Raj Girn: With this week’s focus, we’re getting ready to close off February with the leadership- and advocacy-themed episode. I am super pleased to welcome you to the show. Simone Milasas, is a self-made millionaire, renowned speaker, serial bestselling author and the host of the Choice and Change Action podcast. Simone will be chatting with me about how effective leadership skills build successful brands.

Here is our conversation:

Raj Girn: So glad to have you on Simone.

Simone Milasas: It’s so nice to be here. Thank you for having me.

Absolutely. Well, I want to just kick off right from the beginning. I want to ask you to share a little bit about your life before you developed the Joy of Business coaching program, which is what brought me into your ecosystem so that everyone watching, listening and reading this can understand who you were at the very beginning before everything started?

I’ll give you a little quick synopsis. I’m going to say when I was at high school and everyone was talking about . . . I did have a lot of friends that wanted to get married and have kids, et cetera. And everyone used to say to me “What do you want to do?” And I’d be like, “Own my own business.” And they’d be like “What do you mean own your own business? What is that going to be?” And I’d be like, “I don’t care, actually. I just want to own my own business.” It wasn’t a certain field that I wanted to be in. I discovered that later it was more so to me having a business was how you could be so incredibly creative. And to me, business is really malleable.

But here’s the thing I thought that was normal. I thought loving business and loving all of that was where everyone functioned from. It took me quite some years to realize that my point of view is really different and hence writing the book Joy of Business. Because a friend of mine said to me, “Don’t call it that.” And I said, “Why not?” And he said, “Because people aren’t ready for it. They don’t have a joy of business.” And I was so like those puppy dogs with their head to the side. I was like, “Yes, they do. Why would they do business if they didn’t love it, if it wasn’t joyful?” And he’s like, “That’s not how people do business in this reality, in this society.” So then I did start doing seminars and using Access Consciousness tools, which is the business I was in. and then wrote the book Joy of Business, so that I could invite the world to a different possibility. Because to me, if you’re not loving what you’re doing, then why are you doing it? There’s so much more out there that you could be choosing.

“If you’re not loving what you’re doing, then why are you doing it? There’s so much more out there that you could be choosing.” ~Simone Milasas

You know, you’re so right, Simone. And yet people continue to do what they hate doing, right? I mean, there’s just so much research out there about that. Before we continue there’s something you said there that I want to touch upon. And that is this whole idea about being your own boss. That’s what entrepreneurship is about.

Why did you feel that was where you wanted to go in terms of your professional career? Was it because you had more creative freedom to be able to take this kind of innovative idea of what you believe business to be, to a larger audience because a lot of people like to stay in that kind of comfort zone of somebody else’s world where they just kind of make an appearance. That’s what I call executives, they make appearance people in other people’s dreams. Tell me your thoughts around that.

That’s true. I think it’s an interesting thing to navigate because the reason why I started it may not be where I ended up. And that’s life, that’s living. That’s business. That’s everything. When you choose, you have awareness. And for me, first off, it’s like I had so many ideas. Like initially I designed to create something in the world, wake people up. I just wanted to shake people by the shoulders and say: “Don’t you get it? There’s got to be something else than this trauma and drama that everyone was choosing.”

So I started writing a whole lot of things down, and I wrote this whole piece on being vulnerable and was like, how do I wake people up so that when they’re together because most people have these like barriers with each other. Rather than what if you met someone, I don’t care who they are, know how much money they have or they don’t have, or, you know, the race or religion or anything. And you were just like, “Hi, we’re on this planet together.” So that’s what I decide to create. So that was probably my driving force. It wasn’t necessarily I have to do this on my own or I have to work for myself.

I did discover later that I didn’t have as much freedom when I was working with other people. So then I did that thing of demanding that I would never, ever, ever work for anyone else. And there was absolutely no question in that. There’s this like commitment to only working with myself, which sort of bit me on the tail a few times because there were possibilities available and I was like, “No.” You know, petulant, I’m not choosing this. Until one day a friend of mine actually spoke to me about commitment, and he kept asking me the question “What does commitment mean to you?” And I realized I had such a point of view that if I worked with somebody else, then I didn’t have freedom, which is not true. It depends who you work with.

So now, I mean, I’ve written books. I travel around the world, as much as I possibly can at the moment, doing seminars, et cetera. But I actually work with Access Consciousness. So I do essentially work for somebody else. And yet I have my own creative freedom as well. And I have many different revenue streams and many different wealth creations, I would call it as well. So I think people trapped themselves just as much when they sort of feet in the ground, hands-on-hips, saying, “I’m not going to work for someone else. I’m going to have to do this myself.” Because you literally are refusing to receive from so many possibilities that are available.

I love that you shared that because there always seems to be this church and state between those who work for others and those who work for themselves. And here you are talking about the hybrid model where you can work for yourself, but still, work for/with others. That’s what I’m hearing you say, and I think that’s really great because at the end of the day there is this whole kind of the idea behind diversifying what we do. It isn’t just about doing it for yourself. It can be partnerships and collaborations and working together in so many different ways of doing the same thing, but still having a lot of control over what it is that you’re actually doing within someone else’s wheelhouse. And that’s really what I’m hearing you say here.

There is this other thing that I wanted to kind of tap into Simone, and this is this whole idea of how vast your career is and has been and how you’ve developed. I want to break that down a little bit for anyone out there who’s maybe at the precipice of that fork in the road where do I work for myself? Do I work for others? Is there a way that I can maybe do a little bit of both, which is what I’m hearing you say? Let’s talk a little bit about breaking that down.

You have a very multi-hyphenate success story. You’re an author, speaker, coach, podcaster and a slew of other things. Before we deep dive this whole idea of effective leadership, which is really what I want to hone in on as the larger message of chatting with you, I want to talk about this whole sense of your journey that you’ve really curated and curated on purpose. When you began your brand-building journey because this is really, the crux of what you’ve done here, is you decided to build out several avatars and you’ve mentioned a few of them. I just mentioned a few of them. Can you share what you did first, which then allowed you to leverage to build upon the second and then things just kept going on there because that’s the part that most people seem to have the most difficult challenge with? How do I get started?

I’m going to say, you need to just start and don’t try and get it right. I have stumbled and fallen like a billion times, but I’ve chosen and that I think is the key element here. It’s like one of the tools I would even talk about in my book, is choice creates awareness. You have to choose. There’s the difference of those people who wake up in the morning and go, “Oh, I wish I had a million dollars” to those people who wake up and go, “All right, I’m going to actualize a million dollars. What action do I need to take?” So I have been successful in business, and I’ve been as far as this reality would say, not successful. I’ve made money, I’ve lost money. To tell you the truth, neither of them I look at as right or wrong or good or bad. I have gained awareness from every single choice I’ve made, and that definitely makes me who I am today.

“You need to just start and don’t try and get it right. I have stumbled and fallen like a billion times, but I’ve chosen and that, I think, is the key element here. It’s like one of the tools I would even talk about in my book, is choice creates awareness.” ~Simone Milasas

There is one key piece that I would love to share with everyone. This was what I used to do all the time. I’d create a business, because for me personally, and if you can sort of come to that awareness of what it is that brings you joy with business because most people think they have to do everything. You don’t. That’s why you can hire other people to do stuff that you don’t. And one of the things that I used to do was, I love creating. I love that initial, that generative energy where you go and you got this idea. And I love that beginning for me. Yes, some people would scare the hell out of them. But for me, I love it.

So I would start a business and put everything from absolute scratch, put everything into action. And then once it was up and it was running and it was making money and it was paying the bills and doing all of that, and then maybe even more, I realized this years later. So please don’t make this mistake, ladies and gentlemen are I got bored. And then what I would do is I would start destroying that business so that I could justify starting something different. And a friend of mine many years later, he was watching what I was doing, and he said to me, “You do realize you don’t have to destroy your business in order to start another one, right?” And I remember I was in Brisbane, Australia, and I was sitting in my office and I looked at him and I went, “Oh, that’s exactly what I’m doing.”

And then from that moment I went, “Oh, I can have many different revenue streams.” And that was really key. I guess the learning point for me is you don’t have to destroy something in order to start something different. You can just start something different. It’s that easy. And I think the piece that people make it so hard is they try and get it right. Look, you’re not going to get it right. It’s like you are going to stumble and fall. And every person that you say is extremely successful, ask them their stories.

I mean, a friend of mine actually declared bankruptcy a few years ago, and a mutual friend of ours went “Well welcome to the billionaires club.” And we started laughing because it’s like the number of people who have declared bankruptcy, the number of people who have stumbled and fallen and just crashed and burned. To me that’s not relevant. It’s what are you going to do tomorrow? Are you going to get back up? Or are you going to sit in this place of going: “Oh no, this is terrible and awful, and this happened to me.” Nothing happens to you. You create it by your choices. And I would say I’ve made more bad choices than most people have made choices. But I choose. And then you go, “Oops, good thing I’m cute.”

And you are absolutely. And you’re very easy to talk to. And I’m sure that people that take your mentorship advice just really get this great way of creating a connection with you. So I want to talk a little bit about this whole idea behind successful leadership. It has a lot to do with creating a meaningful connection with the stakeholders, whoever they may be. So I want to ask you this summer your program, The Joy of Business has a unique vantage point in its ability to help people build a strong leadership muscle, among other things. Can you share some highlights about your program that you feel everyone here needs to know?

I’m going to say, it starts with you. It starts with you. And one of the things I would talk about, too, is the five elements of intimacy, which I think you need to have with you which are vulnerability, gratitude, trust, honour and allowance. Because when you have that with you, then you can have that with others. We use them in relationships, for sure. But if you use business and you have relationships in business, I sometimes say having a business partner is more intimate than actually your lover. Yes, you assume you’re on the same page, but you got to have this moment in this play, which are you on the same page? Or do we need to change something? Let’s talk this out and let’s see what’s actually going to create something greater?

“The five elements of intimacy, which I think you need to have with you which are vulnerability, gratitude, trust, honour and allowance. Because when you have that with you, then you can have that with others.” ~Simone Milasas

So I think if you have those five elements of intimacy with you, then you can start to have that with somebody else. And I can’t stress this enough. I know I wrote a book called Joy of Business, but have fun with what you’re doing. It’s like so many people sit in judgment of themselves, and judgment has never created anything greater. It only ever creates something less. So that level of vulnerability that you’re willing to have, that is one of the most attractive things in the world when you’re just being somebody else, when you’re being you. So I would really work at you and stop trying to look at other people to reference what you are being or not being. You are fabulous. You’ve got to get that.

You are fabulous. Those are the best words for 2022, Simone. Can you just share the five levels of intimacy again for everyone?

Gratitude, trust, allowance, vulnerability and honour.

Wow. Now that’s the whole…

You know what I used to do? I used to get little Post-it notes and in my bathroom, I wrote those five elements of intimacy on a post-it note. And as I’m brushing my teeth every night, I would look up at it and I would be like, okay, so where wasn’t I willing to be trusting of myself or vulnerable with myself? Or grateful for myself? And it wasn’t about judging what I wasn’t. I was just like, oh okay. And I would destroy and uncreate all of my fixed points of view because you have fixed points view and they only ever stopped you. And I would just draw on all of those fixed points of view and then go, what would it take for tomorrow to be greater than today? And not from looking at something as less than a lack. Just from a request for more. Let’s go, we’ve got a whole world out there that is available to us.

Absolutely. And that in and by itself can be a real fear-based thing for a lot of people that like to put themselves into a box that they know, rather than to step out into the unknown. What would you say to those people, Simone since you’ve done it time and time again?

Look, it that is one justification that I hear a lot of people talk about is fear. Have a look at what’s underneath it and and I’m not talking like peeling the layers of the onion and really going through that. I just mean, ask yourself. The number one question is is this fear or is this excitement? A lot of people tend to misidentify fear as excitement because it’s unknown, right? It’s like if you’re about to jump, you don’t actually know what’s going to occur. You have an idea of what you would like to occur, but you don’t know what this is going to show up like. So how many people misidentify that and think I’m fearful, I’m too scared. And it’s like, what are you scared of?

“A lot of people tend to misidentify fear as excitement because it’s unknown. It’s like if you’re about to jump, you don’t actually know what’s going to occur. You have an idea of what you would like to occur, but you don’t know what this is going to show up like.” ~Simone Milasas

Like, I open up this business. One of the businesses that I have called Antiques and Possibilities in the local village that I opened in August 2020. And everyone went, “What are you doing?” And I was like, “I know.” Because where I live, Queensland, was totally locked, everyone out. And someone asked me this question the other day. They said, “What made you do that?” And I sat in front of the shop and I looked at it and I went, “Well, what’s the worst thing that could happen?” And that’s a question I would ask myself a lot. And I went. It could be a tax deduction. I can handle that. Let’s go. And you know, I’m an owner of other antique shops in another in another city. So they’re sort of they married together. But look at what’s the worst possible thing that can happen and just go. It is okay. You got this.

I love that advice, Simone, because that’s the big thing. A lot of people feel the emotion of fear and they stop right there rather then think about where is that fear actually coming from? And why is it showing up the way that it’s showing up? Without, as you said, going down this whole rabbit hole of peeling the onion because oftentimes it’s a lot simpler. The answer that you’re looking for in you oftentimes you already know what it is. I know from my experience that when I work so hard to try and figure out the fear piece, it’s always a lot simpler than it actually is in terms of the way I go down that rabbit hole and the rabbit hole just then opens up all kinds of other coffins that weren’t even a part of the process.

About the other thing that this fear thing really is something in business. I always say to my clients to moan that you have to actually make friends with that. You have to have a relationship with that and you have to determine what the narrative for you is going to be in that relationship. Because whenever you enter the unknown, the automatic first instinctual thing that happens is that fear feeling. So get used to it, embrace it, because sometimes the fear will actually take you in a journey that’s far better than all of the check marks that we usually hope is what we are doing when we’re opening businesses or we’re looking to grow them ore expand them or diversify them. What are your thoughts on that?

Well, I have a great tool that you can use as well, because we are way more psychic than we think we’re right? Pick up on all of the thoughts, feelings and emotions of other people. And so the tool that I would use is, who does this belong to? So when that energy shows up, like you’re saying, because it is there and it’s okay to ask, so who does this belong to? And the thing is, if it lightens up, it’s not yours. And 99 per cent of our thoughts, feelings and emotions are not ours. I’ll give you like a really good example. I was horseback riding and having so much fun, and it was great. And then I spoke to my mother about it and she went, “Oh my God, you used to scare the hell out of me when you go riding and across this paddock.” And I started to get fearful of horse riding, and I was like, “What is this?”

And then when I spoke to her, I went, “Oh, it’s not mine. It was hers.” Watching her daughter go screaming across the paddock, I was having a great time, but then my mother has this point of view. So then you pick up on that. My father, he escaped during World War II from Lithuania and has this whole story. And then my mother also came from Scotland to Australia on a boat that cost 10 pounds. So they have a lot of stories in regards to that. So to them, financial stability was really important. Whereas I grew up with being a little bit like, you know, let’s play. And if you start to like, have that energy of like, “Okay, I must get my finances into place,” which I didn’t for a very long time.

As most entrepreneurs don’t. Who do you know that gets that right at the beginning? No one.

No, you don’t. But the importance of it was from my parents. That was not from me. So who does this belong to? I remember I just wanted to play. And I remember my dad was an accountant and he drew this graph for me one day because I was like, “I like being creative.” I was being an awful young girl to my amazing father and he drew this graph. And he had like the create thing on it as part of the pie. And then he had the finances and everything there. And he said something like, “You need to have… You need to look like this.” And I said, “No, that’s not my graph.” And I drew mine. It was all created. And he said, “Simone, if you don’t know about this,” and he pointed to the finance, “you can’t have all of this.” And I was like, “Oh!” because I knew it was correct and I didn’t want to have to look at it. But that moment I went, “OK, I need to start looking at what I’m not willing to look at as well if I’m going to create myself to be a success.”

Absolutely. Just choice words for everyone. Guys, if you’re just joining us, I’m talking to the fabulous Simone Milasas. She is just such an incredible woman with all the experiential insights that she’s sharing with us today. I want you to rewind this back. I want to make sure that you start from the top because this really is a lot of food for thought. For those of you who are sitting at the crossroads of your life and you’re trying to figure out what your next step is, sometimes it’s really the mindset piece, and a lot of that is what I’m hearing Simone share right now with us. This is our episode on leadership and advocacy, and I want to loop you back around to that. Simone, I want to get your insights on this: What have you learned are the top three characteristics that no matter what your leadership style is or mandatory for you to get right to be a really great business leader?

I read this article many, many years ago by a very successful businessman in Australia, and they said to him, “How did you become so successful?” And he said, “I listened. I surrounded myself by capable people and I listened and I really took that on board.” And I mean, I just had a mate. I have about 10 people who work with me really closely. And then it sort of extends out. Some of those 10 people are so quiet and I’m very talkative and always a lot of other people that I work with. But I’m always like, “Hey, do you have any comments? Do you have any awareness?” I listen and I ask people, “What is your awareness with this?” Because if I just choose everything that I’m choosing, that’s what we’re ever going to get.

But if I’m choosing based on what I’m aware of and based on what everybody else is aware of, then that’s a different result showing up. So I would say, listen, ask people for what their awareness is. And as I mentioned previously, choice creates. Just choose. You’re going to find out what happens when you choose. That, to me, is like the fun. Like, you know what? If business was the adventure of living I’d say, let’s go. Most people would rather be right than be free. I’m asking, what would it take for you to be free and have way too much fun with whatever it is you’re choosing?

I love that. Let’s be free, guys. That’s really the purpose of life and existence on a holistic perspective, which is a whole other show. Which Simone I feel that you and I would have a great conversation. So I’d love to have you back on just to tap into that and also tap into these kind of five layers of intimacy that I’m really intrigued on getting your perspective on. So, I know that we’re talking about leadership and advocacy today, and as much as I want to go into those areas, I’m going to stay on track.

We’re going to be a little bit disciplined here just to make sure that the value proposition of this episode that we’re able to really keep it succinct with what we’re promising. So, let me ask you this, Simone: Another way to command brand authority is really to become an author. So many people are doing it. Literally, everyone is doing that as a way for them to be introduced into the marketplace in a level of authority. Now this is something that you’ve done time and time again. I want to ask you this. We’re sitting in a place now, especially since the last few years with the lockdown and everything, people have been sitting there writing books and there is a lot more books going into the marketplace.

A lot of publishers who are people that I work with also say that they’re so backlogged because of the demand of the amount of people that are sitting with wanting to tell their story on different levels. How do we do this in a saturated marketplace? That is what publishing is today. Tell those people out there who are new authors. Because people like yourself who are already in the marketplace and who already have figured it out, but have also written many different types of books and already have this kind of profile as an author, you’re in a different place to people who are newbies looking to use authorship to be able to build their brand authority. What would you say to them right now? What do you feel they should be doing?

I would start asking yourself questions and ask, “What’s your agenda like? What is it that you’re actually trying to get out of this?” Because for me, you can’t write a book and expect to make a million dollars. It doesn’t work like that. Joy of Business was the first book that I wrote. And sometimes people can’t afford to go to your seminar or they’re not in the right location, et cetera. So I thought putting Joy of Business into a book that anyone could buy on Amazon, etc. All those places was getting to more people. And then actually, Joy of Business is translated into 16 languages, so it’s translated into 16 languages and it’s also in audio in English. And a few of them are coming out in other languages as well. So to me, that match the energy of what it was that I wanted to create because it was getting out there in the world like German is the bestselling besides English, and it’s not that far behind. And I’m like, okay so the Germans love Joy of Business. Who would have thought. So it’s like, what are you actually trying to create with getting a book out there?

And everyone is different. So your perspective on something is going to be different. If we stopped creating based on somebody else has already done it, then the world would be a really boring place. I think this is hysterical. In 1957, in Australia, they actually shot the patent office down because colour TV had just been brought out and they said there’s nothing else that can be invented because colour TV is here. Can you imagine if that was it? There’s always something else that’s possible. So I mean, I don’t know what idiot tried that, but it lasted six months and then they opened the patent office up again. But here’s the thing it’s like, what do you know? What are you aware of? Ask yourself, what is my agenda with this? Please don’t make it about money. It’s actually going to cost you some money to if you want to go to print as well. You can make money like I have over the years. I have made money from my book, but I’ve probably made more money from people being aware of Access Consciousness and Joy of Business and then coming to the seminars is what it’s been about.

So really, at the end of the day, it’s putting the book out anyway, because you will have a unique experience and perspective around the same thing because there’s nothing really new that people are talking about. It’s just a new approach and a new way of talking about the same thing. And your thing may be the thing I think, correct me if I’m wrong Simone, but your thing may be the thing that somebody was waiting to hear, even though they’ve heard this many times. Maybe your way was the one that was going to open up their minds to be able to say, that’s exactly what it is that I wanted to get right.

Yeah, exactly.

So let me ask you this Simone: Now we’re in 2022, and all the pundits are saying that podcasting will be the most effective way to showcase a person’s leadership prowess and also to build their brand authority. Now, obviously podcasting has been around for a while now, but this is like coined as the big year. So if you’re not podcasting, this probably would be the year for you to start doing that, especially from a business perspective.

Now, Simone you host a really popular podcast show called the ‘Choice Change & Action Podcast.‘ I want to ask you this. Can you share a little bit about what you talk about and who it targets?

I did something that most people would say that’s not a smart business choice, but I used to have another podcast that I started quite a few years ago and it had a lot of listeners, et cetera. But I got bored. I was like, I don’t want to do this anymore. I said, because it was, basically just about business and money. And I love that: two of my favorite topics. So I went and everyone was like, “You can’t do this. No way.” “Yes, I can.”

So I decided to create something that involved any topic I could talk about. So that’s quite the change in action because to me, like as I’ve mentioned, you’ve got to choose in order to create a change and what action are you going to take. So I do explore many different avenues. I obviously still talk about business, money and investing because it’s one of my favorite topics to talk about. But also relationships is a big thing that I talk about. Anything. So it makes it more fun for me.

“You’ve got to choose in order to create a change and what action are you going to take.” ~Simone Milasas

And I think if you’re going to start a podcast, make it fun. My gardener, who is an amazing man, pinged me last night and said, “Hey, I’m starting this podcast with this friend of mine. Will you come on?” I said “Absolutely.” And I know what it’s going to be about. It’s going to be like he became a gardener because he wanted to work more with the Earth. He was a fitness instructor or whatever. So he’s doing something he loves. And I think that’s really important. Make sure that you love it and you’re having fun with it. Or it’s not going to end up being great and do it because it’s fun for you, not about getting it right.

And that’s been a theme throughout here Simone. You know, you truly are a person and you’ve lived this. You consistently keep living this. Just get out and do it as long as it’s surrounded on some level with passion and purpose for you. It’s worth doing it right.

If it’s joyful, do it and don’t think about the money as well. I see a lot of people . . .

That’s hard.

I know. It’s sort of like a fine line. There’s two things that I would look at here is choose it because it’s fun and it’s joyful. And one of the things I would talk about is money follows joy. Most people think joy follows money, and they go, “Oh, when I have this money, then I’ll be happy.” And it’s like, “No, it doesn’t work like that.” You actually get to wake up and choose happy, right? Doesn’t matter how much money you have in your bank account or don’t have in your bank account. So there’s that pace. Chose it because it’s fun and it’s joyful. Right? And what you can also ask, which is a great question, is what revenue stream will contribute to this and will support this?

Because on the other hand, I see a lot of people in business and I was guilty of this one as well is just go, “This is fun. This is fun. This is fun. This is fun. This is fun.” But it was like, “Oh, hang on a second. How am I paying the mortgage?” So I did start to have a look at what revenue stream will support this, and I literally sat down and looked at everything that I was creating. Some of them were money spinners. Some were not. But the ones who weren’t, were they contributing to the bigger picture? And for me, I would like to invite and create more consciousness on the planet. So if it’s contributing to that, yes. And I started to really look at all of that for myself, but not exclude it because I see people just want to create and then they exclude money or they make it only about money. Both of those points of view are going to attract you. So what’s your happy medium?

I love that Simone because this just brings back this whole ideology that I believe that you believe in because you’ve been talking about this quite often throughout our conversation, and that’s just finding the place where multiple things could meet to make you know your value proposition right for you. You talked about that one when I was talking to you about executiveship vs. entrepreneurship, and you said, “Why can’t you do both?” And here you are. You’re saying it again.

Why can’t you find a passion purpose project and then see if there’s an opportunity to be able to leverage it for other things, money perhaps being one of them, maybe not being the only. So let me ask you this: For people out there who have not gotten into the podcasting world, I want to garner your thoughts around what you feel are the key advantages of doing so. Bearing in mind that we’re talking about leadership and building authority and we’re staying in that realm. What’s the advantage of starting your own podcast around that?

Well, I mean, it’s a great. As you said, podcasts is a huge thing at the moment. I think it’s funny. I have a guy who comes in, cleans my window, my car, the gardener, and they’ve always got earphones on. They’re always listening to podcasts. Just because a lot of people out there are doing it doesn’t mean that there’s no space for you. There is space for you. And a lot of people are like, “Oh, have you listened to this?” I don’t know about yourself, but people always ping me links to listen to other podcasts, and then you have more awareness on that.

So again, I think if you’re not judging yourself on what you’re choosing and what you’re creating and get out there. And if you’re really talking from, I want to say, from that vulnerability, what’s actually up, then that is one of the greatest invitations in the world. You not judging you and you showing up as all of you. People are like, “Wow, who is she? What does she got? I’d like some of that.” It becomes attractive to the world because people are bored with people pretending to be someone else. We weren’t put on this planet to pretend to be somebody else. We were put on this planet to be us. So when you’re being that, that to me is the best leadership skill that you can choose, to be you.

“If you’re not judging yourself on what you’re choosing and what you’re creating and get out there. And if you’re really talking from that vulnerability, what’s actually up, then that is one of the greatest invitations in the world. You not judging you and you showing up as all of you.” ~Simone Milasas

I love that. My next question for you was going to be what for you is effective leadership? Would you say that what you just said there answers that question or do you want to add more to that?

No, I would say that that answers the question. And again, I’m going to reiterate not about getting it right because you get it when you get it and you hear it when you hear it and you . . . Like every day, I ask to be greater. You know, and I met this man in Japan once. He made sushi. It was amazing. But he’d been making sushi for it was something like 85 years, as a little boy. And he said every day I asked to make sushi greater than I made it yesterday. Its like “Are you kidding me?” He did not become complacent about anything. And it was an art, and he enjoyed it. And I think that’s true leadership for yourself.

Absolutely. I want to round things off. I want to encapsulate things for everyone out there. The core takeaway really for this conversation is, what is the correlation between effective leadership and building a successful brand Simone? What do you want to leave everyone with?

Look, I think the key element here is to ask questions. And one of the things I talk about in the seminars in my book, et cetera, is we’re brought up to have the answer. I don’t know about you, but at school it was like, “What’s the answer? What’s the answer? What’s the answer?” And also, you had to get the answer the way the teacher wanted you to get the answer or you were wrong. What if every single thing you’ve ever been told your whole entire life you found out was a lie, then what would you choose?

And if you’re being questioned every single day, what else is truly possible here? How does it get any better than this? Then, as you ask a question, choices show up, possibilities show up. It’s like, choose. And then the fourth thing I would look at with that is contribution. How many of you are actually willing to receive . . . We do this stupid thing of thinking we have to do everything ourselves. We’re dying. It’s like, look at nature, like nature is continuously contributing to each other, right? What if we actually did that as well? And we were willing to. And most people go, “Oh, I can gift. You know that that’s comfortable. I can do that.” Well, I’m going to ask you, what if you started receiving? What difference could show up?

I love that choice words so much to think about in this conversation. So much for people to sit with. And it’s a great time in the year when it’s the right time for you to sit with anything. That’s what I always say. And I want to ask you this before we close off Simone: Is there anything at all that you feel that you want to add to this conversation before we close out? Really talking about effective leadership and how you can use and cultivate your personal leadership style to be authentic. Because with authenticity comes authority as well. Your thoughts?

Relax, definitely relax. Most people think that authority comes from being all tense and maybe yelling and going, “No, this is the way we’re doing it.” And it’s like, “No, relax.” It’s like if you had no judgment of you and you were relaxed and you listen, then you’re in total allowance for everything that’s going on you actually have more awareness. Most people focus here, but it’s like, what if you actually relax and you had awareness of everything? Then you’ll hear those whispers. “What’s that?” And it’s like, “Ooh, let’s choose that. Let’s play over here. Let’s play here.” So relaxation. Big one for me.

Absolutely. And it’s very much a part of the yogic philosophy as well, right? Just to be able to tap into the energy force that is you and how that translates and relates to the energy forces that are outside of you. It’s just so fascinating. There’s so many different ways of saying the same thing. And I think at the end of the day, the big takeaway for me in this conversation is to to be fluid, to be tapped into who you are in that given moment. And as Simone has rightfully said, her career trajectory shows, this is proof of this.

Allow yourself to change your mind. Allow yourself to evolve in a different direction. If that’s what makes sense to you and perhaps don’t go too deep down a rabbit hole that may take you in a direction that wasn’t even where you were looking for an answer in the first place. I want everybody to have the opportunity to be able to reach out to you, Simone, because I know there’s so much more wealth of wisdom that comes not just from your professional career, but also from the place of who you have become as a person. How can people get a hold of you?

“Allow yourself to change your mind. Allow yourself to evolve in a different direction. If that’s what makes sense to you. And perhaps don’t go too deep down a rabbit hole that may take you in a direction that wasn’t even where you were looking for an answer in the first place.“ ~Raj Girn

Well, even though my name is not easy to pronounce, there is no other Simone Milasas in the world, which is great for Google. So my Instagram handle, my website, Facebook, all that sort of stuff is all Simone Milasas. And you can look at AccessJoyBusiness.com as well is we’ve got joy business facilitators actually all over the world doing classes. And Access Consciousness is actually like accessconsciousness.com is where all the tools are. When I met Gary Douglas, the founder of Access, I just went, “Oh my goodness, this guy’s talking about everything that I know is possible, but nobody else was talking about it.” So hence, I’ve been working with Access for 21 years, and the books are filled with all of those tools.

Wow. And I also read that you’ve been quite the key team member to be able to really build it to the global scale that it’s come to be. And I think that has a lot not just to do with a lot of the things that we’ve been talking about, but it comes back down to this whole idea of being a part of something that makes sense for you as an individual, being a part of that, that greater whole.

Simone, what a pleasure you are. I’ve I’ve really enjoyed chatting with you. I really thank you for coming on and sharing your experiential thoughts behind a lot of what you’ve accomplished, a lot of what you’ve seen. And I really do genuinely want you to come back on. I really have a lot that I want to talk to you about and that intimacy stuff that you were talking about. I’m telling you it begs an entire episode. Please come back on. Thank you so much for being on today.

I would absolutely love to come back on for sure. Thank you so much for having me Raj.

Absolutely.

Guys, I really hope that you got some real value from today’s show and that you’ll share what you learned with everyone that you know that you feel needs to get these takeaways. Please invite them over to subscribe to the YouTube Channel at The Open Chess Confidence Academy. If you’re a podcaster, hop on over and search for the ‘Transform Your Confidence Show.’ And if, like me, you just like to just deep dive the read go over to my website TheOpenChestconfidenceAcademy.com/media/podcasts. And I’ll see you next week for another exciting episode.

This time it will be about mindset and clarity, which you know really is the way that I love to kick off the beginning of all of my months. It’s the month of March. It’s my birthday month and I cannot wait to share it with each and every one of you. Until then, take care of yourself.

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