Slay Your Bullsh*t and be Your BEST! with Dr. Tess Crawley

Welcome to True Grit and Grace, a podcast designed to empower you to claim your resilience and thrive through life's challenges. I am Amberly Lago, a mindset coach, fitness expert, and best selling author. Each week I'll dive deep with the world's brightest leaders and elite performers to share tangible tools and practical advice to inspire you to keep your eyes on the prize and forge ahead. So get ready to conquer your fears, heal any trauma, lead with your heart, and elevate your life with grit and grace. Thank you so much for being here. I have to say my favorite part about doing the podcast is being able to connect with so many awesome leaders from around the world and bring them to you to share their wisdom and their inspiration. And if you want to keep the conversation going, head on over to Amberly Lago Motivation on Instagram and you can comment on the post or shoot me a DM or see some of the behind the scenes. But today's guest is all the way from Australia. She is a clinical forensic psychologist and she is Dr. Tess Crawley. She has had several psychologist roles including working in the prison system. And she's also the director of Dr. Tess Crawley and Associates, as well as the director of Rural Psychology Tasmania and the Hobert Perinatal Psychology. Yeah, y', all, she is super smart, but besides being super smart, she's a busy working mom who offers support for other psychologists as they embark upon leadership roles. And she also offers a range of mentoring programs for mental health professionals who really want to enhance their leadership confidence. So I'm really excited that she's here with us today to share her wisdom and her wit because I could talk to her all day. So welcome to the show, Dr. Tess Crawley.

So happy I'm finally talking to you.

I know, know. I can't believe how long it's taken for us to pull this off.

Well, we do live quite a ways away.

A little bit.

A little bit. What time is it there for you?

It's about 9:21am Oh, 9:21am okay, so

that means it's 2:21pm but you're.

You're yesterday. I'm. I'm tomorrow.

You're a day. You're my tomorrow friend.

I am? Yeah. I'm your friend from the future.

Yes, that's right.

You should see the technology we have here. It's amazing.

You're teaching me. You're teaching me all the things.

All the things.

Well, I would love to share with my audience everything that you're doing, who you are and who you serve because, well, the first time I got to talk to you, we ended up talking for so long, we used up all the time that we had to actually record a podcast because I enjoyed talking to you every second and we lost track of time. To the coaches, you were the feel good doctor. To all the professionals and coaches out there you are.

That's very nice. Thank you very much. I agree. I've been talking to my audience quite a bit about you and how excited I am for us to finally record this podcast episode and more of them because I think that we each have so much to share with each other's audiences from across opposite sides of the world. So I'm a psychologist and I own a psychology practice and quite a large practice. But personally, my main focus, my work focus now, if you like. My day job is mentoring business owners and many of them mental health professionals in private practice. But my audience is increasingly made up of business owners in other fields, like photographers and wellness coaches and so many different creative entrepreneurs, as well as the traditional business people. Yeah, I guess my message really is about reducing the isolation for business owners, bringing business owners into a place where they feel that they're supported and that their journey is not. It's unique, of course, but it's not unique in that they're going through these things alone that we all struggle with being a business owner. It's a tough journey, a tough gig, and you don't have to do it in a place of isolation.

And I think that a lot of times that it looks glamorized, especially with the way things are on social media now. And it also can sometimes look very easy when you see people especially, especially nowadays. What I see a lot of is, like, on Instagram, where there are coaches out there, life coaches or health coaches that are like, do you want to make six figures? Well, I did last month. And they're going on about the money and kind of luring you into. And they're all having fun and taking. And I'm like, that is not exactly how it is. I mean, not that you can't make that kind of money, but it's certainly not so glamorized. There's a lot of. When you speak of isolation, for me, there's days where if I have a lot of clients in one day, or if I'm doing a webinar, or if I have a lot of recordings I just showed you, before we started recording this, I spent hours in this tiny closet of mine because the sound is better in this tiny closet. And I literally will Tell my husband, hey, honey, I'm going into the closet. That's just normal for him to hear that now. But it sounds better audio wise. But it can be very isolating.

Absolutely.

And it's so important to have people like yourself help with that. And also I find the thing that helps me is really a community. And I know that I've seen and a lot. I love looking at your Facebook posts and your Instagram post and how you talk about how important it is to surround yourself with the community that you surround yourself and set yourself up with. Makes a huge difference.

Yeah. And I've seen so much change, even just in the last couple of years, where in my business journey, I've had some very exciting times. In my business ownership journey, I've also had some really intensely stressful and difficult times. And I think most business owners hang around long enough. We all experience that variability. And I came from an experience of feeling very, very isolated, that there was nobody I could talk to about this stuff, that nobody else around me got it. Like, what are the stresses of a business owner? It's almost like I was saying to someone yesterday, it's like celebrities feel they're not allowed to complain about media attention because we live this charmed life and we asked for this. So we're not allowed to complain about the difficult side. And I think business owners are the same. We're the one in the ownership role. People are consume, there's all the profit going on. Therefore we're not allowed to complain about it being difficult. I found a tribe and so I that emboldened me to be more outspoken on social media, which came with its own challenges. And I've noticed over the last two years in particular that there's a growing number of people who are pushing themselves outside their comfort zone to get their message out there, to connect with the broader community, to feel united, I guess, in some of the difficulties that we face. Yeah.

And I think that that is with social media. That has been a huge way for people to connect. For me. I know that it was just a couple of days ago, National CRPS Awareness Day, which. That's the nerve disease I was diagnosed with. And I can see the difference. I was looking back through, you know, Facebook and Instagram, my post and the number of people that used to speak about. Because pain has a way of making you feel very isolated too. And I know for a long time I felt like I am the only one that understands this pain, that gets this pain. Well, not only that, I didn't want people to see me in pain and know that I was in pain. It made me feel like less than or I wasn't going to be capable of doing things. And so the gift of social media, and there's definitely been some times that didn't feel like a gift at all.

Yeah.

Because you always going to have some haters out there. But it has enabled me to connect with people that I maybe wouldn't have necessarily connected with. And we get each other and we understand each other and we can support one another. And so that is the blessing with having social media. Being able to do that or like being able to connect with my tomorrow friend like you, a different day.

I don't know if I should be calling you my yesterday friend, though. That kind of sounds like it's over.

I know. No, no, we are just going to keep these conversations coming,

I think, you know, for my audience, you know, to introduce your backstory. You know, when you were younger, you had such a horrific accident and, you know, went through an incredible amount of recovery, to put it mildly. I think that's like a tidy word to use for what you experience and you've now come through and still going through, I guess, because no, as you know, chronic pain is not one of those things. That's one and done. It's something that you learn to live with. But using that message of hope. And I love, I so love the title of your book and your podcast. You know, True Grit and Grace. I just think that is such a powerful, powerful message.

Thank you. I just got a message yesterday from somebody. They sent me Tim McGraw's book. He has a book called Grit and Grace and I was like, woohoo, Tim McGraw. I love Tim McGraw. His is about his journey and it's about fitness and health and that sort of a thing. But yeah, it's been an interesting journey and I never, ever would have imagined, you know, it was nine years ago that my life was completely turned upside down. And I never would have imagined that it would have led me down the path that I'm on today. And it's definitely taken me a long time to get here. When I think about. It's been nine years. It's taken nine years to really sharpen the tools in my tool shed and be able to use these tools to really tap into those, tap into the resilience and move ahead. Because I'll just share a little bit about what happened. You know, I've been in the health and wellness industry for years. I was a professional dancer and my whole life has been about Fitness. And when I was hit by an SUV while riding my motorcycle home from work, even when I was lying in the street, one of the first thoughts I had was, oh, man, this kind of sucks. I'm going to have to train clients on crutches for a while. I had no idea that I was dying. My femoral artery was severed. My leg was completely, completely crushed. I was so career driven and work and passionate about what I did that that was seriously one of the first thoughts. And then, you know, fast forward to, you know, being put in induced coma and waking up from a coma. And they tell me now they're going to amputate my leg. I thought, wow, that can't be. This can't be real. And when they told me I had a 1% chance of saving it is when I thought, okay, there's still a chance. And, you know, a lot of people thought I was crazy, especially a lot of the doctors. But we found one doctor that was willing to try to save it. And it took 34 surgeries, and it was surgery after surgery, months in the hospital. And I really thought that the worst was over. And when I really, my truly, my healing journey began is when I was diagnosed with this nerve disease. Because, you know, right before we started this recording, I was downstairs and I told my husband, I said, I think I need to cancel this trip to Utah. I said, I have not wanted to admit it, but I think this is spreading because I've been feeling pain in my arm. I had broken my arm. And doctors were amazed that it's a disease of your sympathetic nervous system, but it didn't spread. And I'm like, it's not going to spread. I got this. And what it has taught me is I said, you know, I think I need to cancel my next trip. I really need to take better care of myself and listen to my body a little more. And, you know, I want to go full speed ahead all the time. I want to go and say yes to every opportunity. And one of the hardest things for me to learn is to that resting doesn't mean quitting, that it means that I'm recovering. And that's what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to recharge and refuel and reboot ourselves and that everything happens in exactly the right timing and everything that we're going through, it's like, I feel like for me, you know, you might say higher power. I say God. I feel like God has, like, when you get one of those big boxes of 5,000 puzzle pieces and here's the picture on the COVID I feel like God has that picture of what it's supposed to look like, and we just have all these little pieces, and sometimes we can't see how everything is coming together, but everything is coming together exactly how it's supposed to be. And this whole experience has really strengthened my faith and just knowing that everything works out exactly how it's supposed to be. But I needed some tools to get through that. And so it's really taught me some tools. And that's what I'm really passionate about sharing with others, is that, you know, I didn't really have any before. All I did was run and literally ran from my problems, like, physically would just go for a run. And then when I was stuck in a hospital bed, I couldn't do that anymore. And so it's taken a lot, but I really wanted to develop these tools to share with others in hopes that it will empower them to thrive and not just survive.

Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And again, sort of pulling in that what you're saying before about social media, too. You know, people see you or me or whoever speaking publicly about things, and we're talking about difficulties that we faced, and here we are, you know, thriving in our own way. And I think it's really, really important that we remind people that we had to develop tools to get.

And it takes a long time.

And it takes time. It takes a long time.

And a lot of experience and a lot of trial and error and a lot of fails. For me, it took a lot of fails.

Yeah. I mean, I'm imagining that there was, you know, the physiotherapy around, walking and all of that stuff took a long time. It wasn't just, you know, zip you up in surgery and away you went. You know, there's a long process involved and dealing with pain and pain management. I think that a lot of people underestimate how much work goes into recovery from any difficulty in life, whether it's a business stressor or it's a financial crisis or a relationship issue. Underestimating that it takes work. And so then they judge themselves harshly for not progressing fast enough. And I always ask, who's measuring how far?

Who's got that measuring stick?

Who's got measuring stick? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And in fact, that makes me think about. I sent out a newsletter, and on the header of the newsletter, there's a picture of me jumping up in the air. And I have a client that I trained. Her daughter tried to commit Suicide. And she's had brain surgery as a result of it. And she's come a long way and I love her dearly and she got my newsletter and thank goodness she had enough courage to reach out to me. She feels close enough that she could reach out. And she said, you know, I saw your email and I really got depressed. And I said, it's supposed to inspire you, not depress you. And she said, I can't jump like that. And I said, well, you will. I said, your accident was a year ago. I said, it took me years to be able to jump like that. I said, yeah, it might look like, oh, she got hit by an SUV and now she's jumping in the air. No, I said, it took me two years to be able to walk and run without crutches all the time. I said, and I still don't go around jumping all the time. And so I put things in perspective for her, like, everybody heals differently, everybody recovers differently. And I wish that we could all be a little kinder to ourselves because, man, comparison is the thief of joy. Whether you're comparing yourself to your old self or you're comparing yourself to somebody else out there, a lot of times all we need to do is just really compare ourselves to, you know, what we were yesterday. Are we doing better? Are we making more of an impact? Are we being, you know, trying to improve and be the best version of ourself, but other than that, it can lead me down a road of despair comparison, you know?

Yeah, there's always going to be somebody better, of course, you know, I mean, even the simple things like I was saying to you before we started recording, recording that, you know, this is the one tidy corner of my house at the moment. I'm preparing for an interstate move. And I've got builders in my house today. And everywhere is utter chaos. And for me to be able to concentrate talking to you, I needed a tidy little corner and it would be easy for me to pretend that my whole house looks like this. Yeah, but it doesn't. It looks like chaos, Complete and utter chaos. And there is now wood dust on everything as well, because the builders were in the house, adding to the chaos. And I think that is the downside of the social media element to what we do is that negative comparison. We see someone in this very tidy, organized looking space and we think, wow, why does my house not look like that? Why have I not got the gorgeous cushions and, you know, and all that sort of stuff? I'm even too embarrassed to turn the camera Around I could, but I won't.

Yeah, but I know what you mean. And that's why I turned my camera and showed you my tiny little closet that I. And then there's a certain sense of, oh, I have to be present on social media. I have to be in my stories, I have to be present. And the other day I almost recorded. Well, here I go back into my little closet to record. And then I thought, oh, no. People might think that's not very professional, or that may look a certain way, and it's easy to get caught up in that. But I think that a lot, most of my audience, they're there because they know I keep it real with them. You know, I don't complain about my pain from stuff all the time, but I keep it real and say, you know what? I'm doing my best and this and that. But there are, you know, some days where I can't walk very well, or there are some days where I'm sitting on the couch. Because we all have those days, you know, we all have those days.

That's right. We all have those days. And I think that pressure that people feel, especially when they're embarking on some social media work for their own business, but the pressure that people feel to do all the things and to know all the platforms and to be present all the time and to have it all together, and I'm with you. If I don't feel it on a particular day, if I'm just not feeling that I can be attentive to my audience and present something for them that's of value, then I won't do it. And that every now and then I'll have a day like that. I just don't feel that I can give good value, that I would just be on social media just for the sake of keeping my numbers going, then that's not a valid reason for me to be putting my face into people's newsfeeds.

I feel exactly the same. I'm right there with you. Unless I have something really important to say. And also, I've tried it to where I've tried that pressure of I have to create content, I have to say something, I have to write something, and it's like, I don't know, and it's really difficult to write something, whereas when I'm meant to say something, it just flows. I don't have to think about it, I just type fast and it's out there.

Yeah, that's exactly right. And I think that's another important message that you know, when you're in that state of flow, we don't feel that all the time. You know, people will say to me, how do you always have something so interesting? Or whatever, whatever their version of interpretation of what I.

Because it is interesting.

Well, I think it's interesting, but I also acknowledge that not everybody else does. I think that's another thing. People worry about being judged on social media and I welcome the judgment because I feel that, you know, if people are judging what I'm doing or they're not my audience, they're sorting themselves out into being more interested in somebody else and eventually they will find the thing that they're more interested in. And that's great. Nobody needs to try to appeal to everybody. But that sense of flow, that state of flow, it's not there all the time. And you do need to listen and you need to recognize when you're in that place and harness that when you can. But also there are tricks that you learn, like we were saying before, about having tools. There are tools that you learn that can bring that on some days more easily than others. But when I have a day where it's not coming, that's okay. I just let that be.

What are some of the tools that you use to get you kind of in the flow or to get you inspired or motivated to producing content?

Because I'm talking to people every day. I'm talking to either my business mentoring clients or I'm talking to, to other colleagues or I'm talking to therapy clients. Sometimes I've always got somebody else's challenges and difficulties or experiences that I'm sharing with them in a personal conversation with them every day. And that might trigger something that might trigger an idea or I might notice a pattern. So for example, recently I had a pattern of people talking about struggling with the notion of giving away content for free and sort of buying into the scarcity or fear based idea that if I give stuff away for free then nobody's going to want to pay to do the program that I'm putting together and things like that. So, you know, and I noticed a few people having conversations aligned with that particular kind of topic. So that inspired me then talk about the value of providing content that is of value for free as opposed to. And that sits alongside another concept I talk about a lot, which is charging your work. So how do those two things go together? So I know I pay attention to the conversations I'm having and I pay attention to the themes that pop up. And then I do little tricks, simple little Tricks like, I have, you know, the little notes app on my phone, and I'll jot something down. I've now started with my live streaming videos. I will now write text beforehand. I never used to do that. I would go live first and then think about what I was going to add into the text section of post. So I now write the text first, and that organizes my thinking a little bit more and gets me even more excited about this idea that I've had to talk about.

Oh, I like that.

Yeah. Sometimes I'll write things down, a list of ideas. If they pop up late at night and it's too late for me to do anything live, then I'll jot them down.

I know for me at night when I try to create, at night when I try to write. So whether I'm writing a newsletter or something out for a client or a caption for a post, guaranteed, I would. Well, I would say 99.9% of the time, I can write that. And in the morning, I wake up and go, oh, my goodness, what did I jumble down? Because I am just not as sharp as night. I know everybody has a different time of day where they feel most creative or most productive. And for me, one of the things that I do is every morning I wake up and I have like this magic hour in the morning that's mine. It's before my husband's awake. It's before I wake up my youngest daughter for school. It's before I take on any clients. It's that time for me. And so I don't feel. And I don't let myself look on the phone. I don't let myself check, check social media. I have some quiet time. I do a little meditation. I read out of about two or three books, just short things that I read. I set my intention. I look at my calendar. Or sometimes right off the bat, I write first thing. And I journal. I'm really big on journaling, and I think that helps me to be creative. It also helps me mentally feel a little more grounded. And it's really like. It helps me through the day. For instance, the other day I woke up and I woke up late and I kind of stumbled into the bathroom to go to the bathroom. And I was like, oh, man, screw the morning routine. There's no time for that. Right As I said that, I tripped and literally fell almost off of the toilet. And I was like, okay, universe, okay, I will do the morning routine. I know this is a sign I need to do the morning routine. And so you Know for me it just works out better if I have at least because the rest of the day we never know what the day is going to bring. But at least if I can wake up, I know that I have a little bit of control over my morning routine. I can set aside a little bit of time for myself to take care of myself and invest in my dreams for the future. Do you do a morning, any kind of a morning routine?

I do. I was thinking when you were talking about your morning routine, one of the things that's been increasingly important over the years is having good mentorship. And I'm working with a new mentor at the moment and I meet with her every morning at 6 o'. Clock. I love that.

I was going to ask you, I'm so glad again that you brought up mentor again because I really, really believe that having a mentor is so important. And in fact, just today I thought I need a mentor because I'm doing some bigger things and things I've never done before and I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing, I need a mentor. So I'm so glad that you brought that up. How did someone go about finding a mentor when you don't know where to get?

I think it does depend what we're talking about too in terms of mentoring. I mean you can have a peer mentor who's someone who, you know, who has done something similar to you and you're bouncing ideas off each other and supporting each other. You know, that kind of peer support level of mentoring. And then there are professional mentors and you know, I have a clientele who I mentor and I've had mentors and I still have mentors and I pay them. So you know, they, I pay them for their time. I'm enrolled in programs that they offer that sort of thing. And it is about paying attention to what's going on around you in social media because that's where they live, often where they live and talking to your colleagues who seem to be doing really well and finding out do they have a mentor, who are they talking to, getting a few different recommendations and not being afraid to test run. So Nicola, who I meet with every morning, she and I started out actually with this morning program. She runs this thing where we meet every morning with a little group of us and we meet every morning during the week at 6am and it started off as a one month program and we all enjoyed it so much, including Nicola, she decided to keep running it each month and we just keep signing up. I've now gotten so much value out of working with her that I'm now, I've now joined her high level mentoring program. So I started off with a little bite sized piece of Nicola and after having worked with others in the past, but I knew that I needed someone with a different skill set. I was moving in a new direction and my own comfort zone was getting too comfortable. I needed someone new who was going to push me beyond that. And so those 6am mornings are about focusing. What have I achieved this week or what have I achieved, you know, in the last 24 hours? What's my intention for today? So similar to what you do for yourself? What's my intention for today? And calling bullshit on anything that I am making excuses for, that's huge because we all do that.

I want to know more about. You said that you have like downloadable, is it a course or what is it about how to call yourself and like really call yourself out on your own?

Like can I say yeah, okay, I do. Yeah.

How to slay your own.

Yes. So I created, in fact I was at a workshop with Nicola and the conversation that I was having with her around my core message and she just wrote two words up on the whiteboard, bullshit slayer. And I went oh, that is actually what I do. Thank you. So I then prepared a little ebook, I guess you would call it, on how to slay your own bullshit. So it's about identifying some of the stories we tell ourselves about why we can't do the difficult thing or the uncomfortable thing or the challenging thing, like what stops us stuck in action.

Yeah.

And so this little ebook, you work through it, you identify some of those barriers, some of those stories that you're telling yourself and then you work through the notion of building your own body of evidence of just how awesome you actually are. So thinking about things like, you know, how much time did you spend studying to do what you do now or how many years of experience have you had doing what you do now? How many clients have you helped doing what you do now and so on and so on, you know, running.

So it really kind of is helps with your self confidence, identifying, really knowing your self worth. Because I know, you know, for me especially when I first started as a speaker and I was going to an event and sharing the stage with Mel Robbins and Jay Shetty and Lewis Howes and Brendan Burchard and all these big speakers and nobody really knew who I was. I mean yeah, I had a little bit of a following but not much. And I remember being scared to death And I was doing push ups backstage for anxiety. Like, I was praying when that didn't really get my nerves down quite a bit. I was doing push ups, and I was trying to stay focused, but it was hard because, you know, they all had big media teams with them. They had, like, an entourage. And then there was me, and it was just me. And I remember I was sitting there in the green room. We were all eating, and I was sitting at the room with some really, you know, superstars, like, really people that I really looked up to as far as all their accomplishments and what they did and what their message. What their messages are. And there was a guy sitting next to me, and he looked at me and he goes, so, who are you with? And I was like, oh, well, I'm with me. It's just me. And he was, oh. And I was like. I said, so who are you with? And he goes, oh, I'm with this person, this person and this person. And I sat there for a little bit, and, you know, he wasn't very nice. And then I said, well, what do you do? And he said, oh, I'm an agent. And I was like, oh, well, I need an agent. And he goes, no, I'm a boutique agent. And he turned and gave me the cold shoulder. And I was crushed. I was crushed. And I literally felt. I felt like I had been kicked in the gut. I really did. I mean, it was enough for me. Like, I showed up without my entourage, just me. And I went on stage and I was, like, feeling pretty good. And then he was there to say, oh, you're not good enough. Why are you sitting at our table? And I had to go outside, and I had to literally use every tool in my toolbox to lift myself up off the pavement and keep going forward, because it's really hard, you know, we've got enough. I think when I was young, I always thought, I have a message. I want to, you know, I want to go out and I want to spread love and dance and be positive and spread. Spread happiness. And that is a little kid, you know, And I was a dancer, and I was fearless and moved to California. And when I got here, I thought, oh, wow, I'm not that talented. It was like, I might have been kind of talented for this small little town in Texas, but I really had my ass handed to me here. And I learned a lot. I learned a lot. And I think sometimes that's what happens as adult. You know, as kids, we have all this confidence, and as we grow up, we have different people. That may put labels on us or the own labels that we put on ourselves. And that can start to get really heavy. And it's up to us to really have those tools to kind of peel away those layers and really identify what our true self. Self is, and then go out and keep sharing that with the world fearlessly.

Fearlessly. And the thing that you talked about there, you know, that. That experience and then being able to go and access all the tools that you've built up. And of course, you know, as time has gone on, you will have learned there'll be more layers of what you've taken away from that experience. I was talking about this recently about, you know, being grateful. We can't pick and choose what we want to be grateful for. You know, we need to show gratitude not just for the good things. You know, we can't just be saying, I'm grateful that I have a house. I'm grateful that I, you know, live in Australia. I'm grateful that I, you know, have beautiful children, clean air, and blah, blah, blah.

Because it's the little stuff that we have to.

I. We also. I do too. But in what you're saying, it reminded me of this idea. We also need to be grateful for the difficult things as much as it's hard at the time. And we all acknowledge that when you're going through a tough time, no one really expects you to suck it up and be grateful for this experience while you're in it. But I do think that there's a lot of room for being grateful for what you've learned from adversity. You've gotten a very big version of that in your life, but also that experience with that man at that event, there's layers of learning from that experience that you carry forward and that there's layers.

And I feel like we every day were handed an opportunity of choice. We always have a choice. And I think, I really feel like once you realize that you have a choice, you take your power back. In that moment, I could have said, yeah, he's right.

Who am I?

Who am I to be here? Who am I to sit at this table with all these mega speakers that are getting paid all the big bucks? Who am I? I need to go with my tail tucked under and, you know, go back home and never try that again. Or I could take that opportunity and say, oh, really? You have underestimated me. I'm going to let this motivate me to get back on stage again and again and again. And, you know, something interesting that happened after That I met a lady. I'm sharing this because you just never know who you may bump into. And that's why I do my best to be kind to everybody I meet, because you never know who somebody is. So I'm coming out of the bathroom at this same conference, and there's a lady, and I bumped into her, and I said, hi. And I was like, oh, geez, you smells so good. And I leaned into her. I said, what are you wearing? Oh, it just must be my hair. I don't know. And I said, it smells really good. Well, we got to talking. She handed me a business card. She happened to be an agent, a speaker's agent. Well, I reached out to her, I mailed her a book, talked to her again, and later she said, I have to be completely transparent. Parents, I didn't get a chance to read your book. This guy so and so wanted to read it. It was that agent who wasn't nice to me at the table. He wanted to read my book, and I was like, well, really? He wanted to read my book. So I thought, you never know. And, you know, just keep doing your best. Keep putting one foot in front of the other. Keep sharing your message, and don't let anybody dim your light, because it's easy to get, you know, to let things knock you down. And it's just for me, I always have to remember, why. What is my why? Who am I speaking to? You know, I always think I'm speaking to the people who so badly are just ready to throw in the towel and give up, because I was right there and I almost gave up. And for me, it's to those people who they think, you know, it's hard because it is hard. It is hard. I'm not sitting here saying it's easy, it is hard, but it's possible. And that's what I'm here to share, that it's possible.

Great. So much, I think, for me, and something I will always tell my mentoring clients, too. It's not only the people who engage with you on social media, the people who do the likes and the shares and the comments. It's the people you never hear from, the people whose name never appears on anything. But they might be just that one person who they might have just stumbled across something you've done today, or they might have been following you forever. You never know. But it just might be that one person who you've been able to connect with and help them feel no longer alone in their journey. That might be that they recognize that

was the Whole reason for my book. That was the whole entire reason for my book. And I thought my. I said if I can just reach one person and make a difference and have them not give up and so they know they're not alone and they know that they'll heal and they know that there's hope, then that is worth all the hours and hours and hours that it took to write that book.

Not an easy job. It's not.

It was hard.

It was hard.

Yeah. It's definitely a labor of love, that's for sure. Well, I want to check out your how to slay your own bullshit because I thankfully I have kind of my own little program here at the house. It's called my husband and he likes to call me on my BS quite often.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got one of those too, actually. I think your husband and mine might have something in common. So, you know, that's it. We've all got those people in our lives, I think, who do like to spend, say what they think. And for a lot of people, you know, bearing your soul on social media or sharing your journey on social media is so fearful of the criticism that might be forthcoming, especially from well meaning friends and family. I think that's probably another strategy that I use to make sure that I'm bold in my message. I actually, you know, I make sure that the people who matter are the only people that I listen to and the number one person who matters is my opinion. So I think about, you know, calling me your tomorrow friend. I think about my tomorrow test. I think about in the future, am I going to be proud of my efforts to unite people and connect people so they no longer feel isolated? Or am I going to be disappointed that I let the opinions of others keep me quiet, keep me small?

Yeah. Because I think there are levels to that too. There are levels. When you start to reach success, you're going to have friends that may not be as happy for you as you thought they would be. There's going to be family members that may not want you to speak out about certain things. Like, I know for me, one of the hardest things to write about in my book and one of the things I speak about is being sexually abused by my stepfather as a child. And it was hard. I made sure I let my mom read that in the manuscript before I, you know, sent it to the publisher. But that part of the book, I have had so many people and to be honest with you, I even had my very own husband. When you get your book back from the publisher. You have, you know, it's a whole process of interior design. And the back of the book, and my husband read the back of the

book, and on the back of the

book it says, survived, you know, sexual abuse, abuse, divorce, and this and that. He said, why would you write about sexual abuse on the back of your book? And I said, I think you better read the book. Well, I'm so glad that I did write about it, even though I had so many people discouraging me to keep quiet. You don't want to talk about that. You know, in Texas, we have a saying, hide your crazy and be a lady. You better just sit pretty, not say anything. You better just, you know, don't ruffle any feathers. And right after I wrote that, and it takes a while for the whole publishing process, there have been more and more women standing up talking about this. And I've had so many people reach out to me that have said that happened to me as well. And I don't feel so alone. I don't feel like I have to carry this shame around with me. And that's why I wrote about it.

That's powerful. That's really, really powerful.

Well, it's, you know, shame is very heavy, and if we can talk about it with others and know that we're not alone in that and let it go and just keep moving forward.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Wow. We have talked about so many things.

I know, I know. And so I have got the link that I will add to show notes for people so that they can download how to slay your own bs. That's a mixed plain bs. And see, I have to pay a dollar to my daughter every time I say a word. So I'm like trying to kind of not say it. You know, I owe my daughter a lot of money after about $5. Yeah, yeah.

So I haven't introduced my kids to the idea of the swear jar yet, but as soon as they discover such a thing exists, they will make the most of it. They will do well.

I always enjoy talking to you. I feel like we could just talk all day long.

All day.

I'm so excited to introduce my audience to you and I want them to go check you out Facebook, because you are so good about doing lives, though, and I love watching your lives and Instagram and then tell us the best way to find you besides the link in the notes about. So they can download the free.

Yes. So you've got the link for the ebook test. Crawley.comau I think just.com will also get you there, but on Facebook and Instagram too. And just if you look for Dr. Seth Crawley, you'll find me. But I also want my audience to check you out. So you. Amberly lago.com now they can get a free downloadable gratitude journal. Is that right? Have I got that right? Yeah.

Well, yeah, because we talked about the importance of a morning routine. But also for me, gratitude has, you know, I've always been a grateful person, but when I really started a gratitude practice every day, and I use it as a way to shift my mindset when I'm feeling blue or less than or any way, if I can focus on gratitude, it really turns my can'ts into cans. And so I created a free downloadable gratitude journal. If they go to my website@amberly lago.com it's a good way to get in that practice of just writing a few things down that you're grateful for, you know, every day. And it's something I do every single day. And it's something that I do in the morning and something that I talk about at night when we go to bed, when I'm talking to my daughter every night we talk about.

That's a beautiful practice. I love that idea. Talking to your daughter about it as well. It's a really lovely thing.

I always say, what's the best thing that happened to you and what is one thing that you're grateful for? And I try, try to go to bed with that kind of mindset focused on what instead of, you know, your mind going busy about, oh, I didn't get this done or I didn't do this. Focusing on what you do have and what you did do, and then waking up and continuing with that.

Yeah. Now you've got a very active Instagram presence, so I do encourage my people to follow you on Instagram as well. I love your Instagram page.

You do?

Amazing.

Thank you. That's amazing. Amberly Lago motivation. And yeah, DM me because I answer every single one of my DMs. It may take me a little while, but I answer on myself. Yeah, you're amazing with people.

Yeah, same. Thank you, my lovely. We will be talking again soon and

thank you so much. I love talking with you. Thank you so much. Ken, Thanks so much for joining us this week on True Britain Grace podcast.

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