Ep 090: The Happiness Metric with Crystal Adair-Benning

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:00:00

You ever wonder what success actually means? How do you get it? And how do you keep it?

Theresa Lambert: 00:00:14

We all want it yet sometimes it feels only some of us get to have it.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:00:18

Hi, Theresa and Blair here we are to badass entrepreneurs, best selling authors, coaches and business mentors who have had success, built success, questioned our own success and reclaimed it. Let's be real for a hot minute. 2020 has been a roller coaster ride, and many of us a start to wonder if the loser things that made them successful. So we got curious, Ron real about what success is truly about?

Theresa Lambert: 00:00:45

Can you put it in a box?

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:00:47

How can you get it?

Theresa Lambert: 00:00:48

Can people take it away? Or are you the one with the power?

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:00:52

Does it mean the same to all of us? Or are we the ones that create it?

Theresa Lambert: 00:00:56

From PGA golf pros to doctors, CEOs, entrepreneurs and spiritual mentors. We get together to meet with successful people from around the globe to dissect success for vibrant conversations and interviews. Make sure you click the subscribe button on the app store because each week we will drop a new episode to bust through the myths around success and dissect its true meaning.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:01:22

Welcome back to another episode of dissecting success. It's me, Blair Kaplan Venables, and I'm here with two fabulous humans. Theresa Lambert, my fabulous podcast co host. She's also here. And we are here with crystal. Adair. Bening does it right? You did? Okay. Oh, no, this year.

Crystal Adair-Benning: 00:01:49

You got it.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:01:49

So I love her. She's a word magician story, supercharger, copywriter and ghost writer for rebels, misfits and world changing humans. You know, I absolutely love her. I want to drop her by her bio below. She's so super impressive. And I just I don't want to just read the bio because you can just like click on the show notes. But what I fucking love about her is that I just met her in June. I was in New York, for all sorts of things, including a mastermind with Selena Sue, who's one of my mentors. And Crystal just so happened to also come to Selena Sue's mastermind and we happen to be sitting together for the day. We hit it off. I learned that she's also a Canadian, also lives in British Columbia. In fact, just down the highway and a ferry over

Crystal Adair-Benning: 00:02:44

pretty mind,

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:02:45

not just that. In this September, I'm going to be leading a workshop at Camp tailwind. And she saw that she's like, Yo, I'm gonna be there too. And so because it's summer camp for female entrepreneurs, I've of course, I requested that you're my bunk meet. But, you know, when we were sitting in the mastermind throughout the day, every time she spoke, I was just completely like cast under her spell. And what I love about her is that she's a multiple New York Times bestselling ghost writer and a former basically a former highly sought after luxury event planner. So she is a Jill of all trades. She is a crystal of all trades. And just very fascinating to me, especially because every time I see her on social media, she's somewhere else in the world. Mexico, Kelowna, New York. Who knows where Ontario, where in the world is Chrystal hanging out? Anyways, Crystal welcome,

Crystal Adair-Benning: 00:03:43

love. Hello, I'm just the crystal corn. I'm the traveling crystal corn. It's great

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:03:48

Crystal Porn. Oh, sorry. I gotta say something really funny has nothing to do with crystal

Theresa Lambert: 00:03:53

Did you say Corn or Porn

Crystal Adair-Benning: 00:03:55

corn like a unicorn? was what I was thinking I was like this ticket there wasn't enough coffee. You know? Like,

Theresa Lambert: 00:04:08

is it now you know word matter as we're having a conversation

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:04:12

crystal corn, not crystal porn. But where I was going with that as I just recently got sucked into Tiktok. And somehow, I the algorithm is showing me all these live videos of crystal factories where people like put their order in. They're doing these live pickings. Like, oh, here's an emesis oh my god Blair just made an order. Oh my god, what you're gonna get and I literally the other day was watching it for 2020 minutes straight. And that was like, this is Crystal porn.

Crystal Adair-Benning: 00:04:40

It is. Also I'm obsessed and I clearly am on the same algorithm as you because I get that shit. And I was debating this morning like at like 5am when I couldn't sleep. I was like, Maybe I should order some and like watch them pick it for me. That could be fun.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:04:54

Yeah, and I was just like, I also got kind of hooked into some ASMR IMSR ASMR Edo in a weird whispers and tickles And anyways, Crystal corn. Welcome.

Crystal Adair-Benning: 00:05:06

Hello. Thanks for having me. Across the ferry and not couple highways were good.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:05:13

And theresa was in Whistler now like she's recording today from Toronto. So here we are. So crystal, let's dive in what is or what does success mean to you?

Crystal Adair-Benning: 00:05:28

I think my version of success has completely changed over the years, you know, had you asked me before it was like a number of my bank account. It was like the house the car the things? Now Success for me is the happiness metric. Do I get up every day doing shit I want to do that I'm super fucking happy about am I lit up because I had a great conversation, a great coffee, a great chat with somebody a great piece of work. Like Success for me is a happiness metric. Now it's like if I am, like ripe and juicy and happy as shit, that success. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love it. I love the money in my bank account. I like not denying that. But I use it now more for my happiness. So doing the work that I love to do making money allows me to do things that make me happy, like travel the world, like where in the world is crystal today is kind of like my favorite fucking game to play. Because I get up, I look at flights. And I'm like, why not go to Colorado next week. Like it seems like a cool place. Or, Hey, I haven't been to Fiji yet. Let's just book that trip, that seems cool. The happiness metric is being able to do the things I want to do. Because it just lights me up. It makes me happy. So that's success for me now. So fun.

Theresa Lambert: 00:06:56

I love this. I really love this because I think to the big thing that so many entrepreneurs get wrong is that they go in it with this idea of like even entrepreneurship and success and everything is about the money. And then with the money comes the happiness and the joy and the freedom and all of that. And the realization that I feel like so many of us have is that when we start to prioritize the happiness when we start to prioritize the joy in the pleasure and actually say, This is what I want my life to feel like and to be like and we start doing more of those things we become a person that actually attracts and opens themselves up to all the worldly success. So you ended up making the money that funds your lifestyle, so you can do all these things. And that is the coolest shit ever.

Crystal Adair-Benning: 00:07:51

Totally. Like I liked the fact that I can buy crystals and afford them and not have to worry about it. I liked it I can buy flights Yeah, I can. I can go on tick tock and pay somebody to like pick out my fucking crystals just for chips and giggles. I like that stuff. And I mean for me. You know, my backstory is that and this is not part of the bio, but it's the backstory. I was terminally ill for four times in my life. I've been terminally ill I had cancer three times and almost died. I was terminally ill. They told me I was gonna kick it. I didn't get it. Then I got pancreatitis, really bad. I ended up having to have my gallbladder removed. I was like put into palliative care. They thought I was gonna kick it. I'm still fucking here. That change is a human that changes. Like fundamentally what success is I was a sought after luxury wedding and event planner. My game like the name of my game was luxury weddings, I traveled across the globe for clients to celebrate love. And everybody thought it was the best fucking job in the world. Like how could you ever leave it that it was the most stressful job in the world? I was on 24/7 For two decades. My phone never left my hand I destroyed a marriage. I went bankrupt. I got terminally ill multiple times. And I finally woke the fuck up on the law. It took me four times guys like I don't learn lessons easy. All right. Like it took me four times before it was finally like enough of the shit I'm out and it was all a conversation that ironically was catapulted by an oncologist. My oncologist looked at me the fourth time and said, If you don't quit your fucking job, you're gonna die. Your job is literally killing you. Are you prepared to die for this work? And the answer was no, I was not prepared to die for a bride and a goddamn dress. No offense to my brides. They were rad but there's no fucking way I'm going down over some bitches dress that was not my own. Fuck that. So quit. I literally decided I had no other plan. I quit. I dropped my job hardcore at that point said I'm out. I was newly married, my husband was used to my like, cushy six figure job. He called it pushy. I call it stress, whatever he was, he was terrified. I would just like walked into the house one day was like, I quit. I'm not fucking doing this anymore. I'm going to I'm going to die. And he's like, What are you going to do? And I was like, Oh, I have a plan to play and guys like, success. There was no plan. I was like, I'm giving up my six figure job in the middle of a pandemic, it's going to be read. Don't worry, I'll figure it out. And all I did was I spent three days like wandering I went to the beach, I went to the forest. I did like all the things that a very last human looking for answers does prayed to God, I don't remember the last time I prayed to God, but I remember getting on my knees when I quit my job to be like, Dear God, what have I done? What the hell do I fucking do next? And the answer came intuitively, like it always does. When you just Slow the fuck down and stop freaking out. The answer shows up. And I was sitting in a forest literally sitting in a forest because I had nowhere to go. I didn't have a job sitting in a forest. And I'm like, okay, you know, if I need to make money tomorrow, what would I do? Like simple question, what would I do if I had to make money tomorrow? And the answer was you'd right? You've always been a writer, you've written New York Times bestsellers, you've done this in the background for a million years is the only thing you ever actually fucking loved to do. Like, if somebody was to destroy me, you'd have to like cut out my brain and cut off my hands. And then I'd be fucked. Like, if you want to know how to destroy me, that would be because my brain to this hand has always been a way for me to make money. And so the simple answer was pitch. It's literally right in front of you. Fucking pick up a pen and start writing. And I got this intuitive hit to send seven emails. This is three days after I quit. Seven emails was what my intuition said to Said, and I was like to write like, we want the intuition to give us like the guidebook. There is no fucking guidebook. It just said seven emails, I had to interpret what the fuck seven emails meant. But it meant seven emails to seven people that I felt that I could actually serve, that I could help that I could do something with. And so I sent those seven emails, six of them came back right away and said, I'll fucking hire you. I've never actually seen your writing, but I'll fucking hire you. I trust you. You've done my events for years, you produce incredible things. If you have even a smidgen of the talent you have for events I'm in I'm so fucking in. Those six clients doubled my income from my event job in three months. And I went, there's the answer, but your intuition just guided you to what was right. You just listen, you just slow down enough to finally talk and listen. And what if I done that? A decade back when I started going, Oh, God, weddings are stressful. And by the way, it's killing me. What do I do now? So for me, I feel like I lucked into success. I mean, I had great success. I was sought after I like my ego was stroked every day with people telling me how rad I was, and getting on stages and talking to incredible humans that people like, uh, but I wasn't lit up by it. I wasn't fulfilled by it. I would come home every day at the end of the day and be like, well, if it's not a three course, catered meal, I don't feel like it's got right suddenly your box of mac and cheese is very exciting. And whoa.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:13:50

Mac and cheese is always exciting. Crystal.

Crystal Adair-Benning: 00:13:53

Yeah, heads up. Have you ever put cream in it like heavy cream? No, because

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:13:57

I'm lactose taller.

Crystal Adair-Benning: 00:13:59

Damn, girl. If you weren't lactose intolerant, heavy cream was a game changer and mac and cheese. Or do it old school like my mom and just put a kind of hot dogs like trailer trailer back is my fave.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:14:11

Crystal, I want to talk about something because I'm navigating some health stuff. And it's so and I've been doing a lot of thinking because my life has been very stressful. Like, probably since I was a kid. But the last couple years with like navigating like significant loss has been stressful and I've been not feeling well. And I was in the ER, couple weeks. Last week I was in the ER and I learned that I had a four and a half centimeter ovarian cyst. And now I'm going down investing, like investigating it, and I'm all about I'm in the womb, right? I'm a woowoo I like science and I like the whoo and 100 plus a lot of you know I've been I know there's a lot of things that happen in life like stress that cause illness and stuff and you know your body you know when things feel right and when they don't. And I'm doing just a lot of like learning and listening and insight but I want to ask you, you know, because you actually I almost died not once, not twice, not thrice, but four times, which is bananas. Palliative care, like,

Crystal Adair-Benning: 00:15:07

Yeah, I'm like, I'm literally like crystal corn like my husband jokingly refers to me as a unicorn and all things because he's like shit that would kill other people. You're still fucking kicking.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:15:17

I like I'm just so I feel so lucky to like be your new friend that I've decided that I'm your new friend. But I want to know, because that wedding job super stressful. And it was a few years ago that you took what you were doing on the side, which was writing and made it your full time thing? Yep. Do you notice a big difference internally in your body in your mind? Like, Oh, dude, can you walk us through?

Crystal Adair-Benning: 00:15:39

Like, it's like night and fucking day. So when my immune system was activated all the time, like my parasympathetic, my sympathetic nervous system, like everything was fucking activated all the time. There was no off switch. It was like being on a TV show. 24 Fucking seven with me. There was no off switch. I didn't know how to turn it off. I didn't sleep well. I didn't eat well. I mean, like, for me, eating was like How fast can I if I can shove it in my mouth before the next client has a problem that I have to deal with. Right like food never had an enjoyment level to it. Food was a necessary evil. And the faster you can serve it to me, the faster I can eat it, the more I would. I didn't gain weight. Because I wanted to gain weight. I gained it because I ate like a trucker that had a five minute truckstop every, you know, 24 hours, right? I became a binge eater. So on top of being sick, I was literally making my body sick. Like my body tried everything to tell me to slow the fuck down. Right? Binge Eating chronic anxiety, depression. Mysterious illnesses like mine started with a lot of mystery things that would happen to me right? I got like, essentially what looked like mumps or measles, but was never diagnosed, but it actually paralyzed me in university actually went through like six months of full paralyzation from the waist down, where I couldn't fucking move. And no doctor could diagnose it. They just said it was rheumatoid arthritis. Really? That's that's your best fucking guest here. Okay, cool. Thanks. I went to naturopaths I went to Chinese doctors. I went to acupuncture, chiropractic, like, you name it. I fucking did it in the search for my own health, thinking that there would be this one pill. There's one thing there's one thing that would just change everything. And the truth was, it wasn't one fucking thing. It was everything. I was doing all the things wrong. I was married in an unhappy marriage because we got married. Like we hit that three year mark and literally went like, What the fuck are we doing? Are we getting married? Are we not? And it was like, Well, I guess we'll get married. So we got married young. It did not start well, it did not end well. He's a rad human. He was just wasn't my human. He wanted babies. And I wanted books. Like we had totally different beliefs. So the marriage wasn't working. Financially, I made a million dollars. And then I got desperately ill and started, like throwing money at my house to fix it. And I lost everything. I lost it, I had a million bucks. And by the time I was done, I was filing for fucking bankruptcy. My body and my life literally started to go to shit. Because I couldn't figure out that all I needed to do was handle the stress. And the thing I had to do to handle that stress was to leave the bucking job. Like there was no other option. And I kept searching for an option. But I'm really good at it because my ego kept getting stroked over and over. You're so talented. You're amazing. You're the best planner I've ever had blah, blah, blah. My ego kept getting stroked, and my ego wouldn't let me walk away. I didn't want to leave the top of the fucking pile. Right? When the truth was that I was killing myself in an effort to stay at the top of the pile. To keep that crown took so much effort and so much energy and I remember feeling bloated all the time and exhausted all the time. And stressed out like I looked very calm on the outside, but inside it was just like inner turmoil. 24/7 Like I remember years of waking up in the middle of the night and sitting straight up in bed because I was having a panic attack or something that hadn't even fucking happened. Right? Oh my God, my clients chairs are going to show up. Oh my god, the bride's dress is going to have a wrinkle. Oh my God, my client hates me. None of that shit actually ever happened. But that was the stress and anxiety level. I worked in 24/7 and when I finally made the decision to say no, and quit right It was really interesting because I like, I can still like picture that day in my mind, I was working with one particular client at the time and only one client at the time, I had switched from weddings into events, was working with one specific client. And to everybody outwardly, it was like the job, people knew me for this job, I was well known. There were 1000s of people that knew what I did. And were like, cheering me on.

Crystal Adair-Benning: 00:20:29

And I knew in myself that if I didn't quit, I was gonna die. Like I felt it. So inherently, the pressure to be perfect the pressure to lose the weight and look like everybody else in the company, the pressure to you know, have flawless skin and perfect hair and teeth. Like that was part of that, that community. That's what they wanted. And I like even just the pressure of that is starting to get to me and starting to kill me. And the day I made up my mind it didn't it actually came really easily. It was like, Do you want to die fighting for perfection? Or do you just want to fucking be perfect, just as you are. And the decision got really easy. And I went to my then employer and said, I think I'm wasting my time here and I think I'm wasting your money. Not that I'm not doing a great job I am but I just You don't need me and I don't need you anymore. So this relationship just needs to end I need to do something else for me. I won't say that it was the easiest thing in the world. But the second I got off that phone call. I actually felt like I felt like what's the what's the Disney movie? The girl that like carries the heavyweight? Come on. Help me out who knows what I'm talking about? It's in Kanto. Anyway, and then ketto I think it's Louisa. Louisa is the sister that carries the weight on her fucking shoulders at the house all the time. I legit felt like I tossed her pocket house off of my shoulders and went holy shit for the first time in two decades. I can fucking breathe again. There's no way you're gonna call me at two o'clock in the morning. There's no like email that I'm going to pick up that is going to feel so detrimental that I have to cut off my vacation or not take a vacation because holy shit the world might end. And I learned in that instant that boundaries are my best friend. Boundaries are my best friend. My clients know it. I write incredible copy. It is given a timeline and a deadline and we stick to it. And there are boundaries. I don't work weekends anymore. Guys. I spent two decades not having a fucking weekend ever, ever, never having a weekend, working every birthday every holiday. And I was like I don't work birthdays. I don't work holidays, and I definitely don't work weekends anymore. Fucking nope, my rules, my game, my rules. This is the rule. And my body just kind of relaxed and went, Oh, fuck, we can breathe again. It was the first time I remember taking a deep breath. And that shift like Blair, I'm so excited for you to figure out what the shift is for you. Because my life feels totally different. I feel at ease. Now. I don't wake up with anxiety anymore. I like actually build time into my schedule to step outside and like, see the sun. See the moon, if I want like, I build that time in my body doesn't feel bloated, my body doesn't feel inflamed. It doesn't feel infected anymore. My skin's cleared up. My weight has actually dropped. Like my body feels like a new human. It is regenerated. And part of that came from doing the work. But it also came from doing the right work. So in that spiritual realm, one of the things that I got really connected to was, I never felt like a woman. I felt like a woman's body behaving and acting like a man in my business. Right? Like I had to be on 24/7 It was like straight up testosterone Run, run, run power, power, power, push, push, push all the time. And I was like, I feel like there's some work here that I need to do around my feminine. Like, and I remember the first time I walked into a healers office and she's like, so tell me about your womb space. And I looked at her like she fucking lost her mind because in my world she had and I was like what womb space?

Crystal Adair-Benning: 00:24:27

Like, I've never had kids, what are you talking about? Like there is no womb space. And she's like, oh, let's start there. And what we did was a combination of will massage, Shadow healing and Yoni reclamation work, which was all to get me in touch with my feminine which was all about flow. And the second she did it my creativity soared through the roof. My hormones balanced out. My body started reacting better now when something's wrong because let's face it, like it's not like oh, I'm healed. Nothing's ever gonna go wrong again. It's doesn't work like that. But now when something is wrong, I intuitively feel it and feel deeply connected to it and can go, oh shit, I gotta heal that. Okay? And healing is a long term process. It's not like you do one thing and it stops like, it's always a long term process. But now I'm more in tune to be able to go, Hey, that sign that my body's giving me right now. I should probably listen to it right now. Not wait 10 years and have misdiagnosis ease and like male doctors, especially looking at me like I'm fucking nuts when I tell them like, hey, Section hurt. Actually, I had male doctors that for five years told me there was no like it was it was my problem. Not there wasn't a medical issue. And I was like, Cool. And then I started working with healers that showed me that like, sex doesn't have to hurt. Your body shouldn't be in pain all the time. You shouldn't feel bloated, that heaviness. I don't know about you. But like I felt heaviness in my lower body for years. And I've met a healer who was like, No, Your body should not feel heavy. Like your body should not feel heavy. Like everything should feel light and like airy. Like that's the way women are meant to feel. Not this dense, heaviness. And I was like, I feel heavy. Now I feel like a fucking hot air balloon. I'm like, hello, let me go. Let me play. So like, I'm so excited for the journey. Because like, now life feels totally different. life feels way more at ease. It's not that I don't have stressful moments. But one of the tools that I employ is that emotion is just energy in motion. Right? It's a feeling in motion, and 17 seconds. It's a choice. If you hold an emotion for longer than 17 seconds, you are making a fucking choice. The reaction initially, you don't have a choice that just happens naturally. Your body's like I'm reacting to this. But 17 seconds after it initially occurs. If you continue to hold it, you're making a fucking choice. So if I feel rage, and I hold it longer than 17 seconds, I'm making a choice to hold rage. Dude, that's not cool. So now I stop. And every time I feel an emotion, I come from Curiosity. Why is this making me fucking Rayji? Like, why is that pissing me off? And then I make a new choice. Okay, fuck it, I'm not going to choose rage. Instead, I'm going to choose curiosity, and I'm going to experience it and move through it. And that started to make these incredible shifts in me and my business. So now even if I got an email from a client, who was like, I'm not super happy with this copy, instead of being like, super offended, and like, Fuck you, I worked so hard on it. My brain goes, hmm, that's curious. I wonder what about it? They don't like, let's dig into that for a second. Let's figure out what the problem is. And oftentimes, it's not the copy it's something inside of them that they don't align with that we need to change or it's like one word that they got hung up on something silly, right? But like old crystal, old sick crystal would have been like fix hyper fixated on it. And that would have been my entire world for an entire day. One word. And now I'm just like, well, what's really the problem? Let's just explore that. And 17 seconds can change anything. That was a lot I diatribes sorry latest go.

Theresa Lambert: 00:28:25

Don't be sorry, I was just like fascinated listening to you. And also can still relate because I was burned out as fuck, as a hotel GM, finding a luxury boutique hotel and so that that's my story. And that's ultimately what got me into entrepreneurship was that I had enough and that I wanted to do something different. But I am I so relate to being in this state, where you have this access, and you look like you have all your shit together and you somehow managed to show up and show up and show up while on the inside. You're like a train wreck. That is literally just somehow figuring out how to put the wheels back on to make it to the next train station just in time. Yeah, and that is like what it feels like internally and so I can still relate and I love that you share that because I think what a lot of people really need to hear these days because the hustle culture is still thriving. And you know, we've all been taught that the harder you work and the more you work and the more discipline to run them or this and that you are the faster you achieve and the faster you can make it and yeah like work is required to build businesses like without a doubt like you're gonna have to put some effort in but there's different ways we can do it and it's not worth sacrificing our health and our mental and emotional well being for anything because if you to your point in your story right Like, you ended up experiencing bankruptcy and like all these other things along with it. Because you were in a state of distress, and your body's so taxed, you didn't have the capacity to maintain a hope your success and I think this is something that's so important. It's not just about getting there and making it work. It's about being able to actually hold it and maintain it. And not in that way, right. And so for me, personally, I relate so much to feeling like it's just never fucking enough like and just like,

Crystal Adair-Benning: 00:30:39

like, it got so much. So I remember by current like, My career started before social media existed, all right, I'm sure if I can age, whatever. My career started before social media existed. And to a certain extent, I feel like we got away with a lot more stuff before social before social media existed, right? Because like, I got married, I, you know, I got married, I started my divorce, I filed for bankruptcy. I was sick before social media ever existed. So I never had to explain why suddenly, Crystal didn't have as much hair. I never had to explain why. You know, I had assistants that were showing up and doing my events, and I wasn't on site anymore. I didn't have to go through that experience during social media to so like, to a certain extent, life was a little bit easier. What I think is interesting now is the burnout gets harder, harder with social media, because so many of us want to put on that perfect face, we only want to show the perfect shade. We only want our southern shores all with perfect makeup and perfect hair, and the perfect job and all the best parts of what we do. And we forget to fucking show the shitty shit. We don't show the shitty shit. And you know what's interesting, I think that should he should is actually where our passion and power lies. No, I can teach you how to write great copy. I can also show you the days when I want to take this pink pen and stab myself in the eye 1000 times because I've written the same sentence 82 times and I still can't get the right phrasing and it sucks. And but I mean, that's the truth. I'm a professional copywriter who gets paid to write copy. And some days, it doesn't fucking flow. And some days it's hard. In some days, I have to use other tools. And some days I have to reach out to other humans and be like, I'm stuck on this one sentence please, for the love of God, can you just help me with one sentence? Can you just do this. But when we don't show this shit, when we don't show our lives that way, when we decide to stand up and be so perfect, we are actually killing ourselves. We are adding the stress to our life to our ultimate distraction. And so one of the things that I advocate when I work with clients and talk about their copy is being fucking human. You don't always have to show up with performing. In fact, ladies, I love y'all. It's like it o'clock in the morning here, there is no makeup, I barely got my coffee together. Like this is how we roll today, right. And I'm still here showing up and I'm still I could teach a class, I could talk on a stage today. And I would feel no shame about it. Because I'm fucking human. I showed up and did the thing. Like I'm even showing you part of my bra today. Like, I don't look fucking put together. Because I'm not I got up this morning when I'm doing a podcast and I gotta get my shit together because I got to show up. But showing up doesn't have to mean like six hours of makeup and my hair and like organizing a backdrop the shit you see behind me, that's actually just where I live, yo. And if my dog walks through and takes a pee, like, so what, welcome to real life. That's what happens.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:33:39

You know, I love this because like literally like Theresa, I'm very proud of her cuz she's starting to like, show her vulnerability, a lot more on social. But I literally show up, like, what you see is what you get, and you get all of me. And I probably share like the shitty shit just as much as the, you know, pretty shiny stuff. And I think that's really important. And that's a huge part of storytelling, and a huge part of storytelling. Like, look, look at all the stories that we've talked about today. And I know that I talk a lot about this and what I teach, it's like, What's your why, how did you get here, we don't want to just see the pretty polished stuff, we want to see the mess. We want to know the hard work that goes in to everything that you're doing to build what you're building to get you out of bed every morning and it's okay if it changes you know, and it's it's really interesting that we you know, this conversation came to this point, you know, because you interested just met and it's interesting because she talks a lot about the masculine and the feminine energy and she's in like this really big life's like switch right now. I'm telling your story. Maybe you should just like I'll pass it. Here's it. Here's the baton. There's the mic back. Here's

Theresa Lambert: 00:34:45

the baton. Oh my god, well, like where's she going? As I'm like, but I like glass such a good narrator of like my life like she she does this on the podcasts and I'm always like, I'm so fascinated like she's telling my life story. I love it. You know, I mean I am in Toronto right now it's it's almost midday here. So like, I've been up for hours already but no, like, I am literally just on the lake. This is the last week of finalizing all the things in my separation and, and I finally got my passport application and after waiting for six hours in line on Tuesday after seven months of drying, oh, there's the VAs would be people won't be able to see the video. But like, it's been like, it's been crazy, like the last four months, May 2 was the day I, I decided I was I was done to, to I have to 16 years I ended my

Unknown: 00:35:38

like, can we just celebrate that shit? Because so many women especially don't make the hard fucking decision. And they don't make the decision for themselves. They make it for other people. Right?

Theresa Lambert: 00:35:49

Totally. And, you know, I think too, with what you said, and, and, you know, we've we've sort of everything that I've been through too, I think realizing too, that when you're willing to really make the choices that move you towards that joy, that happiness, the fulfillment and satisfaction, it also often requires to be willing to let go, what always requires you to be willing to let go of the shit that doesn't work anymore. And sometimes those things are big. And it started with my Korean hotels. And it started with your career as an event planner. And it was marriages and it was things like and sometimes it's it's it's other things that we have to let go that our ways of being that are destructive to our well being and you shed so much of that. So I would love to know, as we're wrapping this up, what's a piece one piece of advice that you would give somebody that's maybe on their path that want to be able to go from success being about money instead is entitled and how many hours you can work to actually being fucking happy?

Crystal Adair-Benning: 00:36:58

Oh, gosh, I mean, there's so many killer moments, I think trust your intuition is probably my biggest piece of advice. It's and it's the piece that I struggled with for so long, like my intuition kept telling me do this, change it, change it, change it. And I refuse to listen, I let my ego run the show instead of my intuition. And when I started tapping into my intuition, my intuition never leads me wrong. Y'all I met and married my current husband in a month. Because the second I met him my intuition was like, that's your husband. And I was like, Okay, if you say that's my husband, that's my husband, best decision I ever made. We're going on three years in like another couple of weeks. best decision ever marrying that men incredible intuition guide me. If my intuition can guide me to the love of my life.

Crystal Adair-Benning: 00:37:48

In an instant, why can't I trust my intuition to guide me when it comes to my career when it comes to my friend choices when it comes to my travel when it comes to my life? Why? Right? And so many of us get stuck going like, we get these nudges and we forget, like I think so many of us aren't tapped into what intuition actually is. Intuition is just a fucking nudge. It's a nudge. It's no different than seeing numbers and going, I wonder what it means when I always see, you know, 1111 Let me go Google it. Weird. I saw this animal that I never see or this animal keep showing up for me. Let me go Google what that animal means. Like, I don't always know what it means my friends refer to me as Snow White, because I receive a lot of my communication directly from animals. Okay, true story. I'm a I'm what I refer to as a Greenwich. Almost all of my intuition, all of my guidance comes in nature. So if I'm sitting here in my office, I don't feel or hear as much as if I go out into the fucking world. Get away from humans a little bit, sit by a god damn tree, or go to the beach and listen to some waves. That's where I get my intuition because it's the place where my brain my ADHD brain literally slows down long enough to hear and feel and see and notice the nudges that are being given to me every single day. As we are having our conversation dear walked by my office, this happens all the time. Deer show up for me why deer are about femininity. They're about tapping into your spirituality and your intuition deer fucking show up for me every single time I feel like I don't know what the next thing I should do is they'll show up. What is that thing for you? Is it the nudge? Is it? Is it an animal? Is it a number? Is it just this like, I have this idea and you can't get it out of your mind. It keeps showing up or somebody starts you know you overhear a conversation where somebody says something that you're like, well, that's really interesting that when you pick up a book, and Oh, that's weird, the same things in that book. You start being drawn to things. There's a reason you're drawn to things there's a reason to follow. I call it following my curiosity right because that seems less intimidating. People then intuition and just follow my curiosity. If I get a nudge to try something, I'll try it if I don't, I don't. But trusting that becomes like the catalyst opening up so much more stuff and and finding your happiness. I mean, now like I got up this morning, I woke up at 3:30am. For the record, that does not happen in my world normally like, I like my sleep. But at 3:30am I got up and I was pulled to go sit outside, something kept telling me there's something in the stars you need to see right now. And I was like stars, I don't know what you're talking about. I walked out, it was the most clear, beautiful sky I've ever seen. Like, I've never seen Star so bright in my entire fucking world. And I was like, wow, that's really fascinating. And as I'm standing there, there's this giant animal that's in my backyard moving around. And I was like, well, that's interesting. Why would it have taken me outside to see this giant animal? And I'm standing there, and it's a fucking bear walking through my backyard. Bear energy, beautiful Google the spiritual meaning of bear, I got my answer. The knowledge was going outside, because there's a fucking bear sitting in your backyard, and you're gonna see it because it's under the stars. And if the stars hadn't been so bright, there's no way I could have seen the bear. It would have been in the darkness. I couldn't have seen this bear if I didn't go out on this morning with those stars to see that bear. So I'm getting a nudge to do something that tells me what the next step is. And for me, I'm about to relaunch a website, I'm about to relaunch new programs, bear energy is all about stepping into confidence, being able to stand on stages, and speak confidently and speak your truth and stand in that spiritual Totem. That's incredible for me, because that's what I need. Because for so much of my life, like, even as I'm about to launch new things, and we do this as entrepreneurs, right, but to learn something new, we're terrified. But like, I don't know, if people can handle this, I'm not sure I can handle it. And when I followed my intuition, my intuition is like, you fucking got this. Like, let me just stroke your back a little rub your hair tell you, you got this, you're a great, and people are gonna love it go forth. That's the power of stepping into it. And, you know, for me intuition, you know, intuitiveness nudges. Those lead me to the things that bring me the most joy. You know, if I'm, if I hear in my head, you have to go to a certain store today, I'll go to a certain store. Or if it's like, go give your husband a hug, I'll go get my husband hug. Like I just listened to it now and just follow it. Not blind obedience, but definitely in a in a source of curiosity, like, Well, why are you putting me in this place and to do this thing, I don't know until I do it. So guess we're gonna try and see what happens. And the most beautiful thing start to occur and start to shift. And life feels so much easier when you feel like you're guided, right, I was never super spiritual. I was never the person that was like a hardcore Christian, or Catholic or Buddhist or like Muslim, I didn't have what I would refer to as faith in a deity, a God of some sort. And I didn't understand people that did. And then I married into a very Christian family. And what I recognized was that their version of God is my version of spirit guiding me. So they call it God, I call it spirit. And it's the same fucking thing. It's the idea that I'm not alone. And something else is out there helping me make the right decisions. From day to day from moment to moment. They just call it something different than I do. But it's the same thing.

Blair Kaplan Venables: 00:43:36

Yeah. So powerful. Oh, my God, Crystal, we need to have you come back because we didn't even get to some of the questions I wanted to ask you. So we're gonna have to have you back. Because I you know, you're a wealth of knowledge and inspiration to many. And thank you so much. For everything, all the knowledge, opening up your soul to us. I love that we didn't know where this conversation was gonna go. I thought we were gonna talk about New York Times best seller. So we'll have to have you back next time. But I think this is such an important conversation, and it's applicable to so many people and to everyone. So, on behalf of me and Theresa, I want to thank you so much for coming on dissecting success with us. And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in to another episode. You know, I follow crystal her social links and bio everything's below or in the show notes. She's amazing. And I'm just so excited to share her gift with all of you, which is her presence or energy for creativity. And until next time. Peace.

Theresa Lambert: 00:44:46

That's a wrap for another episode of dissecting success. enjoyed this episode. Make sure to subscribe to Blair Kaplan, Venables and Theresa Lambert's podcast dissecting success on the App Store.