Leah: Hey visionaries, welcome back to the podcast. We have a second or maybe even third time guest. She’s been a guest here before. She is a former client, a very good friend of mine, Shannon Bills. Hi Shannon.

Shannon: Hi. Thanks for having me. 

Leah: We are so lucky to have her. Thank you for being back here. If you don’t follow Shannon on Instagram or if you don’t follow her business, you should definitely do so.

 She is like a ray of sunshine in a person, and we’ve known each other for a long time, and I’ve had the huge blessing of watching her business go from a twinkle in her eye to I think the multiple six figure machine it is now, which is so impressive. 

So we wanted to have her on today as part of this, what it takes series almost to push me a little bit, because there is no one who listens to her own alignment better than Shannon, and I think she’s allergic to a lot of the conventional definitions of hustle, yet she’s really done it.

 So she and I wanna come together and kind of expose how hustle isn’t just about how many late nights you pull, it’s also about just dedication to becoming your best self and reinventing yourself and pushing yourself. 

And that is really what Shannon does so beautifully and what she’s starting to help entrepreneurs do too. So, thanks again for being here. Shannon. Do you wanna give us a few sentences of this work you’re doing now, especially as it pertains to entrepreneurs?

Shannon: Yeah. Thank you so much Leah, for having me and for the introduction. Um, yeah. 

So I have always been drawn to energetics and mindset work. My parents raised me that way. Um, we talked about our feelings. We would journal about our feelings, same thing with our goals and our visions. 

And my mom, um, in high school got diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, fibromyalgia. And she, instead of will, she tried the medicine route, but that, uh, had reverse side effects on her. And she said, you know what? I’m gonna try a holistic approach.

 So I watched her heal her body, heal her mind, while she was going through a very painful time in her life, through journaling, through meditation, through understanding how energetics works and law of attraction. Um, and so I was drawn to this work at a very early age. It’s something I’ve always practiced.

Um, and, you know, through my career, uh, which wasn’t mindset work and energetics work, I worked in casting for eight years, casting TV shows. Um, and then during the pandemic started a coaching business, um, at the time for actors. 

Um, but then I found I was talking a lot about mindset work tools and energy tools, and people were really resonating with changing their beliefs, changing from fear-based thoughts to love-based thoughts. Um, learning how to get outta bed faster, to move through doubt faster. 

Um, and I loved the results I was seeing with those students. And I am confident and proud to say that I’m in a place where I wanna teach this work to everybody because mindset work is everything. It’s what gets you outta bed in the, the morning.

 It is what gets you to your big launch. Um, it is what gets you to put out your emails, how you talk about yourself, um, and if that’s not there any strategy or marketing tools that you learn from any coach or anything that goes out the window, if you don’t have the right mindset backing it.

Leah: I totally agree. I totally agree. You, you know how I feel about that. We’re very aligned on that. So let me ask you this question. It’s been such a gift to watch you. What does the word hustle mean to you?

Shannon: Hmm, that’s interesting. A whole mix of things. Um, I look at it from an energy perspective. So there is feminine energy, which is more flow and surrendering, trusting, releasing, and then there’s masculine energy, which is hustle, taking action. 

And the key is balancing both. That is how we move through life, the easiest. That is how we call in the things that we want. Um, I lean a little bit more feminine, but I’m gonna sound hypocritical here because I feel like there is hustle in the feminine as well. Um, because releasing old thought patterns, that takes work. 

So to me, like hustle is still, there’s still work involved, whether it’s based in the feminine or the masculine. Um, and really to do that, like it, it’s, it’s all about the mindset work. It’s like, am I ready to move through this fear? Am I ready to take this big leap?

Like I feel like hustle to me, I’m learning to love the word a little bit more because I used to think that hustle was more work, work, work until you burn out. Right?

 And that is what I, how I, I started my business. I would go two, three months off with or without a single day off. And I used to resent hustle. Mm-hmm. . And now I think I’m learning to love it and realizing, oh, a lot of this energetics work I’m doing there is this, I have this motion to propel me forward, which I guess I also relate hustle to as well.

Leah: Yeah. I love what you said because I think the reason that people have this resistance to the word and even to the work ethic is because we have associated hustle with burnout. And it’s sort of like if you’re hustling, you’re gonna burnout, or if you’re hustling, you’re burnt out and you’re working anyway. 

And I think that that is a huge disservice to entrepreneurship in general because the words are different. They mean different things. I mean, hustle can mean whatever you want it to mean to you, but burnout is very clear and you will see the negative effects of that. Whereas I think hustle, you can see some positive effects from it. You, you need to have awareness when you will push yourself too hard. Of course. 

But that’s like anything in life. It’s what I think people are, are, are, anyway, I’m not actually gonna, I was gonna do an an exercise analogy, but I’m not gonna, cause I have so many questions I wanna ask you.

So, um, I, I love also what you said about how mindset work you can, you almost have to hustle through mindset work, and that’s not like there’s a race for it or that you need to do it in a, in an aggressive way, but hustle almost just means grit and like dedication and commitment and seeing things through. 

So can you talk to us a little bit about some of the biggest mindset work shifts you went through or maybe are still going through and had to really, you know, find some discomfort in, especially when you were getting like to your first six figures?

Shannon: Oh my gosh. I feel like every week I hit a new mindset, um, block basically how I describe it to my students because I think when they come into my three month program or a one off seminar, they think that that’s the quick easy fix that will set them up for the rest of their lives. 

And I am very, very, uh, obvious in the fact that I’m like, we will always be works in progress. This is tools that you’ll have forever, but the work is always being done. There are constantly new blocks that you will hit as you continue to up level mm-hmm. . And that’s just part of the journey. And you can fight that or you can learn to love it. 

Um, but yeah, I mean the first thing that pops up for me is right off the bat when I decided I wanted to start a business, you knew for a while that it was a, a little seed in my mind, but I was terrified because of course so many people focus on how how?

How is it gonna happen? How am I gonna do it? What will people say? And they don’t focus on the why, like why they’re doing it. Mm. 

Um, and I think my why, for me just being very intuitive and in touch with my feelings had to grow on its own to the point where I couldn’t ignore the why anymore. I was like, oh, this is clearly something I need to do. 2020 hit casting offices, shut down TV productions were down. I’m like, this is it. This is the universe giving me this gift right now. 

And I had every single person in my life besides my husband, and I think my parents, um, but all of my friends, um, my father-in-law really questioned, you’re gonna leave a job that you love, that you make great money in that you are like making all these connections in for the last eight years.

I would, you know, have a big fancy Hollywood job. Um, and I’m like, yeah, and I can’t tell you anything other than it’s just what feels right.  Um, but I think I have, usually the mindset work blocks are internal, but here I had everyone externally saying, don’t do this. 

Um, so that to me will be something I’m always the most proud of because it was the hardest but best decision I ever made in my life. Um, but I’m constantly hitting new mindset blocks, whether it’s a new income goal I’m seeing for myself, whether it is expanding my audience, um, you know, I, I am expanding to entrepreneurs to other people now. 

And of course I had that belief for so long. Oh, I’m only meant to help actors because that’s the background that I have when really this work is for everybody. Right. Um, so yeah, I just think it is, whether it is a financial, uh, breakthrough, an upper limit, um, an imposter syndrome. 

I mean, they come up all the time and they come up really, I, I would say every week I have a little voice in my head cuz we’ll never eliminate that voice. Like it will always be there, but I get to decide through this mindset work and energetics work how long I wanna listen to that voice. 

Like, is it gonna take control over me or do I wanna nip it in the bud right now and say,  not today, fear like, I’m moving through this. My dreams are bigger than this. You know?

Leah: Right, right. Absolutely. And you do have just that huge commitment to it. And I think a lot of people like to think that they’re very committed to mindset work, but, and I’m victim to this too because I’m, I’m a bit more of a natural masculine energy operator than you are.

 We’ve talked about this a lot. I will take so much action that sometimes a day will pass and I’ll be like, did I really nurture my mind today? And I have to like check myself and be honest with myself and really make sure that I actually do that. 

Because it is very easy to say, to do mindset work and to not do it. Totally. When you look back at that time, and I remember when you were like starting to hit your first five figure month and it was very exciting, but you were working a lot, you were working long days, long hours, you were taking a lot of action. 

Um, do you think that your business would bury where it is today if you didn’t have that chapter of, of hustle by all means?

Shannon: Oh, that’s a great question. Um, I think like where the time you’re referring to, like I was mainly just doing audition coaching and I did not charge a lot. I was of the mind that I can only be of service if I’m discounting my prices. 

But really I was discounting myself mm-hmm. because I was exhausted for months and months and months. Mm-hmm. and I wasn’t making any money. I was, I was barely hitting. 

Um, you know, I didn’t even hit a five figure month until I started working with you, Leah. And I would see Leah working, like she was very open. Like, I, I work three or four days a week and then I spend days, but this was before you had a kid, whether it was shopping or a spa day or getting your nails done. And I was like, how is this possible?

I was thinking that being a business owner, you couldn’t take days off. I didn’t think there was room to play and you were somebody that helped me realize, oh no, this can be playful, this can be fun. You need to celebrate everything.

 And so I think while I was crashing and burning and just so exhausted from not making money, from giving my all, um, I finally finally said, you know what, I am only gonna work four days a week. I went from seven days a week and months and months of that straight to, nope, I am gonna be very dedicated to working four days a week and I’m gonna start getting a massage once a month. 

Like, I started adding it, adding in a lot of these playful things. And it did wonders for me. And I think the bigger thing was, okay, like you’re working four days a week, you need to be charging more.

You need to be thinking outside the box with these bigger programs. You need to, uh, see the worth in yourself, see the value in what you were providing people. And all of that kind of happened at once. 

And then when I hit that, that five figure month, I’m like, oh wait, this, this felt amazing. This felt like I did less work. Mm-hmm. . Um, which still I would say I’m like 90% like, like at ease with that being like, yeah, that’s how it gets to be.

 But I still have that 10% sometimes where I’m like, really? Like, can I actually take this day off and can, can this be that fun? You know? And you were the one that really brought that energy into my life.

Leah: Oh, thank you . I’m glad to hear that. But it was amazing to see because you did go from like, you almost cut your work week in half and then doubled your income. 

And it’s like, by so many, so many purposes, like so many ways of thinking that doesn’t compute. Right. 

How do you do that? How is that possible? And you, you did that and I think that that’s why it’s so powerful for you to now help entrepreneurs because you are your best testimonial. 

And I can say having watched you do it the whole thing, I mean, yes, we work together and I helped you with your strategies and everything, but your energetics work and your dedication to who you are and how you show up is why you made that kind of like time collapse and why you made that, you know, income double. 

So I think you’re, I know you’re gonna help so many entrepreneurs do it, but something I want everyone listening to really hear is, even though you hear Shannon talk about mindset work so much and energetic work, and even though she’s the queen of it, she does take action and it’s not exhaustive, but like I’ve never seen her other than when you were doing all that coaching.

I’ve never seen you be like, I’m so exhausted from writing all these emails. Or like, I just, you know, she knows when to outsource. It’s not like she exhausts herself from it, but if her and I are talking about something she wants to do, we lay out a strategy and she does it. 

And the reason that I think she might think she doesn’t take as much action as she does. I’m talking for you a lot right now, but just, I’m excited to hear how you think of this cuz this is how I’m seeing it. I think you don’t realize how much action you take because you don’t have any energetic charge behind these actions. They’re neutral to you. 

You don’t go into drama every time you’re about to write an email about what if someone thinks this about it or what if someone hates me or what if someone unsubscribes and you don’t go into drama every time you raise your price because you’re afraid of all this rejection sometimes, but not a lot. 

You really just take your to-do list and go through it and there’s, it doesn’t feel that heavy cuz it’s just checking things off. And the reason I think you don’t have all that drama about it is because of your minds at work. Do you think that’s true?

Shannon:  Yeah. Oh yeah, totally. I, I definitely feel very balanced. Have I had moments in my life where I wasn’t balanced? Absolutely. 

But I think the older I get and the more mindset work and energetics work that I, uh, consume, my body fully goes off a feeling and my body does not like these high, high highs and low, low lows. It likes to be flowing and I think that the crazy highs and the crazy lows are exhausting.

 So I really feel confident saying that the tools that I teach entrepreneurs helps you feel that balance all the time where not every day is today was the worst day or today was the best day. It’s like every day is honestly a good day.

Leah:  Yeah, I love that. And I relate to that because I think I included a lot of entrepreneurs, um, like almost live for the highs. Like it can be kind of like, you know, push and it keeps you going. 

And I look, I don’t think that’s always an inherent bad trait because I think it can help you invite a lot of creativity and it can make you really daring and brave, but it’s really not a sustainable way to live or run a business or have a job. And I think getting to the place where as you’re now teaching, you can still create just as much and you can still have just as much adversity. 

No business owners are immune to it, but it doesn’t have to affect you internally is where you really start experiencing things like the work-life balance that you want and the success that you want and the attraction that you want.

Shannon: Totally.

Leah: Big game changer. So what I know that, what do you think a lot of entrepreneurs out there who are struggling to hit their first five figure month? Um, what do you think is a big energetic block that they might be facing?

Shannon: Yeah, so this is a great question. I always, so again, going off of that masculine energy and that feminine energy, the first thing I always do is see what I’m meeting this task with. Am I hitting it with a lot of masculine? Am I sending all the sales emails? Am I, you know, working really hard with my coach to come up with this business plan and nothing seems to be working?

 My advice would be why not spend the next week doing the opposite of that? Put in a little bit more of that feminine energy. What, what would happen if you took the day off and went to the spa and just trusted that the work you did last week is the work that needs to be done? Um, or maybe it’s the opposite of that. 

And, and this is because I am feminine and like in my own business, like I tend to just like trust, trust, trust. Because I’m like, it feels good, it feels aligned. 

But then there are days also where I’m like, okay Shannon, like if you’re not seeing the results that you are desiring, let’s meet this with a little bit more masculine energy that seems to be like my be bread and butter for me and my clients. Um, yeah.

Leah: But I think, I mean, and this kind of brings our conversation full circle. I think that the key there is that sometimes there’s this misconception that choosing, choosing trust means that you just believe everything’s working out for you, so therefore you don’t really need to do anything. 

But what I’m hearing from you is that choosing trust means you just trust yourself. And so if you’re in a situation where you need to take some time off and go to the spa, yes, you can trust that the work you did will cover whatever time you need to take off. 

But you also trust that if your intuition is saying, Hey, why don’t we step it up today and see what it’s like to crank it up a little, then you listen to that and you go with that and you like, let that come to life. 

And I think that that is such a powerful, I love that you said bread and butter to it instead of just thinking that trust means like a passiveness because I think you really miss out on your co-creation with the universe if you do it that way.

Shannon: Totally.

Leah: Awesome. Tell us a little bit more about your mindset work program.

Shannon: Yeah. So my mindset work is like my child, I always like to say that I, it is something that I am the most proud of. I am somebody who, when I first hit the ground running in my business every month I was coming out with a new little course, um, a journaling course, a mindset work course, uh, courses specifically for actors. 

At the time I was just banging ’em out. And this is something that I spent three months planning a year and a half ago. I’ve had over 70 people take the mindset work program, which is even crazy to say out loud. Um, but it is a three month program. 

We meet every single week in a group setting where we learn a lot of different energy and mindset work tools. We learn about the universal laws, which I know you’re familiar with. We learn about, um, the energy centers in our body, the chakras, learning how to balance our chakras and how to heal them.

We learn about energetic entities and how to communicate with energy. Again, this sounds very, uh, I always like to joke saying hippie dippy, but like this is the most transformative work I’ve given my students. A lot of them have been actors who had nothing on their resume and are now starring in major TV shows as series regulars on billboards all around California right now. 

And like they, they feel that this energetics work and mindset work is the reason for these massive ships because all we’re doing is replacing old energy and calling a new energy to replace it.

 And then a lot of times, um, like that first week in the course, we talk about, um, reframing, right, reframing, uh, fear-based thoughts, turning them to love-based thoughts, clearing that runway. The analogy I always give is, if your desire is to be a million dollar business, pretend that’s a plane in the sky.

Any desire you have, you’re building a plane and all the plane needs to do to land in your life is have a clear runway. But the runway has all these limiting beliefs and stuck energy of, I’ll never be a millionaire. It’s hard to make money. Uh, I am not unique enough. No one will like my messaging. Well, the plane can’t land unless all of that is clear.

 And so that’s what those three months are about, is clearing that runway, making sure you are this open channel to receive all of your desires, to trust the timing and not feel so, um, hard on yourself saying, why isn’t this happening now? No, if this is meant for you and you really believe that maybe it’s happening five months from now or five years from now, would you still be okay with that knowing that it’s on its way to you?

 Um, so I think it just is here to help you with manifesting, of course, the big fancy word everyone likes to talk about. Um, but really it’s just replacing energy with energy. Um, it’ll help you understand how the universe is always working for you. 

Um, and it’ll help you release the timeline and just flow through life, make this work fun and beautiful and a little bit easier on you knowing how powerful you are and how magical the universe is.

Leah: Beautiful. Uh, chills. And you guys just listening, you know, as someone who spent two and a half years learning every strategy I could, going through every course, I could resisting mindset work because it felt like it was almost too easy or too fluffy. 

The only thing that changed things for me was mindset work and energetics work. And I think the very powerful thing about Shannon’s program, I know sometimes it can be like, well, should I invest in a mindset work program or should I invest in like a VA or a Facebook ads or whatever?

 And I get that, you know, we all have to make those decisions. But if you feel like you are not able to express your uniqueness, take her program because there will always be someone who’s doing what you’re doing, but there will not be another you doing what you’re doing.

 And if you can’t really pull that out and let it shine, then it’s very easy to fall into the trap of competition. 

So I guess what I’m just trying to say is this energy stuff isn’t just about making you feel good. It’s an asset. It’s also a true business investment and you will see an ROI on it. Shannon, what is your favorite daily mindset work practice?

Shannon: Ooh, so I always start my day. This is a little bit more energetics work, um, but I always start my day connecting to light. Um, so I know that, yeah, so, um, I, I call it my golden pink light exercise. That’s what a lot of my students know it as.

 And any mindset seminar class, my three month program, I do it every single week. I did it right before this call. Um, it’s a nice way to feel balanced. Again, that’s the, I feel like the theme of what I’ve been talking about today is coming, coming at life through balanced energy.

 And really, I basically just envision myself, uh, rooting to the earth. I picture pink light basically coming up through the earth and moving up through my body, and I picture gold light coming down from the sky moving down into my body. 

And essentially you have this, like, this grounding energy pulling you down to where your feet are planted, being really present, but at the same time you have this gold light that is connecting you to your higher self, a higher consciousness, enlightenment, whatever word clicks for you.

But to me it just feels like I could be fully present. I think that, uh, I tend to, and I don’t know if anybody else is like this, I talk a mile a minute, a lot of times I’m go, go, go. I am constantly thinking about the next thing. And all I need to do is that quick little exercise to help me feel really centered. 

Um, that is something I do every single day consistently. Um, and then it’s funny with journaling, I actually don’t journal every day. I only journal when I feel called to it. Uh, whether I need clarity, whether I need to release, like whatever stuck energy is in my mind or my body, um, or just like a, a good old goal sheet, you know? 

Um, so that is something I would still say I do at least a few times a week. Um, that I think is very helpful just to get any ideas, any energy, good or bad. Mm-hmm. , just on paper mm-hmm. just releasing that feels so, so good. Mm-hmm. . Um, but yeah, that is probably the two things that I do the most frequently.

Leah: Hmm. I love the light exercise. I’ve never heard that before. That is such a, like clear visual. Mm-hmm. And you can really feel the energy behind it. 

Thank you for sharing those with us. Yeah, of course. Is there anything else you wanna share about your journey through entrepreneurship thanks to energetics or any words of wisdom or anything else?

Shannon: Yeah, I mean, I just think if you’re listening to this, I’m assuming you are an entrepreneur and you have signed up to do one of the hardest, bravest, most special things you could ever imagine. It’s, I just think any entrepreneur, I just wanna hug them because I’m just like, oh my gosh. It what a journey it is. 

But how awesome are we for being brave enough to go after our dreams when so many people don’t? And like, I just want every entrepreneur I can get emotional about it. Just, I want everyone to know how special they are for seeing this big goal, this desire they feel in their body and going after it. 

Because there are gonna days where you don’t believe in it. I even have those days, again, I, I am the mindset work coach that doesn’t negate fear. I normalize it mm-hmm. and I say, okay, like, what is this teaching me?

What triggers are coming up? And so you’re gonna have days like that, but I let my vision outweigh the fears. I let my magic outweigh the fears. And that is what I hope you constantly do. 

That is what mindset work and energetics work has done for me. It allows me to just see the big picture here and, and know why I’m doing this, constantly connecting back to my why. 

Um, so yeah, I just commend everybody listening for doing something so brave that so many people aren’t doing. And if you ever feel called to doing mindset work and energetics work, it will change your life.

Leah: Hmm. Beautiful. I got chills when you just talked about how special every entrepreneur is.

 I saw a post, um, months ago, but it really resonated with me. I wish I remember who posted it, but it was saying how they’re so sick of this narrative entrepreneurs say about like, there’s nothing special about me. You can do it too. 

And it’s like, no, there’s actually a lot special about you to really be able to raise your hand and say, I want something more is super special. So really sit with that and I think it’s a great reminder. Thank you. Where can people find you, Shannon?

Shannon: Uh, people can find me on my Instagram, which is Shannon Bill’s coaching, um, my website, shannon bills.com. Feel free to message me, email me. Would love to hear from you guys.

Leah: Oh, thank you so much for sharing, Shannon. This was inspirational as always, and I think you’re gonna help a lot of people. We love you.

Shannon: Thank you so much.

Leah: All right. Visionaries, reach out to Shannon and I hope that this helps your biggest vision. Bye everyone.

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