Margaret “Mo” Smith is an adamant believer in human potential and is passionate about helping people build the lives and businesses of their dreams by supporting them to step into themselves as leaders. She believes that the magic is in our energy and that we can create lives where money flows with less effort. We chat about how to shift our energy and manifest our desires and she shares her personal experience and insights on the importance of surrender and creativity.
Mo shares about what she does day to day and how she got into this work of helping people build the lives and businesses of their dreams and offers us tangible useful insights, about the power of energy and how it can help us create lives where money flows with less effort
The subject of meditation came up quite a bit in this episode and I felt inspired to offer listeners a FREE copy of one of my Guided Meditations
WHAT WE TALK ABOUT
The Biggest Things That Prevent Us from Having the Lives of Our Dreams
Mo shares the number one thing she thinks people are believing or doing that is causing the most harm and keeping them from experiencing true happiness
Manifesting and Energy
- Mo explains manifesting and gives a crash course on how to do it
- Discusses how the energy we give off affects our day to day lives
- Talks about how to identify patterns that aren't working and shift them in a meaningful and lasting way
Unlearning and Setbacks
- Mo hares what she has had to unlearn on her own journey
- Discusses pitfalls along the way that might be helpful to know for someone starting out
- Talks about the importance of surrender in the manifesting process
Creativity and Energy
- Mo talks about her own creativity practice and what she gets out of it
- Shares what creativity feels like in her body and how it can help us shift our energy
- Summarizes the importance of energy and manifesting in building the lives and businesses of our dreams
- Encourages listeners to tap into their own energy and creativity to create the lives they desire.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
hello there. I am excited today to introduce you to Margaret or Mo as she prefers to be called Smith. She's a life coach and a retreat facilitator Mo is a deeply passionate advocate for human potential. You can hear it in every word that she says. And through the course of her own journey. Mo is become an expert at helping people build the lives and businesses of their dreams.
She joined us today to share some practical. Actionable things that we can all do to begin to step into ourselves. And become the ultimate leaders of our own lives.
So many incredible insights. Wait for you right inside this episode, I can hardly wait for you to hear it. And if you like what you're hearing with this show, I want you to do something this week. Tell a random person about the creative genius podcast.
It could be at a farmer's market or at the swimming pool. Or at school pickup or even at the grocery store. Look for your moment. The universe will give you one. Now that you're looking for it. Which by the way is amazing practice for manifesting, which we will talk about in this episode too.
And then after you found your moment and you found your person come back and tell me the story of how your moment found you and who the person was and what happened? And when it happened, tell me everything. I want to hear your magical stories.
I feel so. Passionately committed to this mission that I'm on to help as many people as I can. Remember, and come back to this important energy of creativity that's inside of all of us.
I'm completely and utterly convinced that our individual lives. And humanity can stop glitching. If we can find and fall in love with and align with this energy that's inside of us.
If you love the show and you get what I'm doing here. You'll probably really enjoy the secret Patrion only episodes I do in the weeks between these podcasts. So there's a whole other world of this podcast that exists inside of their Patrion membership. These are intimate sit downs with me, where I share personal insights.
Roadblocks things that where I'm stumbling things I'm working on personally setbacks Epiphanes challenges, triumphs. They're really juicy, personal, intimate, vulnerable episodes. I also offer journal worksheets and guided meditations and everything that's already been created in the library will instantly become available to you. And you activate your membership.
And I get such lovely feedback , from existing members about this content. Every time I'm making some of that Patrion content, I just think, oh, I want everyone to have this. And that is part of the reason why I've made the membership. So.
Affordable. It's $5 Canadian a month, which is about $3 and 50 cents us a month. It really is a no brainer. If you love the show and you love the content and you want to see it continue to be made. I can't do it without you. So really, really consider signing up for a Patreon membership.
Most energy is contagious, and I can feel that so much of what she said is exactly what you need to hear today. I can feel it in my bones. I really hope you enjoy this. Wonderful chat with Mo Smith.
Kate Shepherd: thank you for coming, Mo, I'm really happy to have you here today.
Margaret Smith : Oh yeah. Thank you for having me. . I always appreciate meeting new people and especially, especially through, uh, someone amazing like Tracy that we know.
Kate Shepherd: Tracy Mazuer. For everybody listening, , if you have not listened to Tracy Mazuer's episode, go back and do that maybe even before
today cuz what a life story she has right? Burning your life down when it isn't working to follow your dreams. Yeah.
Margaret Smith : I had walked past her booth a couple times. I always went every Sunday and here in Everett, Washington. And I had seen her drawings. I was drawn to them because I talk a lot about feelings in my own life and in my business. And then recently in the last year, I very specif. , as I've explored spirituality, have been told to connect more with trees.
And so I will often take a walk during the day and touch a tree to help myself ground my energy. And so it was just a combination of feelings plus trees. Are you kidding me? So I finally went in one day and I just started asking her questions and we connected immediately. And so decided, okay, she's gotta be on my podcast and can you please come for dinner? Because , I wanna talk about feelings. Yeah.
Kate Shepherd: She's just absolutely wonderful. So what, what do you
what is your day-to-day? What is your work and, and have you, is it what you've always done or where are you in your path with your work these days?
Margaret Smith : It's a great question. It's a constant evolution and constant creation. , When Covid hit and I started working from home, I realized how much I loved it and that how much I needed a change. And so I left. I was working for a real estate team called Pickett Street Properties, and I'd been with them for about eight and a half years, I left in July of 2020 after Covid started and started my business , I had just about enough money to last month and a half with my bills. but I just felt in my entire being, I was like, I have to do this. I started this company called I Love It When, I'm a coach and consultant for small businesses. primarily what I've been doing is not so much coaching, it's a lot of speaking and workshops and talking about vulnerability and communication.
Kate Shepherd: how did those things become the thing that got your attention. How did, how did vulnerability and communication get your, the attention of your heart?
Margaret Smith : for most of my life I was quiet I just was not the first to speak up in class. And I thought it was actually because I was slow and I just didn't process like other kids did. But what I was doing was, I was processing and I wasn't coming out with an opinion right away because I wanted all the facts.
I wanted to gather all the information. And then I was also just incredibly shy. When I got to be about 30, I realized, uh, what I have to say is valid. I've done my work, I'm doing the work, and I'm tired of listening to people who don't know what they're talking about or who are rude or condescending and take up space in the room when they shouldn't.
And so I just started speaking up more. . Vulnerability has always been a part of my life, but wasn't verbalized to other people until then. Really. I had to improve my communication skills because everything was up in my head and I would say things and a couple people that I was working around were like, I don't understand what you're saying.
And that's when I realized I have to start to work to build a bridge, so that people can understand my thoughts because they're different.
Kate Shepherd: With the real estate company, what was the work you were doing?
Margaret Smith : I started out as the team admin and then grew to a director of operations position where I was basically running the small company with the owner. And so everything, pr, marketing, hiring, recruiting, training, managing, doing events, everything you, and so that's when I realized, oh, I can run a small business
I always
Kate Shepherd: think it's amazing how we have these life experiences and I mean, maybe you were in a job that we're not really happy about or that doesn't
but what a education that was for you. And it, when you look back almost like, obviously a part of the plan all along. I needed those things so that I can bust out and, it's that time, that 2020 year probably. And I'm just sort of trying to go back to the, the mood in, what did you say, August of that year, were pretty. Scary still. Everybody was kind of still a lockdown. We weren't really seeing anybody. People about, you know, there's scarcity stuff around jobs and money and
So what, was that like for you to a wake up. And realize I gotta leave this job that I've worked so hard for and I've gotten really good at.
mean, you've, you, you had a certain level of mastery it sounds like, rising
and learning all that. And so what, what was going on for you in those moments when you realized you
Margaret Smith : That's a great question. well, when Covid first hit, there's definitely a ton of uncertainty and a lot of my friends were freaking out and I realized, I've done a lot of personal growth and work on myself and on my presence and on my energy, and. Did not feel the same sense of fear. I just recognized there was a difference in how I was feeling, and a lot of that had to do with me grounding into myself and having this, knowing that whatever was supposed to happen next would happen.
I look back and I'm like, wow, did I, I didn't really think about what I was doing. I just knew I was on the phone with my boss at the time , and I just said it. I said, I'm starting to get resentful and angry and I don't want to, I don't wanna be that way with you or with the team or the company.
I think it's time for me to leave, I didn't think too much about the process. That's something I've realized that's really helped me, is not overthinking and following what I feel in my body is the way to go. It may not make sense to other people, but it makes sense to me, and as long as I feel good about it, then I know to take the next
Kate Shepherd: That feels like such a scary, I mean, I've done that myself a bunch of times, and then I find my, you know, and I feel like, oh, I'm, I'm finally good at this. I know how to listen to my body and I know how to burn my life down when it's not working. And then inevitably I'll hit a, I'll hit a moment in life where I'll have a knowing or I'll feel something's off or I, but I won't know how to trust what I'm hearing.
Like, you just, cuz you mean that it's like a new, that you know how to do that now and so, uh, and this sounds like this is something you work with. To do right? what those messages are, uh, then how to listen to them. So can you tell us a little bit about that part of your work now, how you help people
Margaret Smith : Uh, there was a book I read. Probably now six years ago called The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod, and it sat on my shelf for probably four years because I did not want to get up at 5:00 AM I was like, I can't do it. I'm just not that big of a morning person. But then I finally started reading through the first couple chapters where he says like, you don't have to do this at 5:00 AM And so I said, okay
and then I had also read Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferris, I think it is. And there was a theme that stuck out. He, interviewed a hundred different people, all different types of people, authors, speakers, celebrities, different people that have really excelled in their industry. And there is a theme and it was meditation.
And so I did the Miracle Morning for 40 days and within like 20 to 25 days, I. I started to realize there was a feeling I was getting when I was meditating, and I was only meditating for five to seven minutes, just doing short guided meditations it completely changed my life. It gave me the ability to slow down. To listen to myself before I listened to other people. I started doing that. And like you said, when you take a risk, it's, it's scary. And then you realize, oh, there's, there's eventually gonna be another one I have to take.
How do I trust that I know what I'm doing? And it's building those blocks of trust with yourself through those tiny actions. They don't have to be. Leaving your job, it could be trusting that, Hey, I feel like I'm supposed to eat kale this morning. Okay, I'm gonna eat kale and see how that like it could be very small things.
And so I work with people, to help them slow down enough from their life to realize that they might be doing some things on autopilot that they don't actually wanna be doing, but they haven't ever slowed down enough to ask themselves what they wanna do. Yeah. Meditation was the beginning of everything for me with.
Kate Shepherd: I have a, I have a mixed relationship with meditation because, , and I wanna go back in a minute to something you said about the feeling you get when you meditate. So if I forget, remind me. I have done, I did the, the, is it, was it Miracle Morning?
Margaret Smith : Oh yes. Miracle Morning.
Kate Shepherd: I did, I have a stack of papers. I would do my three pages every morning For me, what started happening was like, my life almost took on this eerily miraculous quality. Like way more serendipity started happening, cool things started
I'd have like weird successes with the show or interviews that would come up with people that I never thought I'd be able to get on. And it freaked me out and I kind of, uh, bailed a little bit on myself because it was
like it felt too good and I think when I analyze it now and I look back on it now, maybe it's a little bit of we are comfortable with our familiar territory, so even if relationship, whatever, like whatever's, home.
Margaret Smith : Who's is home? This is what, yeah. Anything other out of that that happens, we start to panic and go into that fight or flight kind of mentality.
Kate Shepherd: would you tell somebody like me who said that, you know, listen, I've had these op, I've opened these doorways to parts of my being that were
and amazing and miraculous, and I've, I've felt like I was in the flow of creativity itself and of life the magical universe itself. I've, I've felt like energy is in the room with me before and that it's guided me and that I'm loved. Like I've had moments where I've felt like that, and then I freak myself out and I hightail it out and then of becomes mundane and boring and, you know, maybe a little bit disordered and not ha, you know, what would you tell
who struggles with that?
Margaret Smith : I would say tiptoe into it. You don't have to dive all in and freak yourself out. I have always had a fear of the dark, as an example, and so I've been working on that through meditation and. I went in and out of kind of the same, what you just described so perfectly and beautifully was I've went in and out of meditation and doing it regularly because. . The unseen is the unknown and the unseen is what it is. And I believe, I believe personally in Angels, I believe that I have ancestors around me all the time that are helping me.
And at the same time, I can't watch scary movies. I can't watch. shows that fill my brain with all sorts of horrific images. It doesn't mean that I don't pay attention to reality and what's happening in the world around me, but it does mean that I choose very carefully how I, what input I have into my mind because it affects everything else.
And a lot of those, that fear that I had was actually from things that were just created by society that are not real.
Kate Shepherd: Yeah. Yeah,
Margaret Smith : so I would say tiptoe into.
Kate Shepherd: love the tiptoe into it. and also it's reminding me, I used to have, I had a, I had a, one of my favorite ex-boyfriends from when I was much younger, was
his own mind. Like he was really thoughtful about what he let himself think about. And I remember
dinner one night and the TV was on in the other room and it was like law and order or something was on like some violent crime TV show. I was like, oh, come and watch the rest of the show with me. And he said, no, I don't like, I can't let that stuff into my mind. And I was like, what do you? And he said, you have to stand. I mean, it was a little dramatic, but he was like, you have to stand guard at the door of your mind be
what thoughts you allow in
The thought becomes the action and then the action becomes a real, and that's how we're manifesting things. And actually, so I wanna talk to you about manifesting. So there's another but I want to go back to the last bookmark You the feeling you you're meditating. What can you say more about
Margaret Smith : it feels like laying on the beach and the sun is pouring down on me and it slows me down and it feels like this warm, cozy, light feeling. started to get that feeling after about day 20, and I was like, um, this is amazing. I haven't heard about this before.
I realized if I started out my. and got just a taste of that feeling. Then I walked through my day differently
Kate Shepherd: how is that happening? What do you think the mechanism is there that's getting you to that feeling?
Margaret Smith : I think it's affecting my nervous system. I think it's the breathing, it's the being quiet and paying attention to how my body feels. So noticing, oh, I have a little bit of pain in my chest. Okay, let me see if I can breathe into that and release it. And so I think it's my nervous system calming down.
Kate Shepherd: Yeah.
a lot of us resist meditation because we have a story about what it is and how it works and that, too hard because, yeah. You know, the stereotype about meditation is that it's, it's about emptying your mind, which. anybody has ever tried to do that, you immediately know that that's completely impossible, now till eternity. you cannot mind. That's not what the , that's not what the mind does.
Margaret Smith : No. No.
Kate Shepherd: I hope this is helpful for people listening for me,
the most success, and I put that in quotes I've had with meditation, is really, uh, stopping. It's really a not trying to do anything. And like you just said, noticing. So I, I might even just notice that I felt a weird pain in my arm and maybe not even to do anything about or breathe into it or whatever, it isn't about, , a battle. I think that's like, that's ego's domain, like, I'm gonna gonna fix this. I'm gonna, and actually the gift that meditation, which think meditation is sort of a portal to creativity. It's the doorway for us to access this deep intelligence
Margaret Smith : I love the way that you word things. You're reminding me of, people when they bring up, The idea that they can't sit down and quiet their mind. I say to them, you don't have to.
You're not actually supposed to. And they're like, what? Really? And I say, yeah, it's actually, meditation is so that you notice what's running through your mind. It's not that you need to quiet it necessarily, but what you'll notice is that if you do it more consistently, it will get quieter and quieter and quieter until finally you're like, oh,
and other things start to come through.
Kate Shepherd: Chinese handcuffs, right? Those little things that you put, the little game that the kids have that they put on their fingers, you pull on it, the tighter it gets. That's what's going mind when you're having this tug of war with, like, I have from the. Thinking. Well then the thinking is like, oh, we got her now. like she's in, we got her hooked.
Margaret Smith : I love that.
Kate Shepherd: I wanted to talk to you about, Energy Cuz one of the things that you said in the, the prep for the show, some of the stuff that you sent over, you talked about how you're, you're really passionate about helping people to build lives and businesses, you know, the lives of their dreams. and to step into themselves as leaders and as you know, kind of the most of themselves that they can be. And
believe that it's possible for us to do this. that it, and that it all centers around energy. I guess those are my words. Now I'm putting words into your mouth.
But I guess the energy that you sort of create in your life
you have. And I wanted to go back to this idea because. it's Al. So the thoughts that are coming to me, you don't know what you don't know. So if that normal and perfectly fine, and it's all the things that you wanted, and it's the things that and it's, you know, you don't know nec. If you're on autopilot, like you said, you don't know. You don't know. that for you because you're not tracking that, and that's not your comfortable territory. does one begin to even know? what isn't working
Margaret Smith : I love.
Kate Shepherd: in order to then, cuz there's two things. You gotta know what isn't working, and then
you gotta start to intuit where to go next or what the, you
how, what to create next. And if,
those are all behind this like, mi miraculous, mysterious door. Like how do you find those things? How do you find out what you don't know in order to create the thing that you, you don't even know you want? Does that make sense? Do you
Margaret Smith : Yes it does.
Kate Shepherd: trying to figure out how to ask that question of myself
Margaret Smith : question
That's a fabulous question. I've never had anybody ask me that. , one of the things I love to do when some people meet me, they meet me in a workshop, so maybe their boss hired me to come in and it's a group of like 20 people and they've never met me before.
My job, my intention with that time is to create a space where they can get curious. , what I've noticed is that if people are willing to identify the truths in their lives, . . Wow. I'm, when I'm with this person, I don't feel good.
Like my body hurts. Um, I feel drained I'm not, I don't feel good. If they can start to identify feelings and, and be truthful and honest with themselves about it, then that starts their journey towards finding what's next for them. So I think that's why I believe so much in talking about feelings and why I love Tracy Mazuer's work.
Because her work specifically is going to reach a group of people who may have no exposure to talk about energy, but it could lead them there because feelings are something that are just true for every person on earth. it just depends on if they have a safe space to talk about it and explore that in.
I think it's about identify. how you're feeling and then being truthful and saying, I don't feel good with what I'm currently doing right now. What is it? And starting to identify what is it about their day that, when do they notice that they don't feel good? That's where I would begin.
Kate Shepherd: It seems to me when I look around in our world today, are. Plenty of people who don't even know that they don't feel good, like we're glitching. You know, that's like I talk about the, when I talk about the premise of this whole show,
and doing this show, the reason I've dedicated so much of my own life to this work now is that I saw that humanity is glitching because we've become disconnected from this runs the universe. And I mean, I call that creativity. You could call it God or self spirit had millions of names for it, , since the beginning of time. But really what's happening is we've become disconnected from that intelligence and we don't,
we don't even know that we, it's back to that we don't know cuz
we don't
for the person who just has sort of a general. Sense that something's not right, but maybe
willing. I guess it has to come back to willingness. Like you do have to be willing.
Margaret Smith : You.
Obviously I don't drag people. I definitely do not believe in like, Hey, I'm gonna drag you into willingness and drag you into this awareness. But one of the things I do to kind of gently get people to a place where they might be open to exploring it is before workshops.
I'll usually send people some homework, and one of those things is based off of an, do you know, anise, kavanagh. . She's an author who wrote, I'm Contagious culture and Contagious You. She's freaking fantastic. , all of the things that I speak about when it comes to energy come from her and her research.
I'll have people for a week before we meet, track how present they are. with people throughout their day. Okay, on a scale of zero to a hundred percent, I was 20% present with Tommy, but I was 60% present with Sarah. And then maybe they go home and find out that they weren't present hardly as much with their family.
And so part of that practice gets them into the habit of slowing down and being more aware. And by the time we meet for the workshop, they're like, wow, I didn't even realize this was happening.
Kate Shepherd: I see people saying things like, well, I'm not happy, but I don't know why. Like, I don't, and I, and they're not really willing to undo, like, cuz sometimes it's like your marriage is the thing that's wrong and that's a big one to undo. And so they don't, there's like a, you're not willing to, , I like
idea of tiptoeing in and beginning to. Beginning to just start a feel, and maybe it's even sensations, maybe it's even just noticing sensations at first, is that, that's what you're saying when you
talking about not just like emotions, but also sensations, right?
Margaret Smith : Yeah.
Sensations can be, I mean, um, feelings and emotions that get stuck in our body can feel like pain, but if you start to notice. When something feels good. And that could be giving somebody a hug or getting a hug, uh, just starting to recognize, I like the word sensations in your body.
Kate Shepherd: Yeah. So it's almost like looking to the body to give you clues about how to navigate
the, you know, on the morning when you wanted the kale, there would've been
like a. Of the, oh, I want, that's a sensation that was like kind of drawing you to the, so starting
Margaret Smith : yes.
Kate Shepherd: little things.
Margaret Smith : Mm-hmm. . And then I realized too, and I don't know if you felt this with meditation, but after I had done it for the 40 days, if I missed a day, my body was craving it, . And I was like, wow, okay. It really likes this.
And then going through that process of allowing yourself to feel good.
Kate Shepherd: right, because that's a big one too, right? back to the familiar territory. If you're, you know, you've, habit you've got, that's why they probably say do it for 40 days or however many days a new you've formed and then that is your familiar normal and then, then you can kind there. In the work that you do with people, what have you seen? The most common thing people do? that prevents ourselves from living the life of our
Margaret Smith : I would say most of, most of the people that I've worked with, I can find this in almost every client and myself included. A form of people pleasing, so wanting to help other people feel good. sacrificing themselves to make everybody else comfortable or staying in a marriage or staying in a relationship because they're too worried about rocking the boat and having a bunch of unknowns or leaving their job because they don't know where they would go or what they, it's just, it's constantly doing things so that other people are comfortable and yet you're disappointed or you're left in that same space.
Kate Shepherd: And what's the pathway outta?
Margaret Smith : Well, my approach again with clients is really tiptoeing and doing little things to get them to start to realize how powerful they are. When you talked about how when you were in that state of meditation and flow that things just started to happen, if I can edge a client with meditation or with other softer gen, gentler approaches towards experiencing some of those, then.
Oh, . Wow. I didn't realize how quickly that was going to happen when I said yes to something I really wanted. The more they can say yes to things that they really want, the more those synchronicities happen and all of a sudden they're like, how can I not do this? How can I not, uh, maybe leave this job in order to embrace what obviously wants to come to me?
So if I can get them to see a little bit of a spark that gets them excited enough to think about the possibilities.
Kate Shepherd: I'm imagining that along that pathway, does come a moment for I'm, I would guess many people where there's a pops up around that knowing is gonna go away. I'm having this knowing right now, , I'm feeling connected to sunshine flow, intelligence, knowing, intuition, and it's guiding me to do this thing. And it feels really good right now, but I'm stop. And what will I giving, I'm giving up the old way and then this, the bottom's gonna fall this new way. It's a fear. I know it's a fear and I, we, we can name it, what do you, to somebody who is feeling some of that as they were transitioning from one world the.
Margaret Smith : another, I would say yes, of course it'll go away. Nothing's, we don't have constant joy. It's not like just joy all the time. I'm just joy.
I think, uh, , I would be like really intense.
Kate Shepherd: annoying
Margaret Smith : The goal for me, when I'm first starting out talking to people about it is just feel it for three minutes. Just, and then, you know, after a certain number of months and, and exploring and getting curious and playing with it, you know that when you lose it, you can get it back. But it isn't until they experience it, they have to experience it. Uh, and then I think once they experience that they can actually face other fears that are bigger, that are actually stronger because now they know it's something is always there for them.
They can always reconnect. They can always, but they have to experience that before they're can really step up and face. Cuz these, some of the things that we face in society, like you've already mention. Fears around money, fears around what's going on with our government, what's going on with the world, I always tell people like, don't, I'm not telling you to go leave a job or leave a marriage, but I, what I'm telling you is this is what I notice and I want to give you permission. I want you to give yourself permission to explore and get curious about what feels.
Kate Shepherd: , so for the people listening to this right now who are sitting there, I can almost feel them on the edge of their sequencing. Okay. Give me some homework, like, what can I do to practice this? Can you, would you be willing to give people little assignment to do to
for,
Margaret Smith : gosh. That's fun.
Kate Shepherd: Do you want, and you can think about it. We can come back to it in a bit if you want or if you've got something at the tip of your mind, we.
Margaret Smith : Well, I'll, I'll share something that I often do with people is, Start out with just three to five minutes of meditation on Insight Timer or YouTube, wherever you can find free meditations everywhere, but do it for 30 days three to five minutes a day, and then let me know what happens.
Kate Shepherd: I love it. Thank you.
for people listening to this episode. Uh, okay. I wanted to talk to you about, uh, manifestation because
this is , get really intellectual about, and I think it ruins, it intuitively
Margaret Smith : I don't know. So far the way you speak about things is just beautiful. You have a really wonderful way of putting things.
Kate Shepherd: , I have this. Mind that always wants to figure things out, and it's
response like from, I have, you know, tumultuous childhood and I've always needed to sort of be in control of my environment and make sure everything's
Margaret Smith : Makes sense. Yeah.
Kate Shepherd: of what I try to do is like, understand how everything works so that I can have the illusion
of any of it,
Margaret Smith : I totally, yeah, I, I get that.
Kate Shepherd: with manifestation. it's always just been like a, a, a teaser for my brain. I don't understand how it works. That's not true. I do understand some of how it works, and I, because it this's a two parted question, , I wanna know what, if you'll tell us what your definition of is and how you, the Kohl's you think it works and somebody who wants to start to experiment with creating how that works. And of the question is, in my experience, it's much easier to manifest things from the divine part of yourself. The, the, the real true you, your capital S self than it is from anytime I've ever like come up with a list of things that I wanna have, and the thing and the those are much harder to manifest cuz they're not coming from an aligned place of your true so, but ego is really good at masquerading as self the further along you get down this road. How do you start to tell the difference between this is a, a request or a desire from coming from ego or whether it's coming from source or spirit or whatever the other word you want to use for like, how can
it's a pure. Request or whether it's, you know, ego trying to keep you trapped. Cuz really that's what, that's what that's gonna try to do. Like requests that come from that place are gonna try to keep you on the hamster wheel of what you already in, because that's where ego's comfortable stay. So What is is And then how do you tell the difference between who's asking? Does that make sense?
Margaret Smith : love that. Yes. It's like a three part question. Um, so how do you tell the difference between ego and self? . This is where slowing down and really thinking about what is it that I truly want is super important. That's where meditation has helped so much, I would say it feels like love. anything that I desire is something that will bring me joy and bring me love, and it will also bring joy and love to the world. and ego is usually fear-based. And so if I'm going after something because I'm like, oh, I really need that $5,000 cuz I gotta pay my bills next month. Um, even if it's in alignment with what I'm doing in my business, I always slow down and check myself and say, Hmm, am I doing this just because I think I need to get money that way?
Or do I really wanna serve this company or group that has approached me and said, Hey, will you work with us? And so every decision I make in my. I pause long enough to think about that and really see where am I coming from? Because I've had the luxury, and I say luxury and the joy of the last two years, you know, since I started my business.
Really learning , how to surrender and surrender means I don't know how this is gonna happen. I don't know how I'm gonna pay my bills next month. Let me just take inspired action, which looks a lot like, a lot less hustle than I used to. . So I answered a couple different things there. So love and joy is how I differentiate between ego and self.
Manifestation to me is much like what you described earlier. So when you are in alignment, you glow. So when I told people I was leaving my job, . Somebody saw me the next week and they were like, she looked like she just got engaged. I was like lit up, , uh, because I had finally said yes to my soul.
I had finally said, you know what? I'm done with this other stuff. I'm done with these things in my life. I am saying yes to you. And I surrendered to whatever's supposed to happen next, and my body lit up like a freaking light bulb . When you're in that place of alignment, you don't need to know the next five or 10 steps. You just need to know the step, which means you wake up the next day and you're like, okay, what am I supposed to do today? You will know what you're supposed to do, but you may not know how the story is gonna totally unfold. And so every day, every week, every month.
I just take inspired action. An inspired action might be taking a bath that day, , which feels really weird to someone who's worked, worked, worked, worked, worked and household, and worked your butt off for everything I've gotten up to. Before this point, I worked so hard, but when you're taking inspired action, I always tell people too, it's like you're taking three steps instead of 10.
So what if you could get to the same location with just three steps instead of. , because you're not just powering this yourself. You're being powered and influenced and supported by the universe. So they're working with you, you're co-creating. So it's not just you. It's way more fun, it's way less work, and all it is is just coming into alignment and taking those inspired action steps.
Then you have to determine, okay, what is it that I wanna manifest? What is it that I really wanna do? And that process is kind of what we talked about earlier, is really just getting quiet and allowing yourself to think about what feels good to. , what did I think about doing as a kid? What do I want to go do right now?
And starting to just give yourself the chance and the quiet to really understand that and think about it.
Kate Shepherd: Yeah. Yeah. That's probably one of the greatest gifts we could ever ourselves. wondering about to, there is the reality of bills and we ha we, we can't just, we can't just all wake up and say, not suggesting this is what you're doing, but we can't just wake up
and oh, I'm only gonna take inspired action today. And, you know, the to the dentist. And now nobody's like, go to work today. And like, the mortgage payments haven't been, how do we. how do we transition from, and I and I, I'm assuming it's like a tiptoe thing again, like we're, you gotta kind of way of being, uh, how do you do that? How do you. Hold space for the practical your life you to be more led by this other intelligence that's spinning you that maybe hasn't been given the driver's seat.
How do you, sort of transition?
Margaret Smith : Well, I can share with you what I did in my first month. I left my job, July 10th, I hopped on a plane the next day and went to Denver, Colorado. in the midst of all these things going on with Covid I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't really have the money to do this, but this is what I want to do. Because I was like, I just left this job that I'd really dedicated so much of my life to and really had poured so much of my soul into, and I needed to do something for me.
And so when I got back, I started building my website. And I'm just like, okay, I'm open for coaching call discovery calls, you know, if anybody's interested. And I thought I would have all these clients because I had built up my network in my previous job. I had maybe one or two Zoom calls, and then it was five days before my payments were due for September I needed to make my mortgage payment and I needed to pay all my utilities, all that stuff.
And so it's getting down to five days and I'm starting to sweat out of the blue, I got an email from this guy who's a San Francisco real estate agent, and he had said, Hey, can we meet tomorrow on Zoom to talk about working together? So we get on the Zoom call the next day and he's like, Hey, before you even say anything, I just want you to know that I'm in and I know you have a six month contract, but to be honest, I want you for 12 months and if I'm really being honest, I want you for 18.
Oh, and I can pay up front. And I just about my jaw dropped. And I kept my tears under control until I got off the zoom call and I called my mom and I just started sobbing because that was the first like, yes, from the universe, the big solid, like now you have income for, I think that carried me for at least three months.
You are supposed to be doing this. People are going to show up. You are not in control of the timing, so let go a little bit. The lesson that I think I've been learning over the last two years, is how do I, uh, juggle and kind of keep this balance of paying the practical bills so I can stay in my house and surrendering. All I can tell you is that every single month it has worked out
Kate Shepherd: , what about the times when you really feel like you have it like a yes from the universe? , to follow a certain path, and you do in and you take the risks and you're those yeses from the universe, also you know, it's a choiceless choice that you have to make. You have to keep going. You have to do this thing. And whether that's you have you realize that you wanna be a, a full-time painter and you've quit your job and you are, but, and you're, you're painting eight hours a day and you're trusting.
And you're trusting,
your work
or whether everything to write the book that you know has been trying to come outta you for your whole life, or the podcast, movement or the code. that's thumping in you, that's trying to get out. you know that that's what you're supposed to do and you can't but you're not getting those yeses yet, what do you do?
Margaret Smith : That's such a great question. Uh, in a lot of ways I feel like that's where I've been since I left my job, so I get that big, beautiful yes in the beginning, and I get lots of little yeses in between, but in a lot of ways I feel like I've been in this void space. . My number one job these last two years has been to decondition myself from hustle mode and learn how to surrender and trust and rest. I was burnt out and I was used to, and I had been trained to work a certain way, and so this time I think was specifically for me to. Rest and recharge and get to know myself again.
Part of the way I keep myself going is through Oracle cards, through Angel Cards, through having mentors like NME Mangles through feeding myself really good information. So books and podcasts and things that I find encouraging.
really learning that I am not in charge of any of this timing. I've put myself in this position. I've made myself available. Something is going to happen at some point, and then I'll know what this was all about
Kate Shepherd: I love mean, Of course I know that. But like it's, you need to hear it,
Margaret Smith : thing to live it.
Kate Shepherd: thing to live it and also just be reminded of it. Like you get so caught
the cuz even though when you can get one of those big radiant yeses from the
universe where you know you know it's your. not a destination that you've arrived at. It's still a fluid moving still is always right there at the door trying to knock her. You can't, you I know. Don't do that. You it's always gonna try to, I feel like it's sometimes like pulling at my ankles, like, come back down here. like,
Margaret Smith : It also reminds me of, uh, for anybody. is interested in kind of dipping their toes into spirituality a little bit more. Um, angel signs are also something that have been like little sparks of light for me every single day. The messages that they bring always help me understand, like, I might be in a void right now, but I'm still on the right path. I'm still headed towards wherever I'm supposed to head towards. . I need to enjoy this moment. I need to enjoy,
, and I have to learn how I can rest. Even though, like right now, today , I don't have the money I need for the rest of this month or next month. And so learning how to relax when you still have that is totally a lesson that I needed to learn and I am needing to learn still. It's a process.
Kate Shepherd: Yeah, that's a hard one, but yet I think every time that you ask yourself. But is it true that things are not okay right now? like
even though you know due in the end of the month, is it true that you don't have what you need right now
Margaret Smith : it's the best question. Yes, I have the food. I ha I have food on my table. I have food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I have friends and family around me. I have a car, I have a house. I'm so blessed down into the moment. And today. But are your bills paid today?
Well, yes, they. Okay. then let's see what happens tomorrow. That's, I also did, uh, this a new retreat called unscripted. That's specifically for the first time ever me really truly embracing all of this stuff and bringing it in a retreat, cuz I used to do retreats for admin and real estate. And so I did this retreat this last August for the first time, and I worked with two of the attendees on how they were gonna get the money to come.
And it was such a cool experience to see them surrender for the first time and, Where like money comes in all sorts of different forms. It may come in a gift card from someone. It may come from a bill being lowered one month. It may when you start to recognize all that abundance and you, all of a sudden your gratitude just shoots through the roof when you realize what you have.
And I think that's part of that.
Kate Shepherd: a huge remem thing to remember, like the gratitude, I know it sounds, oh, have a gratitude journal and be gra it actually is magic and, but not gratitude by
not, uh oh. I have to sit and write the, like there's a feeling, and I don't know if you have this experience too, but like when I sit down at the end of the day to connect with the things that I'm grateful for the day. if I allow myself to really feel them, there's a, a, or the person that I'm grateful for or the bill that I got paid, that I, whatever the thing is, I'm feeling if I let myself really feel it, there's a moment where it almost feels like a little flower opening and, and. A little smile will come over my face and it's,
and Chopra say that little smile is your way of knowing that the object of your gratitude received your message of gratitude.
That's what and so I always I can get myself that smile so that I know that it was received and just ticked off a list. Cuz it's an is an that you. bring into your life. And it does. It is
Margaret Smith : I've always had a hard time with , getting myself to sit down and journal. So I haven't ever done really like a gratitude journal. But what I'll do is in the moment when I'm with somebody, I will say randomly, like, Hey, I just have to thank you so much for supporting me during this time, or, thank you so much for seeing me and for asking me that question.
And they get really caught off guard. What are you talking? What do you, I'm like, yes, I want to really take this moment. I'm not gonna write you a thank you card later. Like, I want to do this in person. And by giving them that energy, like you just said, it's the, the ripple effect. You just have no idea how that affects them.
It's so beautiful.
Kate Shepherd: that is, I, I'm gonna start doing that. I love that.
Margaret Smith : Speak it out loud, write it down. Your words have so much power, so much power around creating. All you have to do is say the thing and then it begins to come into form.
amazing.
Kate Shepherd: , uh,
little deck of angel cards in a little wooden bowl beside my desk, and before every episode sit down and I say a little prayer. to whoever's listening, that's something along the lines of, you know, help me say what needs to be said so that what needs so that the growth, that and the joy and the and for everybody, you know, for you for all the listeners that, that, that this is something that is really in service to our emerging to as our, as our true selves.
Something along those lines. I say something like, Every time and then I pull a little card from the deck . It's like a little blessing for the And the word that I picked for us today was compassion.
Margaret Smith : Oh,
Kate Shepherd: Yeah,
yeah.
Margaret Smith : love that. I do the exact same thing before I did the same thing before this podcast, and I use one of my crystals that has to do with speaking and I say, you know, use me as a vessel. If whatever somebody needs to hear today let it come out from us. And so I love that you do that.
Kate Shepherd: a powerful practice. When I wake up in the morning, kind of overall prayer. Please use me
like, please in the best way possible to be in service to the most people possible.
Margaret Smith : Oh, I love that. That's the other thing about manifestation I'll say is intention is everything. So if you go into a meeting or you go into. At dinner with your family or dinner with friends, go in with an intention and watch what happens. It's so powerful if you go into a meeting and say, I'm gonna go into this meeting and be completely open and curious just watch what happens. Intention is just incredibly powerful
Kate Shepherd: Is that I should have asked you that I didn't ask you that you were hoping I would've asked you?
Margaret Smith : . Good question. Nothing I can think of right off the bat. I mean, I do feel like we could talk forever, so I'm sure there's
Kate Shepherd: a part two to your
Margaret Smith : there's a part too.
Kate Shepherd: At the end of every episode, and you, you know about this cause we talked about it before the show. I ask the billboard question and I'll just say it again out loud for, for anybody who's just joining us as a brand new listener.
And if that's you, welcome to the family.
If you had a billboard that knew was gonna reach every single person in the world who longed to have access to this intelligence inside of themselves, who longed to be able to trust it and, and be led by it and let it run their life, but for all the reasons all the conditioning that we've had around creativity, around gut instinct, around all of the things that we're talking about, just didn't believe that they had access to it. It, that, that intelligence doesn't live in me. You know, they, they, they just
But this billboard was gonna get their attention and the message was gonna get in. would you put.
Margaret Smith : Well, the one that kept coming out of me that I couldn. really find different words for was you create daily, why not do it with intention?
There's a million things I would put on the billboard. Like the other thing I wrote down was, I see you cuz I think one of the most powerful things we can do for people is really see them and that helps them begin to unearth that part of themselves. But for some reason, this one you create daily.
Why not do it with intention? Just felt like what somebody needs to hear.
Kate Shepherd: I
love it. It little ding went off for me when you said that. I love that so much. Thank you. Thank you.
Margaret Smith : Well, thank you for the questions.
Kate Shepherd: wonderful to chat with you.
Margaret Smith : That was awesome.
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