Powered By Three Mastermind | Episode 113

Welcome everyone to Seasoned Women, Serious Business.

Today I have a very special treat for you and for me.

Normally on Mondays, I do meet with the two women that you see here on the screen.

It is our weekly mastermind meeting.

But today we have a special meeting in your honor, because we're recording

an episode for the podcast all about masterminds and what we have learned

over the case of, six years of meeting almost every Monday around the calendar.

Let me begin by having my guests, my mastermind mavens,

introduce themselves to you.

Let's start with you, Lee.

Hello, I'm Lee Woodward, and like Isabel said, been in the mastermind

for six years, and Isabel and Jackie have seen me go through changes both

personally and in my professional life.

And kind of Isabel, as we were talking about kind of the opposite of who you

work with seasoned women, I've switched my focus to helping 20 somethings

in the areas of their career, their money, and just adulting stress.

It's one of the things that is lighting me up and I enjoy it so much.

Isabel and I met four businesses ago after a big corporate career.

So they've seen me through so many changes.

So I'll leave it at.

That.

All right.

That was a great teaser intro, Lee!

Thank you, Jackie.

Yes, thank you.

Good to see you both ladies and good to see the audience too.

I'm Jackie Ulmer and I've gone through a number of pivots too.

When we met and started our mastermind, I was highly focused on business and

social media coaching, primarily in the direct sales, network marketing

and real estate end of things.

And while I still do that over the course of the last few years, as we

watched a lot of things change, I really.

sat around thinking, what do I want to do with the rest of my life?

How do I really want to make impact and make a difference?

And one of the things that has always really stuck out for

me is we don't get our goals.

We get our habits.

So I really like to focus on habits.

And I've since pivoted.

into health and wellness coaching.

We live in a toxic soup.

We hear that.

And what I really like to do is help people clean up the major areas of

their life in a very simple way from diet nutrition to the environmental

toxins around us, our personal care products and home cleaning.

And it's just been fun to make that pivot with both of you and that power

of the mastermind to help collaborate and help steer in the right direction.

So thrilled to be here sharing with you all.

Oh, thank you.

And as I was thinking about this episode this morning, I realized that the three

of us, as much as we are so incredibly different, we have so much sameness in

terms of our desire to constantly excavate what doesn't work for us anymore in

our lives, and to continue to grow and become the best version of ourselves.

And so for the audience, I come from the entrepreneur side of the world.

all of my life.

I've either run other people's businesses or built my own and sold those.

It's quite fun to realize that bringing the three of us together, we have

this three sided balance where Lee came from the fortune 50 world, right?

Major corporation background.

Incredible!

Jackie bootstrapped a very successful business before the internet was known

to most of us, she was already actively building in that area and developed

an expertise in marketing, which she then shared with other people.

I came in from left field and from a different country, Canada to Arizona,

coming with my experience as a woman business owner on a fairly global stage,

but also loving the fact that I could work with other women entrepreneurs

on a very personal and local basis.

So to set the stage we also did our homework for you and looked back.

It was June of 2018 when the three of us came together.

came together in another group.

That was the first time I'd met Jackie, but Lee and I knew each other

previously and we came together in a group that the best outcome of

it for me was deciding we wanted to continue to meet on a regular basis.

In the beginning, I remember we talked about it as being accountability partners.

And of course, over time, what we've all learned is that accountability is

an inside job, and if we don't do it ourselves, nobody else can do it for us.

But Lee, what do you recall from the origin of our story?

Yeah, like you said, we met in that entrepreneurial space.

I was new.

You were leading a kind of a mastermind and advisory board.

I remember meeting the group, Jackie, where I met you and I was intimidated

because you had so much stuff together and I was like, Oh my gosh, you're

like, she's really knows her stuff.

But when we decided to keep it going, I remember we were willing

to be vulnerable with each other and really get to know each other.

I think one of the things that just quickly came for me in our group was just

saying " Oh My God, a place to breathe!

How I am is how I am, and that's how I can show up.

And I don't think I'd ever truly experienced so wholly before.

I wish I knew how we could package that for other women.

What's kept us together over these six years, the glue, is our ability to be

completely vulnerable with each other.

And to be able to appear on video without makeup, which I've learned to

do on Marco Polo, thanks to you guys.

Or clothes.

Yeah.

All right.

Stay tuned.

We'll tell you all a little more about that later, but thank you, Jackie.

In other organizations or other groups that I've been in, it's been too

superficial to build that trust that we have developed with each other.

So Jackie, from the beginning, how much do you think we've changed or

what have we retained over the years?

I know for me, and Lee, I'm glad you led that off with

the vulnerability piece, because honestly, that was the very first

thing that resonated with me about you.

That first retreat that we did where you shared so vulnerably about your childhood

and some of your stories and experiences.

And I am that type A achiever performer personality type and one

of the things that I remember even from being young was the kind of

the never let 'Em see you sweat.

Vulnerability for me has and still is sometimes a very challenging

piece of things, but, what our coming together really taught me is

that I am only going to grow so far until I'm really willing to do that.

And it really, and I've been a pretty good storyteller most of my

life in terms of certain aspects, the hero's journey, a lot of that.

But I realized there are certain parts of my story that I shared in a different way.

And so I thank you both for,

It's okay.

That's okay.

It's accepted.

And how much I have grown from that piece alone has been amazing.

It's that whole Shrek thing, like the onion.

It's allowed me to peel back a lot of different layers of

things, where I can see now, wow, that was part of my struggle.

That's why this happened this way.

I look back six years and I think, wow.

For me personally, the growth just in that area has been tremendous because it's

allowed me to see all different things in a whole different light from a more maybe

realistic and honest and authentic way.

You brought up something I've been in other mastermind groups and

Lee, as you said, I've facilitated a woman's advisory board group for five,

six years, but I've never been in a group where, I could be 100 percent present

as the recipient and as the giver.

I realized something that's another unique part of our recipe is that

we take turns being the facilitator.

We take turns being the expert in our respective fields.

We take turns being the student and that's what keeps this so fresh

because they say in the movies, "It's like a box of chocolates every week."

Who knows, right?

So Lee, you came, into this from the corporate background, recovering,

fascinating story for anybody.

You'll have to follow Lee and find out about that more, but you came in, which

was interesting for me, always observing that you felt a little unprepared or

a little insecure in terms of your entrepreneurial experience and skill

sets, yet you were light years ahead of anything I had ever experienced.

But over time, what have you observed from that?

Yeah.

. It's such a different world.

When you're in the corporate world, as an executive, sure, I had strategic direction

and sure I led teams and I had to say, Hey, we're going to spend money this way.

But it was still somebody else's agenda, right?

So there was a story that always followed me and it followed me into

entrepreneurship and I think I'm almost through it, I'm not quite there

yet, but I had convinced myself that.

I was always meant to be in the background.

So in my corporate world, I really loved, and I'm very good at it:

you give me a great leader, and I will make them even better!

And I can be a great leader in that, but I've always considered

myself behind the scenes.

Even in high school, I remember when we did a play for like our senior

year, I didn't want to be on the stage.

I wanted to be "okay, we should have the light shine here, there."

I don't want to be seen.

I don't want to be the one in the center.

And I think coming into being an entrepreneur, especially a solopreneur.

Geez, that doesn't work so great because you're that is,

that's like the business is me.

So I think that was probably my biggest, I'll say challenge.

And it wasn't about skills.

It wasn't about experience.

It was about story and this belief set I had about myself.

And by the way, there was a lot that I liked about that.

I guess all of our stories, if we stick with them, they serve us somehow, right?

So I think that's been the biggest challenge for me and opportunity

for me, and I'm getting there and in that journey and I think being able

to be with you guys and I don't know if you guys saw that struggling.

I think you have.

I don't think that any of this is a surprise to you, right?

How do I step out there and be that person?

Whatever the story is whatever's holding us back, you guys have

helped me work through that because that's a belief system and to undo a

belief system is big fricking work.

And so working through that belief system, I don't think I'd be

where I'm at without you guys.

Jackie, I'm hearing your voice in my head and to the effect of,

there's the story we tell ourselves.

would you share that with our audience?

Yeah, I think I know what you mean by that.

It's funny.

You brought up the belief systems and I've, there's three

ways to describe BS, right?

The term BS, there's obviously bull shiznit.

There's belief systems, and then there's blind spots.

And we have all three of those and that's the power of the mastermind.

There's the story that we tell ourselves.

And We get stuck in that.

It's like habits, right?

The whole thing with how many, like 60 to 80, 000 thoughts we have every day,

90 percent of those are repetitive and like 90 percent of those are negative.

Our brain defaults to telling us the same story over and over.

We get up, it's raining, we make up a story, we have a story about

what that means for our day.

We wake up, we feel tired.

We already have a story about what that means for our day.

A lot of that kind of stuff.

Whereas if you can stop and say, yeah, I'm tired, but I can still walk half

a mile or I can still record a short podcast or whatever it is, so just

different things like that where we really have to go to work on managing our

mind, our brain, and taking it back away from the toddler that likes to run the

brain, and saying, I'm the adult here.

That may be a story from the past but the past is over.

It's gone.

It doesn't exist anymore, except in my mind.

And I get to control what's in my mind.

So I am going to rewrite that story.

And I do that just by being aware.

Every morning.

I do a thought download.

I put everything down there: frustrated with this person in my family and

frustrated with this in my business.

And oh, grateful for whatever.

And then, really looking at that and saying, how is that thought

building a story that's going to affect my day either positively or

negatively and how can I shift that?

Yeah it's another benefit of this mastermind.

We have been able to try out some practices, thought downloads,

journaling, morning pages lots of other things as we're, because

we're all compulsive learners and some of us are compulsive library.

Check routers but this is the other advantage is that with the three

of us looking at these different, modalities or methodologies.

It's been very interesting to see how we each take away a different aspect of it,

sometimes implementing the practice and sticking with it, and other times not.

But let me just say, between the two of you, I think you've saved me a

thousand years of research, so thank you.

Thousands of dollars in therapy for all of us.

And books.

Thousands of books.

Yes.

We started out because we were in another group and we decided to spin off.

And then somewhere in that when we recognized the incredible value

of this three way exchange and education and experience, we said

we were going to have a radio show.

And we were all excited about that.

And in fact that was just before the pandemic and as a result, we

weren't able to go live in studio.

So we did start YouTube channel and we were recording for a while.

Transformation Decoded.

When I go back and look at those, I think, man, we were

flippin brilliant, I gotta say.

And in particular, one came to mind which I think you were

alluding to earlier, Jackie.

It was Lee's birthday.

And at that time in history, I was in my 60s, Jackie was in her 50s, and Lee

was approaching the end of her 40s.

And we had the most wonderful episode.

So I'll share the link to that as well here.

I bring that up because it's so interesting.

At the time that we began our Mastermind and our Transformation

Decoded videos, I had never thought of having a podcast and now I've had two.

And I'm just thinking about what I might not have had the courage

to try had I not had this group.

And as of last week's episode, My Trampoline; you are my trampoline because

I'm rebounding every time I stumble or I am being bounced up by something

you've tried and I get to observe it.

What would be something that maybe you wouldn't have done, Lee had it

not been for being in this group?

I can think of several things.

Just in general, like you said, trying different different practices and things

like that, that you guys just opened my eyes to especially you, Jackie,

you're the master of like practices and trying trying different things.

But I think probably the one that sticks out the most was my decision to shut

down my business during the pandemic.

And I had already made a lot of, changes in it and thank goodness I made some,

just by serendipity, had gotten out of a lease and was starting to go online

and there was a lot of challenges and, and at the end of the day, I think

without you guys, just the ability to work through, what does it mean to quit?

What does it mean to fail?

Does that make me a quitter?

Does that make me a failure?

There was a lot of ego wrapped up in that.

A lot of, sadness because I had a lot of dreams with that.

I probably, would have just figured out how to hunker through

it instead of stepping back and saying, okay what do I want to do?

And that's just good enough.

Like just what I want to do is good enough.

Peeling away irrelevance that can weigh so heavy and just saying, no,

this is what I'm going to do and own it, and did it, and shut her down.

Jackie, any thoughts on that?

On Leigh's or my own?

All of the above.

Yeah.

Lots of thoughts.

It was what are even the words?

It was Not humbling.

It was an honor, in a sense, to go through that with you, Leigh, because it's like

anything, and we share this all the time.

It is funny.

I'm going to guess mostly women are listening to this, but this

came up the other day, how when you are menstruating, women typically

tend to get on the same cycle as those they hang out with the most.

That's not uncommon.

And we feel so much like we've done that with a lot of the ebbs and

flows of our lives, experiences that we're going through, whether

it's business or kids or whatever.

Just, so many different things.

Friend groups.

It just goes on and on.

And so it's, it has been an honor to watch both of you go through anything

that you've gone through, because it's been such a learning time for me to

watch, listen, offer what I can and then also just sit back and allow that

process to happen for both of you and observe that and how at the end of

the day it's all going to be okay.

Like things are meant to be a certain way or whatever and they right themselves.

So that's been especially gratifying.

if that makes sense.

It sounds like not the right word to say I'm grateful that you went

through that, but I am because it helped, it's helped me explore other

possibilities for myself, for sure.

I think gratitude is a really good word.

That's what I was feeling as well.

First of all, I have deep gratitude for having co-created this with the two of

you, that we can feel safe enough to talk about anything Even if we aren't quite

ready to talk about it with ourselves, which has been a big fucking part of

my journey and to be able to stand just in witness with each other without any

judgment or need to rush in and rescue or say things, stupid things, like I

want to punch people when they say, "yeah but", "at least" -because we've

allowed ourselves to grieve and to celebrate and to grow and be truthful.

Let me just tell you, audience, some days it ain't pretty.

Some days there's snot running and tears running and bad words flowing

and other days we are laughing so hard that we might pee a little.

We are really remarkable!

On top of that,

we are doing this virtually, so there's no damn excuse for anybody

not to create these trampolines.

No matter where you are in the world or what time zone, because I was thinking

about that this morning too, you guys have supported me through a tremendous

change in the last couple of years.

Hair color, Last name, country of residence, businesses, etc., Many things.

And, but we've never faltered on our commitment to show up

for each other whatever part of the world one of us was in.

And that technology has really been a boon for us.

Think how rich that makes the fabric of everybody's life though

when you have people who have different experiences and you watch them do that and

you experience it with them and, it's like watching a good Netflix series probably

to some extent where you are part of it, but you're even more part of it than a TV

show or something where you can, really feel like you're in that experience.

For instance, Isabel, when you were in Bali and we were doing

Zoom calls, doing our mastermind, we could hear the wild birds, off

the veranda and stuff like that.

And I felt like I was there, like that was just uplifting.

I used to live in Ventura by the ocean, literally three blocks off the ocean.

It was amazing.

And I took full advantage of it and walked the strand almost every

single day, sometimes multiple times.

And then I moved back to Scottsdale and right before I moved, I bought a little

book called How to Live at the Beach.

And it was from my favorite little beach store, which I have a lot of

beach things from, but I bought that book and that book is just really

reminded me that I can go back to the beach in my mind anytime I want.

And it is powerful.

If you really stop and meditate and just get to the beach,

you can smell the saltwater.

You can hear the seagulls.

You can fight with them over the french fries if you want.

There's so many things about it and that's the experience that I felt like I had with

a lot of your journeys too is, I wasn't in Dubai with you when you were there.

I wasn't in Bali with you when you were there, but I felt like I was, I felt

like I was such a part of the experience.

And then even though I couldn't be there at that time, I can feel very

uplifted by almost being there.

Thank you so much.

You just reminded me there's a bird thing theme for us, right?

Because it's, if I'm listening to Lee on Marco Polo early in the morning

when she's out by her pond the birds are all chirping and singing, and at

one time they were chickens too, and Jackie you're place with the owls.

Yes.

We are birds of a feather in many ways, right?

Yes.

All right.

What I am feeling, and not to put you all on the spot, but I think that there

is so many more aspects of creating a successful mastermind that I'd like to

ask you both to come back and we can discuss this further because It isn't

just kumbaya, it is like we got a lot of serious shit done over the years, both

business wise and personal growth as well.

So A, would you do that?

Yes.

You can't say no.

B I'd like to ask, everyone who's listening to us to write in at hello at

the Encore Catalyst dot com and give us the questions, like what do you want to

know about how to build a good mastermind?

What are the questions that you have that, maybe we've piqued some curiosity

today because I can tell you one thing we are a very generous group wanting

to share what we have learned as women entrepreneurs, as citizens of the world.

And although the podcast Lift As You Climb was my podcast, the reason that

I'm so bonded to these two sisters of mine is that we share those values.

We share the values of wanting to continue to grow and become the best version of

ourselves, but at the same time, by our experience helping others do the same.

Okay.

Any last pearls of wisdom that you would like to share?

And I'll start with you this time, Jackie.

I would say as you're listening and you're formulating any

questions think about in what ways you believe a mastermind might serve you.

Also, what in your mind is the definition of a mastermind even and how that

might be in alignment or pivot or give you some different thoughts once

we come back and share some of that.

And then I'm looking forward to sharing like some of the structure

and the loose structure that we've had because being a habits person.

I like to have my little structure in place and all that.

So I think it'll be fabulous.

Yeah, I like that.

Thank you very much.

We will share the how to the recipe so that you can create your own.

Lee?

Yeah, I guess I would say you have to choose it and you have to prioritize it.

When something gets good, it's easy to take it for granted and let the

intentionality slip a little bit.

And I'm just reminded of this because I was actually, I was, someone reached

out to me, which I was very honored to have them reach out and think of me.

They wanted to introduce me to somebody to do some networking.

And I had to decline because I don't have the energy or the time

right now to do that it would be just on surface level only.

And part of that decision making is no, I can't do anything that

doesn't allow me to show up for you guys and for our mastermind

This is a top priority for me to be able to have the energy to show up.

So I think it's really about that intentionality and maintaining

that over time and that commitment.

Wow.

If I wasn't already part of this group, I'd really be begging you to let me join

you because it's true and I'm so happy that you agreed to come on my podcast

today so that I could hear what it is that I value so much and be reminded by it.

And for that, thank you.

And for everybody listening, do not underestimate the two women on this

screen because they are incredible examples of how to show up in life and

keep on going and doing and creating and changing and reinventing and all of

the fabulous stuff that they both are.

And I'm so grateful to have both of them in my life.

Jackie, you have a podcast.

In fact, you've got two, right?

Would you let everybody know what they are?

I actually have three!

Peak Performance Habits is one.

Lower Toxic Life is my passion project right now.

And then I have the Pilot Wife podcast too.

Lee, you're on the verge of launching something

so valuable please share that.

Yeah, as much as I listen to podcasts, I do not have a podcast

but I do have a YouTube channel at Simplify Adulting, and SimplifyAdulting.

com.

The focus is on supporting 20 somethings with this crazy complex thing called

adulting do a lot of great tools, resources, and Yeah, I love it.

And I love it too because, I'm a queen- ager myself at, I'll be 70

very soon, another birthday episode for Transformation Decoded on the books.

But in hearing you talk about the research, the social validation,

and your plans for the program, I'm learning valuable things for myself.

So thank you.

All right, until our mastermind, I'll see you and I'll be sharing

this episode with everyone and picking a date for us to meet again.

Say bye bye.

Bye.