Unlocking Secrets to Happiness with guest Teri Karjala, LPC, LMFT
On this episode of Brainy Moms, Dr. Amy Moore and Teri Miller interview Teri Karjala, LPC, LMFT. Teri is a therapist, transformational life strategist, and best-selling author of the book Be the Magic of You: Tools to Transform Your Life! with a foreword by Jack Canfield. In just one hour, we learned eight secrets to removing the roadblocks that keep us from achieving our dreams as moms, mompreneurs, and business leaders. Teri talks about negative thinking , self-sabotage, the myth of multi-tasking, limiting beliefs, imposter syndrome, time management, and more as what stands in our way of happiness and success. Join us for a tip-filled episode that can put you on the road to transformation.
Transcript and show notes for this episode:
Unlocking Secrets to Happiness
with guest
Teri Karjala, LPC, LMFT
Dr. Amy Moore:
Hi and welcome to this episode of Brainy Moms. I’m Dr. Amy Moore here with my cohost Teri Miller coming to you today from sunny Colorado Springs. Our guest today is Teri Karjala. She is a transformational life strategist, the founder of Creative Counseling Center and Talking with Teri, best-selling author of Be the Magic of You: Tools to Transform Your Life with a foreword written by Jack Canfield. She’s a Premier Success Coach with eWomen Network and a coach with Forbes. She’s been featured in many television podcasts and radio shows including Hay House.
Teri Miller:
Welcome, Teri. I’m so glad you’re here.
Teri Karjala:
Yes, it is such a delight to be here. Thank you, ladies.
Teri Miller:
Yes. So, if you’re listening, interesting and bizarre little tidbit, if you’re on Facebook, you can see three of our faces in our little boxes. And two of us have the same first name spelled exactly the same which is unusual, T-E-R-I with only one R. And we just found out even stranger, I’m Teri Miller, that Teri Karjala’s maiden name is …
Teri Karjala:
That was my maiden name. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. I don’t know. That just seems really fun.
Teri Miller:
I know. Interesting small world, kind of.
Dr. Amy Moore:
Yeah. And Teri is coming to us from Colorado as well.
Teri Karjala:
Yes.
Dr. Amy Moore:
We rarely get to interview people from the same state that we’re located in. Just coincidences everywhere.
Teri Miller:
Yes.
Teri Karjala:
Love it.
Teri Miller:
Really small world. We could just throw stones at each other practically.
Teri Karjala:
And I was just there last week. I was just speaking down in Colorado Springs last week. I was. I was.
Teri Miller:
Well, I am excited to hear about what a transformational life strategist is. So tell us a little bit about your story. And what brought you to the point of being a transformational life strategist.
Teri Karjala:
Well, first of all, that’s a term I just made up. So, rewind, when I was … gosh, this actually started when I was in sophomore in high school. So, there were six of us. So, in high school, we didn’t have a traditional mental health counselor in high school. They had a career counselor.
Teri Karjala:
And so, they picked three girls and three boys to become peer counselors. So in my high school, we were going to Washburn University which was like the social work mecca in Kansas. And we were getting trained in these three-day long intensive events becoming a peer counselor. And so, we would do these workshops and do follow-up workshops. And so we were just getting trained as high school students.
Teri Karjala:
And I wanted to become either an undercover cop in New York City or a cosmetologist. But when I became a peer counselor, what happened was I was in charge of the fifth and sixth grade. So I go over there for lunch and get to know them and hang out with them. And I was in a listening ear and I can … if there was any troubles or problems or concerns that I was there to help address it.
Teri Karjala:
And we did little things like friendships and things like that. But one of the girls who was a fifth grader came to me and said that her sixth grade friend was going to commit suicide. She had a plan. The parents were going out of town. She was staying with a babysitter. And we ended up getting involved, the person who was overseeing us.
Teri Karjala:
And being a sophomore in high school and being a part of possibly saving someone’s life was transformational. And it changed the trajectory of my life. It was so powerful. And I was like, “This is what I want to do.” Long story short, I had some challenges getting the support I needed through the high school to get into the colleges.
Teri Karjala:
And I ended up going to college for counseling, found some great mentors that mentored me to like yes to this, no to that. And no, you don’t want to do social work. No, you want to do therapy. And then, went on to pursue a master’s degree in counseling. And I just fell in love with the counseling world. So I was doing counseling in my undergrad, and just loved it.
Teri Karjala:
And so, after my master’s, I opened up a counseling center and then grew it to be a very large owner independent company. So right now, it runs itself. I spent about four hours a month in that company and that’s given me the freedom to continue to grow. And now, I work solely with women entrepreneurs. So, the other company, we continue to see children, adolescents and adults that have experienced trauma. So, mostly sexual abuse, physical abuse, witnessing domestic violence, homicides, suicides, pretty much anything traumatic for a child’s life, and in individuals and adults.
Teri Karjala:
And so that’s continued to run. And then, that’s allowed me to just the freedom to step out to what I feel called to do. And so, I launched Talking with Teri. Interesting enough, Talking with Teri I think was 16 or 17 years ago. My social media person had said, “What’s your retirement plan?” And I just word vomited on her and I said, “I’ll be traveling and speaking and dah, dah, dah, dah.”
And by the way, at the time, I was terrified of speaking. And I said, “Where did that come from?” And I was like, “I think it’s going to be called Talking with Teri.” And she’s like, “Oh, my goodness, I love it.” So I bought the domains 15 years, 16 years, even before I even knew I was going to use that. But now, I’ve taken my 24 years of counseling experience. I’ve combined it with energy psychology and then applied the principles of quantum physics to really help leverage women entrepreneurs’ businesses.
I feel very called to doing this because I feel like … so often, what I’ve experienced in the networking events and things is that women will start a business. And when we start a business, there’s multiple hats that we wear and we get bogged down by everything that we’re doing. We have all these limiting beliefs that are playing out to self-sabotage that can’t go big enough. And so, we don’t create the impact that we could have. And our businesses and the impact that we have really suffer.
And so, I’m all about having women have a bigger impact in the world. And I think on the back frame of where we’re having this conversation is I think we need more people to step into their power, step into their brilliance to really own the services that they provide and the impact that they can have on the community and really help lift as we climb. And from a collective consciousness perspective, I think it’s much needed right now.
Teri Miller:
Wow. Okay. Yeah.
Dr. Amy Moore:
So, let’s dig in a little bit to that idea that women entrepreneurs should be making a bigger impact on the world. So you work with them exclusively. What are some of the biggest challenges and barriers to success that you’re seeing?
Teri Karjala:
I will always say the biggest number one challenge that we have to our success is our mindset. You can teach skills. We can teach how to have a better following on social media. We can teach how to have sales conversations. We can teach all these skills and systems and structures.
But if we are getting ourselves in the way, so for example, I had this powerful conversation today. And this lady has been working with a sales coach for over a year. And I was like, “Fantastic.” I’m thinking she’s going to nail these sales calls. Her business is flourishing. And I asked her. I was like, “How many sales calls have you had in the last year? How many clients are you closing each year or each month?”
Teri Karjala:
Take a guess.
Teri Miller:
She’s been with them for a year. It doesn’t sound like she’s making any progress.
Teri Karjala:
Zero. You know why?
Dr. Amy Moore:
Why?
Teri Karjala:
She’s afraid to be seen. If she goes in front of an audience and actually speaks her truth, that means that she would have to stand out. That means, “What would other people think?” So she chooses not to be seen if she’s had to do sales calls because that makes sense. And so, she’s playing small. She’s playing small in the world and she’s sabotaging her own success by not getting out there and not having an impact.
And so, that’s why I love working with other coaches, whether they’re doing any type of sales or marketing or branding or whatever that might be. I think my tagline should be, “I help other coaches look good.” Because if their clients are actually doing the work … because I’m not going to go and teach business. I have a client that she says, “You’re fantastic, Teri. You’re like a little unicorn,” because she’s like, “You’re like a three coach in one.” She’s like, “You are a therapist. You tap into the energy and the spiritual piece of it, but you understand how to have a business and create successful businesses.”
And so, I pulled that from that. But I think it’s really important that we get ourselves in our own ways of our successes. So, I talk about the top five blocks in which women get ourselves in the way and that one is just the limiting beliefs, whatever the previous programming was that we brought through life. And that’s usually I’m not blank enough. I’m not good enough. I’m not pretty enough. I’m not smart enough. I’m not intelligent enough. I’m not young enough. I’m not old enough. I’m not whatever that might be.
The next one is self-sabotage where we’re just getting ourselves in our way by purposely, sometimes consciously, but mostly unconsciously, every time we take those two steps forward, we’re like, “Oh, gosh, scary, scary. I better backup.” And we find ourselves sabotaging all sorts of things, not just our business but in our relationships as well.
And then, getting stuck in fear. During this pandemic, the last couple of years, what happened energetically was there was a big blanket of fear that got thrown on to the planet. So people that were in fear, to begin with, now has this added layer. So, that’s another big piece of it, getting stuck in the fear and not being able to go into action.
And then getting overwhelmed. As entrepreneurs, I always tell everyone who becomes that entrepreneur like, “Read the book The E-Myth revisited.” I just love it. It’s by Michael Gerber. It’s such a great book, but it talks about the systems and structures. And what happens for entrepreneurs is that we go into it thinking that we’re going to be the tech person because we love the tech part, whatever service and products that we’re serving.
But in order to scale our business and become bigger, we take on all these other admin and manager-type duties that were not necessarily chose to do in the beginning when we were stepping into this. And we don’t have to go that direction, but that’s typically the direction that most people go. And it’s getting creative to get around those skills or not the skills but the tasks that’s required to grow the business.
The next one is getting stuck in imposter syndrome. So, comparing ourselves to other people and not thinking that we’re worthy enough, not thinking that we’re good enough. I mean, that one plays out. And I’ll tell you, some of my biggest clients, I mean, I have a client right now and she brings in $27 billion, a B, that’s billion. And she has the imposter syndrome like crazy. She does not feel good about herself. She’s always comparing herself. And I’m like, “Wait, what? Wait until we get this all cleared out because go for it you’re going to be skyrocketing it and having an incredible impact.”
And then the last one is … no, I think I went over them all. Yeah. Wait, I think there’s another one.
Dr. Amy Moore:
You can add another one, sure.
Teri Karjala:
And there’s many more, but those are the big ones. And those are the far-reaching ones that have a big impact on how we view ourselves, how we view our business, how are we showing up. Because when we start to shrink, and whatever those stories are, when we start to shrink back, we’re not allowing people to see us for who we really are. So I love helping people clear those blocks.
But then the second thing is I teach them the tools how they can really be magnetic and making networking easy. I love having people become so magnetic that when they walk into the room, their ideal clients walk up to them and like, “Hey, you’re speaking to me. I want to work with you. What is that? I’m curious.” And so, it creates this curiosity and people are like. I don’t know if that’s the best sound effects but that’s what it feels like when it’s like. Like, “I want to work with you.”
Dr. Amy Moore:
Great sound effect.
Teri Miller:
Yes.
Teri Karjala:
Yeah. It’s like a little Slurpee. I’m a Slurpee magnet.
Dr. Amy Moore:
So, tell us one way that we can be more of a magnet.
Teri Karjala:
Goodness, there’s lots of ways. Let me just think about this for a second.
Dr. Amy Moore:
Well, you can tell us more than one. I wasn’t trying to give away your trade secrets on national radio.
Teri Karjala:
Yeah. No, I’m happy to give out secrets because here’s the thing is that whenever I’m working with clients, they always get a bonus because I always tell them like, “I want you to take this tool and I want you to go teach someone tonight.” And the reason for that is because I truly believe in abundance. And if you teach it to somebody else, you automatically sort of lock it in.
But how we become more magnetic? Yes, there’s a lot of things that are holding us back. And if we are telling our stories over and over and over again by that stinking thinking … so I’m going to tell you a couple of things. One is to stop the noise. And so often, we’re unconscious of what are the stories that we’re telling ourselves. I’ll give an example.
A few years ago, I had this client come in and she would just beat herself up. She’s like, “Oh, my gosh, I can’t believe this. I did this wrong. I didn’t do this. I didn’t do that. I am an idiot.” No, she didn’t say idiot, she said stupid. “I am stupid.” And she would say this 15 or 20 times. And I would just not make note of it. And I was like, “You’re doing that thing again.” And she’s like, “What?” She was so unconscious that she was calling herself stupid. And she’s like, “I would not.” I had to convince her. I’m like, “This is what’s coming out of your mouth,” because she was so unconscious to it. Okay.
So, what I invite people to do is one is to cancel out those negative thoughts. It’s easy for us to work forward. But if you’re still going back and just continuing that cycle of the unconscious limiting beliefs … so, according to the National Science Foundation, we have anywhere from 50 to 60,000 thoughts a day and only 2,000 of those are conscious. Okay.
So, when we think we’re running the show, we’re really not the unconscious. And so, those scripts that are in play, it’s all the reinforcement, it’s all the imprinting that’s happened in this programming. And so, one of the tools that I teach people, and so for those that are listening, I want you to write this down. Do not do this while you’re driving. Pull over. Be safe. Safety first. But go ahead and write it down.
It goes like this, interesting point of view that I have this interesting point of view. And I want you to put a 3x behind that. Okay. So when we’re saying that … ladies, you guys are on video with me, you guys get the joy of seeing how this works. But when we have these negative thoughts that are coming into our brain, what happens is these activate the reticulating activation system of our brain.
That part of the brain actually goes and seeks evidence to support it to say, “Yup, that’s true, you’re an idiot because you didn’t pick up the kids on time. You’re an idiot because you didn’t call that lady back and now you missed your speaking engagement,” all of these different things. So, when we start to say this, it looks like this where it’s interesting point of view that I have this interesting point of view, interesting point of view that I have this interesting point of view, interesting point of view that I have interesting point of view.
And what happens is we actually cancel out that thought. Okay. And the power of this is it’s going to bring the … not only cancels out that thought but it’s also going to bring about awareness to the quality of your thoughts. And now for me, once I do that three times, I’m canceling that thought out, I like to bring back and open up to the possibilities again. Okay. So now that we’ve cut out the negative, now opening it back up. And I like to ask a generative question like, “What else is possible?” Because generational questions start to open us back up again from an energetic perspective.
Now, most of my people always say, “Well, how many times should I be doing this a day?” I’m like, “Well, we have around 48,000 thoughts that are unconscious, so do it 10,000 times a day.” I’m kidding. I’m kidding. But if you did it 50 times a day, I wonder what you could create. And so, when to use this tool is when you have any negative thoughts. Whenever you jump to conclusions to yourself or other … I’m sorry, when you jump to conclusions or outcomes. And anytime you have judgments for yourself or someone else. All of those tend to cut off the energy from the quantum field, if you will.
And so, utilizing this tool. Now, I invite people to write this tool down. Put it on post-it notes. Put it in your car, on your dashboard, at your home computer, at your work computer, on the refrigerator. Because what’s happening is we’re not going to always catch those unconscious thoughts. Okay. So I invite people to invite other friends, family members, spouses, significant other, power partners, mentors, whatever that may be. So when they catch you doing that, say, “Okay, let’s come up with a code word, get the purple elephant.”
And so that they can also start helping you catch that so you can start replacing that, but also cancelling that piece out, because that will stop the continue the spiral that’s helping. So when we start doing that, it’s amazing what we can shift and create by simply just doing that little exercise. And that’s one way that we can start stepping back into our magnetism. Because from a vibrational standpoint, when we are … so, the research has shown that everything, every emotion is on a vibrational scale.
So we have the negative emotions down at the bottom and then all the way up to the top. Okay. So, the negative ones would be depression, fear, doubt, worry. We go up the scale to maybe some more contentment. We might have joy in there and then happiness. And then we keep going back up the scale into the more positive emotions which is the highest is love and gratitude. And so, when we are coming from a place of fear and doubt, we are actually creating in our environment, we’re actually calling into that the same vibrational standpoints.
We start to create some of those experiences. It’s in that vibration. So when we become magnetic and when we are in our highest and greatest good, we are unstoppable. We are on fire. We are passionate. We are there. That’s a very different place than being in the despair. So when we’re in that alignment, people will … I always tell people like, “It’s almost like playing with what I call celebrity energy,” because you become this like gigantic magnet. It’s like, “I don’t know what’s happening.”
So, I like to teach my clients how to get there because life gets a lot easier when you become the magnet, allowing people that are in the same vibrational scale as you to come into your life, whether that’d be clients, speaking engagements, opportunities. It just becomes a lot easier for people.
Teri Miller:
Like negative-positive energy, that kind of thing that that’s contagious. That we are acting the people around us even with the negative self-talk energy that’s creating negative energy, negative vibrations in me, and then that affects the people around me. And so, I walk into a room and I’m not magnetic, I’m repellent.
Teri Karjala:
That’s right. Exactly.
Teri Miller:
My negative thoughts on.
Teri Karjala:
Yes. And I always tell people when they call me like, “Oh, I’m not digging this networking event. I don’t want to go. Man, I have to drive and then parking.” And I’m like, “Don’t go. Don’t go.” Because when you walk in, you’re going to be like, “No, I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here.” And what happens is for a lot of people, they choose to go anyways because they’re like, “I got to get my networking hours. I got to get my connections. I got to get my whatever.”
Teri Karjala:
They go to the event. They’re like, “I don’t want to be here.” And then they show up this way, they show up in this place that they don’t want to be. And they start attracting the clients like that. Okay. So then they’re like, “Okay, yeah, get my business cards, blah, blah, blah.” And then they leave. And then the next three days, they’re like back up in their zone of genius again. And then these clients that they’ve signed up on become I must say PITAs. Okay. You guys know what this stands for, right? The pain-in-the-rear clients. And these become the needy, the whiny.
And they are like, “I don’t understand why are these clients, they were normal when I met them and now they’re not.” And so, that shift in that vibration create that dissonance between those two vibrations. And then we’re surprised when it doesn’t work out.
Dr. Amy Moore:
Okay. So let’s recap that. So, if you show up to a networking opportunity in a bad mood or even in a neutral mood, “I’m here because I need to be here not because I’m so excited about being here,” then you’re going to attract others in that same mindset or in that same …
Teri Karjala:
That’s true. Yeah.
Dr. Amy Moore:
And then when you are in a great mood … and you don’t recognize it in the other person when you’re in the neutral negative space.
Teri Karjala:
And neutral is not a bad place to be in. Neutrality in the world of energy is not a bad place to be because it’s just neutral.
Dr. Amy Moore:
Okay.
Teri Karjala:
But definitely, if you’re in that negative headspace … and I invite people like I teach my clients. And so I do a lot of outside-the-box things. I used to be a therapist and I always tell people like, “I’m the first therapist you’ll meet that says I don’t like therapy because I think it takes too long.” I just find there’s other ways that we can do things.
And most of the things that I teach are under two minutes. I should say, all of them are under two minutes. Most of them are under 30 seconds. So, I’ll have clients in their car doing a couple of things for their brain making sure that their brain is on track so that the words come up to them easily, doing some different energy tools so that they show up really powerful. And so, they become magnetic in that sense.
So it’s just easier for those conversations and the possibilities. And it just becomes very generative in that process. And that’s true for any people. That’s not just for networking, that’s for business meetings, that’s for collaboration calls, that’s for opportunities that are happening. That is meeting people at the grocery store. I’m going to try to do a 48-hour challenge. It’s called a silent retreat. It’s going to be a challenge and you don’t talk.
And I’m like, “I want to sign up for this because I want to see if this … I could actually do this.” But I think it’s so much fun when you’re out and about and you can start these really juicy conversations because you never know where these conversations are going to go. So, any place you can apply these tools in connection with another being. And I just think that we need that. I think we need more smiles, more hugs or whatever we can do to help support one another during this time.
Teri Miller:
Can I get real specific on … just so our listeners can understand. I want to go back to the interesting point of view concept you were talking about because I’m a little unclear. And so, I want to clarify.
Teri Karjala:
Yeah.
Teri Miller:
You’re showing your hands. So she was making her hand go towards … one hand is standing straight up and down and the other one’s traveling along and it hits this wall of the other hand.
Teri Karjala:
So, when I start to … and this is when you’re in the real world. I’m not going to use my hands to describe this. I’m using it just to show you how, in the brain, it cancels out that thought. So if I’m finding myself in stinking thinking, I’m just going to say, “Oh, interesting point of view that I interesting point of view, interesting point of view that I had interesting point of view, interesting point of view that I had interesting point of view.”
One, it gives you the quality of your … that’s going to tell you … and what’s powerful … let me pause for a second. What’s powerful when you start using this, within a week, if you do this every day, within a week, people will start noticing when they are beating themselves up. Because what happens is we take stuff from unconscious and we’re moving it into the conscious frame of mind. Okay.
So when your friends or colleagues say, “Gosh, you know what, Teri, you just did that thing again.” And you’re like, “Oh, yeah, let me just cancel that out.” So, it’s a way in which we can cancel out our thoughts that are not serving us. And then by asking the next question what else is possible, we start to open ourselves back up energetically to what I call creating miracles or creating excitement. Because so many times when we start to beat ourselves up, it doesn’t go like, “I’m going to beat myself up and then I move on.”
Most people will beat themselves up. And what happens is when we engaged the brain, they’re going to keep spiraling. And this spiral can last an hour. It can last four days. It can last a week. It can last a month. And for some cases, people stay there for seven years because we’re just continuing to beat ourselves up.
Now, I was being interviewed here today and someone had said, “You’re so positive.” And I said, “Can you believe it or not, I actually used to be so negative in such a victim state because I was always running that script that I’m not blank enough. I’m not good enough. I’m not smart enough. I’m not intelligent enough. I’m not tall enough.” Like there’s always something wrong with me.
And so I played that script. And then when someone else gave me maybe constructive, but I didn’t feel like it was constructive criticism at that time. I’m like, “Oh, my gosh, they are telling me that I am worthless.” So I am continuing to play that script. And I am just spiraling out of control in that regards. And so, stopping that so that we’re not continuing to build that up because I believe that when we have all these continuous thoughts, what happens over time that we continue having these negative thoughts, we actually create belief systems.
And those belief systems then follow us. And so if we can stop the thoughts, we don’t anchor in and create those powerful belief systems that’s not serving us.
Teri Miller:
Yeah. So, I’m going to get even more specific.
Teri Karjala:
Yup.
Teri Miller:
Okay. Because I want to do an example for our listeners. Okay. So, we had an earlier podcast interview. I had technical difficulties. And Amy, you have heard me say this so many times. Okay. So here’s a negative thought. Here’s the thing I beat myself up about. I was having technical difficulties getting hardwired whatever in.
And the thought I had in that anxiety in the minutes before I’m supposed to be plugged in is I am so technically stupid. Everything I’ve touched, technically, I fail it. What’s wrong with this computer? What’s wrong with the hardware? I’m touching it. I mean, I’m just beating myself up. And my heart is pounding. I’m anxious.
By the time I finally plug in, I’m like, “Hi.” Saying hi to this person we’re interviewing. I am …
Teri Karjala:
A mess.
Teri Miller:
Yeah. I mean, I have to admit that I think there for a few minutes that negative energy, that vibration. It was through the airwaves. I don’t know what state she was in, but 100,000 miles away …
Teri Karjala:
Even as you’re talking about this, I’m feeling it. I’m feeling you relive it. I’m like, “Oh, goodness.” I feel this energy, right?
Teri Miller:
Yeah.
Teri Karjala:
So you’re absolutely right.
Teri Miller:
And how would I have done that?
Dr. Amy Moore:
First of all, let me just add. She was so spun up that she couldn’t even think of the alternative. I had to text her the alternative, actually.
Teri Karjala:
So what happens is I think … I love you, ladies. Okay. I love you, ladies. I’m just going to hang out here all day.
Teri Miller:
Amy is like, “Just use the WiFi. Use the WiFi.”
Teri Karjala:
So, when we spin ourselves like this and we go into fear because now I’m like, “Oh my goodness, I’m going to be late. I’m going to be blah, blah, blah, blah.” And it goes whoop plop. And we get stuck down in this place. And what happens is we shut off our resources.
Teri Miller:
That’s right.
Teri Karjala:
Yes, you go into fear. You shut down and you can’t see past what is happening. And so we just go like blinders on. And even the most common sense things like, “Wait, I don’t get this.” So, within that state, you can just be like, “Okay. Okay.” And if you need to, just like, okay, hold the horses. Okay. Step away. Okay. And if you need to take some breaths like just, “Okay, interesting point of view that I have this interesting point of view, interesting point of view that I have this interesting point of view, interesting point of view that I have this interesting point of view.”
Teri Karjala:
And you might be screaming it. Okay. Let’s be real like, “Oh my gosh, Teri said, I just need [inaudible 00:30:23].” And you can do that if you need. But we want to just cancel that piece out. And then going, okay, take a deep breath. Walk away if you need. Come back and be like, “Okay, what else is possible? I wonder if there’s a solution.” And once we can quiet our mind enough, the solution will appear. Okay.
And I get that frazzled energy that’s happening because it’s like I have 30 seconds, I got to find this. It’s funny, when I was hopping on here today, I was like, “Oh, I have five minutes. I have plenty of time. I’ll sit down and blah, blah, blah.” Well, then something happened with my daughter. And I was like, “Oh, wait, oh no, I’m 4:01.” And I was like, “I don’t want to be late.” And I was like, “You know what, I’m just going to sit.”
And I didn’t even allow myself to create a story because I’m like, “You know what, I’m here.” So, just calming yourself in that sense and just saying, “Okay, what else is possible?” And here’s your homework. I used to have that same story. My story was I used to call myself a … oh, my gosh, what did you call it? You said everything …
Teri Miller:
Everything technical, everything technically …
Teri Karjala:
I said I was allergic to technology. That was what I said. I was like, “I’m allergic to technology and everything goes array.” And I had the craziest experiences with all my computers and technology. And I was like, “Okay, stop it.” So I chose maybe two years ago, maybe three, I said, “You know what, I am going to be such embracing a different reality.” And I’m like, “Wow, why is technology so easy for me?”
Okay. So I flipped it into a question, generative questions, “What happens with the brain?” So if I say, “I am a technical genius, my brain is going to say, ‘Teri, really? Really, you’re technical genius? Let me show you the evidence that you’re not.'” But when I flip it into a question and I say, “Gosh, why is it technology so easy for me,” my brain goes, “I don’t know. Why is that?” So now, my brain starts to seek out.
I’m going to see the baby. That was called multitasking. So, why is it so easy that I become in alignment with technology? And my brain now is going, “I don’t know. Why is that?” And now, my brain is having a different task to find the evidence. So, our brain is going to find out either negative evidence or positive evidence. And if I point it in the right direction, it’s going to go find the evidence. And so now, I am telling you, I am super in alignment with technology. And I’m like, “That’s so easy.”
But it’s just flipping the script and shifting that. And now it’s like, “Okay, now things are easy.” And even just now, when I was like, “Okay, where’s the email? Oh, it’s right here.” It was so easy. And I’m like, “Boom, boom, boom.” So flipping that script and asking the question. And I invite people to flip the question like, “Okay, why is it so blank? Why is it so easy for blank?” Because then we start to shift that brain into seeking out.
It’s almost like a giant Google. If I go and google purple rainbows, I guarantee you I’m going to find some purple rainbows But if I go in there and if I type in disgusting purple rainbows, I’m going to go find disgusting purple rainbows, too. So whichever one I’m creating, I’m going to be finding the evidence for.
Teri Miller:
I love the idea of asking the question instead of … I feel like as moms, as women, a lot of times we get this advice, “Well, just turn it around. Say the opposite.” Like I’m struggling to be patient with my kids and it’s, “Well, just tell yourself you’re so patient with your kids.” Well, that feels like a lie. That feels like what if I jump …
Teri Karjala:
And the brain isn’t like that. The brain does not like it because it’s like you’re lying to me. Okay. And ego doesn’t like it because it knows you’re lying. And now, you’re lying. Now, you have guilt. Now, you have mom guilt. And you’re lying to yourself. And so, it doesn’t work. Those two negatives don’t work. It doesn’t create a positive.
Teri Miller:
Instead of saying, “I wonder why I am learning to be so patient with my kids.”
Teri Karjala:
And we could get on a whole new topic with parenting because I love parenting. I think it’s fun. But I also lead with humor. And so, it’s a different thing. So I don’t like … they’re making their choices. So, I adopted a lot from Love and Logic which I loved. And Love and Logic does work on adults as well, I’m just saying. But when you get into a flow of things and it can be joyful like I just have found the joy in parenting.
I’m not saying it’s been all fun and rainbows because we’ve had some tough conversations, but the consequences teach itself. And I’m just really consistent. And it’s like, “Oh, but I use a lot of humor.” My daughter went in a sassy stage, I was like, “Oh, my gosh.” Anywho, I’m digressing. I’m digressing. We could talk about parenting, too. Well, it can be fun.
Dr. Amy Moore:
Then let me bring you back in and …
Teri Karjala:
And I think we take a break or something.
Dr. Amy Moore:
And so, my Teri likes to digress. So, the two of you together, yeah.
Teri Karjala:
The T and T team.
Dr. Amy Moore:
Exactly. So, speaking of parenting and in thinking about the impact of being a mom on also being a momprenuer or a mom in business, how do you advise moms to find that balance? How can they still grow their business, focus on their business, be a successful mompreneur while still honoring being a parent?
Teri Karjala:
Yeah. I truly believe that solopreneurs have the hardest. I highly, highly invite, whatever your businesses is, invest in creating a team. And even if you start a team because we cannot do all and we are not going to be successful at doing all. So there’s an exercise that I love having people do. And then that is writing out your company flowchart. Okay. It sounds silly, it sounds basic. But here’s the box of my CEO.
Okay. Who’s the lead tech person that’s like whoever does the job, the service that you provide or whatever? So, who’s that? And that most often is that person. Who’s the marketing person? Who’s the bookkeeper? Who’s the CPA? Who’s the front desk person? Who’s the admin person? Who’s the sales whatever? And you list them all out because we are doing all of those.
And how I grew my first business was I started looking at the boxes and I wrote down maybe three or four major skill or major tasks that each person required or each position required. And I’m like, “What do I hate the most?” Okay. And I said, “How much more money do I have to be making in order to fill that position?” And so sometimes we don’t even bring on team because we’re like, “Oh, my gosh, I have to be a bazillionaire before I bring on a front desk person.” When you look at the numbers and you look at capacity numbers, it’s really not that much.
You can say, “Okay, if I bring this person in for 15 hours a week doing this at that point,” that’s only let’s say $300 or $400 a week or whatever that might be. And say, “Okay, how do I?” And backfill that so, one, get team, get support. Sometimes we think we have to do it ourselves. And as soon as we get support even if it’s one person, even as a virtual assistant, having someone take some things off our plate but then being honoring you and your business … and I’m a big believer in calendar and calendar blocking.
I mean, I think it’s so valuable because it’s like, what we often do is we don’t plan our day in reverse. We’re like, “Okay. Well, I’m going to show up and I’m going to show up and then I’m going to put out fires.” On my calendar, I have it time blocked exactly when I’m going to do podcasts. I know exactly when I’m going to see one online client. Every week is the same because I’ve time blocked it.
So, Dr. Amy, if you called me and said, “Oh, I’d love to do a coaching session with you,” I’m like, “Great.” And I’m going to say, “What works better for you, morning or afternoon?” Because you only have a couple slots that I’m going to put you in. But I have total control of my account. And you’re going to think I am like the most generous person with my calendar. But I’m like, “I’m only going to put you in these two days.” “Great. You can do afternoons, fantastic. I only have Wednesdays. I have a 1:00 and a 2:00, which one works for you?”
And I am going to have total control over my calendar based on what is important to me. I work three days a week. And I own two companies because I believe that life balance is really important but I wouldn’t be able to do it without a team. One team, I have nine people on this team and I have five people on this team. But if I didn’t have my team, I’d be a little lost. Okay.
So, my tip for the for those solopreneur because I know there’s a lot of solopreneurs out there is really carve out the time that you’re going to be with your family and then, what is the time that you’re going to be with your business. And be really strategic with your business. Because I’ll be honest, when we have four hours that are just blank and we don’t know what to do with it, plan it out because there’s a philosophy or I mean a theory, it’s called the Parkinson’s Theory. And that means that time expands or contracts based on how much time we tell it’s going to take.
Okay. So, if we tell ourselves it’s going to take 20 minutes, it’s going to take 20 minutes. If we tell ourselves it’s going to take three days, then take three days. And so, time expands and contracts based on that theory. Okay. So, we know that if we’re super, super busy, why is it that we get more stuff done? Because we know we don’t have time to kill. We know that we have 15 minutes between this meeting and this meeting. I’m going to get stuff done.
So, if we play with that, I think we can be way more efficient. And we get more stuff done with less time so that we can spend the time with what’s really important, with our family and our friends and whatever else that gives us joy.
Dr. Amy Moore:
I love that.
Teri Karjala:
And I love this baby. I know that some of you can’t see this, but this is my Time Timer. And I love this. Okay. So if you just go to timetimer.com … I actually become an affiliate with them because I love it. It’s 4 inches high. But you ladies can see it but it shows red. And so when I started hopping on here today, I do it when I do my podcast interviews but I also do it in meetings. When I speak, when I travel, this thing comes with me so I know where I’m at but I’ll set this for 20 minutes.
I’m a big believer in 20 minutes. The brain checks out every 20 minutes anyways. So, I like to do things in 20-minute increments or less if needed. And then you set this and then eventually, it clicks down. And then when it’s done, it goes white. And it’s a great … because then you’re like, “Okay.” But I love playing beat the clock. And so I’m like, “Okay, is this going to take me 20 minutes? Okay, can I get it done in 18 minutes?” And then I’m like boom, that I am so laser-focused.
And if we can do tasks that are related to each other, it helps out the brain so much. So, okay, we’re going to do emails and we’re going to do emails for 15 minutes. We’re going to now do phone calls. Because multitasking and even though we, as women, are just notorious for it, we wear it like a badge of honor, it is not a badge of honor, ladies. Whoever told you that, they are lying to you, okay? Multitasking is not a badge of honor. Do not believe the lies.
It is a serious thing. So, what happens when we multitask, we’re like … this is what happens to the brain. I’m going to tell you what happens to brain. The brain goes, “Okay, email. Okay, skillset for emails, blah, blah, blah. Okay. Now, phone call, oh wait.” The brain goes, “Oh, skillset for phone calls. Okay. Now, downloads.” And we’re always lagging behind. And then we’re like, “Oh, cell phone, oh, text. Oh, make an appointment. Oh, schedule.”
You’re making the brain psychotic. So stop it, okay. Stop it. And just strategically say, “Okay, these 20 minutes, I’m going to do this. And I’m only going to do this.” And you’ll be amazed at how much more effective and efficient you are with your time so that you can put the little carrot, if you will, which is like, “I’m going to spend time with my family. I’m going to get home at 3:00 so I can pick up the kids from school. I’m going to get home by 5:00 so I can have dinner on the table,” whatever that might be for you.
And if you are with a spouse or significant other, divide and conquer. Use that as a support system tool for you. When my husband and I chose to get pregnant, I said, “This is a 50/50 thing. You’re not getting off the shorter the stick because you’re a male. I’m just saying. We’re parenting. We’re co-parenting the whole time. You’re going to show up, too.” And that does mean making dinner and cleaning up and all these other things.
And so, invite in your significant other spouse or parents as well.
Teri Miller:
I love your multitasking picture there. And I think that’s something … we as women, we imagine that we are multitasking well. So, an example, I have breastfed seven babies. So, in the nursing seasons, here I am, baby in my arm. I’m nursing the baby and I’ll think I’m going to vacuum the living room while I’m nursing the baby, getting sound, whatever.
And so, I’m going to vacuum the whole downstairs. Or I’m going to make dinner while I’m nursing the baby. And literally with my early kids, I was like, “Oh, I can do it all. I can breastfeed the baby and make dinner and go over and run the vacuum for a few minutes.” But what I eventually realized with my last couple of kids … and let me tell you, with the last two, when it was nursing time, I was sitting down in a quiet room. We were having this sweet focus time because what I realized is with all those things going on, baby would nurse for 45 minutes.
I mean, my back is going out so it takes an hour to make dinner, baby nursing the whole time. And I realized, “Wait a minute. I can sit down, have this sweet, focused nursing time with baby for 20 minutes, and baby falls asleep or he’s happy wake under the little play crib and I go make dinner for 20 minutes.” And so within that same timeframe, I get the same amount done but without having that like you described, that brain chaos of thinking I’m multitasking but really, I’m just making myself crazy.
Teri Karjala:
Yeah, and just thinking about the energy. So, I’m trying to nurse and I know we’ve all tried it. I can tell you some funny stories about … I like to try to put four things in one thing. I’m telling you. I’m going to take that on the show with me, okay. But you’re right, the energy is … just when you talk about, you’re like, “I’m doing this and doing this.” It’s like a frantic energy, right?
Teri Miller:
Yeah.
Teri Karjala:
And so now, we’re creating this frantic energy and nursing. So, what does that … and I’m not going to go down that road. But like, what are we doing.
Teri Miller:
Right.
Teri Karjala:
We’re creating that frantic energy. And I always say if you … go ahead.
Teri Miller:
I just was going to say we think we’re saving time. But when you really space it out, you’re like, “No, instead of 45 minutes of chaos, it’s 20 peaceful minutes of this, 20 minutes of that.”
Teri Karjala:
Yeah, agreed. And I always say that if you chase three squirrels, they all get away. And so, you’re not giving 100% to all of those tasks that you’re … I mean, you’re a mediocre at best when you’re wearing them like that.
Teri Miller:
And my last two babies, great nursers. Sweet, focused, awesome. They nurse for a long time. It was a beautiful experience because I’ve finally learned.
Teri Karjala:
Yeah. Well, that’s a powerful lesson. And I think there’s a lot of mompreneurs out there. And it’s like we got to figure out how to do this all by ourselves. And I’m just telling you, there’s … one of my greatest mentors, he kind of kicked me one day and he’s like, “Teri, I don’t know where you got the Lone Ranger syndrome from but I want you to know that you don’t have to do this by yourself.” And I’m like, “Oh, wait, what?”
Ladies, it is okay to ask for help. It is okay. And in the entrepreneur world, I will tell you, people give freely, give openly. I love being an entrepreneur because of the community. Women want to see women succeed. Now, there’s going to be some that that’s not true. Okay. But I think far more than not, women want to see other women succeed.
Dr. Amy Moore:
I agree. So, we need to take a quick break before we wrap up our interview and let Teri Miller read a word from our sponsor.
Teri Miller: (reading sponsor ad from LearningRx)
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Dr. Amy Moore:
And we’re back talking to Teri Karjala. And so Teri, you have a book, Be the Magic of You: Tools to Transform Your Life. And we know that Jack Canfield wrote the foreword so it must be a pretty special book. Talk to us about that.
Teri Karjala:
Yeah. So it’s about what are the tools that we can do to get ourselves back on track but also back in alignment. And so, all the tools that are in there or all of them are under two minutes, most of them are under 30 seconds. I bet there’s over 30 … I’m sorry. I did try to count them up one time and I think there’s over 79 or 80 different tools in there that people can connect with.
I also have several other products. I have my daily intentions planners that people always ask me like, “I can’t get the law of attraction. I don’t really buy into it. I don’t really understand it. But maybe I have a vision board but I don’t know.” Okay, have this. And I’m one of those people that I’m like, “I love vision boards and I hate them because we don’t know how to use them.” Okay.
And so, in the daily intentions, planners, it is combining everything how you can start generating and creating every day, because I like to see miracles every day. I don’t want to wait once a year to caching my vision board. Let’s be creating this every day. So I have that. I also have my evidence journals helping people collect the evidence that they are on the right track and documenting that evidence to support and validate what’s happening in our world.
And then, I also have some cards as well. I’m actually going to draw a card for us. What message do we get at the end today with? Let’s see.
Teri Miller:
She’s shuffling through her cards, people.
Teri Karjala:
Yes, yes. So this was out of the Be the Magic of You cards and it says, “It is amazing what I can rise up to when I do not limit myself.” So, we are powerful, potent beings and we get to be the creators, and very powerful stuff. And you can check out all those resources and products on my website, just talkingwithteri.com.
And then I also do a community call. It got created out of the pandemic. And I said, “As long as people are showing up, I’m going to continue to show up.” So, every Tuesday morning, we do a free call to the community to help us stay in high vibe and continue to create. And that’s just if everyone goes to talkingwithteri.com and it’s forward slash Tuesdays. You can come and join us on that time, too.
Dr. Amy Moore:
So, what you’re saying then is mompreneurs, women in business, they can get free advice and support from you and your group …
Teri Karjala:
Yup, on Tuesday mornings. So every morning, Tuesday mornings, I invite you ladies to come and join. It’s just a great group of ladies, really supportive. I don’t do any of the clearings on there. But we do help support women entrepreneurs and sometimes people just come just for the energy like lift. They just want to tap in, tune in and turn on to what’s going on for them. And some come weekly and some come once a month.
And it’s just a great group. It’s just a fantastic community. And why I started this was during the pandemic, a lot of people went into fear and I made a conscious choice probably because of my upbringing. I was just like, “You know what, I spent a lot of time in fear.” And I made a choice not to go into fear. And I know that people are like, “Wait?” I chose not to because it’s like I could be way more effective and efficient helping other people if I’m not in the trenches, too.
So, I made a conscious choice to stay out of fear. And there’s a great quote and it says, “All birds seek shelter in the storm except for the eagle. The eagle flies above the storm.” So, it wasn’t that I wasn’t aware of the storm that was happening. I was like, “Okay, I’m very aware that this storm is happening and not to negate the deaths, the tragedies, the trauma, the unbelievable abuse that happened during that time.”
And I should say and when we can help support everyone saying, “Okay, how do we help pull everyone else up? How do we help pull collective consciousness up? How do we help support folks that needed support the most,” that’s where we put our attention and focus.
Dr. Amy Moore:
I love that.
Teri Karjala:
Yeah.
Dr. Amy Moore:
So, we are out of time. But Teri, thank you so much for being with us today and for sharing so many tips for mompreneurs and moms in business. And I mean, we rarely get that many tips packed into an hour. So that was really exciting. And I hope our listeners are excited and ready to try some of them.
Teri Karjala:
Yes, do and report back to me. I always love hearing success stories. And little things that we start to implement and then looking at the results, it’s really fun to come and play with. So, reach out to me at talkingwithteri.com, I love to connect.
Dr. Amy Moore:
Awesome. Okay. So, if you would like to connect with Teri, you heard her. Her website is talkingwithteri.com. We’ll also put her social media handles, a link to her group at Tuesdays with Teri, to her podcast Talking with Teri and a link to buy her book Be the Magic of You: Tools to Transform Your Life. (Amazon Afffiliate link) All of that will be in our show notes.
Dr. Amy Moore:
So, thank you so much for listening today. If you liked our show, we would love it if you would leave us a five-star rating and review on Apple podcasts. If you would rather watch us, we are on YouTube as the Brainy Moms. You can follow us on social media at the Brainy Moms. So look, until next time. We know that you’re busy moms and we’re busy moms, too. So, we’re out.
Teri Miller:
See ya.
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