006: You Were Born To Shine with Shari Teigman

00:00 Beau Henderson: Welcome to the richest conversation on the radio. This is the one place that’s committed to helping you live your definition of a healthy, wealthy, fulfilled life on purpose. It’s what I call a RichLife. I’m your host, Beau Henderson, and I am absolutely committed to going with you on this journey and giving you resources, tools, relationships to live your definition of a rich life, and I have a feeling we’re gonna have fun today. I brought a guest with me, that when I looked at the profile, she’s gonna have to explain this a little bit better for me. But Shari Teigman:, you describe yourself as “a business sparkle maker with a passion for living life as colorfully as possible.” Now, that sounds like a rich life to me.

00:51 Shari Teigman: That would be, it’s very colorful as well. So rich in color, rich in flavor, thank you so much for having me on the show, Beau.

00:58 Beau Henderson: Oh, it’s gonna be fun, it really looks like you’re on a very… Your mission and the work you do kinda starts where my transformation started into moving from a traditional financial advisor into really, this RichLife advisor, and it really started for me when I saw and realized, I was almost sad. I was sad because people were just sleepwalking through life.

01:23 Shari Teigman: Yes.

01:23 Beau Henderson: Just waiting to maybe get to the weekend, maybe get to graduate the kids, maybe retire, and they were missing the journey.

01:33 Shari Teigman: That’s it exactly… They have… Those are my people, that’s exactly what I believe, that’s what I did in my own life as well. And my goal is, both in life and in business, to re-spark people’s souls. So entrepreneurs, anyone who’s an entrepreneur, their soul is in their business as well, so I work with people in their personal life and I also work with them in their business to exactly that, undo that groundhog day living, to kinda light the fire up again because many people will say, “Oh, I want the happy times,” but they don’t realize that they’re so numb, they don’t feel anything. So you have to feel in order to go high, you have to feel in order to go low, but you need to reconnect kinda like those synapses of what you actually want, what your values are, what you believe, what drives you, what wakes you up in the morning other than an alarm because you have to. That’s not really living, that’s going through the motions. And there’s only so far you can go in that, and raising kids, being in a relationship, all of that gets numb. There’s like a vellum layer that goes over you and you’re not really there.

02:37 Beau Henderson: Well, no, let’s talk about that. So you’re describing this of something you’ve seen, but it’s something you’ve experienced too, so how did this all come together for you?

02:48 Shari Teigman: Oh yes, I was exhibit A and I am exhibit B. I’ve moved myself to a different category, so I was your standard good girl, youngest child. I grew up right outside New York City in a modern Orthodox Jewish community, which was, “Follow the rules,” and I learned from a young age to kinda dim my own light. I could be funny, and peppy, and extroverted, but I still had to follow the rules. And I did that very well, I don’t do things halfway. And I found myself in the wrong marriage to the wrong person, living a Stepford life, with two beautiful kids, and I loved to say there was an aha moment where one day I woke up and I saw a light. Actually it was just so dark that I didn’t feel anything anymore, and I didn’t want my two boys to think that this is what life was about. And somehow I found some strength inside of me, and I left it. It was like that scene in ‘The Truman Show’ movie where he walks out of the sky, and mine was a little messier than that. But there was a storm in the water that he was in and it wasn’t easy to extract myself from my own life. But once I relit that pilot light, I saw I had no choice but to go find my dreams and find my happiness, and I wanted to teach my kids that.

04:03 Shari Teigman: And that was six years ago that ended and it’s been… It doesn’t automatically turn, it’s a day-to-day journey, and it’s a choice to make and a kinda clearing your eyes to find the values and the passion, and the mission, that you wanna go through life. You can’t just sell everything and go to Bali, people think there’s the solution, “I’m gonna run away.” They don’t get that wherever you go, there you are; you take all your stuff with you. And you have to make your life extraordinary in the unextraordinary moments. There is life that happens and things you have to do, people have the excuse of, “But I have this, and I have my bills, and I’m stuck.” There’s a million excuses out there, and there’s a million opportunities out there, it just depends on which ones you wanna focus on.

04:47 Beau Henderson: And you brought up something I think is very important to here, and to even pull out a little further, is sometimes we’re in a position in life that people on the outside looking in might think it’s great. They might think it’s a good scenario, they might even think that’s what they are longing to move toward, but the problem is, is that might not be what’s inside of me or you, or it might not be living that thing that lights us up, so it’s untrue to us. So I just wanted to make that point, that I think you pulled out in a way, is that we’ve got to be… That there’s no one… I can’t come on here, that’s what’s beautiful about the RichLife message is I can’t come on here and tell you what you need to do to live your rich life, you can’t tell me, but we can help each other find it and pull it out.

05:32 Shari Teigman: I absolutely agree. And it’s also sometimes one of the hard things, that when things are objectively bad in someone’s life, there’s a social acceptable side to, “Oh, yes, go find your dreams, you don’t wanna be homeless on the street.” Most of us, thank God, our lives are not that dramatic from the outside bad, but it’s like you said before, that numb feeling inside… Even when it could be picture perfect from the outside, there’s even more of a scary curve of leaving and finding your own path because, “Well, everyone else thinks it’s great.” Well, it’s not for everyone else to live.

06:07 Beau Henderson: Well, Shari, give me an example of… So we’re talking about your work as a transformational coach, and I was joking, but I love it, the “business sparkle maker with a passion for living as colorfully as possible.” So say I’m listening to this conversation, I’m like, “You know what? I need to find that thing in me that lights me up. I need somebody to help me with this journey.” Who is that person? What do they look like? Help paint a picture for me. Who is that person and how do you help them?

06:34 Shari Teigman: So I have two types of people that’ll help, but from the business side, it’s that entrepreneur who had left, like you had said, like shifted gears and is ready to go. They start their business, they have this big dream, and what they end up doing out of fear and because it’s human nature, is they start shaving off the sides of their dream. They start following the path of the next label they’re gonna wear, “Well, I’m not this anymore, now I’m this.” And then they start marching with sheep again, and they can’t understand why they don’t feel motivated. They can’t understand why they’re not bringing in the money or finding the clients or things are just not flowing, and they just feel stuck in there. They don’t get it, “I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do.” Well right there’s my tipping point, my ideal client, I don’t care what shoes you wear, I don’t care what snacks you eat, it’s that tipping point of, “I feel lost. I know something’s off. I know I want more. What is it?”

07:27 Shari Teigman: So that business spark that I do is: You can’t build a building by picking the paint colors and hanging the pictures or putting the shiny objects out on the mantle, hoping people will come if there’s no foundation on the floor. So people build their dreams and their businesses a lot of times upside down; they go straight to the shiny object, they hang out there and then they don’t know what to do when it doesn’t work. Or even worse, sometimes it works for a while and then it stops working, and they don’t have any plan of how to backtrack and figure out what to do next. So what I do with my clients, and I usually do it like an intensive together, is we take what they have, we break it down into pieces, and then we rebuild the building. What’s their mission? What are their values? Why are they in this? Why do they want this? Who do they serve? Why do they serve them? What’s their deeper why? Not, “I want money.” There are a lot easier ways to find jobs and money than doing it the entrepreneurial route.

08:27 Shari Teigman: But those of us who go this way, it fuels from creativity and passion, not from monetization as number one. That’s of course important, but when you’re in your flow and when you’re doing exactly what you wanna do, the money automatically follows every single time. I don’t know anyone who’s doing things exactly the way they want, serving how they want, connecting with people authentically, using their story, using their voice, and it doesn’t work for them. If they are, contact me and I will work on it. So what I do is I rebuild the building but with that solid foundation of their deepest desires, then take their creativity and my Alice in Wonderland mind and say, “How do we make this happen? What are your clients looking for?” I don’t wanna hear, “Everyone has to have a 90-day package, you must do webinars, you have to do this.” I don’t believe in that because if you’re not fully in whatever the choice is, don’t show up at all then. It’s not going to work. So I help people package themselves, package their services, reconnect to their dream and then build it.

09:34 Beau Henderson: Yes. And you know, see now, you just lightened me up because this… See, your work works.

09:39 Shari Teigman: Exactly.

[laughter]

09:40 Beau Henderson: Because the…

09:40 Shari Teigman: I’m a pilot lighter. I just walk around lighting people up.

09:43 Beau Henderson: That’s right because there’s this work that, when I can get really clear, and this is hard to do, but when I can get really clear on what resonates with me in language, that… In a way, that resonates with me; then lo and behold, I start noticing I’m resonating with other people, me, and my [09:58] ____.

10:00 Shari Teigman: It’s literally magic. It’s like the opposite of standing with one little tea light, hoping someone notices you in line than being like that huge light that all the mosquitoes flock to. And I do copy, and all my copy clients say to me, “I don’t understand how you captured me,” because what happens is, when you get the right words and you get the right story, you wanna become that best version of yourself even more. So you show up even more. It doesn’t work the other way. It’s, you have to find the best representation of you and then go be it. It doesn’t happen by waiting for it to happen. You have to start it and it’s a learning curve and it’s a muscle, and it constantly has to be done. A lot of my clients, like I said, have been successful and then they tap out. Something’s wrong, something’s not working anymore, it worked for three years, works for five years now, they don’t use the word “bored” ’cause they don’t realize that it all ties back to them. They’re like, “I don’t know. No one’s buying my stuff anymore. No one’s attracted to it anymore.” And right there, like you just said, the light went out.

11:03 Beau Henderson: Right.

11:03 Shari Teigman: You got tired of what you were doing and then you… The spark left it. So now it’s just a shell. People don’t get drawn to shells.

11:12 Beau Henderson: So, somebody… Let’s take a little break. If somebody wants to be lit up, they’re excited about what we’re talking about and they’re there, they’re in that place, they realize, the awareness has finally turned on that, “I’m sleepwalking through life.” How could somebody get in touch with you? How could somebody find out more about how to work with you or maybe just ask you some questions?

11:30 Shari Teigman: Oh, and I was gonna say I’m not… I’m a very open person. Someone just wants to have a conversation here that someone else out there understands us without judgment, it’s not about you have to buy my stuff to speak to me. Absolutely not. Anyone could reach me at my website, which is ShariTeigman:.com. I have a podcast called The Creative Soul Lab where I talk exactly about this, pulling back the curtain on success and fulfillment and how creativity and passion spark people to make things happen. You can reach out to me via email, Shari@ShariTeigman.com. Find me on Facebook, find me on Instagram, just find me, I’m here. I’m open, I’m sparking at all times. This is my mission in life. I don’t ever want anyone to feel alone, misunderstood, lost. It’s scary, I’ve been there. I climbed up by myself. And in my lowest point, I had one of those movie moments where I looked up and I said, “God, universe, whoever the hell is up there, if you help me up, I will make sure to never let any… If I can get to them, I won’t let them ever feel alone again.”

12:36 Beau Henderson: That needs to be your tagline, if it’s not.

12:38 Shari Teigman: It’s true.

12:40 Beau Henderson: “Need a spark.”

12:40 Shari Teigman: Just the problem is the copywriter in me, is every five minutes I’m like, “Oh, I have another idea.”

12:44 Beau Henderson: Speak in sound bites. I’m familiar that’s…

12:47 Shari Teigman: Yes, exactly.

12:48 Beau Henderson: Well, let’s talk one more thing about your business, I’m already sold. You create the spark, and that’s so needed.

12:53 Shari Teigman: Thank you.

12:53 Beau Henderson: Then I wanna dig in and learn a little more about you because that’s what’s gonna help us know you and connect even further. But the last piece on the business, this is a Mission Minute, or I call it, of course… My term for it is a ‘RichLife Minute’. So in 60 seconds and I know you’re gonna have no problem with this and I’m putting you on the spot, if you had 60 seconds to describe what you do to somebody or the importance of what you do to somebody, how would you do that?

13:20 Shari Teigman: Piece of cake. I take that average Joe, Jane, who looks around at their life and doesn’t… Can’t distinguish themselves anymore from what the story they were told they were supposed to be is. And I reconnect them to the part of themselves, that childish wonder, that curiosity, that belief in magic. And we walk together in the trenches, in the messy stuff, in the vulnerable places to reconnect them at each day to that driver inside of them that isn’t on autopilot.

13:53 Beau Henderson: I love it. That’s a RichLife Minute, and I promise you, RichLifers, I gave her no heads up on that. That was off the cuff.

14:01 Shari Teigman: You could wake me up in the middle of the night and I could do that. That’s when you know you’re living your passion.

14:04 Beau Henderson: That’s when you’re on mission, that’s for sure. So next section, I like to talk about this idea of life school. And it was very eye opening for me when a wise teacher showing me this idea of, “What if we looked at life like a school,” and in life, there’s… In life school, there’s no mistakes, only valuable lessons. And a lesson is gonna be repeated until it’s learned, and each time a lesson’s repeated, it becomes more painful. So the reason I like to bring up a section on my life school, was there something that you could pull out, Shari, that maybe at that time was just hell? It was the worst thing in the world you could think of, but it turned out to serve you and be one of the best things ’cause it was exactly what you needed to learn in your curriculum?

14:50 Shari Teigman: Oh, yes. I have a whole semester worth for you.

14:54 Beau Henderson: That’s a lot, a PhD?

14:56 Shari Teigman: Exactly. And then, some. Wow, I have so much to say, but I will put it all under the umbrella of “get quiet”. It was something that I couldn’t do for a very long time because I was afraid of what I was going to hear underneath, because climbing out of a life you built that you were supposed to live is a very scary thing. So when you get quiet and you hear the inside of you say, “Walk. Run. Go. Go to the light,” it’s a very scary thing ’cause you don’t wanna admit it to yourself, let alone to everybody else. And like you said, if you ignore things, they get louder, they start knocking stuff over in your life. I had to learn boundaries, I had to learn to stand up for myself. I’m a recovering people pleaser, so the thought of letting anybody down was so traumatic to me that I would rather have cut off my own arm, which I essentially did, just to make everyone else happy. And that’s not fair to them or me. And I learned that when you find your own joy, and when you kinda stay in your own hula hoop, as I call it, you end up empowering other people to go find that in themselves.

16:02 Shari Teigman: Well, they may buck the system a little bit like, “Who told you you could step out of line and go look for your dreams?” I had a lot of that, I learned a lot of hard lessons. People staying, people leaving, people judging. But none of it matters because that was their stuff. But learning to stand strong in the middle of a storm, learning to what… Feel what my feet felt like on the ground and build up was, I’d say, the overarching umbrella of following my passion, following my own light. It didn’t have to look like anybody else’s, and it wasn’t going to. We’re all characters, characters in a play that you can be handed a script and it may work for someone, and it won’t work for you, and you’re not heartbroken because it doesn’t work for you.

16:47 Beau Henderson: No, I like it. So learn to be still and maybe even that scary place of listening to that person that’s there when you’re quiet because that might be the person who has the answers.

16:57 Shari Teigman: Oh, I ran from that one for a long time. I spun so fast just so she couldn’t get to me, but she caught me.

17:01 Beau Henderson: There you go.

17:02 Shari Teigman: And slowed me down.

17:03 Beau Henderson: Well, growth factor, one of the things I know about people out there changing their lives in service to others and making a difference in changing other people’s lives, and it’s exactly what we’ve described. Now, Shari, did you realize when you were first breaking yourself free to be who you are, who you really are, that did you see at that point what you’re doing now helping others with it or was that kind of an evolution?

17:27 Shari Teigman: I would say it was both.

17:29 Beau Henderson: Yeah.

17:30 Shari Teigman: It was both an evolution, and I saw a sense of it, even though I didn’t understand what it looked like. What it felt like was a deeper mission rumbling underneath. So I was so lost myself and foggy, but it felt like it was more than just mine. I felt like if I could master this in myself, and I’m very human, so it’s a daily practice, that I would have something to teach others. And it was the first time I didn’t feel lonely in the journey, just by thinking that like, “Huh, if I figure this out, I’ll have something to give to somebody else.” And that actually drove me to heal and find myself faster because I felt like I had a mission to take on. It wasn’t just me, myself, and I. It’s like, “I gotta master this because people need this and they don’t know there’s a way.”

18:14 Beau Henderson: There’s something bigger than yourself that you get up everyday to go, right… Love it. Well, that growth factor question. So what I find is people on this journey, they’re always growing. They’re developing themselves and it doesn’t have to be specifically to your work. It could be like, “Right now I’m doing a lot of studying on sleeping because that’s a goal of mine to sleep better.” It could be to play the piano. But is there something in your life, this is a get-to-know-you question that you’re doing as personal development yourself?

18:41 Shari Teigman: Yes. I am in the midst of taming the wild horse that my brain is. So as you can see, I have a lot of passion, and I’m a New Yorker. We’re on audio only and my hands are still flapping, so…

[chuckle]

18:55 Shari Teigman: I have a lot of juice inside of me, which is awesome, and I love it. But like I called my brain before, it’s Alice in Wonderland. So as on as it goes, when I slip into fear and overwhelm, is as dramatic as it can go. And that’s been a test for me in all this time to really master myself, to keep myself on track. So, I’m a creative. I’m not by nature, habitual, I’m not a goal setter. And I’ve learned how helpful it is for me to master my mindset in order to rein in my magic instead of it vomiting everywhere. So that’s really where I am right now in my own personal development is really taming… I used to call it the beast, but it isn’t. It’s just this beautiful horse that is just free in the land and doesn’t know when it steps in a pile of something it shouldn’t be stepping in and can’t figure out that it doesn’t have to go with that same excitement into something that’s scary or frightening. I don’t have to fall into that trap. So that’s really where I’m at right now. Again, getting myself quiet, getting myself habitual, doing visualizations, meditating in the morning. And a meditation could be a walk for me. It doesn’t mean I have to sit quietly, which is not usually my regular way.

[chuckle]

20:09 Shari Teigman: I know you’re shocked by that, but I went for yoga certification. I think both sides of it are very important. When I get quiet, it’s a really deep place. It doesn’t come naturally to me, so I really work at it. And I would say for that mastery piece of getting my mind in check so that I can use it to my best advantage.

[pause]

20:31 Beau Henderson: Perfect. Great advice. Now, one of the things we’re always going to talk about on the RichLife show, we’ve been talking about this for six years now, is this ideas of success with money and life. And by in life, I mean that can be your health, your business, your family, whatever that means to you. So this can be kind of… Think of this as kind of a lightning round, just a quick answer. But what was the best money advice, if you’ve had a good piece of money advice, you’ve ever gotten and who gave it to you?

21:00 Shari Teigman: So I have a coach named Maria Henton who literally changed my entire mindset. I was a single mom of two kids, petrified of money, not understanding how I was gonna relate to it. I was really stuck in a scarcity mindset. And she sat down over and over again because I’m stubborn and explained to me what true abundance, what true prosperity, how it comes from the inside and flows outwardly. How if you’re afraid of money, it’s going to be afraid of you. If you’re able to embrace what abundance means, you have a pile of blueberries in front of you, you show your gratitude. You’re grateful for the small things. And while it can sound trite, it changed my whole mindset about money, and it helped me learn to bring it in with ease instead of fighting every penny, petrified it was gonna leave. If you grip, it runs.

21:48 Beau Henderson: Perfect. I like that. If you grip, it runs because that fear actually does push it away. I see that all the time.

21:53 Shari Teigman: Exactly. And you know those old toys we used to play with, those little Chinese finger traps, I always use this as an example.

[chuckle]

22:00 Shari Teigman: When you pull, it grips, you can’t get out. When you slowly release, your fingers slip right out as though nothing happened. And that’s, right there, the analogy that explains the whole thing.

22:09 Beau Henderson: Perfect. Now best advice for success with life, and who gave that to you?

[pause]

22:16 Shari Teigman: I would say my kids. My children gave that advice to me, and that is, “Live in the present moment.” I have two boys, which is great for me because there’s very little drama from a personal perspective. So as long as they’re fed and there’s a ball to play with, they’re happy. And so I don’t like to use the word “contentment” because it sounds very low energy to me, but it’s this calm happiness as opposed to a high happiness that you’re always running to keep up with. But just being content, taking everything in stride, even when things are scary. If you panic, it’s not gonna help the situation, it’s only gonna get worse. So even in the midst of the storm, learning how to ground yourself. I use humor in order to let off steam. So make a joke, find one snippet of it that’s funny and go with that.

23:08 Beau Henderson: And that almost ties into your last one about money is, “Let’s be thankful for what we have while we’re in pursuit of what we’re trying to achieve or accomplish.”

23:16 Shari Teigman: Absolutely, because we all have the split second ability to fall off on a runaway train. And it’s very tiring to have to keep climbing back up when you fall. So mastering that idea that you don’t have to fall all the way, things don’t have to be as messy for you. I mean, I’m all about vulnerability and messy, but learning to learn those lessons like you said earlier in a less dramatic way helps you recover faster and grow deeper.

[pause]

23:46 Beau Henderson: Well, as we wrap up, Shari, I’ve had a blast. And it’s already… We’ve flown through the show. One thing. If you wanna be lit up, if you wanna find your spark, and I promise you’re probably gonna laugh and have some fun, go to ShariTeigman.com. Correct?

24:01 Shari Teigman: Yes, that’s me.

24:02 Beau Henderson: And find out more and she’s very available online and I’ve just really had a blast. And as we take this out, Shari, if you will, just play with me for a minute, imagine the world right now with no boundaries, nothing… No hindrances in any way, what would your definition of a rich life look like?

24:26 Shari Teigman: Oh, boy. There would be the most colorful gypsy wandering around the world, sparking people. Freedom, to me, is one of my values, so a really rich life to me would be the ability to experience. I don’t need things, I crave experiences. I crave the depth of learning about other cultures, traveling and finding new things, feeling new in every place that I go. Just gather every experience into my basket that I can, to feel the edges of life and sort of people while I’m finding my way. That’s my biggest freedom dream and rich life dream.

25:04 Beau Henderson: Seems like a rich life to me, Shari. Thanks so much for being with us and I hope you’ll join us in the future again. Have a blast.

25:09 Shari Teigman: Thank you so much for having me.

25:10 Beau Henderson: All right. Guys, for more about this show and for other shows, tools, and resources to help you live your definition of that healthy, wealthy, fulfilled life, go to richlifeshow.com and we’ll see you next week.