Soul-Full Success Archives - Allison Crow

Attractor vs Enroller: A Distinction for Us Both

allisoncrow — Sun, 25 Aug 2024 17:04:42 +0000

A distinction for your consideration: Attractor vs. Enroller

Yesterday was a bingo ball day where all my ideas just bounced around in the bingo ball hopper – none fully

dropped into the final chute. I looked through some recent journals to slow down and connect with my own wisdom.

I came across a note to myself that reminded me, in my coaching practice, I am an

ATTRACTOR

not an

ENROLLER

It was just the SELF-TRUST reminder I needed.

ENROLLER is the formula for what many of us are taught to do in sales—to get people to go through a sales funnel that leads to a sales consultation, where the goal is to “convert” the prospect to a client. Then, handle and overcome objections and close the sale.

This can be effective for many salespeople, but it is also what feels disingenuous and smarmy to others.

ATTRACTOR is a way of being and marketing that feels more natural to me and encourages responsibility and self-trust in potential clients. Yes, I have expert skills, AND the client’s concerns and objections are considered and valid. A right fit is more important than “closing the sale.”

It is often unclear what I do or offer professionally, and I’m sure I leave money on the table. I know this is not the best sales practice (I taught sales for YEARS).

I am quirky and strange, and when potential clients call, if they are with someone who doesn’t know me, isn’t familiar with me, or hasn’t seen or heard me speak or teach, it is always AWKWARD. Even referrals from beloved clients can be strange – not because of the other person but because of me. I’m weird. And I’m incredibly nervous, and my “sense of being perceived” rises when I’m around new people.

Last year, I had a series of “cold discovery calls” that I think came through tiktok, which was so awkward. I was awkward.

Coaching is not a mechanical process for me—it’s a relational process, and I’m weird at the beginning of relationships, even if I don’t want to be. Hello AUDHD.

I can now see it’s a bottom-up process, and I desire that both ways. I’m probably not your best fit if you are a top-down linear thinker.

Most, not all, of the people I work well with have known and “followed” me for years. Sometimes ten or more years – The quiet watchers routinely come out when THEY are ready and say, “I want to work with you.” They are the ones that end up in transformative years or more long engagements – doing deep inner and outer work. By the time they go to my coaching page and request a connection and discovery session – they know they want to work with me in the direction of their dreams and well-being.

I know I’m not super direct, and, when you are ready, I’m here, and we can talk and create a custom program for you.

I shared this because this week, I was able to help a client see that they are more of a Gardner in their business, too, not a machine. What I call “capitalism brain” is a subconscious influence that always pushing the machine. But there IS a place for those of us who are gardeners to cultivate in our lives and work.

Maybe you need to be reminded that you are a gardener, and you can do what you do. You can keep sharing your heart, showing your work, and making warm invitations, and the right clients will bloom at the right time.

Enroller or attractor – one is not better than the other, but one is more authentic to me and more congruent with my system and my way of being and creating in the world.

Remember who YOU are, and go do your thing!

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UNLEARNING (In my journal)

allisoncrow — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 17:11:36 +0000

Today is one of those days when all the dots connect, and I can see how the past has led me to now. My now is ordinary; there is no monumental milestone or achievement. There is nothing to brag about, nothing you will admire as fabulous.

Unlearning isn’t a popular or particularly pleasing journey. It’s often heavy and certainly not inspirational low-hanging fruit to sell in a coaching program. “I can help you make more money.”

If I were really brave, I would share more of my unlearning with you out loud, but I am still sensitive to what you think about me.

Still.

Most of all, if I weren’t afraid of being so “negative.” There’s some programming and “not truth.”

Do you think nature says, “I shouldn’t be so negative#8221; or even God? Buahahahah. Nope.

We can not escape life’s difficulties even if we do everything we can to escape them. But we can learn to access our own SELFSOUL to be with ourselves and others in the difficulties (and the delights).

Unlearning IS a valid path to SELFSOUL trust. I added SOUL because the SELF-TRUST I am teaching in my work, and living in my life is trust in the INFINITE SOUL within you. The GOD inside of you that you are.

It was always calling, even from way back in 3rd grade, when at HP Elementary, I was compelled to say a prayer in chapel because I was tired of hearing the shame, fire, and brimstone messages about avoiding hell. My little 3rd-grade SOUL knew back then that it was CONNECTION and relationship, not control. And here we are at 52—seeing it all led me to this ordinary moment—where it is more than a theory; it just is.

Alli, you asked for a SOUL-full life for many years, and you’ve been living it all along and are living it here in this moment. You found it by not trying to escape your humanity but by exploring it all the way to the wild edges.

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You Forget. It’s Not Your Fault & Here is What to do About it.

allisoncrow — Wed, 07 Jun 2023 14:53:02 +0000

Because you are human, because you live in a society whose systems are set up to make you forget – remembering can be your most vital practice.

Seriously, you aren’t broken; you’ve done nothing wrong – our systems literally are built on you out-sourcing your self-trust and remembering. When you forget, you give away power and buy stuff you don’t need without thinking. (I love buying stuff I don’t need – with clear intention).

Because you are engaged in life and work and smart as fuck, your mind and mental managers like to move fast through your ideas. Sometimes they get congested and confused. That’s normal.

If you knew that you would regularly – as in super often – FORGET who you BE What ritual could you set up so that you REMEMBER who you are?

. . .Because from that place, everything works with more lube. Flow has space to flow from the remembering.

And remembering doesn’t just happen. That’s why you suffer. We have to cultivate it.

You are not alone, dear human. Even though happy, and excited, and clear, I could feel a sense of forgetting when I sat down at the desk today – and my pre-planned ritual of journaling and writing with a SELF-ENERGY focus – brought me back to remembering. I won’t share the top half of that page quite yet (maybe someday -as you know, I’m pretty unfiltered)…but where I ended up, because of the daily practice, was in the remembering, and now I am able, from my heart to be here for you, and to gently take the next steps of my day.

Love, Your Favorite Life Coach.

Allison

I hope you remember.

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Another Kind Of Mother

allisoncrow — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 14:25:30 +0000

Maiden – Mother – Crone.

Tone: Deep contentment with a grandmother smile.

As I enter the crone years of my life – many past griefs are resurfacing in dreams and intrusive thoughts. I call them pebble dreams – because they are smaller now, not like the avalanche of boulder dreams I had as I entered my 40s.

It’s as if those old wounds, mostly processed and held years ago, come to pop in one more time to remind me of the sum of my story so far. Those stones changed the direction of the life I thought I would have.

This morning, a book I was reading asked me this profound question, “What has life entrusted to me#8221;

I’m going to really marinate on what my answer is – and the first thing that popped into my thoughts was what life didn’t entrust to me that I thought it would.

I am 51. I have never been pregnant. Ever.

For the first 32 years of my life – I thought I wanted 5 kids. A giant gaggle of children all close in age like my mother had.

I thought my career would be wife and mom and maybe mentor to college-age women who wanted to be a wife and mom. It was extreme – and born out of the sheltered religious norms of my childhood communities. I also thought I would marry a man in khaki pants and boots with a business suit and a ranch for us to go to on the weekends.

Peel away the religion – which I do not miss; simply, I never had a child or children of my own. At some point, this became a conscious choice. My ego wanted a child – one that looked like Bill and me – tall with a big forehead and thick hair and probably good at basketball and writing, and a girl, only a girl. That’s how I knew my soul was not here to have a child.

There is both freedom and clarity – and a pang of grief.

Life entrusted me with something entirely different. Something I didn’t know I could or would want when I was a child or young woman. Life entrusted me to be another kind of mother. My love and legacy live in way more family trees than my own. I have mentored thousands of mothers and fathers and born a thousand children and sent them off to live and thrive in the world once they came to maturity, and now I am a grandmother of these.

Now I only wonder who will be at my bedside when I cross over to the other side.

What has life entrusted to you?

Photo: Marmaduke & Allison 1972

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Struggling with the Social Media Marketing Machine

allisoncrow — Fri, 17 Feb 2023 17:16:25 +0000

An insight about my creative process that may point you to insights about your own creative process:

When I openly acknowledge the hard and I can compassionately witness myself and even the tiniest of suffering, the hard often lifts within a few days.

It is a part of accepting the both/and – of living in the Wild Edges of Being Human.

PS TL/DR people move on. I’m not here for your dopamine hit; my writing is here to help me and then you think differently and change your life.

Current Hard:

In my current facebook memories – are the promos and images for the course I used to teach called Share Your Heart: Show Your Work – a delightful and helpful course about authentic marketing on social media. The course was reverse-engineered from what delightfully worked for me in the first 7 years of moving my business online after leaving corporate.

I LOVED and enjoyed my relationship with social media.

And currently -I don’t feel that love. I am aware that my lenses are cloudy and the “lens cleaner” is in my own hand, not outside of me.

Since 2008 I have created and shared prolifically online. Since even before that, if you count my blogspot blog.

I do love to write and to process and share with words.

I did thousands of live videos and have recorded almost 200 Podcast episodes. For the last four years, I have written and then published a book from my heart.

For most of that time, it was effortless – truly 98% spontaneous overflow of my precious yellow heart .

And that Sharing My Heart and Showing My Work allowed you all to get to know me – and many of you – hundreds – stepped forward to work with me in some way. It never felt like selling.

Recently, I have inner parts that are overwhelmed and irritated, and deeply sad about the extreme parts of crappy capitalism. My brain can’t unsee the patterns of greed. I, like many of you, often feel the burnout of crappy capitalism and the burnout of shitty social media. And yet, here I am, a capitalist, selling a high-fee service – a luxury. And my revenue has become reliant on me “Sharing My Heart and Showing My Work.”

“Content creation” in order to….. SELL has been repulsive to me. I feel like I’m standing in a house of mirrors and can’t escape it. Go viral, get followers, convert in your DMs, do this reel, do that tiktok, get famous on booktok…….

Be in the world, not of the world, became a mandate instead of an opportunity.

Of course, instead of letting it rest, I wrestle and inquire with that repulsion; I judge myself and become hard on myself – not mean, but certainly, I put pressure to come to a conclusion.

My discernment has gotten foggy, and I’ve slipped into full-on waiting for people to ASK to hire me. It’s been easier to judge others for not choosing my credibility and value than it has been to stand in it and make offers.

In writing this and speaking with my friend Jeanine – things are already starting to clear up. It makes perfect sense that those muscles would atrophy after the year I had last year. Grief and a heart attack will do that to you.

The questions I’m tenderly pondering in this content creation marketing kerfuffle:

What do I truly desire?

What would feel fun?

What obligations could I release?

What if I didn’t give SO much..what if I let less be more.

What’s possible in business and networking relationships away from social media?

What in the garden of my business is ready to be uprooted and released, what just needs some pruning, and what needs to be planted, anew?

And for now, I’ll end right there and just BE.

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The #1 Thing That Keeps People Stuck

allisoncrow — Fri, 10 Feb 2023 16:35:24 +0000

Coaching is an art and science of behavior change, and wouldn’t it be fun if it were actually as easy as “change your thinking, change your life?” (And yes, I believed it was that simple for years- I’m sorry).

Just changing our thinking is a gross oversimplification. It leaves millions frustrated and fleeced.

One (of many) significant determiners of our lives is not just our thinking or our emotions but actually our habitual and subconscious attempts NOT to feel disconnection, shame, rejection, fear, sadness, and other uncomfortable and painful emotions.

These attempts show up as coping mechanisms that serve as armored protection from these feelings.

Hi. My name is Allison, and I’m a recovering, over-armored woman.

Let me go way back for a moment so we can move forward: It is a natural subconscious desire to connect and repair connection if the body senses a disconnect. We are wired for it. We learn early on to manipulate the maintaining of that connection with our caregivers. As children, when the connection with our caregivers conflicts with authenticity – we innately choose connection every time. We choose the coping mechanism over living in our true selves.

Here’s the burn for high-achievers: The coping mechanisms that worked for us are socially acceptable and highly admirable. They are often praised and rewarded by society.

We give and overgive. We perform, we people please, we over-function, and we caretake others, often at the expense of our true selves. If you are neurodivergent (like I am), then we mask along with our armor. It feels good until it begins not to feel good, and then what?

We look up and see all the perceived excellence around us but can feel empty or like something is missing – yet we gaslight ourselves into gratitude. That is not compassion; that is comparison.

My clients with longevity in the personal development space do this the most. You’ve been taught to shame your way into appreciation instead of taught how to cultivate it from within.

Side note: From my “I’m still learning understandings” of ADHD brains – executive function fails in the presence of shame and pain as motivation – we, instead, pursue the feel-good rewards.

Where does that leave us when these coping skills actually begin to perpetuate our struggle?

This is the place many of my experienced business owner clients are in, at the crossroads of should and self-trust.

The Crossroads of SHOULD and SELF-TRUST

The shoulds are familiar and known; they are reliable even if they come with a side of suffering.

The uncomfortable known will always be more appealing to the unknown.

The road to self-trust requires both learning new skills and unlearning old ways of habitual coping. It also requires seeing all the systems that taught you ON PURPOSE not to trust – and that can be downright depressing and bring up grief.

The Skill of Noticing
The Skill of Being With and Presence (instead of fixing or solving)
The Skill of Sensing Cravings (in self and others)
The Skill of Building Inner Relationships

These are just 4 (certainly not all) of the Self Leadership skills I help my clients develop in their lives and work. These skills can present as great insights in conversation -yippey yay-yay-woo-hoo; but if it ends there, it’s just entertainment.

We must build a muscle memory for these skills in the body and behavior, and ultimately in the nervous system if we want lasting change. . . If we want to learn to be in the world from a place of true SELF Trust.

Cheers to you on your journey of SELF-Trust.

And #icanhelpwiththat – if you are ready to build your self-trust skills, here are a few ways I can support you.

This is the work I am helping my business owner clients do. These are the conversations in my book Unarmored: Finding Home in The Wild Edges of Being Human . This is some of the focus of my live event Camp Cultivate in May, and this is the foundation from which we do group life and business coaching in my small membership program, Soulies: Self Leadership Society .

Love, Allison

Listen to the Podcast episode on this here.

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How Internal Family Systems Coaching Impacted My CliftonStrengths Finder Results

allisoncrow — Wed, 08 Feb 2023 21:32:53 +0000

How #internalfamilysystems and #ifscoaching impacted my #strengthsfinder results. I found this FASCINATING!

Last fall, I had the opportunity to take my CliftonStrengths assessment again.

While I had my previous results, I KNEW things would show up differently because I AM DIFFERENT.

I am different from the young, eager woman striving for success and approval in 2010. I’m more grounded and clear. I’ve done some pretty intense releasing and healing of my oldest traumas and fears, and I had a dang heart attack. I’m DIFFERENT. Even my body is different.

My old results overlap with my new results, but I can see how my old results, especially MY FUTURISTIC & IDEATION, were parts-led; parts of me that were anxious and inexperienced and were parts that wore the masks of society’s expectations & approval. If you have these strengths in your results, please know that this is MY self-assessment – not a reflection on these strengths as a whole.

My old results were my adaptive strengths. My current results are less protective…they are my UNARMORED results. I’ve built internal trust and #emotionalagility through IFS business coaching.

I can see the external changes bringing IFS into my business world has made. I’ve been able to accumulate a list of “results” in my life and in my client’s life and work.

A sweet client on a group call, visibly far from the screen, for comfort possibly, had a slight quiver in her lip as she checked out of our session, “This work is hard,” she said.

“Yes, it is. It’s tender, it can leave bruises, and comes with lots of tears. And you don’t have to do it, ” I said with the most sincere compassion.

It IS hard to lay down our protective devices and to build trust within when the world never wanted us to have it.

I, personally, no longer need it to be easy,
I just need it to be real.
💛 Allison

I use #ifs in my business and life coaching – both in my membership and in private coaching. I can help you strengthen your authentic strengths and #selftrust.

#businesscoaching #ifsforbusinessowners #internalfamilysystemscoaching #confidenceatwork #emotionsatwork #nobadparts

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Tool for Remembering Your Head and Heart in Business

allisoncrow — Wed, 01 Feb 2023 15:59:11 +0000

In this post: Tools to help you remember your professional credibility while being a heart-centered human, or to remember your heart if you can get head-bound.

All those years ago, when I told my boss, “I’m not leaving you; I’m moving toward me,” I left and started an LLC called Soul-Full Living. Systems without heart and soul suffocated me, so I set out to create what I needed.

As early as 2nd grade, I could see Human Hearts that the structures and systems glossed over. Once I’d spent a few years in a business culture that pursued profit at all costs, I knew I had to step out to help others, and myself create a business that didn’t suck the soul out of our being.

In the world, not of the world Isn’t that the saying?
A client called me this morning for some help with enrolling for the last few spots for a program she is offering. Taking a breath to remember that the head could be unbound by connecting to the heart – I helped her with a few strategies for connecting and soulfully marketing her offering.

“You’re so good at copywriting,” she said.

“Actually, I’m not,” I replied, ” What I’m good at doing is dropping beneath the head and structures and SEEING the hearts of my people and talking about that.”

Cultivate a balance of Head and Heart in your business, and you can’t help but thrive. I spent most of 2022 in my heart- holding the heart of my family, my dogs, my clients, and myself. It was what the season called for. I put my professional panties on the shelf for a season to tend to life. As life settles back in, it’s time to bring the balance back. Pro Panties ON!

Useful Tool: Create a Poster for YOURSELF – of the values that beat in your heart on one side, and then inventory your credible professional self on the other. I see head people forgetting the heart, and I see heart people forgetting their credibility.

The head and heart make a powerful partnership if you intentionally cultivate the two.

Here’s my poster.
Now make one for yourself and keep it somewhere VISIBLE to remind you of who you really are and the skills you have.

💛, Allison

#heartcenteredbusiness #humanleadership #soulfulwork #connecttoyourheart #rememberyourcredibility

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Fuck the Coaching Industry

allisoncrow — Wed, 14 Dec 2022 15:52:53 +0000

My mind was so full of inspiration this morning. She wanted to go in about 17 different directions, listen to two different podcasts and one audiobook, and write 27 things for you.

Happy Mind, full of intention, running a bit fast.

Slow down, Allison. Connect first.

And I listened within and spent the first 30 minutes of my writing practice looking through my 2022 journal.

There’s some GOLD in that journal. My own wisdom is the best medicine (and sometimes funny as fuck) when I’m on an insight bender trying to source outside and over-do.

More to come – but remember this truth as you consider who you are going to partner with in 2023.

I got had in 2022. Hook, line, and sinker fell for it and paid big for it. The best lesson is, remember allison, remember who the fuck you are.

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How did I do it Secrets to Making Your Dreams Happen.

allisoncrow — Thu, 01 Dec 2022 16:43:20 +0000

How Did I Do It?

Don’t let the photo fool you:

This was a big year for me. 3 MAJOR milestones accomplished.

In May, my pool was built- If you know me, this was my dream – not a family dream – so I agreed to make the money for it myself.

This week – The first week of December 2022 -I move from writer to published Author. I first had this dream crystallized in my heart at 23 – in Boulder, Colorado, when I came across Thomas Moore’s and Sark’s books.

Next week I finish L1 training in IFS – this gives me one technical “credential,” but what I’m really proud of speaks to HOW I did ALL of these things:

I invested in myself – and boy, if it were as easy as investing cash- wouldn’t that have been fun And yes, I’ve been my own “angel investor” for years. (I will acknowledge the literally inherited privilege of being white and educated and a small trust fund from my grandfather that helped me invest in my first home and pay off some of my school debt – these gifts were MONUMENTAL support). For many years, honestly, I debted – I borrowed and played a money shell game with myself. I stopped debiting to live or work (other than my home) in 2017.

Yes, I have invested in myself and my business – things that cost money: It’s almost obscene how much I spend on personal and professional and personal development and have for years:

Coaching, reading, classes, learning, therapy, art supplies, black writing pens and journals, and more coaching – business coaching, money coaching, book coaching, profit first coaching, money coaching, creative coaching, IFS coaching, sales coaching – that’s what I can think of off-hand.

I’ve invested in implementation support: Podcasting producer who also emotionally supports my creative mojo and flow – not only does she create great sound – she gets the ebb and flow of creativity and believes in me. I invest in admin support, and off and on over the years, I’ve experimented with marketing support. And, of course, I invest in the systems and tech required to run my business – so many subscriptions and little expenses here and there that add up.

Most of these expenses have paid off – some have been monumental failures – expensive lessons.

I don’t spend lots of money on material luxuries, clothes, hair, lashes, nails – I do get good skincare and cheap makeup from the grocery store – but I don’t give a rat’s ass about a new car or highlights anymore.

But here is how I have really invested in myself even more than MONEY: TIME ON TASK. All the coaching and learning without implementation is just entertainment. I am a grand experimenter – and if YOU want to make your dreams come true, then be a daily experimenter – Time on task, over and over.

What I really invest in is Time on task:

Time spent doing my nourishing habits (reading, writing, moving my body, journaling, parts work, drinking water, etc.).

Time spent sharing my heart and showing my work – thinking and doing things that hopefully serve my audience and clients.

Time Practicing my skills in real-time – not waiting until things are perfect. (The hours – and I mean HOURS I spent coaching my ass off and doing IFS as a coach, client and student have been more effective than any class or training).

Time resting and recovering and NOT working.

Time learning how to allocate and track my money. This year I’m taking my books back from my bookkeeper to master the daily nuances of my finances- more Time spent ahead).

Time serving clients, Time making offers.

Time doing the learning and then DOING what I learn.

Time writing – every single day. Making it just what I do.

Time healing my nervous system

Time doing boring stuff – no one sees over and over and over and over.

and, yes, time-wasting (playing dumb video games, watching tv, trolling on Twitter, to name a few). Time to recover from all the time I invest doing Time on task stuff.

You don’t have to bet on yourself the exact ways I do. You don’t have to invest in yourself the way I do. But Oprah isn’t coming. Life isn’t the “Field of Dreams – where if you build it, they will come.

You do have to choose your actions, attitude, and investments – bet on yourself. No one else’s bet will be stronger, and one day you will look up and see your long tail of accomplishments and be deeply proud. If you want that for you, I want that for you – but wanting isn’t enough. So put the Time on task.

Love, Allison

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