Content Warning: Sexual assault
Sara Sheehan is joined by Alicia Cramer, author and entrepreneur, to talk about Alicia’s book, “Energetic Alignment” and the mindset work she helps clients master. The thoughts and traumas that hold us back can be overcome through aligning our mindset with positive beliefs. Alicia explains the tools she uses to assist in that transformation.
Alicia shares the traumatic experiences that shaped her early life and which led to her own radical mindset shift. She began a healing journey that led her into training in EFT, hypnotherapy, psychology, and metaphysical science. It is through all these modalities, which she calls tools, that she assists others in finding their own healing pathway, reprogramming their minds to let go of their fears and internal resistance.
In this episode, Sara Sheehan and Alicia Cramer discuss Alicia’s life-changing mindset mastery, her innovative Inner Game Academy, the nexus point of alignment, and the insights found in her book “Energetic Alignment”. The modalities that she employs are useful for team members, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and business owners who find themselves bumping up against struggles like money mindset issues, lack of confidence, interpersonal relationship difficulties, and any other internal blockages keeping us from our best lives.
About Alicia Cramer
Alicia Cramer is business mindset expert, certified hypnotherapist, metaphysical practitioner, international best selling author, and a sales and marketing consultant with an extensive business development background.
Her passion for empowering others was evident at a very young age, as was her desire to be an entrepreneur. Her own struggles with depression and self-worth issues eventually led to research and application of various mental conditioning techniques in conjunction with understanding Universal Principles (aka Universal Laws) and strategies for success.
Alicia attended college for marketing at the age of 18, and started her first business – an eCommerce store, at 22. That took her deeper into the field of online marketing where she dabbled off and on for years. Her journey was full of twists and turns, but her desire for entrepreneurship and the birth of her first child at the age of 28 cultivated her motivation to take business more seriously.
In 2010 she opened a local hypnotherapy practice in WI, which evolved into a business coaching practice, specializing in what she calls “mindset reconditioning”. Her desire to create a lifestyle that aligned with her passion for helping other business owners thrive, while enjoying the freedom to travel, invest time in her other entrepreneurial ventures, and spend time with her family, caused her to transition away from a brick-and-mortar business model to virtual sessions with clients which allowed her to expand internationally.
Fast forward to today, Alicia has two incredible children whom she adores, and lives with her family in sunny AZ. She works one-on-one with entrepreneurs and high achieving individuals to overcome blocks to success in business and life, and offers various trainings and programs to help business owners achieve their goals.
Resources discussed in this episode:
- Alicia Cramer website
- “Energetic Alignment” by Alicia Cramer
- Inner Game Academy
- Alicia Cramer on LinkedIn
- Alicia Cramer on YouTube
- Schedule a Consultation with Alicia
—
Contact Sara Sheehan | Sara Sheehan Consulting:
__
Transcript
Sara Sheehan: [00:00:03] Hi there. My name is Sara Sheehan and welcome to my podcast, Transformational Thinkers with Sara Sheehan. Today I’m talking with my friend Alicia Cramer about mastering your mindset. Alicia is a beautiful example of her own work in mastering her own mindset and helps others do the same so that they can make the next big leap in their business and personal lives. If you would like to learn more after listening to today’s discussion, please check out the show notes for a link to book a meeting with me or Alicia. And with that, Alicia, I am so very glad to have you here today. So excited to talk about your work, which I think is not only yeoman’s work, it is truly deep and transformational at a cellular quantum level. And so I can’t wait to dig in. Tell me a little bit, Alicia, about your backstory and what led you to start your business.
Alicia Cramer: [00:01:20] It’s a big story. So I’m going to try to give the highlight reel, which is not necessarily all of the successes, right? It is going to include the hard knocks that got me on this path. And so if we go all the way back to the beginning, I grew up on a dairy farm in central Wisconsin. My parents were the quintessential hard workers, literally. Getting up early in the morning, pretty much working until late at night. That’s the life of a dairy farmer. You don’t get a day off. It’s seven days a week. There are no vacations. There’s no days off. And, um, you know, part of that was a blessing because I sure did get some work ethic indoctrinated into me at a very young age. But I also watch a tremendous amount of inner struggle. There would be violent fights when they would drink, fights about money, and there was so much stress and a lot of negativity and it ended up becoming a pretty deep, deep psychological wound. I went into a pretty deep depression at a young age, started drinking because that was what you did. Self-medicating with alcohol, that was, if you were angry, you partied. That was just the way it was. And as a young woman about – well, at 17, I basically was like, okay, I’m out of here. And by 18 I was like, okay, that’s it. I’m going to create this great life for myself. I’m going to start a business and I’m going to be successful and live happily ever after. Well, that’s not what happened. My conditioning was completely contradictory to that goal. You know, I had scarcity, struggle, hardship, self-confidence issues, self esteem issues, all working against me. But there was this growing desire to be a business owner. When I was in my early 20s, I was about 21 years old, I started an Internet based business. It was an e-commerce business and my desire was big, but my own inner alignment was completely off and I ended up filing bankruptcy on that business.
Sara Sheehan: [00:04:08] I’m sure that was really painful.
Alicia Cramer: [00:04:10] It was incredibly painful, especially for someone who already was struggling with a lot of self-esteem and self-worth issues. And I was really struggling a lot with, like, suicidal thoughts and feelings. And it was incredibly devastating. Fast forward the dream never went away, but I did stumble through life, you know, just like everybody else. And in 2005, I was out with some girlfriends. When I came to, I had been physically and sexually assaulted, found out that it was some type of, you know, pill or something that was put in my drink. And it was somebody that I knew, wasn’t close to, but it shook me to my core. And in retrospect, because, of course, when you’re going through it –
Sara Sheehan: [00:05:06] That’s horrible.
Alicia Cramer: [00:05:07] When you’re going through it, it just doesn’t make any sense. You know, in retrospect I can say it was one of the best things that ever happened to me because it knocked me so far down that my only two options were, you know, really, really bad or somehow I had to change myself. I had to change my life. And that was the beginning of a very, very, very deep healing journey. The most beautiful thing that came out of it was obviously my transformation, but it also awoken within me this desire to help other people. And so that was me, now, kind of the new version of the entrepreneur, because now I wasn’t just doing a business to make money. Now I was doing a business because I wanted to help people. And there was this overlap between my desire to say, Hey, if I can fix me, trust me, you can fix you.
Sara Sheehan: [00:06:11] And that’s a super powerful message. It really is. It’s undeniable.
Alicia Cramer: [00:06:15] It’s so true. It doesn’t matter where we’ve come from. It doesn’t matter how bad our life was, how messed up our parents made us, how many really painful experiences we’ve had, every single one of us has within us the potential to reinvent ourselves, to recreate ourselves, to heal, to release, to let go, to reach for those dreams, and to make them a reality. The part that nobody ever wants to talk about is that there is no magic wand. There is no magic bullet. There is no one technique that is going to completely transform you overnight. It is a process. And we have all of these years worth of layers of negative conditioning and painful experiences that really get deeply anchored into our subconscious and just the fabric of our beingness. And those things have to be healed in order for us to be the confident, assertive, success minded individual that is going to allow for us to take the actions in our life and go for our dreams and to actually make it happen. So that was really the birth of what has become this business, and that was way back in 2005. It’s obviously undergone a tremendous amount of its own growth and evolution as I’ve continued to uplevel myself. But that really was the beginning of what became an international business, helping a lot of people overcome some pretty heavy stuff and to create some pretty amazing lives.
Sara Sheehan: [00:08:06] That is a wonderful, wonderful story and I can’t wait to learn more in our discussion today, even more about the how you actually go about doing that, helping people to address their mindset. Tell me a little bit about your services and offerings within your business and how you actually work with clients one on one.
Alicia Cramer: [00:08:34] So I mentioned that that business was born, it was actually born in 2006. That was when I had my first paying EFT client. EFT a lot of people know of today, it’s referred to as tapping. It’s known as, its technical name is emotional freedom techniques. A lot of people call it emotional freedom technique. That was one of the, one of the modalities that I used that really helped me to heal a lot of stuff. That ended up evolving later in 2009, I started going through my hypnotherapy training through the Hypnosis Motivation Institute. They’re a nationally accredited college of hypnotherapy. I became a certified hypnotherapist and I opened my brick and mortar hypnotherapy practice. I worked with my first paying client in, hypnotherapy client, in 2010. Now, the reason that I’m sharing it this way is because there’s all modalities that I still use to this day. Um, but at that same time, I also was going back to school for psychology and also getting training in NLP, and I have my master’s degree in metaphysical science. All of these things – understanding energy, energy work, a lot of different quantum healing processes, using a variety of different modalities – all became this sort of toolbox. And so I refer to modalities as tools.
Alicia Cramer: [00:10:15] It’s like if you want a contractor, you’re not calling somebody and saying, Hey, do you have a hammer? I’m looking for somebody with a hammer.
Sara Sheehan: [00:10:22] That’s right.
Alicia Cramer: [00:10:23] Right? You want somebody who has every tool that they need in order to get the job done as efficiently, effectively, successfully as possible. So typically, the work that I primarily focus on in terms of one on one is an incredibly interactive process where my clients have a safe space, where they can actually be honest about what their challenges are, and we shift them with whatever tool is going to be most relevant to get the results. And oftentimes that’s going to include a mix of different tools. And of course I do group work as well. Sometimes I’ll do group training programs. Some people will actually ask me to come and work with their group, so their mastermind, their inner circle, and they’ll bring me in to work on the mindset stuff that is tripping up their people. So your real estate investment trainer, well, there’s a lot of mindset stuff that’s tripping people up: money mindset issues, confidence issues, all the stuff, right? So a lot of people will bring me in and say, okay, I’ve got this group, they’re incredible people. They’ve got all these dreams, all these goals, all these aspirations, and these are the ways that they’re bumping up against their own internal resistance, their fears, their doubts, their insecurities. And then we get in there and we start to actually clean that stuff up and reprograming the mind with all of those processes like NLP and hypnosis and visualization and teaching different mindset processes that actually help people get their inner game on point with their goals.
Alicia Cramer: [00:12:13] And then I also have my Inner Game Academy, which I think we’ll probably talk about later, which is my membership program, which is a huge digital vault full of mindset reconditioning, audios and videos. It’s trainings, it is tons of hypnosis audios, and all of the most common stuff that people are bumping up against – confidence issues, money mindset issues, fear of public speaking, fear of cold calling, you name it it’s pretty much in there. And then, of course, my members also have the luxury of saying, Hey, I’ve got this challenge and I don’t see anything that addresses that and I create new content to put inside of the academy. So everyone is getting what they need to help them continue to up level.
Sara Sheehan: [00:13:01] That’s fantastic. And so, Alicia, if you were to characterize who your ideal client is, how would you paint that picture?
Alicia Cramer: [00:13:11] When it comes to working with private one on one clients it is a little bit different than the people that will, you know, potentially come in through a group setting or into my inner game academy. On a general level, I’m helping business owners across the board, everything from solopreneurs and start-ups, all the way to CEO founders of multi-million dollar companies, in many cases, companies they built from nothing, built from scratch. My private clients do tend to be oftentimes somewhat more established business owners and their up-leveling, they recognize I’m getting in my own way, I have this, you know, this painful memory from the past. Financial trauma is a huge one. I’m always pretty much, no matter what the client is coming for, it doesn’t matter if it is, sometimes it’s a relationship issue, you know, sometimes it is something that they’re ashamed of. Sometimes it’s a body issue. It would seem like it’s not related to business, but I’m always working predominantly with business owners on everything from the most intimate details of their life to their specific financial goals. And we’re cleaning up all of the challenges that are getting in their way. So the best way that I could explain who my ideal client or customer is, it is a heart centered, oftentimes spiritually oriented, individual who knows in their heart that they are destined to create a beautiful life and business for themselves. They know that there is stuff that they have to let go of. They have to shift in order to evolve to that next level of themself.
Sara Sheehan: [00:15:01] That is very well said. I think it’s a wonderful way to attract even more great clients to you. As you know, I have recently read your book, “Energetic Alignment”, and I have a few questions for you that I would love to ask you about your book, if that’s okay.
Alicia Cramer: [00:15:23] Of course.
Sara Sheehan: [00:15:25] Excellent. And so when readers dive into your book, they are introduced to you as a person and you really frame up a method in the book that you call the align method. Can you talk us through that method at a high level so that listeners might get a sense of what you’re sharing in the book a little bit more?
Alicia Cramer: [00:15:54] Absolutely. So one of the things that I found over the many years that I’ve been working with clients, is that there is a process that we go through on our – I mean, from everything from the most simple basic decisions that we’re making in our lives to the big goals that we have. And what a lot of people don’t realize is that you have the power, you have the ability within yourself to reframe, to actually grab a hold of your limiting beliefs, once you learn how to identify them and to release them, to shift them, to shift into a more empowering perspective on that subject, which gives you now the ability to grab a hold of your goals and actually align yourself mentally, emotionally, vibrationally and spiritually with them. We are going through our life feeling negative emotions being triggered by this thing, that thing, that person, that thought that fluttered through our mind. And most people do not realize that if you can grab a hold of that opportunity, you can say, Oh, that doesn’t feel good right there. I’m looking at my calendar for this week and it’s not as full as I want it to be. And I’m feeling the fear coming up, that same old fear that I always feel. And now the negative emotions start to flow and all of the corresponding thoughts that I’ve always thought over and over and over, that are actually negatively reinforcing the pattern. Thoughts like, This is hopeless. Nothing’s ever working. No matter how much I try it just can’t ever seem to get it right. That coach, that guru was supposed to help me. It didn’t work. That advertisement was supposed to be the game changer. That didn’t work. Now what’s happening? You’re actually reinforcing all of that negativity. You’re reinforcing the negative program. When you recognize there’s that negative feeling again, that’s your opportunity to finally grab a hold of it and create a shift because you are never going to create a different pattern in your life until you release the negative emotional charge on that old pattern so that you can finally replace it with something more empowering that is going to give you that leverage, that power, that positive push forward in a new direction towards the achievement of a different reality for yourself. So in the book, I’m basically teaching you, I’m walking you through, This is what happens when you feel that you’ve got to remember that’s just energy. We’ve got to release that and let that go. Because once you remove the negative emotional charge off of a memory, an association, a belief, well, now it no longer has the ability to pull you down.
Alicia Cramer: [00:19:17] We’ve all had the experience where once upon a time there was something that highly triggered you. Maybe somebody said something that hurt your feelings and oh, my God, did it just bother you so much you couldn’t even think about anything else. You were consumed, obsessed, and a natural process will oftentimes occur. Some thing, maybe your mind starts to just release a little bit of that tension, a little bit of the stress, a little bit of the negativity, and you start to actually naturally release some of that energy and then your mind starts to be able to grab ahold of, well, you know, maybe they were just having a bad day. Oh, you know what? I think I actually overreacted because it reminded me of how my mom used to make me feel. Right? Well, now you’re showing your mind that what you were just reacting to is somewhat irrational. It’s not serving you. And that helps you to actually release more energy and let that go. So it’s a natural process that we go through. And eventually you get to a place where you release enough of that negative energy where now you can kind of take a different, have a different perspective on it and a week later, you can think about it and it no longer triggers you. Now, everybody also has the experience where they can think about something that happened five, ten, twenty years ago and it’ll still trigger them because they never went through that process and then release it. So now they think about that person, bam, they get hit with all those old negative emotions that are still stored up in the subconscious mind, in the etheric body. And so in order to correct that, you have to be mindful, you have to say, okay, we’ve got to go through this process. I’ve got to take myself through this process so I can release this negative energy. I need to set myself free. And that is essentially, in a nutshell, what I walk everyone through in the book is recognizing you have the power. You don’t need a guru, you don’t need a coach, you don’t need a hypnotherapist. You can do it yourself on a day to day, moment to moment basis. Now, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a time and a place for help, but our personal empowerment, that’s what we’re alive for. We always want to be giving our power away to somebody else.
Sara Sheehan: [00:21:44] It’s an amazing thing to think about. I can interrupt the process and I can change my relationship with it forever if I want.
Alicia Cramer: [00:21:56] Absolutely.
Sara Sheehan: [00:21:57] That is amazing.
Alicia Cramer: [00:21:58] Absolutely. And it’s, once you learn it, it still requires self-discipline to actually implement it, because we do have a tendency once we get triggered, that’s all subconscious, we just default to the negative reaction. But as you’re practicing this, just like anything else, the more aware you become of when you’re getting triggered and the easier it becomes to work yourself through that process. And of course, then on the other side of that, we’re also working on, well, let’s put in that positive programming. Let’s reinforce what is your goal, what is your dream? And there are ways that the mind works that really anchor in and allow us to get to a level of unwavering belief in ourselves, in our goal, in our vision, in our dream. And when we believe in something, when we expect it, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. So we want to use that positive side to our advantage. So we clean up the negative, we embrace the positive, and we’re consistently working on being an intentional, empowered creator in our life.
Sara Sheehan: [00:23:13] That is so empowering. And so tell me what is so compelling about reaching the Nexus point?
Alicia Cramer: [00:23:26] The Nexus point is where you’re in your alignment the majority of the time. A lot of us spend way more time than we should out of alignment. Out of alignment is all of that triggered stuff. Anything – and I talk about the vibrational emotional spectrum, which is taught really well by Dr. David Hawkins, Esther Hicks also oftentimes referred to as Abraham Hicks. There are a lot of people who have done their own rendition of that vibrational spectrum, understanding that when you’re on any of that lower end of the vibrational spectrum, you can feel it as any type of negative emotion. And when you are in that state, you’re not thinking clearly, you’re not in any type of empowered state to take positive, empowered action in your life. And from a metaphysical perspective, because this is a law-based universe and everything vibrates and the law of attraction is a real thing, historically, it’s been referred to as the law of vibration. Some people refer to it in other ways, but essentially what we know and what our more modern physics has taught us is that in this vibrational universe, this vibrational reality that we’re living, whatever emotion you’re in, whatever thoughts you’re thinking and their corresponding emotion, that has a vibrational frequency.
Alicia Cramer: [00:25:01] So if I’m feeling stressed vibrationally in this law-based universe, what am I going to perpetuate? More thoughts, more feelings, more circumstances that all are that vibrational match to the stress. You cannot create a joyful, wonderful, successful life from being in any of those lower vibrational states. So we have to work up into those higher emotional vibrational states where you feel peace or joy or love or passion or excitement. Gratitude. Because now what are you drawing in your thoughts and feelings and experiences that match that. And that’s when life really starts to feel magical. That’s when the deals happen more easily. The clients just seem to find you somehow. The money is flowing so much more freely, all of the goals start to just feel like you’re divinely supported because you are. And it’s not that you weren’t before, it’s just that you can only, the universe can only line things up that are a vibrational match to the vibration that you are predominantly emanating. And so that nexus point really is about starting to master your mind, master your emotions, so that you become that intentional, empowered creator in your life.
Sara Sheehan: [00:26:28] That is so powerful and, I mean, it makes me, a feeling of great positivity and empowerment just wells in my heart hearing you talk about it because being in alignment for me is akin to being in my zone of genius, meaning I am doing what I was designed to do and I’m able to actually live out my purpose freely. And so I’m a huge supporter of your work and how you’re helping clients remove all of those mindset barriers. It’s tremendous. I definitely want to be living in alignment. Definitely.
Alicia Cramer: [00:27:15] We all do.
Sara Sheehan: [00:27:16] Absolutely.
Alicia Cramer: [00:27:16] Contrary to what anyone might say, they think that hustling and grinding and pushing and fighting their way to the top is some type of virtuous thing. But at the end of the day, those are the ones who are struggling in their relationships. They’re struggling with their health. And the truth is money cannot buy you out of negativity. It cannot. And so no matter what your goal is, your mind is telling you, oh, I’ll be happy when I have the house, the car, the money, the this or that. But when you are living in that predominant state of negativity, scrapping your way to the top, stepping on your competition, struggling through your resistance, you can manifest the money, the car, the house, the partner, whatever, but you’re going to feel just as shitty after you have it, as you did the whole time that you were creating it. And that is not the reason you want it.
Sara Sheehan: [00:28:30] It’s definitely not.
Alicia Cramer: [00:28:31] You don’t want to have it just for the sake of having it. You don’t.
Sara Sheehan: [00:28:33] It’s definitely not, it’s definitely not my heart’s desire. My heart’s desire is for ease and joy in my life. So that’s where my heart is. So let’s transition a little bit and talk about the Inner Game Academy a little bit more. In the book, you offer readers a free trial for two months, which I think is amazing, and they have an opportunity to explore and understand all of the resources that are there. Talk a little bit about the Inner Game Academy. What led you to create it and what users can find there.
Alicia Cramer: [00:29:19] So the Inner Game Academy is my best attempt at providing people with as many different resources as possible to help them shift whatever they’re bumping up against. And knowing what I know from all of my years of working with clients and having so many business colleagues coming at it from all sides of business, even as a consultant on the marketing business development side, and obviously very much so on the mindset side, I wanted to create something that really supported people through all of the different challenges that they’re bumping up against because most people don’t just have one challenge. Sometimes it feels like one is the biggest issue. But if we’re all really honest with ourselves, in many cases there are a lot of areas where we’re experiencing self-confidence issues, self-doubt, various different types of fear and it can be pretty expensive to buy courses. Even hypnosis audios, go rummaging even through the Internet trying to find this or that from this expert and that expert. So I wanted to create a place where people could go and they could be like, okay, I am triggered right now, I have this really amazing opportunity to come up and I am terrified of speaking in front of those people. Just the thought of it makes me feel like I’m going to vomit, right? They go inside the Inner Game Academy and they look for, oh, here’s a, you know, an EFT session that I can do on that. Here’s a hypnosis audio I could listen to on that. So it is growing. Like I mentioned before, when somebody says, Hey, you know, Alicia, I’ve got this challenge. You know, can you create something to help me through this? Then I’m doing it in a way that allows every member to be completely anonymous. Nobody knows that you’re in there. Nobody knows you’re a member. I found that having worked with a lot of high level business owners for many years, in many cases, the higher someone’s status becomes and sometimes it’s a personality thing as well, because some people are like, Oh yeah, I work with her, I love it. She’s the best, you know, sending me tons of referrals and other people is like kind of ashamed that I’ve got these issues. And so it’s a little bit more hush hush. Well, I want to create a safe space for everyone, no matter whether you are very outgoing and open about your challenges or you are much more private because maybe you have to work through a little bit of shame or guilt or discomfort, or you don’t want your colleagues to know or whatever it is. So members just join. They have access to all of those resources. If they need additional materials, they can email it over to us. So nobody else knows, you know, who requested it. I create it. It’s, it doesn’t say anybody’s name. It’s not like John requested that we create this, right? And then I send John Smith a little message and I say, John, I entered it in, you know, put it into the Academy for you. And then it’s in there. And John and every other member of the Academy can listen to it and benefit from it.
Sara Sheehan: [00:32:43] That’s outstanding. So ever changing and ever-growing, are there topics or types of experts that you would love to get connected to that may be able to add additional content to the Inner Game Academy?
Alicia Cramer: [00:33:00] Yes. So we already have a nice little section of expert-contributed content. My rule is that it must be truly helpful content. There’s not going to be any pitch fests in there where, you know, somebody says, Oh, I’ll give you this course that I did. And really it’s just a glorified sales presentation. There are real trainings from real experts in every area of business. So anyone listening who is a subject matter expert in an area that caters to entrepreneurs, caters to business owners, if you would like to share some training that you have, doesn’t matter really so much what it is, as long as it is truly helpful for business owners and it is really, truly valuable content. We put it inside of the Inner Game Academy. It has its own little separate home and the contributor, of course, is able to submit their bio, some information, and a link back to contact them. If the Academy member says, I need more of that, that person clearly is my expert. That’s exactly what I need. We make it so easy for them to get home to that expert so that they can reach out to them and they can go further on whatever that particular subject is.
Alicia Cramer: [00:34:27] The beauty here, and we talked a little bit about that, is it’s a win win win for everyone, for our members there, they have so many more resources available. Many times these are paid programs. These experts are charging for these things and they’re gifting it to members of the Academy because it is a win for them as well. It is exposure to their ideal clients and customers. So someone says, I need a little bit of educating here on, you know, how to incorporate my company. Well, we’ve got a training video on that. That particular expert is providing that value to our members for no additional charge. And then you’re going to have some people who are going to say, that’s the person I want to do my books or that’s the person that I want to do this, this, that or whatever for me. And so. I’m able to provide more value to my members. My members are able to get more value and our contributors are able to get exposure for the people who need them.
Sara Sheehan: [00:35:34] It’s a powerful partnership. It really, really is. It’s good for all concerned. I couldn’t agree with that more. Can you provide 1 or 2 client success stories where you’re able to characterize who your client was in a safe way, protecting their identity, and sharing a little bit about their journey to success.
Alicia Cramer: [00:36:03] Sure. Let me think of some that would be really relevant to this particular conversation. I’ll start with, I’ll refer to him by his initials, RR. Um, he came to me quite a few years ago and stayed with me for many, many years. He originally came to me because he had some trauma around a pretty substantial financial issue, and he knew it was not only adversely affecting him mentally and emotionally, but literally was like triggering fear. So when it came to thinking about the bank and he is, you know, a large organization, so he’s working with the bank regularly because they’re making large purchases on a regular basis. Not the kind of problem you want to have when you’re frequently dealing with that as a critical component in your business. So he reached out to me and he wanted to work on resolving the trauma he was feeling around that particular incident. And of course, we obviously worked on that and cleaned that up. And then he continued on working through pretty much anything and everything that was coming up, interpersonal relationship issues with employees, stuff that was coming up for him with regard to his own marriage, health related things, you know, whatever comes up.
Alicia Cramer: [00:37:39] And that is sort of the recurring theme. A lot of clients will come to me. They have one particular challenge that is really, really causing them a lot of mental and emotional distress. Sometimes it’s a long-standing issue that they’re just like, I can’t deal with this anymore, something has to change. Sometimes it’s a more acute thing where it’s like, This just happened. It has thrown me completely off and I need to work through this because I can’t. This is adversely affecting my business. It’s adversely affecting my relationship with my spouse, with my children, whatever. And we work through that. And because the transformational is so liberating, anyone who’s ever – and I’m sure everyone listening has had some micro versions of this, at very least – when you’ve been struggling with something that has been weighing on every part of your mind, body and soul, and you are liberated from that, it is the most awe-inspiring, beautiful, most gratitude enhancing thing.
Sara Sheehan: [00:38:52] It’s wonderful. It is. It’s wonderful to think of the bonds being released. I mean, it’s just awesome.
Alicia Cramer: [00:39:00] And for a moment, you’re able to see the higher truth that you’re an infinite being full of potential, and that is just an illusion. And if that illusion can, if you can release that, what else is possible? And so then people are like, this is another area in my life where I’ve been holding myself back. Let’s dig into that. And then this is another area of my life where I’ve been holding myself back. And let’s dig into that. And the transformation becomes exponential because now not only are you actively shifting those things that were pain points for you, but you’re starting to know within, like, the depth of your being that you don’t have to be a victim of anything anymore. And it’s so empowering and it creates more confidence. It creates more zest for life. People start actually thinking bigger again and they’re achieving things. And, you know, it’s so funny because a lot of my clients work with me for months or even years. And even though they keep having these incredible things happening to them, they still sometimes are a little bit taken back, like, Oh my God, can you believe that just happened? Oh yeah, of course I can believe that it just happened. Now you need to start believing more that this can happen more regularly.
Sara Sheehan: [00:40:26] Absolutely. I, I want to have an up, constant upward spiral in my life that’s unobstructed. And so, yes.
Alicia Cramer: [00:40:38] One thing I will say, there will always be obstructions because we’ve got lots and lots and lots of old stuff conditioned into our subconscious mind that we have to let go of when we’re up-levelling that old habit of feeling that way about yourself, or that old habit of feeling insecure around those people, or that old habit of something good happened and now I actually have to sort of retract a little bit because I’m not comfortable with that much good happening. We have to work through those things because that stuff is not a mental, emotional, vibrational match to that new level that we’re being called up into. And that’s why the work never ends. That’s why there is no really truly like, you know, oh, I achieved enlightenment. And then, you know, you fly up into the, into the sky, never to return. We’re just, we’re all, you know, progressively releasing, up-levelling, bumping up against some stuff, releasing, up-levelling again, is just that as we’re doing that doesn’t mean that sometimes it doesn’t knock us down and catch us off guard. But there is a knowingness, I’ve been through this before, I can do this again, I will get it.
Sara Sheehan: [00:42:00] That is, that’s great. I love how you explained it as an ongoing process. You know, more than a staircase for certain. Maybe there are different landings and moments of reflection that are involved, but I can definitely see in my own progression that moments of reflection are definitely critical so that we are becoming aware of what we need to work on next. Super, super powerful stuff today. Alicia, how would you define success for yourself at this point?
Alicia Cramer: [00:42:39] That definition has changed. You know, we talked about the beginning of the entrepreneurial journey. Success was, you know, like a multi-million dollar business or something like that. You know, it was purely superficial stuff. Not that physical stuff isn’t valuable, important, we’re here, we’re physical. We love physical stuff. Right? Physical stuff is good. But now success means so much more of that inner, that inner state. It is loving my life, loving my family, loving my home, appreciating all of the incredible things that I have created for myself. Not because they’re just fancy, nice, shiny things, but because it’s my preference. That beautiful car is because I like it, not because I’m trying to impress anybody. The money is fantastic, but to be doing what you love and to be in the state of abundance and to know that this is an infinitely abundant universe and that I can tune myself in to what my heart desires, that is success. That state of empowerment, that state of love, that state of when I am falling asleep at night, I can feel grateful. I have peace in my heart. I have peace in my mind. And yet I still have enthusiasm for what I can create yet. And it’s not about I have to do this because I need some relief from that stress or that fear or that insecurity, it is, Alright, I know that sometimes there’s going to be some bumps in the road, but for the most part, this is a pretty fun ride.
Sara Sheehan: [00:44:28] That’s outstanding. That is so touching. And I thank you so much for sharing your beautiful definition of success. Is there a big goal or is there more than one big goal that you have in 2023?
Alicia Cramer: [00:44:50] A part of me feels called to a slight reinvention. Obviously, I love what I’m doing. I will always keep doing what I’m doing. There is a part of me that is excited about operating my own business more like I’m on a permanent vacation. So we just moved into a beautiful home. It was a goal location for me. I just told my husband the other day, I said, I’ve created almost everything that I’ve wanted. And of course, you know, there’s always the little things and the expansion. But we want to do more travelling internationally as a family. We want to really just start to see the other side of life, not just the building and achieving goals side of life and doing meaningful work, which I love. But now it’s a little bit more of let’s play a little bit more, let’s have a little bit more fun. Let’s make the second half of my life so good, right? Because the first half of my life kind of was not, you know, it’s a little bumpy, a little rocky, a little… And let’s really make it count. I’ve had an amazing life. I have an amazing family. I’m so grateful, so blessed. And so now it’s just a little bit more about let’s keep doing this amazing work that is so incredibly fulfilling and let’s just take that stance, that mindset shift of let’s make it more play, more playful, more lighthearted, more fun. And so that is my big goal for this particular year, is let’s make it light and fun and easy and joyful at a whole new level that it’s never been before.
Sara Sheehan: [00:46:42] Wow. Creating fun memories. That’s amazing. Not to mention deeper relationships when you’re really not taking yourself too seriously or the people that you’re with and just enjoying them. That’s a beautiful thing. Well, thank you so much, Alicia, for joining me today and sharing some tremendous insight on the power of mastering your mindset. I truly believe that this is a pivotal thing for not only entrepreneurs, but leaders in business to take a really close look at. If you really want to understand how you can be more successful or increase your performance, you might want to take a look at mindset. If you’re interested in exploring more and learning more about Alicia, please check out the show notes, her website, her LinkedIn profile, more information about the Inner Game Academy. It’ll all be available in the show notes. Thanks so much, Alicia.
Alicia Cramer: [00:47:50] Thank you.
