Elude Toxic People, Clear the Confusion & Trusting Yourself

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Sarah K Ramsey  0:02  

I’m going to give you two as well. So I absolutely had my kindness used against me, I took a personality test and it said that if there was a serial killer on the loose, my personality would be most likely to die. Because I just believed the best in humanity. And thought, well, as long as I was good, other people would be good back to me. So I didn’t have to do the wisdom of discernment. I could just be nice and God or the universe, or whatever you believe in would send nice people to me. And I didn’t have to worry about discernment. And seeing people for who they are seeing the truth behind their words and making sure the truth of their words and the truth of their actions align. And that’s wisdom. And that was a muscle and wisdom, I was not working in my earlier life, it was just like, everybody’s good. Or at least everybody that I know was good. Of course, there are bad people in the news. They’re bad people if I stayed out too late. They’re bad people. If I went behind the bar, you know, I shouldn’t do those things. But as long as I was staying in the lane, where the good people lived, that I would be fine. And that’s obviously a very naive way of thinking. But more people believe that way than you would think. Because when you have to confront evil, it’s scary.

 

Richard Matthews  1:31  

Heroes are an inspiring group of people, every one of them from the larger than life comic book heroes you see on the big silver screen, the everyday heroes that let us live the privileged lives we do. Every hero has a story to tell, the doctor saving lives at your local hospital, the war veteran down the street, who risked his life for our freedom to the police officers and the firefighters who risked their safety to ensure ours every hero is special and every story worth telling. But there was one class of heroes that I think is often ignored the entrepreneur, the creator, the producer, the ones who look at the problems in this world and think to themselves, you know what I can fix that I can help people, I can make a difference. And they go out and do exactly that by creating a new product or introducing a new service. Some go on to change the world, others make a world of difference to their customers. Welcome to the Hero Show. Join us as we pull back the masks on the world’s finest hero preneurs and learn the secrets to their powers their success and their influence. So you can use those secrets to attract more sales, make more money and experience more freedom in your business. I’m your host, Richard Matthews, and we are on in 3…2…1…

 

Richard Matthews  2:26  

 Hello and welcome back to The Hero Show. My name is Richard Matthews and today I have live on the line Sarah K Ramsay. Sarah are you there?

 

Sarah K Ramsey  2:35  

I’m here. Hello!

 

Richard Matthews  2:38  

Awesome. Where are you calling in from today Sarah?

 

Sarah K Ramsey  2:42  

I am in Tennessee, the pretty part of Tennessee. Tennessee is a long state so I’m in the pretty part.

 

Richard Matthews  2:51  

We got to go to Tennessee a couple of years ago on our travels got to go into Nashville and I loved Nashville. One of my favorite cities we’ve been in in the whole country. Really good food really fun people I had the best donut in my life there. So I’m a fan of Tennessee.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  3:08  

Most people are it’s come a long way, we wear shoes and internet and everything now.

 

Richard Matthews  3:14  

I know, also while we were in Nashville, we had a tornado warning while we were there. We were in downtown Nashville going to the Honky Tonk bars. And a tornado tried to touch down in downtown while we were there. I was like, I feel like we’ve had the true Nashville experience because we had good music and we had good food and we had Midwestern storms.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  3:39  

Yeah. That’s funny. Yeah, you had the three Nashville experiences, for sure.

 

Richard Matthews  3:48  

Cool. So for my listeners who’ve been following along with my wife and I travels. We are currently in Kissimmee, Florida. We’re at one of our favorite resorts down here in Florida and having a good time. So what I want to do to start off is just do a really brief introduction for who you are. And we’ll get to start talking about your story. So Sarah is a toxic relationship specialist, best-selling author, and a life coach. And so what I want to have you start off with is telling me what it is that you’re known for? Who do you serve? What do you do for them?

 

Sarah K Ramsey  4:21  

I help people who have had their kindness used against them, become toxic person proof. So I love the superhero idea. We talked about becoming your own superhero all the time. And yes, people just think okay, well, I’m nice and everyone will be nice back and you won’t be a villain. But there are villains. There are other superheroes who have bad days, there are all these complexities of the human experience. And we want to be able to bring our best self to each version of those experiences.

 

Richard Matthews  5:00  

And so what you do is you help people who have dealt with those toxic relationships to work on themselves, so they know how to protect themselves from those kinds of relationships?

 

Sarah K Ramsey  5:11  

Yeah, to build themselves back up, to have true confidence to learn to trust themselves, to clear any confusion leftover in their heads, and go on to design a life that’s worth living.

 

Richard Matthews  5:28  

Awesome. So just to follow on question is how do you actually deliver on the life coaching? Is it one on one? Is it speaking from stage or group coaching? How do you actually deliver your goods?

 

Sarah K Ramsey  5:42  

All of the above. So I believe in different learning styles. I do one on one coaching, I do walk people through a curriculum of reconnecting with what’s right with you, becoming a toxic person proof. And designing a life you’re excited about living, which is all the clues and data I had from all these conversations. It’s like, whoa, everybody needs some of the same information. Like we all need to learn to drink water and green vegetables are good for us. There are some things that are just baseline that everyone needs to know. And then there are different nuances of problems that people might help solve.

 

Richard Matthews  6:25  

Absolutely. So you teach in a lot of different modalities. What I want to find out is how you got into this space. We talked on this show about your origin story. Every comic book hero has an origin story, and it’s the thing that made you into the hero you are today, were you born a hero? Or were you bit by a radioactive spider that made you get into toxic relationship coaching? Basically, where did you come from? What made you want to get into entrepreneurship, and helping people the way that you do?

 

Sarah K Ramsey  6:57  

If I had a superhero costume, it would be like a P and a P for People Pleaser. That would have been my first superhero costume not now. But like my orange superhero costume. And at the time, I felt that was my hero’s journey. It was taking care of everyone else. It was doing the right thing. It was being selfless, it was being kind. I was annoyingly nice. My college or my high school, spring break. Instead of going and drinking with my friends. I talked to my parents to take me to a Salvation Army Orphanage. And we helped the orphans on my spring break. And so I was just kind of annoyingly good. I grew up in a very religious household where it was good to be good and loved it, I had a lot of identity in that. And there were pieces of it that I still hold on to and that I still believe in. But there were a lot of People Pleasing there was a lot of love. There’s that phrase, love others as you love yourself. And I was living a life of loving everyone except for myself. Which is not loving anyone well, it’s needing them to like me. It’s needing them to think I’m wonderful. It’s needing them to think I’m okay. It’s needing them to validate my decision.

 

Richard Matthews  8:30  

Yeah, absolutely.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  8:31  

So I thought I was a superhero and I was trying to be everyone else’s superhero. I wasn’t learning to save myself.

 

Richard Matthews  8:43  

Yeah, I know the love others as you love yourself. It’s like Matthew 12 or something that Jesus is up on the Sermon on the mountain someone asked him what the greatest commandment is he says love the Lord your God with all your heart soul mind strength and love your neighbors as you love yourself and the thing that always stuck out to me with that is so many people forget that part of the commandment was love yourself. And it always reminds me of the ladies on the airplane so we’re like if we experienced a loss and cabin pressure first put the mask over yourself and then help others around you. Because you can’t help someone else. You can’t love someone else if you don’t love yourself like if your own cup isn’t full.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  9:31  

And the thing that really clicked in my head is how good I was at helping other people become more selfish. Or if you’re from a biblical background, how good I wasn’t helping everyone else become better sinners. And I thought I was being selfless. I thought I was being unkind. I thought I was doing the right thing. But there was growing up and maturity that they needed to do that. I was trying to save them from. It was incredibly unhealthy. I would call it enabling behavior now. But at the time, I thought it was just being a good Christian girl, I thought I was just doing the right thing. And it resulted in my nervous system shutting down, I stopped driving a car. I’m completely sober. No drugs, no prescription drugs, no alcohol, and my body just shut down. And I stopped driving. And I had three other women in the car with me that it could have been devastating. And it was the wake up call I needed.

 

Richard Matthews  10:35  

So how did you go from body shutting down having a problem with your identity, essentially, to becoming an entrepreneur who helps other people who are in the same situation?

 

Sarah K Ramsey  10:50  

Very good question. And I built on what I was already good at. So I was already good at helping other people like that was already part of my identity and who I was, the piece that was missing was leading by example. Have you ever met someone who said, I’m great at giving advice, but I don’t take my own advice. Those people may think they’re being nice. They may think they’re being kind, they may think they’re being whatever caring, but in reality, they’re being dishonest. They’re saying, I’m willing to tell you what to do. But I’m not willing to do it myself. And I wanted to become someone who was willing to do it themselves. It was saying, hey, put the air mask on your own face, and put the air mask on my own face. I wanted to do what I was telling other people they should do. And that was the real piece I was missing on the love others and love myself.

 

Richard Matthews  12:05  

Yeah, absolutely. So just FYI, you cut out for just a second there on my side. Recording should still be there. So we should be fine. 

 

Sarah K Ramsey  12:16  

I made sure to cover it, I think you’ll be fine. I was saying that I wanted to lead by example, that a lot of people say yeah, I’m great at giving advice that I don’t take myself. And so I wanted to become someone who loved others and loved themselves. And showed both of those things in my life.

 

Richard Matthews  12:38  

Cool. So what I want to find out next then is in this journey of becoming a superhero, you’re a superhero that you’re actually proud to be, instead of what you call a people pleaser. How did you discover your superpower? We talked on the show, every superhero has a superpower, whether that’s super strength or a fancy flying suit made by their genius intellect, or the ability to call down thunder from the sky. Your superpower is either a skill or a set of skills that you were born with, or you developed over time, that really help you to slay the villains in your client’s life and help them come out on top in their journeys. And the way I like to phrase it or frame it for people is if you look at all the skills that you’ve developed over the course of your career, there’s probably a common thread that ties them all together. And that common thread is where you’ll find your superpower. So with that framing, what do you think your superpower is?

 

Sarah K Ramsey  13:35  

I’m an incredible communicator. So I take very complicated problems and give you a story. I don’t want to compare myself to Jesus at all, but you brought him up. So when Jesus was teaching through a story, whether it’s a sermon on the mount, or the goods Samaritan or the fish and the loaves, there’s some like story that we remember. When we say I want to be the Good Samaritan. I want to be the widow gives her very last bit because of her religion, I want to be that widow, I want to be the Good Samaritan. I don’t want to be the man the rich man who can’t fit through the eye of the camel, whatever these stories are, we remember them and we can tell them. And what’s important is to give people stories they remember, for example, you’ve heard of boundaries like everyone needs to have better boundaries. And so a story that I tell is the story of the three little pigs. Okay, so you have a pig who had stick boundaries, a pig who had straw boundaries, and a pig who had brick boundaries. So I asked you, which boundary change the Big Bad Wolf?

 

Richard Matthews  15:07  

The brick boundaries?

 

Sarah K Ramsey  15:09  

Did it change the Big Bad Wolf? Did he stop huffing and puffing? Or did it just protect the pig? 

 

Richard Matthews  15:14  

It protected the pig.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  15:16  

Yep. So when we think about boundaries, you hear that word thrown around from someone’s mistreating you. A boss, an employee, a spouse, a parent, a sibling, and people say you need to work on your boundaries. That’s great, we do need to work on boundaries, but the purpose of boundaries is to protect pigs. Not to change the wolf. Because I think we get this idea in our head, oh, my boss will change personalities if I have better boundaries. My mother will stop playing the victim in her life if I had better boundaries. My sibling will take more responsibility for Christmas dinner if I have better boundaries. That’s not the purpose of boundaries. It’s to protect pigs, not to change wolf, because the big bad wolf still huffed and he puffed, he could blow the house down. But he didn’t say, oh, well, you beat me, now we can be friends. Oh, you showed me didn’t you, I’m gonna change personalities, and let’s play gin rummy now. And we can just hang out in your house and all be fine. This is what I think people think of when it comes to boundaries. And it’s an unfortunate piece of conversation that I’m looking to change. But that’s my superpower, you’ll remember that story forever every time you hear the word boundaries.

 

Richard Matthews  16:41  

So there are two things I want to pull out of that. One of them is the actual superpower of storytelling. The second one, I have comments on the boundaries thing, I think that’s really fascinating. But first is storytelling, one of the things that I’ve been a really strong believer in for a long time. I actually went to Bible College, it’s one of my foundational thing. So I have a whole bunch of study in that space. But one of the things I learned there, and I can remember exactly who it was that said this to me, but it’s stuck forever. And it was that human beings as a species, we are a story born people. So everything we do everything in our lives, we judge on stories, and the way that we look at relationships, we build our relationships and measure our relationships on the stories that we know and the stories that we tell. And so one of the things that I regularly tell my kids and my clients, my co-workers, my friends, is that we judge relationships based on stories. So you have a friend, or an acquaintance might be someone whose name you know, but whose story you don’t. A friend is someone who you know their name, and you know some of their stories. And a best friend is someone that you know their name, and you know, so many of their stories that the only way you get to be closer is to go out and create new stories and experiences together. And so, our relationships are always about stories. And I always tell people, if you want to know the secret to relationship hacking, it’s getting good at telling stories, and hearing stories. So the exchange of stories is how relationships are built. And that’s why podcasting is a way to know different stories.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  18:21  

I love that. And also in that realm of knowing your stories, if someone is stuck in their own life, and they’re like, do I have a good life right now? Or are there things I need to change? You can think about your life as a story in a movie. And if you were the character in your own life, and they were filming you, people go, oh, my gosh, why is she putting that behavior? Or would they say you’re such a jerk? Why are you always ignoring her kids? Or would they say, you have got to leave that job? It can be a really fun way of getting clear about the story of our own lives. And where we might need attention.

 

Richard Matthews  19:05  

To own your own story, because you’re in charge, you’re the author of your own story. And I think that’s super powerful. And then the second thing that I wanted to comment on was the boundaries thing and the boundaries. That’s an interesting discussion on boundaries. We talked about boundaries a lot on this show, but we talked about a different form of boundaries. So I’ll probably get into this a little bit when we talk about fatal flaws, which is the other side of the superpowers is the lack of self-care is something that I struggled with for a long time. And a lot of times that showed up in not having good boundaries with clients and having good boundaries with my relationship with time, like how I was spending my time on my business and other things and realizing that I had to build boundaries. And one of my favorite stories in relation to boundaries was the Anthony Elephant by Vincent Scotti. He talked about this experiment they did with children and boundaries. And so they had a park that was outside of the school. And it’s got a big concrete pad where they could play on the outside of the concrete pad. And then the grass park is lined by the sidewalks and the streets that go into the town or whatever. And they took all the fencing down off around the grass area and let all the kids go out to play. And all the kids, when there are no boundaries, they would self-select the boundary of the concrete pad, and all the kids would stay on the concrete pad and repeat the experiment multiple times multiple groups of kids same experience, but no boundary, they all stay on the concrete pad because it’s an invisible boundary. And the moment they put the fencing up, back around the grass, the kids would spread out across the whole thing. And the conclusion was essentially that creativity thrives with boundaries. And so one of the things that I started doing and applying in my life was learning how to use boundaries to influence creativity. So it works in a lot of different ways. I’m a photographer by hobby, I used to do it professionally. But one of the things as a photographer is you have a little box. That’s the world that you get to view the world, you get to show other people your view of the world. And that’s your boundary. A lot of artists are that way, you have the boundary of your canvas or the boundary of the film that you’re producing. And I like to think of boundaries in terms of everything that we do. So I started doing that with my time for my business, where I was doing the whole entrepreneurship thing where it’s like, let’s work 90 or 100 hours a week. And the harder I work, the longer I work the more progress I’ll make, and you find out that’s not really true. Because time can be abusive. Like it could be in an abusive relationship. And I started cutting that, where it’s like, what happens to my life, if I start saying, hey, I can only work eight hours a day, or I can only work five days a week, or I can only work four days a week, and maybe it’s only six hours a day for four days a week. And I’m at this point now where I work on average, four hours a day, four days a week, and I run two companies, with employees all over the world. Whereas when I was working 90 hours a week, I was by myself and getting nothing accomplished. And it was only by creatively using boundaries, that I was able to change that relationship, that toxic relationship with time. So anyway, I wanted to share that story with you to see what your thoughts are, and how that sort of fits in with your view of boundaries.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  22:55  

Oh my gosh, so that’s really fascinating, that one you’re talking to me about because I am almost finished with my second book. And I’ve written it in about two weeks. And I have been taking naps. And I’ve been going to bed and getting like 10 or 11 hours of sleep. And I have been turning my radio off and thinking in my car, and really purposely detoxing my own life from the stress of entrepreneurship. There were some recent situations. I had an incredible February, my book hit the bestseller list, I had all these people wanting to work with me and had an incredible winter and spring within my business. They have had an incredible summer with my kids, getting them ready and preparing them for certain things. And I had to go in this season of almost fall or late summer. And I was like I don’t have any major problems to solve. I’m at a good place in my life. I’m at a good place with my kids. I’m in a good place in my marriage, I’m in a good place in my business or even great with all that. I need to chill out, I need to hit the reset button for this next thing. And my husband came in this morning. I was typing. And he said, what are you doing? And I said, oh, I’ve almost finished my second book and what? How did you do that? I said, look and I showed him the book outline with all the chapters and its first draft. I’m going to do changes and let people read it and make changes obviously. But he goes, how did you do that? Because he knows I’m taking naps, going to bed early. I’m not working as much. I’m not working as late and it’s exactly what you said it’s creating that space in my head. So that when it’s time to come out and be creative or come out and problem-solving or come out in power come out and communicate, I’m more powerful.

 

Richard Matthews  24:59  

Yeah Absolutely.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  25:03  

It’s scary too. People have asked what I’m afraid of? Because I’ll watch a book, I’ll put up a course, I’ll do a public event, I’ll do podcasts, I’ll do whatever. And they asked me what I’m afraid of, and I’m afraid of this next book, like, I’m kind of thinking maybe I’ll write another book. So I release it before I have to release this book. Because it does seem like kind of this harnessed power that is out of my comfort zone. And I haven’t been out of my comfort zone in a while, which doesn’t make sense if you look at my life, because it seemed like I was out of other people’s comfort zones. But I haven’t been out of my comfort zone in a while. So it’ll be interesting to see what happens. I’m basing my feelings as we’re talking.

 

Richard Matthews  25:51  

That brings up another topic that I love to talk about, which is the idea that as entrepreneurs, we like to think of rest as a reward, and not rest as a requirement to do good work. So we like to think, when I’m done, when I accomplish my task, then I’ll rest, then I’ll go and have some fun with my kids. I’ll go do these things, I’ll take the dog for a walk, or whatever it is that we put in our rest and recreation boxes. And the problem as entrepreneurs is we never get to fair because we don’t really have a good definition there anyways. So we never do that. And I find that in order to do good work in order to do powerful work, like you’re talking about, you have the rest and recreation is the requirement that you have to do first. And you see all of that, and there are book titles, like Pay Yourself First. It’s talking about profits and accounting and whatnot. But it’s the same concept, you have to learn how to put yourself first. We mentioned at the beginning, you have to put your own mask on, you have to love yourself first. And that’s part of that whole process is learning to include rest and recreation as part of what you do in order to do good work.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  27:10  

Well, and in leading by example. People asked me to become their problem-solvers for them. What I am obsessed with is taking complicated problems and helping people solve them. Okay, that’s really what I do, which toxic people just happened to be a really complicated problem. If you’re talking about cutting off your mother, that’s a very complicated problem. We’re talking about quitting your job because of a toxic boss. That’s a very complicated problem. So really, I’m a professional problem solver. And my LinkedIn says that, so I do help people become toxic person proof. I’m obsessed with this deconstruction of complicated problems and figuring out solutions for them. And if I’m tired, or if I’m showing up to these complicated problems distracted, not really paying attention to them, not really having enough energy to care. That should be terrifying to everyone. I need to show up as my best self because people are asking me, should I move across the country? Should I get a divorce? Should I cut boundaries with my child who maybe has drug issues and they’re trying to use me for money, these are huge problems to solve. I can’t in integrity, show up to these types of problems exhausted and distracted.

 

Richard Matthews  28:38  

That’s an interesting thing, too. It’s very visible for what you do. But it’s applicable to everyone, right? So even if what you’re doing is you’re helping your client build a website or write copy, it may not be visible hardcore relationship stuff that’s going to impact their life, but it’s the same kind of thing. If you don’t show up at the top of your game, that impacts people, it impacts the value that you can bring. So anyways, rest and creation is a very important part of having good boundaries in your life. So what I want to talk about though, is the flip side of your superpower. So if your superpower is storytelling and problem solving, the flip side of that is your fatal flaw. Just like Superman has his kryptonite or wonder woman who can’t remove her bracelets of victory without going mad. You probably have something that you struggled with—a flaw. And for me I had a couple of them. I mentioned one of them earlier. I struggled with lack of self-care which letting my clients walk all over me and not having good relationships with time. I also struggled with perfectionism for a long time. I was like, I can always tweak it, make it a little bit better, and then never actually ship it to market, which is a really low standard when you think about it because you’re not actually doing anything. You’re just playing with the lights on the screen is what my wife used to say. But I think more important than what your flaw is how you have you work to overcome it so you can continue to grow your business. So people who are listening might learn a little bit from your experience.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  30:16  

I’m gonna give you two as well. So I have absolutely had my kindness used against me, I took a personality test, and it said that, if there was a serial killer on the loose, my personality would be most likely to die. Because I just believed the best in humanity. And thought, well, as long as I was good, other people would be good back to me. So I didn’t have to do the wisdom of discernment. I could just be nice and God, or the universe, or whatever you believe in, would send nice people to me. And I didn’t have to worry about discernment. And seeing people for who they are, seeing the truth behind their words, and making sure that the truth of their words and the truth of their actions align. And that’s wisdom. And that was muscle and wisdom, I was not working in my earlier life, it was just like, everybody’s good. Or at least everybody that I know was good. Of course, there are bad people on the news. They’re bad people, if I stayed out too late, they’re bad people. If I went behind a bar, I shouldn’t do those things. But as long as I was staying in the lane, where the good people lived, that I would be fine. And that’s obviously a very naive way of thinking. But more people believe that way than you would think. Because when you have to confront evil, it’s scary. And I do think there are evil people now more so, I mean, according to experts, either one in every 10 or one in every five people have a personality disorder, which means that are going to blame shift, they are going to not feel bad if they hurt you. And they’re going to try to either control you or play the victim so that you do the work of the relationship. One out of every 10 or one out of every five, we cannot ignore those statistics if we want to protect our children from child abuse, we cannot ignore those statistics. If we want to protect ourselves from marrying someone who’s mentally unstable, we cannot ignore the statistics when we sign on the bottom line with either a customer or a business partner. Those are true statistics and it’s getting worse. I’d be like a scare factor, but it’s getting worse. So my first fatal flaw was believing in the good of humanity, which sounds funny because of course, I still believe in the good of humanity. I just also believe in discernment. Okay, and then I need to be wise, and not try to avoid the work of seeing what’s true before my eyes because I don’t want to see it. So that’s my first fatal flaw. And my second fatal flaw is the pressure I put on myself to get this message out, to help people, to want to change the world. I feel like it’s a gift, my ability to communicate difficult things, and in a way that sticks in a very sticky language is going to change the world. And I put a lot of pressure on myself to do so. So those are my two fatal flaws and working through them. I have several reminders on my phone that say this is a marathon, not a sprint, you do have time, you’re not in a hurry. Those types of reminders come up on my phone every single day. That tells me, yes, this is your mission. But your mission doesn’t have to be completed by the end of the day or the end of the week or the year.

 

Richard Matthews  34:09  

I like the idea of having reminders because I have that kind of thing. All our kids have their school tablets and my son recently discovered that if he puts a task in the reminders app on the family list, that it shows up on my phone and notifies me, like the other day, he put a repeating task on there. That was like every day at 12 o’clock reminding dad that I want to go with him for lunch. I was like, the kids think it.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  34:40  

Oh, that’s so cute.

 

Richard Matthews  34:44  

It’s the same type of system where you’re like, well now I have to go and take him shortly for lunch at some point because he went through the effort. But I like the idea of having reminders just show up constantly to remind you of what you’re doing and your goals. And the other thing you mentioned is the other flaw about having the discernment to realize that humanity has fallen like evil exists. It’s a hard thing to wrap your mind around. But it’s also a realization that I’ve come to as you get older, you realize that like, it’s not just humanity, it’s me. The older you get, the more experience you have in life, you realize that there’s a darkness inside of me too. And you’re like, oh, that’s scary. I remember I listened to some talks by Jordan Peterson who talked about confronting the darkness in you. And you realize that if I have that, so does everyone else. And you realize that everything operates on a bell curve, whether it’s the IQ points that are spread across a bell curve or the way technology gets accepted on a bell curve. Where people fall on the scale of goodness operates on a bell curve, the overwhelming majority of people you run into are going to be good. They’re going to be good people. We’re trying to be there, but there’s going to be the bell curves on either side, you’re gonna have your Mother Teresa’s and your Dalai Lama and whatnot on the one extreme, and you’re gonna have your serial killers and your other terrible people on the other side, your Hitler’s and those kinds of people they exist. That’s part of the spectrum of humanity. And we have to be willing to operate in a world where that’s a true reality.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  36:29  

And it’s hard in my book, becoming a toxic person if I say, there are toxic people, and you know them. Most people are good and safe, we’ll say nine out of 10. That’s pretty good on the bell curve. So nine out of 10 people are great, one out of every 10 you need to watch out for and they show up charming and helpful. Ted Bundy Oh, here, poor me, I have my crutches, and I need you to help me with my books, and suck these women in and then killed them. And Ted Bundy makes the news, someone who may destroy business doesn’t. Most child abusers are not making money. Maybe it’s a coach who tears down your child’s self-esteem. They’re not making the news. Maybe it’s a boss who tears down your self-esteem. They’re not making the news. But they exist.

 

Richard Matthews  37:32

Yeah. It’s a rough reality to learn to live with. So I think this would be an interesting transition for my next question, which is your common enemy. So every superhero has what I call an arch-nemesis. It’s the thing that they constantly fight against in their world. In the world of business, it takes a lot of forms, but I like to put it in the context of your clients, the people that hire you to help them. And it’s a mindset, or it’s a flaw that they struggle with, that if you had your magic wand, and the first time that they saw a sign of this online, you could just, Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo, and that would go away. Because you’re constantly having to help them overcome that so they can get the results they came to you for? What is that common enemy that you have to fight against in your world?

 

Sarah K Ramsey  38:25  

The idea of a comfort zone. So people come to me and say, well, I’m staying in this toxic situation, I’m staying in this toxic relationship, I’m staying in this toxic work environment, I’m staying in this toxic, whatever, because it’s comfortable. And I say no, what you’re describing is terrible, It’s not comfortable. But we get really braid of what will happen if something changes, and we forget to become afraid of what happens if things stay the same. And say it’s back when you were working 90 hours and had that toxic relationship with time, you’re probably afraid, oh, if I don’t work this much. I’ll lose money, I’ll lose self-respect, I’ll lose my business. And what you forgot to be afraid of is, what happens if I do work this much? Will I lose my children’s respect? Will I lose my health? Will I lose my marriage? Will I lose my ability to function at a high level? Will I lose my nervous system to adrenal fatigue? We forget to be afraid of what happens if we keep going as we currently are.

 

Richard Matthews  39:33  

It’s an interesting discussion on risk tolerance. Because as entrepreneurs, the thing that I see happen a lot and that I always tell people when I guest on others’ shows, one of the most common questions you get on a podcast is, what’s your favorite piece of advice? I always tell people to take the risk they are afraid of. Because generally, it’s those moments where you’re looking at like, whatever I’m going to do next is going to change my world, my world that I’m currently comfortable with. And it’s not that your world is comfortable, it’s that you have become comfortable in it. And when you change it, then you suddenly have to be uncomfortable for a little while it changes and I realized that all of the biggest shifts towards the positive I’ve had in my life have been when I’ve taken the risks I was afraid of. And it’s that same type of understanding that you’re in what you call the comfort zone, but it’s not really that it’s comfortable. It’s just that you understand it. You know how to respond and you know when your boss is saying abusive things if you just shut up and take it, that he’s not going to get any worse in your life. It’s predictable, you understand if I have this response, I’m going to get this feedback like you understand the feedback loop is what that reality is. It’s not that it’s comfortable. This is that you know what it is.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  41:00  

And predictively bad, it may feel better at that time, then unpredictably scary. But to call it a comfort zone seems bizarre. It’s predictably bad. That’s not uncomfortable. Why are we calling it that? Like, why are we not afraid of things staying the same? And sometimes people come to me and I use the term toxic people. You talk about a toxic boss. So let’s say a toxic boss is gnawing at your arm every day, so there’s like a crocodile, they’re chewing you and spitting on you in your arm. And you’re like, oh. Because people say, how do I not let toxic people bother me? And I say if there’s a crocodile gnawing your arm, and shooting it off, and you’re asking me how to not let that bother you. You’re asking the wrong question. And that’s the question people come for. Ask a better question: how do I stop the crocodile from gnawing my arm? It’s the pig question. It’s like the pig coming in saying, the fact that the big bad wolf wants to huff and puff and gobble me up and eat me? How do I not let that bother me? And it’s like, what? That’s naive, why do you know what not to bother you? The fact that it bothers you is your nervous system working. The fact that it bothers you means you’re not dead yet, and that’s a wonderful thing. There are still signals in your bodies that are saying something’s wrong, and you need to make a change. But we kind of forget. And people say, how does the big bad wolf not bother me or this crocodile gnawing my arm every day at work bother me? And it’s like, what? That’s the wrong question.

 

Richard Matthews  42:57  

Standing in the fire ant pit. Like when do you step outside of the thing,  when they’re biting your foot, you could keep it there. It sucks, change it, brush them off, get the ant poison, get rid of them.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  43:11  

People are stuck on the question of but the crocodile shouldn’t be by my arm? They get really stuck on that question, which is another one of my archenemies. This shouldn’t be the happening question. The crocodile shouldn’t be gnawing my arm, the big bad wolf shouldn’t be allowed to blow down my house. Well, that’s true. But it’s not illegal to be a jerk. There’s no law against being an asshole and you can even begin to enforce that. It’s unfortunate. But it’s the world we live in right now.

 

Richard Matthews  43:56  

It’s an interesting thing to teach your children too. So on both sides of that, because as a child, they don’t really have a lot of ideas of how to work in society. So they struggle with being assholes. Because they don’t really know how they fit in society. So you have to both A teach them how to not be an asshole, and at the same time, teach them how to recognize when someone else is being an asshole to them. And that it’s alright to say, no, that’s not cool. And I’ve been having a few of those discussions with one of my kids recently. She’s got a friend who’s been exerting some peer pressure to do things she doesn’t want to do and learning how to help her navigate those situations. It’s an interesting skill set you have to learn how to do that. It’s not something we’re just built in knowing how to avoid.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  44:49  

The previous generations did a really terrible job teaching us what to do. I mean, it was just like, just punch them. If someone bullies you just punch or run away from them. Like those felt like the only two tools, we were given. And I am very passionate to give our kids better tools and better ways to navigate the conversation. My own grandmother was talking to my son about a bully in his class. And he said these kids are bullying people, and my grandmother said, well, bullying people, he probably needs friends that you should be nicer to him. And I remember the lightbulb moment in my own life, and I went, that’s where it started. Is it my grandmother’s fault? No. But if that’s what set me on my own path, because if someone’s being mean to me, it’s my job to change my behavior and be even nicer to them, so that they change their behavior 

 

Richard Matthews  45:54  

Yeah, it doesn’t work that way. 

 

Sarah K Ramsey  45:56  

It’s very unhealthy. My grandmother’s very sweet and she was giving me the tools she knew. We need to have a better conversation for future generations.

 

Richard Matthews  46:07  

Yeah, it’s interesting, because it’s not your responsibility, or even in your power generally, to change other people. The kid who’s being a bully, the other kids aren’t going to help him to not be a bully, he’s going to need some sort of a mentor figure in his life that helps him with that.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  46:27  

And when you think about the big bad wolf, it is the advice I want to give kids especially if someone’s trying to huff and puff and blow your house down. Do you make them dinner? Pamper them, give them a wolf bath? Give them wolf money? Like is that the advice I want to give my children? Surely not, I want them to recognize that they can’t change that behavior. It’s very simple, like the idea of taking turns. There are grownups who don’t know how to take it. It’s always their turn.

 

Richard Matthews  47:19  

Accurate.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  47:20  

They always think they could get the better end of the deal. And people come and say, how do I change my brother? I think he’s toxic, he’s 55. And I say, so he doesn’t know how to take turns. Is that what I’m hearing? And they say, yes. And I say, so he’s been hearing that he should be taking turns for 50 years, at least since kindergarten. He’s been hearing that he should be taking turns in some form or fashion for 50 years. He knows he’s supposed to, he just doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to take turns. Because they’ll say, well, he didn’t mean it. He just doesn’t know that he’s being selfish. And I was like, I think he does know if he gets his way every time. And he avoids work and you do the work. I think he does know. Because you call him on it, he gets very upset. He doesn’t say the right thing. I have been getting the better end of the deal for the last 50 years, I should probably let you have a good end of the deal at some point. He doesn’t know how to take turns. And lots of people it is as simple as they don’t know how to take turns and do not want to, they want to find other people to be around to help them not have to do that maturity. Remember, I said I used to help people, I’m no longer someone who helps other people get good at being selfish.

 

Richard Matthews  48:45  

Yeah. It’s an interesting thing. Because we talked about it just a minute ago, when you’re in that space, they’re comfortable there. And in order for them to change, they would have to get uncomfortable with their situation and take that risk of being a different person. And unfortunately, you can’t do that for them. They have to do that for themselves.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  49:16  

Yeah, which is hard. I know I’m saying things and I’m trying to say them in funny and simple ways. We talked about my superpower. And it’s like, yeah, here’s a crocodile gnawing your arm. Someone may be listening, my business partner for the last 20 years is ruining my life, that’s terrifying. My spouse is belittling me every day, that’s terrifying. I don’t mean to make light of it. I mean, to give you stories that stick so you start to see the world in a different way.

 

Richard Matthews  49:49  

Yeah, absolutely. So I want to talk a little bit then about how that ties into your driving force. Just like Spider Man fights to save New York or Batman fights to save Gotham, or Google fights to index and categorize all the world’s information. What is it that you fight for in your business, your mission, so to speak?

 

Sarah K Ramsey  50:11  

I’m going to tell you what I’m fighting against because I think it’s pretty obvious what I’m for. But my probably deep-rooted fear is that it’s so easy for me to do the things that my clients struggle with, which is, well, it’s probably you, well, they probably didn’t mean to be mean, well, I don’t want to have to worry about that, well, I’ll just keep the peace for the sake of the relationship that is so much my natural tendency, and the people that I work with their natural tendency, and I think a lot of humanity’s natural tendency. And I am diligently accepting of my humanity, and accepting of those weak spots in me, or blind spots in me, and seeing those in others, and also seeing the pain and devastation of ignoring these things, and the pain and devastation of pretending they are there. And the pain and devastation of saying, well, I know they’ve done it 15 times, they probably won’t be mean to me on time 16. And I would love to be able to be that person, just say, it’ll probably all work out, it’s gonna be fine. I don’t want to worry about that. I just want to sing and dance and play, which I love doing. But it’s devastating people’s lives. And I’m passionate about protecting people and protecting myself.

 

Richard Matthews  51:44  

So I think one of the things that’s most important for our listeners is to get out of that. My wife is that way. She grew up being a people pleaser like you did. And I saw that as being toxic in her and I spent the last of our whole marriage helping her overcome that. And get to where you are and how to deal with toxic people in her life. And I know, the biggest change for her came when she understood that she mattered, that she was important. And I think one of the things that happen when people are okay with crocodiles gnawing on their arms, part of it is what you mentioned earlier, where they’re like, the crocodile shouldn’t be doing that. But the other part of it is they’re not valuing themselves. So I’m not worth taking my arm out of their mouth. I’m not worth standing up for myself, which is hard. And I see that a lot. And a lot of people who struggle with that particular fatal flaw. The people pleasing thing is that they don’t value themselves which goes right back to the beginning of our conversation of You have to learn to love yourself. And that’s an important part.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  53:08  

And I’ll say I love people and I am people. And again, it goes back to that idea of leading by example, that is what did it for me, when I think I’m worth it, I have value. I believe those things, but it never kicked in. Because I value honesty, and when I went,  you are important, my children are important, my parents are important, my loved ones are important. But I am not important. Like I am the only person in the entire world that’s not important. It was like what? That’s not. Am really so special that I’m the only person that’s not important. And when they were like okay, I’m gonna stop giving people advice they’re not willing to take and so if I tell my daughter, when you are tired you need a nap. I tell myself when you are tired, you need to push on. I am teaching my daughter not to trust me. I am not trustworthy. I lied. I tell you to eat healthy and I hide the chocolate bars that I’m eating. I tell you to speak up for yourself. And then I don’t speak up for myself. I triggered something in me when I wanted to be honest. It was a harder superhero talk. It was a harder bridge for me to burn across. It was a big leap for me at the start to say I’m worth it. I am a worthy person, I matter. It was a small leap for me to say I want to be honest and if I am telling people things that I am not willing to do myself. And I am dishonest. So if I’m going to tell my children, their interests are important, then my interests have to be important. If I’m going to tell my friend not to let people talk to her that way, I have to also not let people talk to me that way. And it clicked much quicker than the conversation about me being a worthy human. Even though I think I am a worthy woman. I couldn’t start there. I just started. I was an honest human.

 

Richard Matthews  55:34  

Yeah, you had to find out how that message resonated with you. And I know for my wife, one of the things that helped it clicked for her. I was like, you matter to me. If you matter to me, you have to matter. Because that’s the way that it works. And it’s like, you have four kids in there, and you matter to them. So you have to matter. Like you can’t not matter, you can’t have that choice. And so it’s interesting wherever that comes from, we have to find the way that it clicks. Because it’s an important thing to get right into yourself if you ever want to be able to give your value to the world.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  56:21  

Well, your wife was lucky, she had someone who made her feel well loved, some people don’t have a loving spouse that says, you matter to me, you matter to kids, some people are in a situation where a spouse and said, you don’t matter to me, and I’m going to take your kids where they don’t talk to you anymore. And it’s very difficult. But it is incredibly important. And we cannot be so silly to think that everyone in the world is for me. That’s silly when we say it out loud.

 

Richard Matthews  56:54  

It sounds dumb when you say it that way. So I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about something really practical for a minute. And I call this your hero’s tool belt. So just like Spider Man has his web slingers, and Batman’s got his batarangs and his new gadgets and wonderful things. And I think Thor even has his magical hammer, I want to talk about the top one or two tools you use in your business to make it go round every day, it could be anything from your notepad to your calendar to something you use for your marketing, delivery, your books, whatever it is that it’s like, I couldn’t do what I do without this thing. What is one of your top practical tools for running a coaching business as you do?

 

Sarah K Ramsey  57:39  

My practical tools, I’m writing my next book about? And I’m going to give you a magic question. Okay? 

 

Richard Matthews  57:48  

Okay, I’m ready. 

 

Sarah K Ramsey  57:49  

And it is, what problem are you trying to solve? And the next time, you have a customer in spincycle, complaining about this, or an employee complaining about this, I want you to say, what problem are you trying to solve? And if your kids are upset about something, what problem are you trying to solve? And your wife is upset about something? What problem are you trying to solve? And I’m obsessed with it. And every time I talk about it, it’s just like this, like the roar of lightning, just goes out of my chest, because it is so effective in switching people’s mindset. They feel like they’re in a spin cycle, and they can’t figure out what they need to do, or they’re upset about this, or they’re in their emotion instead of logic. And you say, what problem are you trying to solve? And they instantly go into problem-solving mode and work to give you an answer. And it provides clarity for them. It gets all of us out of the spin cycle that we all experience when we’re trying to solve a problem. But we don’t know what problem we’re trying to solve. And it seems like a lot of emotion and confusion. It is what my next book is going to be about. My clients know, we get on the phone and I say what problem can I help you solve? And it’s instantly strategic, it’s instantly aligned, it’s instantly in a lane. And when they get out of the way, and I say, let’s get back to what problem you’re trying to solve.

 

Richard Matthews  59:35  

It’s a classic example of Tony Robbins, ask better questions, get better answers.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  59:43  

Yes. And in switching their mindset. If somebody says, oh, you won’t believe what happened at work, I’m upset about this. And this happened and the kids did this and this, okay, what problem are you trying to solve? And they go, oh, can you get the kids from school on Thursday? Like, Oh, sure I can. It’s shockingly effective. Because our brains are problem-solving machines. And when you give it a better problem to solve, you’re going to get a better life. It’s really simple.

 

Richard Matthews  1:00:20  

Yeah, it reminds me of one of my favorite things that I tell my kids all the time. So we have pretty much a blanket rule in our house. The phrase I can’t is not allowed. And anytime I hear I can’t I always respond with essentially, now if you can’t, how can I? Instead whatever it is you’re saying you can’t do. Because I can’t is a shutdown question or a shutdown phrase, but how can I?  Open everything in your head? And it’s the same type of question, where what problem you’re trying to solve is, it’s a question that opens your mind instead of closing it.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  1:00:58  

And really thinking, am I trying to solve an emotion or solve something logistical. Couples fight about who’s going to pick up the kids from school on Thursday, and they get in the spin cycle of wires, his job is always important than my job and why is he always getting to be busy, and then I need to do this or, maybe if I’d been a dentist instead of a doctor, then I wouldn’t be having this problem. And there shouldn’t be crocodiles and I shouldn’t pick the kids from school at six o’clock instead of three o’clock, or better working for parents, and you hear it all the time people go into these spin cycles. And it’s like, are you in the emotion? Are you logistical, like what’s happening, and there may be an emotional problem of it feeling like I don’t matter to you that it’s always my job to pick up the kids? And that’s one problem to solve. And who’s going to get the kids on Thursday? Logistical problem to solve. People muddy down all into 20 different problems and they build and they build and they build, you never get anywhere. You never feel like you’re making progress in your relationship and your business and whatever. So even separating out the problems you’re trying to solve, I call it making it into little waffle squares, instead of making it into spaghetti.

 

Richard Matthews  1:02:28  

Yeah, so you can make sure that syrup gets in every square.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  1:02:31  

Yeah, absolutely. And then you can take out one little bite size, okay? I need to make sure I make my wife one, more valued. And I need to figure out if the neighbor can pick them up on Thursdays, boom, done. You get to go on, instead of weeks or six months of therapy. Why don’t I feel appreciated? It’s a mess. A lot of people don’t see these as a real mess.

 

Richard Matthews  1:03:01  

Yeah, it’s rough. And for myself, we’re traveling family, it’s my wife and I, we got four kids and a dog and 40 feet of space, we have to try really hard to make sure we are not ending up in those places, we have to be really good at communication in order to live a mobile tiny life. So we’ve gotten good at asking those types of questions. I really like the whole what problem are you trying to solve? Because I have three daughters and three daughters. You said you have a daughter, you probably understand this. They are very prone to emotional breakdowns, especially since they’re young. And like something doesn’t go their way. And they’re gone completely. It’s funny watching my wife with them because it frustrates her. And always just pick them up on my lap and let them cry with me for an hour. And she’s like, they’ve broken but can’t even. And I’m like that’s because you understand that, I don’t go through that, I don’t have that emotional breakdown thing that the little girls have. So let them sit and cry in my lab. And then when they’re done, it’s essentially the same type of question. What can I do to help this be better? Like what’s the problem essentially? And when they calm down they can tell you about it. And you have to bring them out of their emotional spaghetti.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  1:04:29  

In the book, 13 Things Mentally Strong Women Don’t Do by Amy Morin. She says women spend so much time solving their emotional problems. They don’t solve actual problems that the emotions are resulting in. So say, in my house, we have a couple of rules about what outfit to wear to school. So that’s a silly example. But it’s like if we get all into it, why are you so frustrated in the morning? And why are you this? And why do you feel like you have to compare yourself to these other girls at school or whatever I miss, hey, why don’t we just lay your clothes out the night before? And what she has found in her studies is that women get so caught up and there are so many spaces for women to do this now, whether it’s venting to their girlfriends, or therapy, or whatever, they can spend so much time talking about the emotions surrounding the problem, they can actually forget to just set the clothes out earlier, to actually solve the problem. So it was heartbreaking when I read that statement from Amy. And I was like, no, that’s exactly right. And she’s talking about that’s why so many women are on antidepressants is because they forget to solve the problem, they try to solve the emotions surrounding the problem.

 

Richard Matthews  1:05:16  

And what’s interesting is that emotions aren’t problems to solve, that emotions are states of being, or you don’t solve them, they’re just part of existence. Like, when someone is mean to you, it’s going to hurt, that’s just the way it is. And so you don’t have to solve the problem of the person being mean to you. That’s the whole setting up the boundaries. Like my toddler, she’s sad about things constantly, because she’s realizing that she doesn’t run the world. And that’s a tough thing to come to terms with as a two year old. And that’s why I’ll sit with her, just let her cry on my shoulder. I’m like, because it hurts to realize that she doesn’t get her way. Like it’s okay, you’re allowed to be sad that you don’t get your way. But at the same time, you still don’t get your way. That’s just the way that it goes. Emotions aren’t to be solved. Emotions are something that you experience, right? They’re just part of life, the texture and contrast of life. And when you can understand then you can realize that if I don’t want to have that emotion, I need to solve the problem that’s causing it.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  1:07:10  

Absolutely. And that’s such an important distinction. That little girl goes into therapy and they’re like, why do you think I’m afraid of the wolf? What do you think happened in my childhood that triggered when I thought about the wolf? It’s like the wolf is trying to eat you, build the brick house, solve the problem, don’t get swept up in the emotions of the wolf. And I see a lot of people lose a lot of momentum, figuring out why they didn’t like wolves, and it’s like, what? No, just build the brick house.

 

Richard Matthews  1:09:16  

So I feel like that’s a good transition point for one of my last questions for you, which is about your guiding principles. And one of the things that make heroes heroic is that they live life by a code. For instance, Batman never kills his enemies, he only ever puts them in Arkham Asylum. So as we wrap up the interview, I want to talk about the top one or two principles you live your life by now. That may be something you wish you had known when you started out on your own hero’s journey as a people pleaser with the big “P’s” on your shirts.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  1:09:48  

I am not going to say I’m perfect at this principle. But the principle that I tried to live and aspire to is if it doesn’t work, stop doing it. 

 

Richard Matthews  1:09:59  

That’s a good one.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  1:10:00  

Yeah, as soon as we get out of our comfort zone conversation, all that we have, like if it’s not working, don’t do it, try something else, figure out a different way. See, there’s a second door and we just leave it. It’s just so easy to get in the grind. Entrepreneurs right? Well, I’ve already been doing it on my own for so long that I’ll just keep doing it and it’s like, but you’re exhausted, you’re miserable, your health is failing, you haven’t seen your children. If it’s not working, stop doing it. And try something else.

 

Richard Matthews  1:10:41  

Yeah, absolutely reminds me of one of the things one of my principles is, lesson repeated until lesson learned.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  1:10:52  

I’m actually pretty good at that one, the way you say it is like, I’m afraid of having to learn the lesson again, such as taking action, such as pretending things are happening. I’m afraid of having the lessons again, which is good because then it spurs me in action of not doing it again.

 

Richard Matthews  1:11:14  

And it just struck me I was like, if it’s not working, try something different. It’s like only crazy people continue to do the same thing and expect different results. The same kind of thing, right? If you continue to touch the hot pot, you’re gonna get burned every time. Right?

 

Sarah K Ramsey  1:11:28  

We say only crazy people do it and they say Einstein said that quote which is a good smart person.

 

Richard Matthews  1:11:41  

So we’re all a little crazy.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  1:11:43  

Like, I can’t believe my spouse yelled at me again today for the same 50 years, I can’t believe my boss yelled at me. I can’t believe I was miserable at work. I’ve only been miserable for a couple of years. Why was I miserable today? I can’t believe I didn’t have enough money at the end of the month. I can’t believe it, whatever it is. But we do it all the time and it is somewhat emotionally, physically, financially, it covers a lot.

 

Richard Matthews  1:12:16  

And it’s interesting because a lot of times all it takes is someone else to call you out on it. For you to be like, oh, I haven’t learned that lesson. I’m still trying to do the same thing over and over again, which I think brings me really well to one of the last questions I always ask is about your own personal heroes or mentors. So just like Frodo had Gandalf or Luke had Obi Wan or Robert Kiyosaki has his Rich dad or even Spider Man had his Uncle Ben, I want to know, who were some of your heroes? Were they peers, authors, coaches? And how important were they to what you’ve accomplished so far in your life?

 

Sarah K Ramsey  1:13:01  

So I’m a ferocious researcher and reader. So I’ve done Brendon Burchard, high performance coaching. I’ve done tons of Tony Robbins stuff, I have Mother Teresa’s quote on my wall. I love Mother Teresa. I love that she went through the dark nights of school. And when she died, they published some works against that. And in my own life, when I was going through my own dark nights, I think I could have again, we’re talking about Jesus, oh, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Like how was I trying to be so good? And my life turned out so bad because of that pleasing people. And I felt extremely forsaken and extremely dark. I know, I’m like, funny in light, and you know this stuff now. But I burned my life down and had to build it back up, it was incredibly painful and incredibly terrible. And people really liked that I was pleasing them. They were mad when that stopped. When they want to be selfish, I let them be. That was a good relationship for them. So I had to rebuild all these relationships, rebuild how people saw me, rebuild the integrity of who I was, that was incredibly difficult. I love Mother Teresa and others who talk about the dark night of the soul and we remember them as heroes and legacy builders. And Tony Robbins talks about his early 20s and he lost all the money he’d earned and lived in an apartment and he had to come to drag him out of that apartment. I love people who have been successful. And then I’m always scared to say this universe is listening to those who’ve been successful, then go through another dark night of the soul. There’s such power in that. I’m thankful to know about their dark side too.

 

Richard Matthews  1:14:57  

So one of the things that stuck out when you were talking about that is being the kind of person as a people pleaser, the people who you have good relationships with, I say good with finger and quotes around it because they thought it was a good relationship. When you’re in that space, you are attractive to the bad people. And what you find is that you’re not attractive to good people. Because the people who you want to be with who you want to be around are not attracted to that, they’re going to be more attracted to the confidence, they’re going to be more attracted to the person who knows who they are, and has their boundaries. And it’s one of the lessons that I really want to get through to my daughters as they grow up, is that if you know who you are, and you stand up for yourself, and you have that confidence, and that joy and that peace that comes from being a whole person, it’s going to be far easier to attract a good person in your life to find a good mate, and those kinds of things. All that stuff happens when you get yourself right.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  1:16:10  

I heard something and they said, there are toxic people, so they just exist. So moving away from the humble station of how do I attract them? And then why do I attract that down? Are drastically different conversations, because in times of my life, I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was selfless. I didn’t think of it because I appeared very confident. I didn’t think about someone who wasn’t standing up for themselves. I was someone who could handle hard things. I could handle your pain. My clients, I deal with many people with addictions, but they’re like, I’m strong, loyal, kind, I’m standing by you. And that’s a huge piece and some of what the missing conversation is because we kind of think like, oh, if you’re broken, then bad people will swoop in. But toxic people can use your strength against you too. A little too loyal, a little too kind, maybe a little too confident. I’ve never missed a toxic person, I would say a toxic person, I wouldn’t put up with that. Maybe they’re very sneaky. And so really, you asked me about that one piece where I said, I’m always protecting myself against my own humanity. And so much of our default humanity is missing toxic behavior. And it’s just a conversation we’re so early in having. And I hope the world will be very different by the time your daughters are looking for romantic relationships with partners and your son. See, there’s obviously toxic people on both sides.

 

Richard Matthews  1:17:58  

I know. And it’s interesting, cuz I know the world is a very different place than when I was doing it 10 years ago, 15 years ago with my wife, I know it’s gonna be very different in another other 10 years, my kids are all they’re doing that so like learning these skills myself, and helping other people understand them, I think is really gonna help them grow up and have the skills because they have to have the skills to operate in a changing world.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  1:18:22  

We’ll just exchange numbers and do an arranged marriage by the time our kids are about that age, I promise I’m raising mine to be nice.

 

Richard Matthews  1:18:34  

What cracks me up is I’ve got a seven-year-old daughter, and one of our best friends has a seven-year-old son, and those two have decided that they’re married. 

 

Sarah K Ramsey  1:18:42  

Oh, well. 

 

Richard Matthews  1:18:43  

Yeah, we just woke up one morning. And they were like, we’re married. And I was like, Oh, well, that makes life easy. And I was like, I’m pretty sure someone owes me a goat. I don’t know who it goes to. But I’d be like there’s a goat that should be exchanged somewhere. So I might have one of them already taken care of.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  1:18:58  

I would love to have that nine-year-old son. So oh my gosh, he’s not anymore. He’s 11 I can’t believe I said that. I’m not going back in your world, like seven-year-olds. Wait, no, I don’t have a seven-year-old, I don’t have any little kids, mine are getting big.

 

Richard Matthews  1:19:14  

My son is 11 too, he’ll be 12 a few weeks, I think October 10, which is

 

Sarah K Ramsey  1:19:21  

I’ve got a nine-year-old daughter. So we’ll pair them up.

 

Richard Matthews  1:19:25  

Awesome. Well, that’s basically a wrap on our interview.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  1:19:30  

What about a wrap on them?

 

Richard Matthews  1:19:34  

Will wrap on the children, we’ll get them arranged marriage and they don’t have a choice in the matter. So I always wrap every interview with a simple challenge that I call the hero’s challenge and I do this to hopefully find access to stories I might not get otherwise because not everyone’s out doing the podcast rounds like you and I might be doing. So the question is simple. Do you have someone in your life or your network that you think has a cool entrepreneurial story? Who are they? First names are fine. And why do you think they should come to share their story with our audience here, first person that comes to mind for you.

 

Sarah K Ramsey  1:20:07  

There is a full name, Amy Lee, and she is a dream design coach. So she helps entrepreneurs do their dream design business. I had her on my podcast, she’s huge in the clubhouse. And we talked a little bit and she had just some brilliant ideas that are just out of the norm. You start to hear your self-growth industry come to hear the same things over and over give some time. And so much of what she was saying I was just like, I’ve never heard that before. It’s amazing. I’ve never heard that before. So I will absolutely recommend Amy Lee Westervelt to you. We are always exchanging with each other because she feels the same way about me. And it’s like, man, every time I hear her, it’s like, that’s really good. So she is very good, she’ll love to talk to you.

 

Richard Matthews  1:20:55  

Awesome. I’ll see if we can get an introduction to her later after the show. But in comic books, there’s always the crowd of people at the end who are cheering and clapping for the acts of heroism of our heroes, so our analogous to that on this show is I want to know where people can find you if they want to learn how to become toxic people proof. Where can they light up the bat signal so to speak, say, Hey Sarah K, I would like to learn from you. Where can they go? And then the second part of that question is Who are the right types of people to reach out?

 

Sarah K Ramsey  1:21:24  

Okay, yeah, anybody who’s looking for their kindness can no longer be used against them. And I really like working with people who are looking to design that life, they’re excited about living so not just like, hey, is this person toxic or not? That’s a first step and I’m like, let’s get you to the end of your journey. Let’s get you out of the process into progressing. Definitely check out my book Becoming Toxic Person Proof. My podcast is called Toxic Person Proof. And my website under SarahKRamsay.com

 

Richard Matthews  1:22:06  

Awesome. Thank you so much for coming to the show today, Sarah. It has been a pleasure speaking with you and talking through this, it’s a really heavy topic. And I know we don’t talk about a lot of heavy topics on this show. So it’s an interesting conversation to get into. And I think it’s important for entrepreneurs especially because you can have toxic partners, you can have toxic employees, you can have toxic managers in your business, it can be a really tough thing. If you have a toxic spouse at home that’s keeping you from doing what you need to do. Instead of supporting you like there’s a lot of things that can really really impact your business and your ability to give your value to the world. So I think it’s a valuable topic. And again, thank you for sharing your thoughts on it. Last final question for you, do you have any final words of wisdom for our audience before I hit this stop record button?

 

Sarah K Ramsey  1:22:55  

Since these are entrepreneurs, let’s not waste your time on toxic customers. You know that bottom 10 to 20% that’s taking up all our time, all our energy, making us go home, and we’re exhausted from the day so we can’t play with our kids. Again, it’s a bell curve. You have 90% of the world who would be fabulous, wonderful customers to meet. You’re gonna love work. Don’t spend all your time on the bottom of that bell curve. 

 

Richard Matthews  1:23:23  

Absolutely. Thank you very much for coming on today Sarah.