#055 Your Zone of Magic in Midlife

Are you working in your ‘Zone of Magic?’ Once you’re there, you can make more impact and income.

In this episode I share with you how I get out of confusion into my magic zone. The first step is to check is not to work out your life purpose, but something different (and so much more useful and fun).

Take a look at the Zone of Magic Masterclass, it is an incredible process to get you aligned with your business and create/realign your offers. Then we will co-create your message so that your dream clients will look at what you’re posting & scream ‘she’s speaking straight to my heart. Is she inside my head?’

See the details for the Zone of Magic Masterclass here:
https://thesarahleather.com/masterclass/

If you never want to miss another episode, subscribe to the show here.

Transcript:

Are you working in your zone of magic? Hi, this is the topic for today’s podcast, talking all about whether you are working in the area that you really want to be working in. And this is the thing, when we’ve been in business for a while, or when we’re first starting a business, or maybe when we’re pivoting, we can really question things such as a niche. You can hear people saying, you must have a niche, it’s important to really dial in your niche, you need a micro niche. It’s such a saturated marketplace out there. You’ve got to know who you’re talking to. And yeah, that is true. I’m not going to say that I don’t believe that’s true. Nobody will have different thoughts about it. And you can get really confused listening to all the people and all their opinions. I know I’m going to hold my hand up high here because I have been confused more than once or twice myself. It’s actually a cycle I go through several times a year. I’ve been working as a business coach for over 10 years now. I’ve been coaching for around 15 years. I’ve been working with women, helping them to get what they want to help them to create healthier wealthier lives for over 30 years now. And I still go through it. I still go through these cycles of really questioning, am I doing the right thing? Am I working with the right people? Am I exactly where I need to be? You may or may not have hurt me talking before about how I don’t really believe in life purpose when it comes to our businesses or our jobs or the work, we’re here in the world to do.

I really believe in seasons of purpose. I believe that we have different seasons in our lives, and it can depend a lot on external things, such as whether or not we have got young children, whether we’ve got a partner whether we’ve got aging parents we’re looking after, maybe there’s other things going around. For me part of my season at the moment is having a magnificent black Labrador called Indy who’s a breeder for the Irish guide dogs. She makes puppies that go on to be guide dogs, which is so, so cool. But I know that because this is the season we’re in with her, it’s very much matched into her seasons. She had 11 puppies last summer, and it was pretty much a 24/7 thing. I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired in all my life as I was at that stage, it was far more exhausting than having small children. I’ve got four kids of their twenties, but they were four very young children for quite a while. And I had a lot of babies. So, for me, that’s part of my season about where I’m at and why I create a lot of space in my calendar, particularly during the summertime when she’s more than likely going to be having puppies. So, that’s part of my season. A lot of us in midlife think that once our kids are grown up, that’s going to be it. We just get all this time to look after ourselves, but it’s amazing how we recreate the same things in different ways, which is amazing for me. It’s such an incredible thing to be doing and an amazing thing to be contribute to that.

I want you to think, what season are you in right now? What’s going on in life? As I said, these are external things that are happening around us. For example covid was, it may still be depending on where you are. I’m currently in Perth, my original home in Western Australia and they are very much still in COVID land here. Whereas where I live most of the time in Ireland, all restrictions are gone. Everything’s changed. And whereas here it’s still very much a thing. So, all of these external things will make a difference to your season of purpose and what work you’re going to be doing right now. There are also internal factors as well. The biggest one for me, this probably won’t surprise you too much, is menopause and the effect that it’s had on me at this age and stage of my life. I’m actually officially postmenopausal now for several years, but I feel menopause still keeps going on for quite a long time. There are different physical, cool things going on. But for me, it’s been far more of an emotional rollercoaster than I ever imagined it would be. There’s lots of things that I am doing to manage that. It has had a profound effect on my confidence and on the way that I want to be working and the way that I want to be showing up in the world and expressing myself. And I don’t want to be in the hustle or in the pushing and striving, but I’m still ambitious. I still have this burning desire to be a courageous leader of women because I work with women that lead courageously in their world. And I still want to make an impact. I still want to help women to really change their lives and make more income, make more impact and really to see what’s possible for them. I really am so inspired by that, about shining the light on women and what’s possible for them because they’re ambitious too. I used to use the term “quietly ambitious”, because a lot of the women I work with don’t want to shout from the rooftops, but let’s not mince words. It really is just like, they are ambitious, they have these dreams and desires.

Society can tell us so much about what is expected of women once they get into midlife, into menopause and postmenopausal years, that they should shrink down, they should shrivel up and go and sit quietly in the corner. But I am so not retiring. I so not going to be shrinking and making my voice smaller. What I have noticed over the last few years is that I continually shrink myself down. Society isn’t doing it, it’s me. It’s coming from an internal thing in me that when I get on the edge of something that’s going to be really big, I then just shrink back down again and I retreat. But the place I retreat to is into my groups, helping my clients and helping them to progress, but I notice I just do a bit of retreating and that is something that I’m not going to tolerate from myself anymore. And I am so good at spotting it with my clients. I’m so good at seeing where they shrink back. I don’t regret going through this, or even still being in it a little bit because I can spot it with women so acutely. The biggest expression of yourself, that’s where you are shrinking down and just being small. It is a thing that happens with our brains because we’ve still got very ancient brains that want to keep us small and safe so if we step outside our pack, if we make any noise, if we say anything that isn’t acceptable by the people that are around us, by maybe our peers or our group or the people that we are with, then we will be eaten up by the sabre tooth tiger. It’s not safe. It feels so unsafe to us. And it’s incredibly important that we recognize that old part of our brain is still trying to keep us safe a very long time ago. We have to remind ourselves of what year it is now, what age we are now. A lot of it also is about us being a much younger version of ourselves. That three year old, that five year old, that seven year old, that nine year old that didn’t feel safe or didn’t feel emotionally supported. We go back to that as well because that was also some subconscious conditioning that has happened and those beliefs that we took on when we were so young in our pivotal years, can have changed our life, particularly when our hormones are shifting and changing, really have a very big voice. It’s important to recognize and see if that is causing some problems with you that sometimes you need to go and do the work with a trauma therapist or with somebody that does inner child work or maybe family constellations. It could be EFT tapping, there’s all sorts of things that can help to move you on past that and really recognize that you are a grownup now and you are safe and it is absolutely fine for you to be as ambitious as you want, and to create that in come an impact that you want and that you are not in danger. That’s important to do that. Work with somebody who is a professional in that area. It’s also something that coaching can help with. If you’re not crossing lines over into significant trauma.

It is something that I know that I work with all the time with my own self coaching. I have a technique that I developed myself many years ago called the steer process. That’s what I use with my clients. ‘m looking at teaching that model as well, teaching that process to my clients in the future. It is something that I find profoundly good at reprogramming, creating new neural pathways of really getting out those subconscious thoughts and beliefs that are holding me back, holding my clients back from actually doing the work in the world that we want to. So, our season of purpose is reflected, not just on our external things, but also our internal things that are going on. This is really important to recognize as the first step of really stepping into your zone of magic.

You may be aware of the fabulous author, Gay Hendricks who wrote the book, “The Big Leap”. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. I reread it every January. Actually I listen to it on audible, because I much prefer it that way, but it’s really great. It’s great to listen to his voice and hear him talking about stepping into your different zones. He talks about the zone of competence, which is kind of like what everybody could do, think that you’re not going to get fired, you’re just competent at what you do. And then going up into your zone of excellence, which is where most people sort of aspire to and stop doing an excellent job and getting the gold star and thinking, this is good. And then he talks about the ultimate level being your zone of genius, where you are really doing the work that you are to do and stepping into a level that is just way above that zone of excellence.

And I really love that. It’s helped me so much with my work, but I like to think of another sort of little layer on top of that called your zone of magic, when you are really in flow and really working in an area that is so exquisitely you and so tapping into that, because nobody else is you. So many people worry about competition, but there is no competition, because there is no other you. Yes, there’s other people that do the same thing that maybe have trained in the same organization or have do very similar work to you, but they are not you. Nobody else is you. And that’s why you never have to worry about a saturated marketplace because you are you, and you’ve got your own unique voice. And that’s why I loved my program Wholehearted Marketing, we really work on finding that inner voice, that inner message, doing it from a place of a wide-open heart of just being truly madly, deeply in love with your business so much and really falling in love with marketing in a way that has never happened before that you actually can’t wait to do it and absolutely loving it. And that’s really working in stepping into your zone of magic and making your marketing magical, making your work magical, because most of us have not started. Most of us have not started a business to be a marketer. I was talking about this on a Wholehearted Marketing call yesterday. We do weekly live coaching calls and I was saying hands up, who started their business to be a marketer. And they all said, furthest thing from my mind. And you know, it, it is sometimes in my live events, I’ve got people to stand up and say, I am a marketer who helps women to find their soulmate and go around the room and get everyone to say that, because there’s so much resistance to calling myself a marketer. If we take the marketing part out of our businesses, well then, it’s a job where you turn up to work and here’s your client load for the day and here’s the work you’re doing for the day. That’s a job that somebody else has done the marketing, whereas when we have our own business, we create our own clients through our marketing, through giving value through our thoughts. There’s lots of other things, but when it comes down to it at the end of the day, that’s marketing. So, it’s fabulous to really look at it through that lens and to think about if you were truly stepping into your zone of magic, what might that look like? Is that what you’re doing now? Or is that very different? And most often, and this is what I come back to every single time, when I go through these periods of confusion, questioning niche, questioning everything, it feels like I need to be going over there and doing something completely different. For me, it’s normally a few days. I need a whole new niche or need to go and do something else entirely. But I just sit with it. I allow the thoughts. I allow the feelings to come. I just sit with it. And then what I always comes back to is, oh, I’m just going to the next level. And I have to then check in, not with myself now, but with future Sarah. I might check in and say, well, what’s seven figure Sarah saying over there. When I was on my journey to six figures, I used to say to myself, what would six figure Sarah say right now? Then it was what would multiple six figures Sarah say? And now it’s like, okay, let’s transport forward rather than going back into the old pain and hurt and everything in past kind of scenarios, go to the future you and ask her, what is she saying now about this? What is she looking for? And what is the next, the next iteration of her? And I always get amazing messages. I’ve got certain questions I ask myself and really get to that place and it’s so much fun. Like it’s uncomfortable at the time, but I get moved through it and get to that landing point. I’ve been going through it lately and it hasn’t come from necessarily sitting in front of the computer. It’s come from going for a walk on the beach or just sitting with that discomfort and surrendering to it a lot and allowing to ask myself certain questions and boom, it lands.

It will always be exactly what I’m doing now, but next level. Who’s the next level me, who’s the next level client? Or how do I need to hold my client that’s next level of not just what’s possible for them (I love showing them what’s possible for them) but also what is going to become once they’re fully in that belief of what’s possible, will become inevitable for them. It will happen. It will absolutely happen and holding them with that discomfort of them not knowing. And with me. And this is the biggest thing that I’ve had to learn as a coach because, like I used to be a nurse. I ran a successful health practice for a long time. I’ve brought up lots of children. I’ve done lots of minding, nurturing, caring. I’ve got to make sure that I’m not in that rescuing mode when my clients are feeling stuck and allowing them to go through the process and guiding them through it and helping them through it, but not trying to rescue them and hop in and just say, this is your niche here. Take this niche here and run with it, because otherwise a few weeks later they’re going to think, that’s not quite right. There’s something not quite right there, because it hasn’t come from within them. And it used to be the thing that I used to talk about a lot as a business coach was like, yeah, sometimes a business coach, sometimes I’m a consultant. Sometimes I’m a mentor. I’m not always going to coach you around everything. Sometimes I’m going to tell you exactly what to do. I’ve got a really strong strategic part of me. I love nothing more than strategy and I will totally shorten someone’s learning curve and get them on a road to success as quickly as is possible. But there are some parts of it that I’ve known and this only comes from being a really seasoned business coach. And I get that.

I have clients say to me, I’ve worked with other coaches that are much newer and they are just great cheerleaders. And they tell me, oh, this is amazing. I do this and do this and do this. But then it ends up being totally lacking in substance. And because it’s just like strategy, and piling one strategy on top of another may sound like you are on the right path and you’re doing the right thing, but it usually just ends in complete overwhelm. And it takes a lot of courage to simplify things, to take out some of the strategy and just have a very simple plan, but it really is the way that success happens and to have less offers and to have less stuff going on in the business. It’s a very elegant way to do business. It’s a very simple way. And it’s also a really successful way. So, coming back to the zone of magic, it is something that I get so excited about. That’s why I have a masterclass, it’s a two part masterclass, two 90 minute sessions, to really hone in on your zone magic. If we start off looking at your season of purpose and really seeing where you are at right now, you don’t want to be where you were 10 years ago, you don’t want to be at where you want to get to in five or 10 years, you’ve got to be at where you are now, but really looking forward and saying like, what am I creating here? What am I creating? What’s my vision? What’s my mission? What is the purpose to this? That’s where we start really with looking at that season of purpose and moving on from there, with all the questions to really dial in, what is your zone of magic? And then with that, what are the offers going to be? What are the one, two, three maximum ways that you’re going to be working your clients in a way that is so aligned to who you are and the person you are becoming with that, you know, that vision of not just what’s possible, also what can become inevitable for you. And then from there looking at some basic frameworks around your messaging about how you are going to express this into the world so people can look at your stuff and think, I want what she’s having, that’s it, she’s speaking straight to me. She’s speaking straight to my heart, oh my goodness, I need to be in her world. That’s what I desire for you to really have. So, you can see that there’ll be a link in the show notes. But also, you can go to my website, thesarahleather.com/masterclass, and you’ll see it there, you’ll see the Zone of Magic Masterclass. It’s an incredible price, it’s a fraction of what I would normally charge to give the help like this and just hop on it while it’s available and just do this work. I think this is work that we all need to do around every six months in our business, really to check back in with it and just see, am I fully aligned to my business? Am I really feeling connected to my business? Some people need to make a major overhaul, other people just need to make subtle tweaks. And those subtle tweaks can be profound in their impact, in their income, in how they are showing up in the world. And a big reason why so many women hide in their businesses and don’t do their beautiful marketing in the world is because they are just feeling that disconnection. They are feeling like, no, I haven’t quite got it right yet. I’m feeling a bit confused about my business. So, I just need to go and sort of play in that confusion for a while where this really is the answer for them. I’d love to see you there, thesarahleather.com/masterclass, the Zone of Magic Masterclass is waiting for you. I’ll see you very soon. Thank you so much for listening.