E167: Beyond AI Part 2: Conscious Leadership and the Power of Proximity with Callan Faulkner

Welcome to Mintelin, a podcast for founders, visionaries, and leaders who are deeply aware that their life and work are meant to create a bigger impact. We're diving into real strategy, conscious leadership, and the internal identity work that allows you to create massive success. I'm your host, Dr. Stephanie Wigner, an author, speaker, and eight-figure entrepreneur who loves to take business strategy and combine it with the inner identity work that truly amongst the next level for you. If you know you have a big calling for your life and your work is meant to help more people, then you're in the right place. I think for some listening to this, they might be like, "I'm in the weeds. My team is actually bringing the issues every single day. You know, I don't even feel like we have even any capacity to be doing that." I would say you don't have the right people. If you have someone that's bringing you a problem every day or, "Hey, can you talk?" Oh my God, you know that moment. Oh, that text that you get, but it's like, "Hey, let me know when you can talk." Hey, let me know when you can chat. Shot. Shot. Oh my God. No. No. I can't. Absolutely not. What possibly with Claude? No, that's not what you're saying. With Claude and God. What could, what do I need to be involved? Like, true. I mean, at the end of the day, of course, I bring a frequency, I bring a vision. I have a very intuitive hits of like, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no. I want you to bring me all the constraints in the business, and I can help you work better. But that's not what that text is for. No, it's not. I've had the call. You know, I'm just like, I feel like I'm so frustrated because like, so and so came in and they immediately got leadership position. Yeah, she was running a multi-million dollar company before she came in here. And she's an absolute bad bee. She has solved six issues that I've been sitting on for six months in two weeks. Yeah. Guess what? She's coming into leadership. Yeah. And that, that element, what about me? Where am I? No. That's the wrong person. No. And if you feel like you have those people, I don't know what to say. I mean, I cleared house last year. And so many amazing humans, you have to separate the person from the business. The person from the business. I mean, I have people that have worked for me. They're absolutely incredible humans and just did not fit like in that professional space. They could be the right person in the wrong seat. That is the hardest moment because you're like, I'm going to make a seat for them. No. No, I've tried to do that. I've held on to people way too long. The moment they leave, and you will start to see an energetic shift in the entire-- I was just talking with someone this morning that we both know that let three people go. Two of them were her highest producers, and she's never made more money since leaving them because of the culture that those two were creating. The negativity, the victim, I was just on a phone call. In the victim. Oh my god. I can't believe this is happening to me. Oh my gosh. It's been-- this is terrible. We're between a rock and a hard place. You've been putting those words into the world. You saying you're between a rock and a hard place is putting you between a rock and a hard place. You were between a rock and a hard place. I was trying to explain on this phone call of, no, you actually have paradise ahead of you. You have this amazing opportunity, but your brain won't let it happen. Anyways, if you have those people. That's what separates truly the winners from the people that are always going to be in their same situation. I call it the planet of poverty. Yeah. Like, people want to believe that they're the victim. They want to believe that things aren't working out for them. They want to believe everything is hard. And it will continue to always be-- What happened to me April, 2024? I had $15,000 in my business checking account. We both had these massive tax bills. Yep. Massive tax bills that we weren't interested in. We're paying attention too. We're like, oh, it's not going to be that bad. It'll be like $75K. No, it was like $200K. Totally. I had like, yeah, again, $215K in the count. I was down to $15,000. What did I do? Did I wallow in the corner? Oh god. This is so good. Oh my god. No, I went to a coffee shop and I wrote it my journal. I am going to make $200,000 in the next two months. I will figure out a way. I was crying in the car on the way over. I walk in the coffee shop. Who is in line? My high school principal, who loves me. I love him, Doc Locke. And he's like, you are lighting the world on fire. Don't stop. I'm like, obviously, a message from God. Thank you so much. Went to the corner and I said, I'm going to do an AI masterclass. I don't know what's going to come of it. I'm just going to put myself out there. I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to put a masterclass together. I called our friend, who's a brand expert. I paired $2,000 on the spot down to $13K now. I got the name, automate to accelerate. She helped me put the brand together. She pumped me up. I did the masterclass. Nothing sold into the masterclass again that next week. And I sold 50 seats to my 8 week AI course at $4,000. No, $5,000 a piece. It made $200,000 in May of 2024. Just saying there's no reality in which I'm not going to do this. Like what did I do? Did you think I just emailed one time? And I picked up my phone and I made 100 phone calls to people. And I said, come to my masterclass. Come to my masterclass. So many-- they weren't even willing to make a f-ing phone call. How many people, right now listening, have not called someone on their list to get there. I can help get an appointment. Do you want to come-- I'd love to get you in. Can I get you in this week? Sit down and make 100 phone calls. No. Do you think that you're going to make money? I know. How much is an average care package? $2,500. OK. You make 100 phone calls. You can get 10 people who come see you. Maybe you probably could get 30 people to come. If you are called 100 people. Do you think you could get, I don't know, five people to buy a care package at that? OK, there's $15,000. Yep. It's so simple. It's stupid. It's stupid. People pay for coaching. What are we going to say? Take action. Take uncomfortable action every single day. Do you want to be where we are right now? And thank God I have sales background. Every day, I think the lucky charm that I sold cut-co knives for every guarantee. And I got to earn reps, making thousands of calls. I have zero. You told me right now you need to make 100 phone calls to get people to come to something. You could do it. Yeah. Easy. Easy. No problem. We just-- after our coach's retreat, Alejandro, he was like, what are we doing with our list? I was like, well, nothing. And he's like, I'm just going to start calling people. I'm like, I love that for you. Great. See what they need. See what we can help with? Yeah. Because it's like, there's people sitting there that also can be changed by what we offer. How can I help you? Yeah. That is all-- That is like the easiest thing to do. So if you-- Yeah. We talk about this all the time. You are directly compensated for the amount of value that you bring to the world. How can you go create more value for somebody? If they can. And are you going to have to do it two years for free? Maybe. But are you willing to do it to make $1,000,000 to $5,000,000 the next year? Like, if you stick to it long enough, it will work out. And it's not going to take remotely even that long. But I think a lot of people see success stories. And they're like, OK, I want that. Yes. But do you know what's required? Can you make 100 phone calls in the next 24 hours? Yeah. Can you lock yourself in a room? Make yourself do it. Yeah. I love Jaco willing, because like, go to the end of the masculine territory. But he says discipline equals freedom. That's his like tagline. And it is what's 100% true. Inspiration and motivation is fickle. It comes and it goes like today. I'm off of how many straight weeks have we been traveling? Yeah. Truly? Same. I think 50% of the time I'm in my bed. If 50% were somewhere in the country in the world, traveling this is build season. Do I feel motivated every single day? Absolutely not. I want to lay down. Do I want to go work out? No. Do I want to go run? Absolutely not. Do I just show up anyways? I mean, luckily now I have the financial freedom to like have a trainer sitting there waiting for me. But when I didn't have that, I would sign up for class. Because that was the easiest way. I knew it was starting at 10 AM. And I would go. And people will see me all the time. You know, you're fit. You're training all the time. I don't want to do it. Oh my gosh. Today, like, I didn't want to take the phone call I just had. I honestly didn't even want to do this. Yeah. And now I'm loving it. But it's not about a choice, though. It's like about what you have committed to and what are you disciplined enough to do. And then, again, once you get into the flow of it, it's like you have to start to get the energetic stuff. And then once you're in the middle of the workout, you're like, all right, this is great. We got it now. But it's just doing things when you don't want to do them. That is it. If you just continue to do that, what is the thing you don't want to do? David Guillem says it's all the time. He's like, whatever I'm resisting is what I go fully into. What are you resisting? Are you resisting your taxes? Go in with your taxes. Go into Claude now. Oh my god. You have Claude. We had to do our taxes without Claude. Literally. That's your hell on earth. Now you got Claude co-work. Oh my god. Load it all in there. It's so easy. Oh, the ease. That's why I love AI. It's such an activator. You go in there and you're like, I am desiring seven figures in the next 12 months. I'm willing to do whatever action it takes. I will talk to you every single day. I want you to create three things. Steve Jobs only had three things that he would do every single day. Everything else was noise. And you just prioritize your day. These are the only three things I'm doing. And you say, hi, to be your back and forth. - Totally. - Or chat, chat, BDQ. - Chat, BDQ. - Or maybe it's the queen. - TWP on demand, depending on what it's called. - Or maybe it's coach BDQ. - We don't know. - We don't know. - Because we're giving it to the world. Very suit. - Go into that thing every single day. What do I do today? What do I do today? What I will take any action you tell me because my goals and my desires are so much bigger than my current feelings. And we've said that over and over again. Whatever you feel, it doesn't. Feeling is like-- - It's fickle. It does not matter. - It does detach. If I feel whatever, your emotions are not you. That's what I learned in my divorce, too. It's like that grief and that feeling. It's like you have to separate yourself from that. Because an emotion is really, really, only supposed to last 90 seconds. That's what your body is trained, but your thoughts is what creates the emotion to stick around. And that's why we're so obsessed with what are you thinking? And I'll go into AI and be like I am feeling stressed. I'm feeling anxious. I need you to flip my thought pattern right now to make me feel excited, motivated, on fire. Interview me three high impact questions to extract why I'm thinking what I'm thinking and I want you to flip it on his head just like yours, definitely right there. Yeah, Tessa, we you know we just got back from the retreat. And she was like, I just get it. I'm surprised by your ability to keep going. And it's like, you know, even when you're saying like this, there are things on your schedule, you don't want to do. Of course, because we know that they're getting as closer to the impact and the lives that were meant to change and things like that. But if I looked at my schedule on a daily basis, I feel like doing this today. It's going to be a no 90% of the time. Because I made that decision when I was at a high energy high frequency place. And then your energy is going to fluctuate and the things that are going to come up like the phone call that you had to have or something with teams going to come up or something with the launch or something with the client is going to come up. And it could throw you off your path if you let it. That's why I do not determine one of Layla's favorite things is like follow the plan. Fuck your feelings. You know, like, yes, follow the plan. You have a plan stick to it. And as long as the plan in Nicole's been so good about this, it's still where you want to go. Yes. She just got even last night. She's like, this is a little too much travel. Like I don't want to do it like this again. Like when we plan out the next 12 months, I want to make sure we have at least a 30 day period where we're off. Like what 30 day period is that that you can decide? Is it December 15 through January 15th where there's no slack, no work, no nothing? What is it? And then making sure there's like decent breaks in between things. And what does that require? We're going to have to say no to big opportunities. That's going to be the biggest and hardest part for our little reptilian scarcity brains. Oh my God. Well, what if I can't keynote? Oh my God. There's a thousand people there. What is meant for you will not miss you. It will not. There is no opportunity, no podcast, no conversation, no call that is going to suddenly make or break your success and your trajectory. Couldn't sure. If you told me I had to I had to go to LA next week to meet with Tony Robbins and we had a week together make that work. Could that get me on a different timeline? A little bit quicker. Sure. Do I think that that timeline's already meant for me and it's going to happen eventually? A hundred percent. Are there little moments when I potentially fly private to like make it a little bit easier and like maybe there's an investment there to like create more comfort and less nervous system dysregulation? Absolutely. I would I would pay for that and pay for the nicest hotel rooms now because I know that when the service is high my nervous system is chill and that is how I have to now. Think of it and think about my life as you're growing. Yeah. I think to it's just I want people to listen to this whether they find aspects of it relatable or not relatable to realize that all of these higher level problems that we're now solving came from being really intentional and solving the lower level problems and being really intentional about our beliefs three years ago and then looking those never hiring anyone that has like low frequency true. Yes. Bringing problems or bringing issue like what do you believe if whatever you believe about yourself is what's going to show up that's why even earlier when you were like I would never have anybody on my team that just bought me a problem I agree with that and also why have you created a culture where people just bring you problems like you have to fix yourself you know because you're not leading in the correct way and I I find that often with a lot of clients that are like I don't like team unlike because we haven't built the team the right way in order to build the team the right way you have to start building yourself and really checking your own beliefs and I think if you know this podcast at all it's like a lesson on leadership how can you lead others and how can you lead yourself so that you have the privilege to lead others it's like a relationship you have a crazy ex what why did you say with him yeah well I never thought that I could find anyone else okay so immediately you're thinking that you're not worthy of like a great your love so then now is it about them no the only reason he's in your life is to trigger you to figure out the work yes what are you worth are you worth that well I was going through my my divorce my my spiritual coach who I hired immediately was like what you're calling in is someone that is so deeply obsessed with you I mean they love you in your best they love you in your worst you know that a hundred percent that's not what I'm seeing here so what you're what you're saying you desire and what you want is in conflict and when that's in conflict the universe is just gonna keep bringing you what you're accepting in every area of your life he's like the moment you say you're not accepting that anymore all the opportunities are gonna flood it and that's exactly what happened it's the hardest decision ever and I know the feeling and you might be thinking you're like you guys just don't know this person's my sister-in-law then with me for ten years I have a pit in my stomach even thinking about it we know when I let you know who go last year I was sick sick physically in my body all night long all week long thinking about the conversation of this isn't working did I have cloud prep me a hundred million times what do I say how do I say it what do I say how do I say it and end up being the best conversation ever she could feel it I'm idiot she knew there was a negativity there and there was a weird feeling there and she got to go into her dream job she's so much better off now we just have to separate that primal like familial community like our ancestors had like tribes and that is what our brain thinks that our businesses it thinks it's a tribe it is not a tribe it is a business it is very separate but our brain is not evolved to recognize it but it is it's the best feeling in the world and if that if the business as a whole is bringing you anxiety like nothing in the world is worth anxiety no every single day and it's a beautiful signal and a beautiful opportunity to rebuild it in a way that is less anxious more exciting more fulfilled more content yeah big fan of that yes we've done it a few things a few times and a few different ways over the last couple years you're not willing to settle that's one thing I love about you is like back in the day you ditched an offer that was making you ten thousand dollars a month at the time that was a very big deal that was a lot of money and you're like it's just pulling my attention it's causing a lot of stress and you cut it you just recently cut another offer that was making you way more than that way more than that and you it's you say same thing it's it's pulling me away from the most important things in my business it's distracting me it's causing anxiety and no amount of money it's worth that you cut it and guess what's gonna happen we know what's gonna happen it is only going to create so much abundance on the other side nine nine out of ten business owners could never make that decision because they're so scared of losing that income and you're like I'll scale back my living expenses for for a year if that's what it means or I'll just go make another million tomorrow you know one second they're like wait I can just go make another yeah I'll just either yeah we'll go make things more profitable we'll go make more money but that's what it comes down to is the belief in yourself I've I've had a lot of money scarcity in my life and my parents had a lot of money scarcity but it doesn't heal when you have money because I started to gain I started to get money there was a million dollars in the checking account and I still was like there's not enough not enough not enough when it went away was when I roleplayed in my head over and over and over again every dollar being taken away from me and me thinking through what I would do if that happened and how I would rebuild back up to what I am so now it's how sure that's amazing oh great there's great money we've got great cash flow we've got great assets that's awesome you could take it all away from you tomorrow because you'd get it back I'm making all back because I trust myself yeah and now there's no money scarcity my there's and I think to you know just trusting yourself is what allows you to make those big decisions and those big risks like it could feel like a risk and often when we're brushed up against a risk in the business it feels like oh this is too risky I shouldn't do it but when you trust yourself and you've built that self belief that everything is always working out for you everything is an opportunity that you're going to figure it out no matter what the circumstances are your success is not determined by your circumstances it makes it to where you can move quicker you can make quicker decisions you can make the uncomfortable decisions and that's truly how you have a whole freaking quantum leap and that's why we've made quantum investments most people at our stage have this surplus of income and what's the first thing they think about putting it into oh my god I need to go by real estate I need to go put it in stocks need to go in obviously like we're doing a little bit of that but most of my investments right now are going into mentorship coaching networking traveling to meet the most incredible high-frequency human beings in the world why because let's say fiat currency goes away tomorrow and the US dollars worth nothing what do I have I have a so such a deep network of insane connected people I have a brand I have a personal brand I have an email list of a hundred thousand human beings probably more now that I can reach out to at any moment we can bar I can barter and trade with someone else I have infinite resources beyond my cash and money or assets, not saying having great income-producing assets isn't great, but I'm 35. You could go make it again. Sure. I have plenty of time. If I was 55, sure. Okay, let's start making some safe moves. Like, I want the skill sets. I want these quantum skill sets that you can't buy in a multi-family compound. No, and what is that going to bring me right now? Honestly, I don't want to manage that. Hey, that's a headache. I don't want to talk about it. Well, what should we paint the door? I do not give a blank. What should we do? A deck? Oh, my God. Don't talk to me. Yeah. I have zero for that right now. Could I start a company with a management team? Well, but sure. But that's also not what's a line fair. No, I am all in on one thing. That is the uncomp- that is my relationship with higher power. Relationship with God, the relationship with myself, the relationship with my, with Nicole and my family and my friends and the uncommon business. In that order. And that is, when I wake up in the morning, that's what I'm thinking about. Those things. And it's, if it's anything else, it's a distraction. And if it's anything less than that feeling of being excited, being on purpose, being fulfilled, being in love with your life, having fun, joy, all of it can coexist together if you make the hard decisions. And I think that's really what we're trying to get across. It's not fun. But I would do it again. Yeah, 100 times. Yeah. We're still doing it though. I would say it's, it is the first time. It is the worst. And then you start to believe like, oh, you know, if we have to let somebody go. Yeah, you're like, I did a die the last time I did it. And they're not going to die. And they're actually going to be better off. Yeah. I'm releasing them into their next version of themselves. Like it's to be with a place that's so grateful to have them in their particular skill set. You're not doing anyone any favors by keeping them and not enjoying every, I mean, look, do I get little tips with short legs? Of course. I just kind of disagree with that, but I trust you. Yeah. So I'm going to let you do anything. Let you go. That also was one of the hardest people. Everyone like, I want to scale 20 million dollar business. What are you willing to let go? Are you willing to let someone fully run your business without you being involved? Are you willing to let someone make every single decision without you without you being involved? And sometimes you're not going to agree with the decision. And I'm and that's now what a gift. What a gift for me to have somebody that's, I mean, Kinsey's that for me. She is making an I honestly agree with 90% of the 9.99% and what what she does. And honestly, I just agree because that's what she wants. Yeah. Should I trust her way more than I trust myself to make a decision in the business? But even hearing that, close your eyes as a business owner and think about someone else making every single decision for you inside your business. Like, what does that feel like in your body? Restriction? Okay. Well, then universe, the feeling that you have is what you're actually calling in. If you feel restriction around someone running your business for you, universe will never give you the person that's going to run your business for you. And you're never going to be able to scale because you won't have that person. No, you'll always be restricted. Yeah. You'll always just be, you'll be on vacation in Italy with your family, taking phone calls on the top of a mountain because you don't trust anyone else because you're ego. Yeah. That does sound like fun. No. And it's so hilarious when I see all these guys are like, "Oh, I'm running a business." And it's, "Oh, God, it's just, it's so, oh my God, it's so much." I'm like, "You're making it so much." Yeah. Don't give me wrong. There's moments. Of course. I am pushing it, especially when it comes to delivering of this content. It changes every single day. The other day, someone was like, "Don't you scared of competition?" I'm like, "No one wants my business model." I have to create new content every week. Every single day. It's never existed. Yeah. Tags just got released. Guess who has to work for us? It's not me, but guess what? Team has to work for six hours to figure it out and build curriculum next week. Yeah. Yeah. And I get involved in that and I'm in the weeds and it's, yeah, don't give me wrong. We, in Carter, is grinding right now. He's in grind. And so now it's, it's just going to keep kind of, the tongue gets past and then we have to build the structure around each person once they start coming in. But yeah, the, the hard and the suck doesn't necessarily go away. It's just a different, different version of it. Yeah. And we become so detached from it all. Yeah. I trust myself so much. I trust creator. I trust the team. Even if we lose, if you tell me, and I had to tell my team this because we spent $1.5 million in ads in 30 days. And our, our team was stressed AF because they had so much stress on them. Every other business owner that my ads person has worked with has put so much pressure on her. Yeah. It's better work. This better work. And I was the first person she's ever worked for that said, if you lose all this is the greatest lesson that I have ever received. And I will be better because of that data. Mm-hmm. And that immediately really shifted the perspective. Oh, she was a different person. Mm-hmm. Now she's able to be free. Like, okay, I don't have to, oh my god. And obviously I love a little bit of the pressure. Like I don't want to release all the pressure. Like I want you to have a little bit of anxiety, harness the anxiety to and the right direction. Good. Yeah. Don't let it keep you up at night. And remembering that your team needs that, that comfort. Like, guys, this is all data. Yeah. Do your effing best. Every single day, sleep eight hours a night, feed yourself, clean your house, do your best, and everything is data. This doesn't work out the way we planned. Data. Figure it out next time. Did our texting platform absolutely crash? Did our Zoom meetings get, uh, we didn't, we didn't have the big enough Zoom meeting. We had a thousand people in the waiting room on our first day of our AI boot camp. Absolutely. Yes. Did we have hundreds of people saying we were a scam online? 100%. Because they couldn't get into Zoom. What did I do? Did I go back and cry at home? Guys, should happens. Yeah. It's all good. Guess what? I just ran the same meeting the next day, open the Zoom room up. You want to say, should about me go ahead? I know what we are. We're the best AI training program in the entire world. But it's taken a lot of internal work on yourself to not let that affect you. Of course. Oh my god. Of course. Because three years ago, what it crumbled us. And I think that, that even my lesson over the last year of stuff that I've worked with is like, you're going to get more visible. People are going to have more opinions, more things to say about you. But that is the work. I'm so glad that I've pushed past what I know to be safe. And now it's like new territory. And I'm getting new feedback because it's an opportunity to become a new version of myself. I never would have been there to be able to do that if I would have just stayed in my comfort zone. And same thing, like you know, you talked about your first masterclass. Nobody bought anything. Now you have all thousands and thousands of people on your masterclasses. But if you wouldn't have kept trying, you would have never got to this opportunity. Different times. Different times. Different times. Different times. Different times. Different times. Different times. Different times. So much for joining me. I know everybody always loves when you're on my podcast. And I'm just excited about where you're going, where we're both going, who we're becoming in the process. And that we get to guide others. And do it together. And do it together. The best. Love you so much. Love you. Bye. If something in this episode resonated with you today, trust that it wasn't random. It wasn't an accident. Growth doesn't come from doing more. It comes from becoming more. If you know you're meant for a bigger life, a bigger impact and success that actually truly feels aligned with you, then you're being called forward. This is your opportunity.