Leah Gervais:

So welcome back to the show you guys today, we’re talking about risks and reward. Hello to everyone here live so glad that you could make it. This episode is something that I kind of want to offer as a more practical take on what we all know to be true, which is that you have to take big risks in order to achieve high reward. And this was, this kind of came to me, uh, last week. 

So as some of you know, if you follow me on social media, you might know that my sister, Abby, who also works with me full time in the business, uh, got engaged. She got engaged. It was so exciting. And I was very lucky enough to be there with her, for her proposal. I filmed it and I was, I kind of actually helped orchestrate it because I had told her that we were going to do this photo shoot for the business, for my brand.

And so I let her know the time in place told her she needed to get her hair done, et cetera. And when she showed up to this photo shoot location, her now fiance was there. He surprised her et cetera. 

It was very, very exciting, but the whole day leading up to it from the moment I woke up and even a little, the night before I was nervous, I was nervous about messing it up. I was nervous that, uh, I was, you know, going to somehow blow it that somehow something was gonna go wrong, that she would’ve been expecting it, that something was gonna happen. It was just almost very tense, like not negative, but I was just kind of on edge. You know what I mean? 

Sometimes you just have that rush or that feeling of like, oh, it’s just like such exhilaration. And it feels like it’s so exciting, but also it feels so high stakes and sometimes your nervous system in those moments, even craves a little bit of relaxation or relief or boringness, you’re almost like, oh my God, I just wish I was on the couch watching bachelor right now, which is like solo stakes instead of helping orchestrate what might be one of what is gonna be one of the biggest days of my sister’s life and being kind of like fundamental on the surprise and making sure that I, I’m not the one that messes up like this surprise that my future brother-in-law is trying to have.

And it reminded me of how I felt the first time I ever did a V I P day, which was in Philadelphia several years ago. And I was so exhilarated and nervous and, um, excited, but also freaking out. And it was just so emotionally heightened, you know, and it really just got me thinking about what in life we do when we have that sense of emotional charge and what we do when we have that sense of heightened kind of empathy or emotion.

 And I don’t wanna just say stress because I think stress has such a negative connotation with it, but it’s not always a negative thing. Sometimes we feel stressed because we just are very focused on something or we really wanna see something through. And it just can feel like there’s so much pressure riding on this one thing. And the proposal went amazingly.

And then of course, by the end of the night, I felt such a thrill. I felt like, oh my God, this went perfectly. I’m so happy for her. This is such a great memory. I’ll never forget this. I hope she’s on such a high I’m on a high. And it all then felt worth it, all that planning, all that tenseness, all that sort of like sneaking around all that line. You know, all the things that you don’t usually like to do, but you have to kind of, to pull something off. And what this represents is a version of the law of polarity, which is a universal law that I think about a lot in my own business and in coaching. And essentially the universal law states that for everything that exists and opposite also exists, meaning we wouldn’t experience hot water.

We wouldn’t even know that it was hot. If we couldn’t also experience the sensation of warm or cold water, if there was just water, if there was just one of them, if there was just cold water, it would just be water. It’s only because there’s hot water that we know cold water. 

The same goes for happiness. We would not be able to experience happiness. If we didn’t also experience the opposite of sadness. If we never had sadness, then happiness wouldn’t feel like a happy emotion. It would just be a neutral or a default emotion. And so when we think about this law of polarity, what you can do to help yourself decide what actions you wanna take in your life is look at the degree of the outcome you desire and think about how on that kind of scale of polar opposites.

You then need to act toward it or show up for it. So for example, the hotter you want water, you only know it can be that hot because there is an equally colder version of that water. Uh, then in a business example, the more money you want to make, the more impact you want to have the bigger game you want to play equally, the bigger risks you need to pony up for and be ready to take the bigger sacrifices you need to be prepared to give the bigger presence, the bigger sense of showing up. You need to come through with what we see all the time. 

This is why so many entrepreneurs feel like they never make it is they have these expectations, these goals, these ideas, these visions that are so high up on that extreme part of the scale. But when it comes to the polar opposite of it, the risks that need to happen to make that come to life, the investing the money, the time, the energy, the commitment that equals that reward people aren’t willing to take the risk.

That’s the honest truth or what’s worse. And this is really where it gets sad is people take the risk like once, and then they stop. Like they then get scared or they pause, or they think they need a break, or they think they need to save up money before they keep going, or they get in their own head. And then they don’t see things through, you know, they get into some sort of drama that then brings them back down on this sort of effort level of this scale. But they’re still expecting this same outcome, this same production, this same value. And they’re not understanding that the law of polarity always works in your favor. It’s a neutral law. It’s actually not necessarily in your favor. It just works. 

And so whatever you’re putting out there, the opposite is generally what you’re going to experience. So when people don’t fully put in that amount of risk or that amount of effort or that amount of commitment yet they expect the opposite. They don’t understand that this law of polarity is working with them all the time without discrimination.

So we have to accept the risks that come with the rewards we want if we really want them. And I know how those risks can feel. I know what it feels like to put money on a credit card that you don’t have. I know what it feels like to get out on social media, say something really vulnerable just to get kind of kicked while you’re down, because someone writes you a hateful message. 

I know what it’s like to tell friends and family what you’re doing and be terrified of their judgements on the internet. I know what it’s like to have your mother-in-law watch some of the things you do on social media, where you’re talking about how much money you’ve made, and you totally wonder what she is thinking of you.

I know how it feels to put yourself in those risky situations. And I know how uncomfortable it is, and I know why a lot of people don’t do it and that’s okay. Not everyone needs to do it. What we do need to talk about though, is where we have a complete lack of alignment and a MIS a lack of understanding of why we’re expecting a certain outcome, but the risk that we’re willing to put in does not match it and therefore why we’re not getting it.

 So my advice to you and why I wanted to bring this up is not to make you feel like you have to take every risk in the world or not to make you feel like you need to throw caution in the win just to live a big life. My advice to you is to be honest about the desires that you have, and then honest about what you’re willing to do to make them happen.

And I think a lot of us are robbed of our own happiness because we feel like we have these desires that we want yet, for whatever reason they’re not happening, which is typically in our control. And that’s very disempowering. It feels like, what am I doing wrong? Why can’t I have this? Why aren’t I lucky enough? Why does so and so get this and not meet? Why is it easier for them? Why hasn’t this happened yet?

 And our job is to get back into an empowered place and to say this hasn’t happened because I’m not willing to take the risk that comes with that type of reward or this hasn’t happened because I haven’t taken the risk that comes with this type of reward and I’m ready to change that. And when I think of that morning and how exhilarated I felt knowing my sister was about to get engaged, knowing that we were about to pull off this big surprise.

A lot of that emotion is replicable throughout other parts of my life, where I’ve taken big risks. When I have put tens of thousands of dollars on a credit card for a business that had no proven income yet, that felt similarly, that was probably scarier, but it also, I knew how much potential was behind that. I knew that it could really pay off, um, having my baby. That was very, very scary giving birth. Even now, I was just thinking about how this applies to him getting older. You know, he’s at a place now where he’s a lot more curious. He’s a lot more aware he’s grabbing things. He’s starting to get mobile. He’s walking. He’s kind of like reaching around toward things, which is super cool, super exhausting and tiring a lot more so than, you know, when he just sort of sits there and lays there.

But it’s so much more fun. There’s so much more reward. It’s just, then it requires a lot more from us as parents. We have to then be a lot more attentive. We have to be a lot more, uh, careful. We have to just be a lot more on guard for him, but it’s so much more fun because his personality shining and he’s growing, and this is exactly what you want as a parent to see your kid, get curious and to see them learn about the things around them.

 So these levels of expectation of charge, of desire, of output match each other. And when you can think of the risk that you’re putting yourself in, whether it’s an investment or a decision or a message you’re gonna share, or a sale you wanna make as something that’s energetically matching the reward you want, it gets to be a bit more exciting.

It doesn’t always feel calm. I’ll give you that, but it doesn’t need to be scary. It doesn’t need to be negative. It doesn’t need to feel like, oh my God, I’m doing something wrong. Or, oh my God, this is so stressful. Or, oh my God, can I handle this pressure? It sort of gets to be like, I’m dancing in this place of high risk and high action because I want high rewards. And that is exciting. And that is fun. And you don’t need to do this in every single area of your life. Not everything will be a desire for you. And that’s okay. For example, I know that in order to have, you know, I don’t know what I am, what’s a good example. I know in order to have a very, very nice car, very expensive car, I would need to make a certain amount of money.

I would need to find a parking spot for it. I would need to make sure that it was taken care of. There would be all these things that I need to do that are perceiving risky, spending money on that, finding a way to handle it in New York, et cetera. But I, I just don’t have, I couldn’t care less about cars. I don’t want a car. I love that I don’t drive. 

So not every desire will be a yes for you, but when it is a yes, think about what you’re doing to match that desire. And largely this isn’t always the case, but there is going to be this sort of like give and take. Like you wanna make $10,000 in a month. That’s great. That’s exciting. That would probably be life changing for a lot of people. There is a decent amount of investment, commitment, time, belief, mindset, work, uh, showing up consistency that you need to make, to get to that place.

You wanna make a hundred thousand dollars in a month. You better believe you need to raise those expectations and you need to raise what you’re expecting and asking of yourself. And most people don’t, most people feel like they still can’t take that risk. They still can’t play that game. They still can’t make that commitment. They still can’t make that investment or whatever story they have yet. They’re wondering why the scale doesn’t tip then in the other direction. 

Now, I will say that as you grow in business, specifically, the amount of output you need to put out in order to get your goals to grow it, it just gets easier because you have a lot more momentum working behind you. You already have an audience, you already have a reputation. You already have testimonials. You already have money coming in. It doesn’t feel like you’re starting from zero every time because you’re not.

So do keep that in mind, the momentum gets easier. But also remember that even though that momentum is there, that momentum is there supporting you in playing a bigger game. And if you’re not willing to play the bigger game, don’t be surprised if you don’t have the bigger reward, the bigger result, the bigger outcome, it’s really that simple and not everyone’s journey looks the same, but there is some element of giving it all in order to get it all that if you study anyone who’s successful, they are doing. 

And when I look at the people who are still trying to get off the ground, when I, you know, get these messages from people wondering how I did it, and then asking them what they’ve done, this is consistently the pattern. It’s either a lack of consistency, a lack of going all in a lack of seeing things through, um, a lack of, you know, I said consistency, but like not feeling like they’re in it all the time, kind of going in and out.

And that is really what you’re going to then get as a result. So I hope that this allows you to play with your own output and get curious about the energetic capacity threshold that you have for experiencing extremes pressure, noise, stress, even not always in a bad way. 

Oftentimes I believe that excitement and fear feel very similar. Maybe you have that experience too, where right before you’re about to do something, even if it’s very exciting, like I remember, right. I used to dance competitively growing up and right before you go out on stage, you have this huge adrenaline rush. It’s so exciting. And it also has this little tinge of like, I’d kind of just rather be home napping right now, because this is so intense. Um, before my wedding, you know, you have that big surge of like, oh my gosh, this is so charged.

This is so intense. This is, this stakes feel so high. This is, so this is so big. And it’s not that you wouldn’t wanna be there. It’s not that you trade anything for that, but you might have this element of craving relief from that. And if you can just see those emotional patterns for what they are, they’re similar. 

If you are selling something big or if you are making a big investment or if you’re making a big decision slash commitment, but we often shy away when we’re not certain of the reward that will come with that, which is very, which is why it feels different when it’s exciting about something, versus when it’s scared. Because when you’re scared about something, you typically don’t know the outcome or you’re nervous about what the outcome could be. Whereas if you’re excited, you typically have a good idea what the outcome is going to be, and you’re doing it for the excitement.

So if you can treat all your fears as instead of something of like, what will the outcome be? I’m scared of the potential outcome. Instead say, I don’t know what the outcome will be. And I’m so excited for what it could be, then your fears and your excitement will start to feel one and the same. And you don’t wanna live in that high charge, oh my gosh, this feels so heavy. This feels so intense energy every day. It’s not sustainable and you don’t have to, but where are you? Not because of fear because of what’s on the other side because of the unknown. And where are you needing to be a bit more honest with yourself about the expectations you have without the input you’re putting in. 

Okay. I hope that this was helpful for you guys. I hope that it gives you an invitation to live bigger, to invite those exhilarated feelings, to have that kind of risk in your life regularly, because that’s what brings you the reward you want.

And if you are interested at all in any of our coaching opportunities for the rest of the year, uh, just DM me. We have, we, we have three basically, but they’re filling up. So I had three one-on-one coaching spots available, uh, through the rest of the year. One of them just got taken today, actually. So we have two more of those. Um, we’re starting early bird enrollment for my mastermind, which is really exciting, uh, that starts in 2023, but we’re doing early bird enrollment for it here in October.

 Um, I have two VIP days available. And then my sister, Abby, who helps people with client acquisition, lead generation, and really signing clients. It’s kind of her zone of genius. She has coaching spots available too. She has three. So if you’re interested in any of those, no strings attached, we’d love to hear from you just for a chat.

Um, but if that brings up that energy for you or like, this is scary, maybe this is also exciting. This feels risky. Maybe this also has a huge reward. I want that reward. And I’m realizing I’m not doing what it takes to get that reward. 

This could be your sign, your invitation, your moment to change that and start putting out the equal energy, the equal, big thinking, the equal big action that reflects the big life, the big reward, the big outcome that you so crave. All right, visionaries. I hope you loved this. I’ll talk to you soon. Here is your biggest vision. 

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