Sue Wilhite

Welcome to Behind the Lectern. Since 2006. Your host, Jeff Klein has been working with speakers at all levels, from beginners to Toastmasters International Award winners from experts to national speaker Association Hall of Famers. In each episode, Jeff introduces you to some of these speakers as you learn about their speaker journey, how they got started, where they came from, where they're going, and more. Take the lessons they have learned on their way to help you with your own path to make speaking work for you. Let's get started.

Welcome, everybody to the next episode of Behind the lectern. My name is Jeff Klein. I'm excited to have our guests Sue Wilhite here, Sue is a coach and speaker. And she has given me her introduction, which is something that you should have if you're speaking, reaching the top of our profession and six years. So we'll hide suffered a healing crisis that changed her life and her focus. She's now an international number one best selling author, award winning show host law of attraction coach and certified biofield tuning practitioner, Sue has made it her life's mission to make sure successful women get off there. Yeah, but. Welcome Sue Wilhite.

Thank you, Jeff. Love it.

And security engineers who have to learn the basic habit is called that for a reason. It is basic programming like

Yes, yes. So I did what I've been doing for years, which is using humor to deflect the antagonism and the contempt that these engineers did. And by the end of the six week training course, they were all my best buddies. And everything was fine. I went, huh, that wasn't so bad. I could do this. And so I started speaking at industry events, I started speaking, when I finally left the IT world and I got my own business. I started speaking, doing speaking engagements simply to talk about my topic. I spoke at chambers, I spoke women's groups. I spoke at Kiwanis, Rotary, all of these,

You know that that was a way to promote your business before you started doing.

It had been recommended to me that if I did informational speaking, and because at the time, I had a practice as a hypnotherapist, and a lot of people have a lot of interesting, not quite correct beliefs about what hypnosis is all about. And so I did a whole series of informational talks with a friend of mine, who was also a Hypnotherapist. We kind of tagged him on it, to promote our business and to get rid of some of the myths and legends about hypnotherapy.

Right. So you definitely knew that you know me it was intentional. Was the neck No, like some folks fine?

Yes. And I also ended up getting a gig for two semesters at a local community college. They have the evening, adult education sorts of things. And so I taught a class on how to conquer your fear of public speaking.

Wow. I'm so really surprised. I mean, I, in my experience, people don't volunteer for a class for some of that kind of for that content just because they're still too shy. I love that you got people to sign up for it.

I got people to sign up for it because people were being pushed by their bosses. I got a lot of people in the class, who were, I have to do a presentation in front of the board of directors, or I have to do a presentation to a bunch of customers or I have to do you know, I have to do a presentation for my job. Okay. And so they were desperate and willing to learn.

Yeah. So what were some of the things you found? That? Did you deal with the roots of their fears? And it What was your approach? In that?

Yeah, I took a several ways of approaching it. One was to talk about the physiology, what's going on inside of your body, when you step up in front of a group of people, and they're all staring at you that in our hindbrain, and our most primitive brain is an aggression signal. To us, if you've got a bunch of people staring at you, that means they're hostile. We can't do anything about it. That's just the way our brain is going to interpret it. And that is where most of our fear comes from. But once you know that, you're able to go, Oh, okay. I want the back brain thinks it's hostile. But actually, when you get up and speak in front of a group, unless it's a group of engineers, are hostile to what you're doing. Most of the time, when you get up in front of a group of people, they want you to succeed. They want they are so not antagonistic. They want you to educate, entertain, bring them up, lighten their day, they want you to be successful as a speaker, they're not antagonistic in the least, that is a measure of support.

That's good. That's big. Breathing and how you stand and things like that to help.

Yes, yes. Answering and visualization and all kinds of things to to help.

Interesting. Very cool. And maybe this probably going further back, you. They asked you to start teaching at a job where what was your speaking experience before that?

Oh, none.

Okay.

None. I mean, the only things that I had done was, you know, as a child I've been in, I've taken music classes. And of course, the schools all have these school concerts, your silence? Right? So but I was never a soloist? Oh, goodness, no, I played Viola back in the background. I was in a choir will sing along with the other kids, but no actual get up in front of a group and speak.

Wow. That's good for you. They picked the right person, it turned out right. The boss was about who they chose, for sure. That's funny. So now, what kind of speaking engagements are you pursuing these days?

Corporate associations, bigger audiences. To me, it's so much fun to get up in front of a group of people. I mean, no, I just think, you know, I heard one speaker trainer say, Well, you know, if you're not getting butterflies, you know, it's not, you know, you're not really doing it my way. No, I don't get butterflies. I'm like, okay, I can just think Yeah.

Unlike you, I get energy from the audience. Yes, yes. When I speak in the evening, I can't get to sleep that night. So

Right, right. It's like being carbonated.

We know people that are the opposite. They give all their energy way when they speak. Right. God bless him, but they're exhausted after the speaking. And you and I are like, Yeah, more or more?

Yeah, well, it's a give and take, right. I am putting out some energy in the room. Because there was something that one of my coaches taught me is the one with the highest energy wins and modify as the energy of everybody else in the room, though, I pop my energy and put it out there, but I'm not giving it away. Right. Right. And the energy that reflects that back. It's wonderful. It just goes back and forth. And it's lovely.

Yeah. I'm with you. It's and I That's one of those things where I learned about people like that by observing them. I didn't know, people like that existed. That happened a few times when it came to speaking. I didn't know there are people who wanted to be speakers but didn't have anything to say yet. Right? And it's like, oh, I want to I mean, okay. Originally, back in the day, I thought that speakers were people who had the who were so passionate about something that you couldn't shut them up. Well, that's, you know, that's a good, that can actually be a really good thing. But I did not realize that there are people who wanted to speak, but had to find something that they were passionate about. So that you know that, and that's how they keep the similar companies in business.

Exactly. Exactly. Right. And sometimes coaches and sometimes snake oil salesmen.

Yeah, there you go. I wish we could get more coaches out there. They so need to be speaking and promote what they're doing. Right? It's the ideal way to show their expertise.

Yes, especially because every one is unique. By definition, DNA has guaranteed that even twins are unique. Yeah. And so whatever it is that you're doing, you need to put out your special message, whatever it is that you've got your secret sauce, your thing. It's you, it's your energy, you're going to attract the tribe, by speaking and being who you are. Don't be somebody else.

Right? Yeah. Be. that actually, I know a lot of people talking about it, but I've always traced it back to Zig Ziglar. The be the best you you can be don't try to be the best Zig Ziglar because he did that pretty well. And the best you that you can be?

Yes. And if you take somebody off, so be it. If you offend somebody, so be it. And they're not your people. They're not your tribe. They're not. They're not the ones that you're looking for.

Yeah, and I'm always the forgiveness over permission guy. In a lot of cases, just and sometimes that usually that works out okay for me, but occasionally it doesn't. So, when you when you speak to, again, to promote your coaching and stuff, what kind of who you're looking to be in front of I mean, obviously, when you speak to the service organizations and the chambers, a few people in the room are prospects Orient, and they kind of self identify.

Right? My ideal group would be a group of women professionals. And because what my what I enjoy working on them clapping my hands. What I enjoy working with are the blocks are the the ones who have stalled out the ones who have perhaps even getting to burnout. Yeah. They're not quite burned out yet. Right? That's, that's a different person that they need to see before they come to me. Right. But they're getting that. Oh, God, I'm getting up in the morning.

Yeah, at work, I'd rather stay in bed. Yeah.

Right. And so a group of professional women, the larger, the better, has more opportunity for me to talk to those people and say, Look, there's a way out of this, the reason that you're feeling frustrated is because you've got as far as you can with what you got. Yeah. And I'm here to tell you that I can get you off of that. And through that block, and eliminate it completely. So you never have to deal with it again. That's great. And you can have a better work life, whether it's working for a company or working for yourself. Personally, I have a bias about entrepreneurship. So absolutely clear on that. And it's like no, that don't work for the people.

There's nothing wrong with that. Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and I think we're up to we're 80 or 90% of the of the American economy now are entrepreneurs. So it's the end right now growing and with the current state of affairs, as it were. Those people who have voluntarily opted out when they come back, they're gonna have a choice. They want to start their own business and they want to be an employee. And I think more of them are going to try to start their own thing.

Yes. And they need to do it right. Yes. Not frustrated again.

Yeah, get a coach. People work with somebody, whether it's business coach or organization, find somebody for some guidance. And right off the bat right out of the gate, because you need. That's a crucial time.

Yes, yes. The School of hypnotherapy that I went to had a business portion of it. That's, yeah, that's what usual, there was like, a nine week course in building your hypnotherapy business, where they have guest speakers come in, and they did their own training. And I had worked in Business Information Systems as part of it. So I already had a degree in Business Information Systems, I had to take basic business courses. Yeah, I had a huge leg up on that.

That's always helpful to now you definitely will make it a point to show to say that you're working, you're looking for women, as opposed to men.

I enjoy working with anybody. I really, truthfully, I love working with anybody. And what I find is that men are more likely to go out and seek solutions when they're feeling frustrated and up against blocks. Okay? Women, on average, less so these days, but still, there's a huge percentage of them that feel they need permission, or some kind of a boost to get them to go, oh, okay, I can ask for help. It's okay to ask for help. And sometimes they're not, they don't feel like they have permission to ask for help. Because one of the phrases it's been around, I think, since the 50s, maybe the 60s is that women need to work twice as hard and do twice as much in order to get out of the bay. So it's a tricky thing for women to get their voices heard, and to get out there and get help.

So I want to hear about your work with law of attraction. That, to me is a fascinating topic.

So I one of the talks that I've done is physics of the law of attraction. Because there's more and more evidence that in in, in ancient Greece, they talked about the law of attraction being about vibration, and oh, by the way, it's true. So the law of attraction states that that which is like until itself is drawn. And what that means from a physics point of view, is when you get to things that are in resonance with each other, they tend to want to be together. Yeah. So that's the first part. The second part is that concept called quantum entanglement. And what this means is that every particle in your body was Once Upon a Time shared with every particle in everyone else's body. Wow, definition, by definition, right. Because you're born, you live, you die, you get buried, it gets back into the earth, the particles go out. And they get shared all over. So we, as a planet, as humanity, are quantum entangled your brain, so that was the second part. The third part is that your brain, your heart and your gut, are putting out vibration. They're putting out electromagnetic frequency, all the time. Your thoughts are an electromagnetic frequency. And this has been proven over and over again, when they invented the EEG. You can see and there was, there was a project at the University of Irvine I remember hearing about over a decade ago, where they actually created a helmet that they could put on and they could give mental commands to a computer. Hmm, wow. That's a pretty cool thing. Yeah. But it shows that what you got, you're putting out there in the universe. The strongest thought wins, which is where people go, Oh, the law of attraction doesn't work for me. I've been sitting here going, I want a lot of money. I love I love money. I think money would be cool. Money would be awesome. Or this is, you know, we're relationships. I want love. I want love. I want a relationship. I want somebody to love me. I want to love somebody. You're doing all of that affirmation. And the problem is, is that you've got a much stronger deeper vibration. Energy on Well, this will never work. I can never find love Money is awful rich people are horrible. That is the counter to that vibration, dampens that vibration and it comes out stronger. And it's that same thing that I said earlier, the one with the biggest energy wins. Well, the thought were the biggest energy wins. So what I do is I use a particular form of sound healing. I use tuning forks to change that underlying vibration.

Got it? Okay.

And get rid of it.

Got it. And that's the biofield tuning.

That's the biofield tuning. And I could do it remotely.

Yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah.

And so I've had clients, I had one client go from 65k 280k, in less than a year in a salary. I've had one client who she was having difficulty every year getting to 100k. Mark, she would get up to 90 and then not make it to get up to 90 and she'd not make it every year. And her boss was going, you know, what if you don't hit that 100k Mark, you're going, you know, and she was like, No, I think for this. She blew through it. She did 165. So it was

it's a mental roadblock.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And getting to that vibration that is underneath is crucial and critical. And tapping. I love tapping. I love EFT I thought it was the greatest thing ever, when I first learned about it. But the problem with tapping is that you don't know what you don't know. You don't know that what you're going after.

Okay, that makes sense. And how do you have somebody figure that out?

I don't I let the tuning forks do it. Okay. I don't need to know. That's the beauty of tuning. I don't need to know what that underlying vibration is. They don't need to know what that underlying vibration is. We just use the tuning forks to just clear it.

Got it. So then they're then what they want comes out. Nothing blocking anyway.

Yes. Yeah. It's kind of like they've been carrying around this anchor all this time. Or it's like going to, oh, this is a great example. It's like going to a concert of really wonderful music. And having somebody open a package of you know, crackers in the background. You got that crackling going on, you're just you can't relax and get the music because that thing is going on, that.

Oh, that's a good analogy. I like that. Very awesome, man. That's an analogy. What? So what are some of your goals for 2022? As far as speaking?

Getting on 50 live stages.

15 live stages?

Five, zero.

50. Okay. Got it. So that in person?

In person and or via virtual.

Okay.

I had wanted when I was coming into 2022. And you know, in the last quarter of 2022, it looked like, Okay, we're going to be good. I'm I want 50 Live, like in person stages. Let's go. And I went Okay, we're back.

Aren't we though?

Yeah. So I'd still love to be in front of people.

It works. It just takes a little longer. It's a little bit different process. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. For sure. So that's a great goal, basically, once a week. Exactly. And so tell us again, who you really want to be in front of for this.

I would love to work with someone who is on the edge of burnout, they're frustrated with their job, or they're frustrated with their business. They're on the edge of quitting that quitting thought is kind of hanging out there. Because they've tried everything, nothing is working. They're not breaking through. They're not getting anything going. I would love to get that stuff out of your way.

We find them in business groups, obviously. And there's probably some women's groups and even better the women's business groups

Or even women's professional organizations. You know, I don't think I have any biases toward any kind of professional group tech. Obviously I can talk to tech people all day I was in there. I'm still involved in tech. I love tech.

Well, there's human and technology group. Groups.

Exactly, exactly. Profound scientists, I'd love to talk to scientists. But you know, insurance, travel, you know, pick an organization. Pick a category, bankers, financial people.

Got it?

Yeah.

That's good stuff. So very good. All right. So how do people find Sue?

You can go to my website, which is the sweetsoundofsuccess.

Thank you. .com

.com. Yes, sweetsoundofsuccess.com. And I just want to make sure that people hear that sound is singular, sweetsoundofsuccess.com. I also have a digital business card that has everything else about me, which is sue2go.com. And that's

sue2go

The digit 2go.com.

And how do you how's that been working for you?

The digital business card?

Yeah.

Oh, it's so much easier for people to get a hold of me that way. Because I can put, I've got my LinkedIn on there. I've got my Instagram, I've got my Facebook, I've got my podcast on there. I've got my website, I've got everything on there. And I can add to it as need be.

So tell us about your podcast.

I have a show called The Heroes Journey for the entrepreneurs soul. Word. That's my little gold badge there last year, as visionary show of the year. And it's about interviewing entrepreneurs who have had interesting life journeys. That, and I'm basing it on Joseph Campbell's, the hero's journey. And I only take five pieces out of it, I the the whole Heroes Journey cycle has 16 pieces to it. I'm not using all 16. And truthfully, not every story has about six to me. But I take out five, which are the ordinary beginning which I always laugh at, because entrepreneurs aren't ordinary, a call to action, what brought them to being an entrepreneur, the big hairy monsters that they got to play with, which sometimes ends up being part of the call to action. And sometimes happens afterwards.

Yeah, absolutely.

Right. They allies, mentors, guides, coaches, what we were talking about earlier, you can't be an entrepreneur, you can't really be successful, or it's it's going to take forever to be successful. If you don't have help. Yes. I love to focus on people's helpers along the way. And also, how do they deal with what Joseph Campbell calls the journey home, that once you have had that magical experience of somebody handing you money for something that you provided for them, whether it was a product that you created, or a service that you provided? That's magical. Somebody paid you money for that? It changes to you. It absolutely changes you, and not everybody gets it.

Well, and the truth is, we still need the people out there in the cubicle farm. Yes, we need the wind rather than the what is it? The prairie dog? That's it?

Yeah. Yes.

We need them to keep the world running. We need the folks who know how to program in basic. And then they need us in turn. So when they for when they run up against their frustrations and things like that. So very good, good stuff. So again, Sue Wilhite. She will help you keep from going over the edge when you're frustrated and you're ready to just quit and throw your hands up. Make sure you talk to sue before that. Don't throw your hands up until you talk to sue. How's that?

That's perfect. I love it.

They have that my gift to you.

Thank you, Jeff.

So thanks, everybody for tuning in for another episode of Behind the lectern. We're here to talk to speakers about their journeys. It's by speakers for speakers. My name is Jeff Klein. And we will see you and hear you or listen to you or talk to you next time. Thanks