week, and had been going on longer than that. You really hit a wall and you said, “I’m done.”

It was funny because if we’re not emotionally capable of saying, “I’m hitting a wall, I’m done,” our bodies will shut us down. That’s what happened for me, my brain chemistry got off kilter and I just didn’t know what to do with myself. Because I was that overachiever girl, it was like, “I think I’m feeling depression. I will go and I will work in the garden in the sunshine. I will make appointments with my friends. I will work out every single day.” It just wasn’t working. That road is a side road.

I came to a point where I understood that I had to find what gave me life. That was the very beginning of me doing what I do know, was me going, “What would I love?” It still goes back to the story, I had two email addresses, mmpyoung@yahoo and mmpyoung@hotmail. I wanted a new email address specifically that no attorney had access to. I didn’t want any attorney’s emails coming to my email address. I thought, “Mmpyoung is not a great email address. Clearly, it’s going to be available in Gmail.” Some were out there as an mmpyoung@gmail.com because I couldn’t get it. What a blessing that I couldn’t get it because I started thinking not what would a good email address be, but I asked the question, “Who do I want to be?” That was really the beginning. Who do I really want to be? I thought, “I want to be Michelle at play.” I want whatever I do, whether I’m cleaning a kitchen or I am running a half marathon, I want it to be play. I don’t ever want to work again. That was the genesis of me beginning to ask questions.

We got done with prison almost ten years ago. Then you went through a funk for about a year. But during that time is where you found Michelle At Play and then you came out of it. Then few years passed by, our children were growing up, some of them were getting married. We’ve got two kids married and three, counting Carrie, the young woman who came and lived with us for six years. Carrie and Adam and Zoe have all gotten married. Somewhere during there, you decided since we were sneaking up on the last child being in high school and you weren’t going to be day-to-day raising these kids, not as in demand, we’ve discovered that parenting doesn’t end because the kids are growing up and getting married. However, it certainly dramatically shifts. You decided one day, you stated to the universe that you wanted to be a life coach.

I think stated is an overstatement. We were sitting at dinner, on the actual 25th wedding anniversary. We were talking about goals and you said to me, “The kids are getting older. What do you want to do now?” The statement piece would’ve been, “I want to be a life coach.” What I really said is, “I think I want to be a life coach.”

What I remember the words you said were, “I think I want to be a life coach, but I don’t really know what that means.” That’s how I recall it. “I don’t exactly know what that means.” The words life coach came out of your mouth which was the first time I’d ever heard you say it. You went through a couple of different programs to get certified and to learn different methodologies. You were doing this for the last number of years, let’s say last four years maybe? It doesn’t sound very long.

I would say five years.

We just had our 30th anniversary.

I went right in to training from there and I started my feeble little attempts.

The first couple of years, there were a lot of trying to figure out how you were going to approach the market. Then, you went to an expensive training, and midway through that training, the light bulb clicked and you thought, “I get it now.” Do you remember the words you said? You called me, you said, “I get it now. I understand what my problem has been.” I said, “What is it?” You said, “Selling is serving.” I distinctly remember you saying, because selling had been what you’d been afraid of, you had this distaste for selling. All of a sudden you thought, “I’m not really selling. What I’m really doing is inviting people to improve their life.”

I love selling, I do. I love it so much. It’s so funny because we had a house guest last week and I was in the office and she was in the other room. She overheard me and it was embarrassing, I’ve never said it before. Of course there’s going to be somebody there to witness it when I said it. I was on the phone with a prospective client and he knew he was in and I knew he was in. All this friend of ours who was staying at the house could hear was me saying, “You know you want to do this. Get your credit card out. Right now, get it out.” She didn’t hear his response on the other end. He goes, “What do you think I’m doing? My hand’s in my pocket.”

This episode isn’t about selling. What it’s about really is what Michelle does that people are so anxious to want to engage with her that they are excited to buy from her. The thing that she’s learned now through a lot of experience is that people’s lives really do change for the better when they work with you or someone that’s really the right fit for whoever the individual is. There are lots of people out there who could use coaching but you would not be a good fit. You attract a lot of people to you. I want to talk about some of those topics because they go directly to a lot of things that we teach here, especially at the beginning phases of becoming unshackled. You’ve got over your selling fear or despising selling and that turned around. Just recount for them some of the things that you wouldn’t maybe have expected would have happened three years ago. Going to the unshackled element of it, what’s been amazing for me as I’ve been able to build up my practice and meet people and attract to me my ideal clients, is that I’ve been able to use business funds to go places and learn things. I have them be legitimate business expenses. One of the most dramatic was about a year ago, a friend had invited me to go to a yoga meditation retreat in Tulum, Mexico. I looked at it and I thought that’s a business expense because it goes exactly to what I do. I was able to go for the period of time that I was invited. But then I noticed that the retreat extended beyond what was planned on this agenda that my friend had sent me. I contacted the company and said, “Is it possible for me to stay longer? How much would it be?” I arranged all of that. That was a really good fit for me.

I spent that week and I just had a remarkable week and an amazing time. I fell in love with everything about it. I was invited back by the owner of the yoga meditation retreat to lead those retreats. I spent much of the summer last year in Mexico in this beautiful resort, on these gorgeous sandy beaches, and practicing my Spanish and literally drinking coconut water on the beach and getting to go up. It was my obligation to go to yoga every morning because I was leading the retreat so you have to go to the yoga. Doing yoga and teaching people about the principles that I teach every day and just having a total blast doing it.

First of all, three years ago, when we were sitting outside and you thought, “I feel like I should go to this expensive training but it’s a lot of money.” It was over $20,000 for six days. The point is, we got a slightly better deal because I do a lot of business with one of those companies that was involved. Still, very expensive, over $20,000. When you thought, “I want to go to more training,” did it occur to you that if you go to these training you’ll be selected to lead retreats on the beach on the Caribbean?

No. All I wanted was to really understand what I was doing. It’s important to me to be the best life coach. I’m probably not there yet, definitely. But I wanted to get really good at what I do, so I invested in me. I’ll be honest. I came to you and said, “I want to do this thing.” You said, “Let’s try and figure it out.” Honestly, in the back of my head, I was hoping that our household money would pay for it. When I realized the financial commitment that I was making, that I was making, just Michelle, just all by herself, when I realized what I was doing, I had a hard time sleeping for three nights. You know me, I never have a hard time sleeping. It was the cliché, making this investment and going, “Am I going to be able to recoup this money? How am I going to pay for it?” The idea that it would eventually mean what it means to me today never occurred to me. Best case scenario, I just wanted to be able to pay back that money. That would have been enough for me to go, “That was a success.” But it’s blossomed beyond anything I could have imagined.

You took a risk, you made an investment, you learned some new things, your natural talents were noticed by the woman that runs that company, they engage you to do that. One benefit was you got to run these retreats in Tulum. You also met some people who are successful. You met the former wife of our current President, a woman who has a television show who’s world-renowned for her skill, an international pop singer who’s had big hits on the radio, Lamborghini’s brand ambassador, former CNN anchor, hundreds of covers as a cover girl in the ‘80s. Some of these people have become your clients. A doctor in India. A variety of people all over the world. Former Miss Australia. All of which, they’re all paying you to be their coach, did any of that occur to you when you said, “I’m going to make the investment in my education?”

Absolutely not.

You couldn’t even imagine it. That wasn’t part of your consciousness?

No, not even a little bit. In fact, what I imagined was a very different clientele in my mind. I don’t even want to say what it is just because it was so different. What I always tell my clients is allow the universe to outdream you. When we do that, when we’re open to possibilities, swimming in possibility, the universe will inevitably outdream us and bring in and going, “I thought I loved this, but I love this.”

Michelle’s always been a great goal setter, so I’ve never been the one to try to say, “Let’s get really, really explicit about your outcome.” Can you remember back on what was the explicit outcome, if you had one, for getting this other training and building your life coaching practice?

The explicit outcome was to have a successful and regular practice.

Which would be what?

Which would have been four clients a month.

Like $6,000 a month?

Yeah, absolutely.

That would be great, wouldn’t it?

Absolutely.

That’s $72,000 a year? For somebody who’s been a stay-at-home mom for 25 years, that doesn’t suck. It’s pretty awesome. To anybody really out there, a lot of people would be thrilled with that. Michelle came back from this training and went immediately with me to an event where I was speaking and she met people from the event and would just sit with them in the hall and do what she calls a creation session. If I recall correctly, you were able to close about enough business that week to pay off the entire investment that you made. It came in over a few months, but to pay off the bill for your investment. Have you ever had clients that hired you that had the same experience?

Yes.

This sounds like a setup, ladies and gentlemen. Here’s what I’m trying to say, I’m not trying to get you to coach with my wife, although that would be a smart thing for you to think about doing. What I want to point out is that, we dream sometimes too small. Like Michelle just said a minute ago, the universe is willing to outdream us, but we have to engage somehow. We have to make this decision that, “I’m going to do some bold new thing even if I’m timidly going to announce it to the world. I’m going to do something utterly different than I’ve ever done before. I don’t have a Psychology degree to be a life coach. I don’t have whatever. But I think I’d be good at it and I need to learn how to do it.” You said, “I’m going to do it.” Then you started learning, you started studying, you started going getting certified from more than one certification process. You invested money in yourself. You invested more when you realized that you had chinks in the armor that needed to be strengthened. You went and you really doubled down and you went and got some training. Then the whole world changed.

When you say the whole world changed, it’s almost like I was living in this dim coloration of the world and now, it’s just on fire. The colors are so vibrant. I’d just like to say, it’s swimming in opportunity. Every minute of our day is an opportunity of some sort or another. It’s an opportunity to show up.

I wanted Michelle to talk because I’ve watched her give talks to groups around the greater Portland area and also down recently in a big conference at CEO Space down in Orlando, Florida. Now here we are in Atlanta, Georgia and she’s going to speak tomorrow at a pretty big conference. Digital Footprint is a big conference. She’s being recognized. When I watch the audience just light up with the things she’s saying, I thought, “How did I not put her already on the podcast? What she does is so important for people to become unshackled.”

In The Unshackled Owner, in the class, in the intensive, the whole focus of the first week is getting super clear on your vision, on being super, super clear and explicit about the outcome that you want to achieve. Because we can’t really build that business that will free up your time and give you tremendous wealth if you don’t have a clear vision that we’re aimed at. I watched Michelle give this talk a few days ago and I thought, “I would love it if she would come back and teach a few of those principles just quickly over the next few minutes that she was teaching.” Do you remember? You covered three items the other day.

I covered five.

You wrote three of them on the board that I remember. Do you want to go through that? The first thing you wrote was life by design. Tell us what you teach, because I want you guys to think about, how clear is the outcome that you want right now? Do you think maybe it could use a little bit of burnishing, a little shining up, a little bit more focus? I wear reading glasses. I can read my computer or a book or something as long as it’s not typed too small. But when I put my glasses on, when I get super, super sharp in my focus, I can see everything beautifully to the point where I don’t want to be not be in sharp focus anymore. I want you to think about a few things that Michelle’s going to teach us. I’m going to ask her a few questions. Sweetheart, why don’t you tell them the five things?

We’re going to do three things because we just have a few minutes. What I love about being on a short schedule is that I get to choose my favorite things; the things that I think are the most powerful. They sound simple but simple doesn’t mean easy. These are wicked powerful. Most people are saying, “How am I going to build my business so that I can make sure and pay my employees or my rent? How am I going to build my business?” That is not a high vibration question.

What do you mean high vibration?

High vibration is the energy. Imagine that you wake up in the morning and you’re going to go to Disneyland. You wake up and you’re waking up in a high vibration. You have that energy. You can feel energy flowing through you. Imagine that you’re waking up and you’re going to a funeral. Your health is the same, it’s the same day of the week. Everything’s the same other than you wake up and you’re not looking forward to something, you’re feeling down. That’s a low vibration. High vibration is a higher level question, one that brings you life and gives you joy. The question is, “What would I love?” Obviously, you’d love to pay your rent, pay your employees, but what you love to make more money this month than you’ve ever made before. What happens is when we ask that question, our subconscious goes to work on the answer.

Our subconscious is back there. Imagine you have this incredible office space with amazing brilliant people that are working at it and they’re like, “We just had a question come in. Michelle’s asking, ‘How can I make more money this month than I’ve ever made before?’” We’re going to want to work on that. While you’re eating, making your breakfast and working out, your subconscious is going to work. All that brilliance is going to work. You’ll get a very different result from asking that question. My number one thing is, if you take nothing else away, what would you love?

It’s a super important question, what would I love? What you’ll find, and Michelle can tell you a lot of anecdotes as could I, about when we pursue something that is exciting to us or something that we really desire, instead of just drifting, going through the motions, we invariably end up with a better day and better results. What would I love? What’s number two?

Number two is action. A friend of mine has worked with some of the leading names in personal development. We were at a girl’s weekend a month or so ago. We’re all just being casual and she says to me, “Of all these very successful names out there, you want to know the number one thing I’ve observed in their success?” There were three of us there, I was like, “Yes. I can’t believe you didn’t start the weekend with this. I want to know what is the number one key thing.” She said, “They show up every single day.” The first is, what would I love? The second is showing up every single day in service of what you would love, in service of your dream, in service of your business. It does not mean showing up 100% every day because nobody can sustain that. It’s even a Saturday evening and you can either watch a rerun of NCIS, Detroit Michigan, or you can sit down and respond to an email, a prospective client, and you just take five minutes and respond to that prospective client, that’s showing up every single day in service of your dream or what you would love.

Those two examples that you just gave were a little on the mundane side. We’re all showing up to do the work that we’re obligated to do. Everybody listening to this is “showing up” to work. When you told me this before, my interpretation of it, I want to make sure that we’re on track, is you’re showing up in service of the big vision: what would you love?

That’s a very good point. The best way to say it is showing up in audacity.

If we’re showing up at our business, like if I’m at Laughlin Associates and I’m returning the phone calls that have come in, I’m checking emails, I’m following up with some of our channel partners or whatever, that’s my job, that’s what I’m doing. But I have this big goal and I’ve had it for several years and we’ve made good progress toward it but I’m nowhere near to my goal. Everyone thought I was insane when I came up with the goal. But my intention and what I work on is 1,000 new customers on our Corporate Veil Program every month, so 12,000 new customers a year. We have 86% renewal of them, that would be 12,000 again next year plus 86% of the 12,000 from this year would stay with us. There’s over 10,000, then we’ve got 26,000 new people by the end of the next year. It’s a huge goal. It’s not really huge against the number of businesses out there but it’s just big for us to process. I never forget it.

Everything that I’m doing, truthfully, even at some point doing all the unshackled stuff came out of my desire to get 1,000 new Corporate Veil Protection Service clients per month, 1,000 new ones a month. Because I know how vitally important that is to them, to those business owners, and I know what a big deal it would be to our company to be growing like that. They’re our absolute highest vibrating clients. We have the greatest, deepest relationships with those people. If I just show up and do my mundane work that I’m obligated to do, that’s one thing. But if I, every day, look and go, what can I do today? What can I do today to increase our reach and get new partners, new friends, different way of advertising so we could add instead of 250 Corporate Veil clients, we could do 275 this time. We’ve been flat here, I want to move it up, or I want to go from 250 to 350 or whatever the number is. What would be the thing I could do today? Because I know what I would love, I would love to get this goal. What’s the thing I could do today? I’ve got to do it. If I just think about it, write it on my whiteboard, that doesn’t serve me very well. I have to take some action or imperfect action toward it.

The action step is super cool because that imperfect action is spot on. Many people believe that the time to take action is when they’re ready and when everything’s right and I’ve got to have all these pieces in place. I need to look perfect in order to pull the trigger on my dreams. The truth is, it actually works the exact opposite way. Actually art is one of them. Apparently, I’d always wanted to be an artist and I didn’t know it because I was busy checking boxes of what I should do. Once you got home from jail, I decided that I would start taking art classes. Not only have I taken consecutive art classes for all those years now, but there came a point where I thought if I really want to be an artist, I’m going to have to say it. Even my mom would want to put my paintings on her refrigerator but they would say, “What do you do?” and I would say, “I’m an artist.” I would feel, “Am I really an artist?” because nobody ever feels like they’re qualified. But the truth is, I am an artist and I am a life coach.

When we present ourselves, we say it, we think it, and we become it. It has to be in our thoughts first. Like you said, your audacious goal is in your head first and then you speak it out loud and then the action piece, imperfect as it is, it’s almost the imperfections that make it better. That action piece, just taking regular sustained action, even though some of it might feel goofy and some of it might feel like you’re not on point, is very powerful. It’s as if the world just rises up to meet you where you are. But you have to take that step out the door.

What would I love? Then showing up every day.

Taking action.

What was three?

Third one is radical self-care.

Go ahead and expound on that.

Radical self-care, the idea that we have to serve our businesses so hard and so fast. I talk to business owners every day. I’ll do a creation session, and they’ll go, “The fact is that I’ve just got to sacrifice my family right now and work these 80-hour, 100-hour weeks because there’s no other way to get to the goal.” That’s the fact. That’s what they tell me. But what happens is people wring themselves dry. They’re flapping in the wind and their families go sideways and their relationships go sideways. Radical self-care is the idea that when we are completely filling ourselves up and we’re staying fresh and we’re sharpening the saw.

Be specific. You said filling ourselves up, sharpening the saw and being fresh. What do you mean by that?

Very specifically, the basics, I always start with the basics. Are you eating nutritious food? Are you getting enough sleep? Are you getting some exercise in your life? Then balancing out family and making sure that those things are in place. Beyond that, every single person has a way that they like to creatively express. I know my husband, he loves watches and he’ll research watches and that brings him pleasure. He loves to go driving. If he needs to clear his head, he’ll go for a drive. When we’re running so fast and so hard, we’re traveling so much, we’re working the business too much that we stop doing those things. Now the interesting thing, what most business owners don’t understand is that when we do those creative things, it actually feeds the business. When we run ourselves too ragged, we’re completely empty, our best creative self doesn’t come to our business and then the business doesn’t grow.

There you go, you’ve got it right there. Ask the question every day, what would I love? You want to make sure that you’re showing up and taking action toward it. You have to remember to love yourself and take care of yourself. Whatever that is, if that’s going out and swinging a golf club, if it’s going for a run, if it’s reading a good book, if it’s going for a drive or whatever it is, you’ve got to do it. When you do those three things, it frees up your mind to ask those higher vibration questions. In my context and the things that I teach with The Unshackled Owner, I would go further and say, “What can I do today that feels good to me that’s going to help move me toward my goal?” Michelle, in her life coaching, you’re asking them in any circumstance, what would I love? What would I love? If they’re driving going to have lunch, what would I love?

I just gotten back from some training and we live far out. I took the buckboard into town. I’d driven into town to run some errands. I was feeling time-pressure. I thought I need to get something to eat and I’ve got all these errands around. I can just go through the drive through at Burgerville. I thought, “I’ve got to practice what I preach, what would I love?” There’s a little restaurant in that town that none of my family likes. Everybody says that the salads have too much stuff on them. But who doesn’t love a salad with too much stuff on it? I thought, “I have time. I can absolutely go in and I can get some work done while I’m sitting at that table.” I sat down at that table and I was doing some work. A couple of women came in and started asking me what my salad was. We started joking around. To make a long story short, as I was walking out, I told them, “Enjoy your salads.” I’m walking out and they said, “Do you mind if we ask what you do?”

Instead of doing the simple just drifting through life thing like, “I’ll run through a drive-through,” she said, “What would I love? I love that little restaurant that nobody else in the family likes but I love it. I’m going to go there. What’s on the menu? I would love that salad.” That salad became the impetus for a conversation with some other women who said, “What’s that? That looks good.” They start joking around. Michelle’s done with her lunch and the people ask her, “What do you do?”

I said, “Let me tell you.” From that, I got two opportunities to speak at women’s organizations that they were affiliated with. This actually speaks to the radical self-care as well as “What would I love?” Because I took that moment, I thought, “In this moment, I’m going to take care of myself. I’m going to go someplace that nobody else likes to go. I’m going to give myself a salad versus a quick drive-through visit.” My energy was up, my vibration was high. These women loved interacting with me and we were joking and laughing. What came of it was, it doesn’t seem like it’s linear. Nobody says, “If you go to the restaurant that you love, your business will grow.” But it actually is, it’s all connected. We can’t figure out how to connect it but the universe will. We don’t have to worry about how it’s connected. We just have to ask the question, “What would I love?”

In this segment of the show, we always ask the guest a few questions. The first one is, do you have a book that you would recommend? Something that you’ve read recently that you think would be helpful for them to know about. You study all the brain stuff, the life coaching industry. Is there anything that you would recommend?

I love to read. I’ve read a lot of really good books recently. What comes to mind is Nelson Mandela’s The Long Walk to Freedom. I was so sad as everybody around the world was when he passed away, but also because I wanted to meet him. The book is really the epitome of personal development. The man lived his life in such a way that he was able to create greatness out of truly horrible circumstances. It’s a beautiful read about the way to live life and the way to make a difference.

Is there a quote that you particularly like?

I love so many things about what Albert Einstein said, “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.”

People have a tendency to answer this question in a very high-minded way, but I’m looking for a real answer. If you could go back and do something different, if you could go back in time and change something that you did or just something. In my case, I would not have left the beach house to drive in and talk to the investigators. I don’t know how our life would be different now. I know we can say our life is fantastic the way it is right now, but we all have things that we look back. What I’m trying to do is preempt people from making mistakes. What’s something that you would go back and if you could change it, you would not have done or you would have done something differently?

I’m going to give you two answers. The one is I wouldn’t change a thing.

That’s what everybody that I have on this show wants to say. That’s not an acceptable answer on this show.

As redundant as it is. What would I love? I would have asked that question my whole life. Because what I was asking was, what’s expected of me? What do I need to do? What should I do? I was answering a question by a client recently and what I said was, “Surviving is admirable but thriving is always preferable.”

Michelle, I’d like people to know how they can reach you, because there may be people on here who would like to talk to you about their situation or who would like to know how to answer those questions. If there’s anything you’d like to offer to the people. Also, any final advice, a high level of what you believe that you’d want to leave these people with?

The best way probably to get a hold of me, if you would like a 21-day Life by Design email program, I would love to offer that to your audience. If you go to MichelleYoungCoaching.com, if you enter your email address there, I will just snap that right up and get you the 21-day Life by Design program, which is a fun way to become awake. The last piece, this is the highest level it gets, you cannot make things happen in your life. You can’t make them happen but you can make them welcome. When you’re making decisions and you’re living at your highest level, you make welcome all of the successes that you’re dreaming about. You can’t make your success happen but you can make it welcome.

I’ve said for a long time, the more you chase money, the more it runs away. But you can welcome it to you. It’s the same with your time. It’s the same with your great relationship. You can’t force it but you can make it welcome. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for all this great counsel and guidance and training. They can go to Michelle Young Coaching and enroll in your free 21-day Life by Design, which is a series of emails that gives you exercises and things to do. If somebody wanted to talk to you about coaching with you, what could they do?

A creation session is a complementary session where you see if what I do is a good fit for you and where I see if you’re a good fit for what I do.

You focus on four.

The four main areas of life where studies show if people are feeling like they’re flourishing these areas, they feel great. It’s your health.

You’re going to spend how long with them?

Up to an hour.

You’re going to talk about health. What else?

Relationships.

Health and relationships.

Career and then your finances; financial freedom and your time freedom.

Even if they didn’t want to join anything or pay any money there, what’s the typical result that somebody gets from one these creative sessions?

It’s super fun. Whether a client is a one-day client, one-talk client, or years together, it’s an opportunity to sit down and blueprint with a coach what you would love your life to look like.

If they want to, how would they do that?

They can do MichelleAtPlay.com

This has been awesome. This is what we’re all about. Giving you the tools that you need to live a different, a bigger, a happier, a brighter life. A huge part of that is getting super clear on what you would love, on asking bigger questions. Remember Einstein said, if he had to solve a huge problem, his life depended on it, what was it?

If he had an hour to come up with the answer, he’d spend 55 minutes creating and crafting the perfect question.

We want to be asking great questions as we look to grow our business, as we look to have the wealth that we want to have, the time freedom that we want to have, the impact that we want to have. If you want to become an unshackled owner, these are the things that you need to learn. Stick with us. Come back next time. Share the podcast with your friend. If you’re on iTunes or anywhere, you can make comments, I’d love your reviews of the podcast. Let me know how I’m doing. That’s it for today. I look forward to being with you again really, really soon next week on The Unshackled Owner podcast. 

Links Mentioned

• Michelle Young Coaching
• Michelle At Play
• The Long Walk to Freedom

• Here’s How »

• AaronScottYoung.com
• The Unshackled Owner Twitter
• The Unshackled Owner Facebook
• Aaron Scott Young LinkedIn