196 Live The Life You Deserve: How To Let Go Of What No Longer Serves You & Embody Your Highest Self: Interview With Sylvester McNutt III

Chris McDonald: Do you feel like you're just going through the motions day by day and not living your life in alignment? Are you ready to learn how to let go of limiting beliefs and shift your thinking, and your life, towards more of what lights you up and brings you joy? Are you ready to align using the law of attraction?

Today, we have an amazing episode. You don't want to miss. Join me as I sit down with the incredible Sylvester McNutt, an inspiring author, self mastery coach, and public speaker. In this episode, we explore the powerful theme of living the life you deserve, how to let go of what no longer serves you and embody your highest self.

Based on his book, he shares his wisdom on transforming mindsets through self awareness and healing practices. Tune in to discover how to tap into your potential. Upgrade your limiting beliefs and live in alignment with the life you truly want. Don't miss this journey of self discovery and empowerment on today's episode of the Holistic Counseling Podcast.

This is Holistic Counseling, the podcast for mental health therapists who want to deepen their knowledge of holistic modalities and build their practice with confidence. I'm your host, Chris McDonald, licensed therapist. I am so glad you're here for the journey.

Do you have any ethical or legal concerns about blending holistic modalities with traditional therapy? Is this holding you back from integrating these? You are not alone. There are some things to consider to protect your license and practice before diving into holistic counseling strategies. This is why I created my one hour recorded training, The Ethical and Legal Considerations of Holistic Counseling.

In it, we will explore how to protect yourself against liability as a holistic therapist. You will learn more about scope of practice versus scope of competence and informed consent. Also addressed is how you can expand your therapy practice ethically into the holistic realms, and where to draw the line.

I also address the ethics of research based interventions and how this works for holistic counseling practices. You get all this plus one continuing education contact hour. To learn more, go to hcpodcast. org forward slash ethics course. That's hcpodcast. org forward slash ethics course. Welcome back to the holistic counseling podcast.

So glad you're here with me. I hope things are going well for you. For those that don't know, I'm in the thick of rebranding this podcast to a more yoga focused podcast. And let me tell you, it's been quite a journey for me. It's been filled with lots of different emotions, some anxiety, some stress, but the good news is the excitement and passion about this transition.

This rebrand is more in alignment of where I'm going both personally and professionally. And alignment is actually what this podcast today is all about. So stay tuned. The new podcast is coming. It's dropped September 18th with three episodes for you to jump into. So get ready for those and mark your calendar, but let's get to today's episode.

So we delve into a transformative topic based on the book by Sylvester McNutt, the third of how you can live the life you deserve, how to let go of what no longer serves you and embody your highest self. He is author of 10 books, a self mastery coach, a father, podcaster, and course creator. He teaches people how to transform their mindsets through self awareness and healing practices.

His core message is no matter what you're going through, there is so much greatness, power, and possibility inside of you. He helps people tap into their potential, upgrading, limiting beliefs, and live in alignment with the life they want. Let's dive in. Welcome to the Holistic Counseling Podcast, Sylvester.

Sylvester McNutt: Pleasure to be here. Thank you.

Chris McDonald: So I wanted to start with what inspired you to want to help others to live the life that they deserve?

Sylvester McNutt: It was a deep rooted curiosity, to be honest, and I would say that it started in my early family system. And I was just curious as to why my parents Parents went from what you would consider like an ideal family system, two parent household, uh, lots of communication, lots of love.

They would dance, they would flirt, they would talk. It appeared as a young kid to be a very healthy relationship. Even though you don't really have that framework as a kid, you know, you're still observing things. And so they had this very healthy and functional family system that I was a part of, but then all of a sudden it changed around the age of like nine or 10, it changed.

And I noticed a drastic change in their behavior. But because I was an adult at the time, I didn't know things that they could have been dealing with, you know, whether it be, you know, bills or stress, job change, you know, things that we deal with as adults. But as a kid, you know, you're not really privy to that information.

So all I had. Was the back end of this family system change. And what I saw through my parents was just a lot of suffering, just a lot of suffering, my father, my mother, both just suffering through the family system. And so that became like my early childhood curiosity is like, how do we not do that? Like, is it possible to not do that?

Is it like, is it possible to fix these problems? Is it possible to get solutions? For the things that they were struggling with. And so it really was an early seed that started early in my life to, you know, to help people, you know, live the life they deserve. But then for me and my own, my personal journey as a consequence of that family system, I felt like I was put into some situations that I didn't deserve.

Whether it be being behind as far as other students, because we're moving so much, whether it be abuse, whether it be, you know, dealing with alcoholic parents. Whether it be dealing with early on in life, dealing with racism and not really knowing how to deal with it. So there was just some things that happened.

And this is all of our lives. Like all, every single life, we all have things that we don't necessarily deserve that are a part of our lives. And so that became, uh, just an idea in my head. It's like, okay, I know that I had to overcome. I had to go through these particular things to, you know, arrive at this point.

I'm happy most of the time. And, uh, I have the tools to deal with life as life happens. And it just dawned on me that some people never get past those things that happen to them. You know, for everybody, it's not early childhood. It's not family system. For some people, you know, it's the first relationship they get into.

For some people, it's, it's their church or their religion. You know, for some people, it's the first job they come into that, you know, destabilizes and knocks people off of their path. And so I really wanted to just tap into that space of like, okay, how do we go through our go throughs, but still live a life we deserve, still get what we want, still set ourselves up to attract what we want, still set ourselves up to go after what we want.

And that really, that path, that journey was like the genesis. And then like, I literally call it like my life's work. Like I've dedicated my whole life to figuring this out.

Chris McDonald: I know you mentioned the word alignment. It sounds like you became aligned with where you wanted to go with your life once you realized all that.

Sylvester McNutt: Oh yeah. I think, I think that happens through trial and error. You don't really know, you don't know who you want to be around. You don't know who you want to to date. You don't necessarily know what career you want. So there's like this trial and error you have to go on. And I feel like the alignment happens when you're honest with your trial and error.

You know, when it's like, Oh, that didn't feel good. I don't want that. As soon as you can honor that, Hey, I don't want that. I don't want to take someone like that. You bring yourself more into alignment. No, that was a good job. I'm grateful for the opportunity. That's not the type of job I need to be doing.

Like, boom, you come more into alignment. And I just feel like the more we can get closer into alignment, and it doesn't mean perfect, right? For my, for my people, pleasers listening for my people care about perfection. It's not about perfection. It is about the trial and error. And that gives you the opportunity to come into that alignment.

Chris McDonald: So it's being honest with yourself too that maybe the path you took, it's not quite working out, but that's okay. Giving yourself that permission. Can I read a quote from your book?

Sylvester McNutt: Oh yeah, absolutely.

Chris McDonald: And by the way, his book has so many amazing quotes. I wish I could read them all, but this I thought really goes inside with what, what he's mentioning here.

So fall in love with the possibilities of who you can become. Fall in love with the journey of accepting who you have been. Fall in love with the fact that you have the choice each day to design the life you want. To step into the energy that is your highest self. Fall in love with the option to release the idea of playing small.

You are not put here to fit into perfect boxes and ideals. Fall in love with the journey of becoming your highest self. Let that sit in listeners.

Sylvester McNutt: That's a good one. Like that one.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. Yeah. No, that was just like, that just resonated with me too. Cause I think of even my own personal journey. It's, it's not been a straight line at all and not in a bad way.

It's just like, okay, this didn't work. Let me try something else. Like you said, it's just rediscovering ourselves. And I love what you said with what you deserve, right? And listeners are remembering that you deserve more.

Sylvester McNutt: Yeah, and I think that's the, the word deserve is interesting, you know, and obviously as a writer, author, you're, you're meticulous with the words you use when you're writing a book.

And so there was this day I was thinking like, man, am I, if I put this book out with this title, am I telling the reader to, you know, be entitled? And I had to sit with that for a day. Right? Because we've, we've been around people like, Oh, well, I deserve this. And I deserve that. But then it's like, you're not showing up for it.

You're not living in alignment. You have no integrity. You have no work ethic towards the thing you're talking about. So how do you actually deserve it? And I thought that that was such a powerful day for me while I was in contemplation mode, writing this book, because one of the chapters in the book is, um, you know, preparing for the great fight.

That part is so essential for our journeys because we're all going to go on a great fight in life. The very first time you're a 16 year old boy and you have to go ask a girl for a prom that to go to prom that or homecoming, that's one of the hardest fights you'll ever do in your life. The very first time you have to cook your own meal, like, uh, not just like some scrambled eggs, but like a real meal.

I mean, that's a fight, right? The first time you go on a job interview, but you're fighting for an opportunity to create or advance your career. And we have all these little pockets in life where part of the work is just preparing for it. You know, like before I came on this podcast, you read the book, you took notes.

You were prepared before I came on, I took a shower. I prayed, I got my mind right. I meditated, I got my coffee, you know, I prepared for this, this great fight. Right. And like I wanted to reframe because when we hear the word fight, we always think of violence, like physical, physical fighting. And I wanted to reframe that because there's so much power in fighting for the life that you want, you know, climbing that mountain to get the life that you want.

And I just feel like to go back to the original point about Am I creating entitlement by saying, like, you deserve this? No, I'm not. Because in that chapter, I'm asking people to prepare for everything you want. And it's not about the entitlement of like, Oh yeah, just give me the money. Give me, yeah, just give me, give me, give me my husband.

Exactly. Exactly.

Chris McDonald: Oh, I, I get that. That, that makes a lot of sense too, that we do have to have the intention, put it out there, but We got to do the back work. We got to do the inner work as a therapist. That's, you know, we always talk to clients about that too. We do have to do the work and, and fight can be just like the stroke to me that represents the struggles that we have to go through at times, right.

To get to where we want to be. You know, I

Sylvester McNutt: don't know. It doesn't even have to

Chris McDonald: be, it doesn't have to be

Sylvester McNutt: like, think about it like this. Let's say I used to do personal training. That was like an eon ago, long time ago. And I have this client who came to me and he goes, Sylvester, I want to lose 100 pounds.

I'm just not liking where I'm at. I want to lose a hundred pounds. I said, okay. I said, this is going to be a fight, right? Do you, are you ready? Are you ready to fight? Are you ready to fight for your life? That was the first question I asked him. And he's like, yeah, I'm ready to fight. And I said, are you sure?

I said, because a lot of people say what they want. In fact, most people, you know, as a therapist, most people talk about what they want, but I say, are you ready to actually fight for this? He says, I'm ready to fight for this. You know? So like in that regard, it's like, nah, this is no, this is no struggle.

This is a beautiful journey.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. So once you figure out that you're willing to do whatever it takes to, to move towards that goal, maybe too. Yeah, I can see that for sure. Well, can we rewind for a moment? Cause I know you mentioned about highest self and that can mean a lot of things. I know that brings up religious connotations sometimes.

So how do you define that? What is highest self when we talk about that?

Sylvester McNutt: Yeah. I think it's on page two or page three. I talk about, I got to find it. I wanted to make sure

Chris McDonald: open the

Sylvester McNutt: book and I defined it.

Chris McDonald: Yeah.

Sylvester McNutt: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's an important thing because the high self can have so many different connotations for different people.

But I wanted my reader to be on the same page with me as we. Go through this book and discover the pages. And so when I think of higher self, I think of loving kindness and compassion. Your highest self is the form of you where all pieces of you get to sit at the table. You know, this in therapy is like, there's different versions of us as people that we don't allow to sit at the table and that's where the shame lives.

Right. And that's where the fear and that's where the guilt lives. Right. And shame makes you small. Shame makes you high. Right. So I used to pee in the bed till I was 14 years old. Now at 38, I can come on a podcast and admit that I used to pee in the bed. This, but that version of me, he was shamed that version of me.

I never talked about that. I always kept him hidden. I never let him sit at my table. Right? This version of me, the best selling author. Yeah, you guys can see me, right? Well, why, why is it the 14 year old version of me who peed in the bed because of the trauma he went through? Why can't he sit with me? He deserves a seat at my table too.

And healing means wholeness. So when we allow all of our pieces to sit at the table, that's our higher self. It's not the version of you that's people pleasing. It's not the version of you that, Oh, you got a 4. 0. It's not about your achievements. It's about It's about all versions of you get to sit at the table.

So my 14 year old version, he gets to sit at the table with me and he gets to know that he is protected and he's honored just by bringing him up in this conversation. He's honored. So now that part of my story has no shame. It's gone now because it doesn't live in the shadows. It doesn't, it doesn't live in the darkness.

All right. So, your highest self is not the you with straight A's. It's not you that when your direct deposit goes through. It's not you the day your book comes out. Your highest self is all versions of you sitting at the table with love and kindness and acceptance. When you accept yourself fully, that's your highest self.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. And I think you're speaking therapist language here about all parts of ourselves. So thinking of, um, internal family systems model that, you know, we do, all parts are welcome, all parts of us, because you're right. That's when we have the shadow parts of ourselves. We don't accept and we push that aside or don't want to even look at that.

That can cause a lot of psychological distress, but bringing it all out there. And it just made me think of when you said that to you, like bringing those parts into the light with acceptance, love, kindness.

Sylvester McNutt: Yeah, it's healing. And it's, it's reclaiming your journey. You know, like I said, like that version of me that, you know, I had the plastic sheets on my bed as a freshman in high school, I was embarrassed, you know, I was embarrassed and I was full of shame, but to be embodied now and to be whole now means I can bring them along.

Right. And so for anybody, anybody listening, I welcome you to like, look at those pieces of your, your journey that you hold with fear or contempt or shame. And just slowly start to integrate them into how you tell your, your story. It's really just about how you tell your story, you know? And there's those, I remember this quote one day and it was like, there's chapters in our book that we'll never read, you know, like we won't read out loud.

So when I, I want to make sure that I can read all my chapters.

Chris McDonald: It's like that vulnerability piece, too, is bringing it all, all out to the front. And I think that's where we can connect with, people can connect to us more, right? If they see you're real, this is fully you. And I like what you said, too, about healing.

I think you said equals wholeness.

Sylvester McNutt: Healing means wholeness.

Chris McDonald: Means wholeness, yeah. I love that. That's so, that's just really epitomizes so much of what we do in therapy too. It's the whole, bringing the whole person in and this is the holistic counseling podcast. We talk a lot about holistic, right? The whole person.

Cause we're not just individual parts. So true. So how do, how would listeners know if that they're doing something in their life that is not in alignment, that. What are some signs that maybe something is no longer serving them?

Sylvester McNutt: Yeah, I mean, the first is stress. You can feel stress in certain situations in your body.

Your body is constantly signaling you and you can just feel it come up. You know, like I have a specific moment. I was going to, I had a really good job. I was working at Verizon and I want to be clear before I tell this story. I'm not one of those entrepreneurs that tries to glorify entrepreneurship as more important than having like a nine to five.

I don't care about that. What I care about is that we, we have money so we can take care of what we need to take care of. Okay. So I was working at this job at Verizon. It was a good job. It was a good career. If I would have stayed there, it would have been great. But every single day I was waking up, like my body was just signaling me, don't go there.

Like I was getting triggered. My nervous system was getting triggered, going to work. And I was having to do, like I talk about in the book, like a great fight. Like I was having to do an hour or two preparation mentally just to go to work, you know? And when you're in a situation like that, where as soon as you wake up, your body is telling you, no.

You know, you're not in alignment another way that you can know you're not in alignment is if you have to consistently lie, if you have to lie to the people around you, if you have to stretch the truth to make people perceive you a certain way, you're not living in alignment. And I would say another way, 1, 1 word that I love to use is integrity.

You know, integrity is who you are when nobody's watching, you know, and so if you're. That student, you know, you're trying to get ahead, but you're not the smartest person, you know, you know, you need to be putting extra hours in the library. You know, you need to be meeting with the TA. You know, you need to be emailing the professor.

You know, you need a study partner, right? Like, you know, integrity is knowing it. And it's like, all right, let me get some help. Let me go to the library. Let me get off the video game. Let me not hit this party. If you're a college student, let me not hit this party. Let me put some work in, in the library.

Like, integrity is when my client came to me years ago, uh, when I used to do personal training, integrity is I asked him to clear out his, his refrigerator. I said, I want all that beer gone. I went to his house. He had like a hundred beers in the refrigerator. I said, I want you to throw them away. He's like, Oh, well, I already paid for them.

I was like, I don't care. You told me you want to lose a hundred pounds. All these beers got to go. I would look in the cabinet, all these like snacks, Doritos got to go. You know, so integrity is getting rid of that stuff and not replacing it. You know, so if you're living in alignment, you're living with extreme integrity and that's showing up in your relationship, your relationship with money, your relationship with your kids, with your husband, with your parents, with your wife, whoever it may be.

Integrity also gives you peace of mind, right? When you have integrity. You know that you're not creating new fractures in the world, right? Fractures like I hurt someone when you're living in integrity. You often are not creating new fractures. And when you're living in integrity, if you do create new fractures, you are also accountable for them, and you're accountable for the repair, right?

You're accountable for the repair of set fractures. When you're living in integrity, a person out of integrity, a person out of alignment, you hurt people and you're not accountable. All right. But when you're living in an alignment, you're trying not to hurt people and you are accountable if you do. Two completely different pathways to live.

Chris McDonald: I know a lot of people struggle with letting go, like you said, with wanting to lose weight or whatever the goal is. So what can people do if, if they struggle with letting go of what they thought served them, but maybe didn't? Yeah. What are some ways to work through that? Yeah.

Sylvester McNutt: We talk about this in the book.

Very first thing is you have to get clear on your value system. A lot of us are living in an autopilot that's based on our culture, our religion, and our family system. And these entities. They give us the way that we think and the way that we feel and the way that we operate and there's nothing wrong with that.

That's how it's always been. But to really reclaim and to take the power of your life is you have to get clear on your value system. You know, for example, I'm coaching a guy right now who, I mean, he's got a great relationship with this woman. The only issue is, is that she's not Jewish. He's Jewish. And so that's like a big issue for him.

And I, you know, I wanted to get to the root of it. So I asked him, I said like, where is this coming from? Is this actually a problem for you? Or is this a problem for like an external force in your life? And he finally was like, Oh yeah, it's actually my mom who's putting this pressure on me, you know, that I should be with a Jewish woman.

And I was like, well, I'm going to just give you some data that you gave me. It's like, you were with a Jewish woman. It didn't work out. Now you're with a woman who's in alignment with you, except for this one thing. And I said, this is a threshold for you to step through, for you to reclaim your voice and for you to basically tell your mom, mom, you had your choices.

You made your life. You did your life. You raised me to be a great man. Let me be a great man, regardless of who I'm choosing. And it was like, I mean, this was a big, big conversation, you know, big conversation for him. Like it's massive. But that's the work that a lot of us have to go on is how our parents grew up and how our grandparents grew up.

It's different. It's completely different. And so we, we have to, we can still honor them and we can still value what the sacrifices that they made for us. But for a lot of us, we have to make our own decisions. for us.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. You said that perfectly. And I think coming back to, I think that comes up a lot in counseling too.

It's, but what do you want? People forget, right? They have so many outside forces of partners or society. And sometimes I even use that as journal. I know you put journal prompts in your book too, which is amazing, but I think we got to reflect sometimes like you said, those values and what is important to me.

Sometimes we got to have that silence. In order to reflect

Sylvester McNutt: facts. Let me jump in before you go to the next question. Cause I like what you just said. I have this exercise that I'll do with people and it's literally called the, what do you want exercise? And I'll start my timer for two minutes. And the way that I prompt them is I'll say, okay, all I want you to do is to tell me what you want.

And because it's kind of vague, people will ask like, well, what do you mean? What I want, what I want in business, what I want, and I don't want to lead it. So I say, no, just tell me what you want for two minutes. You're going to talk. I'm not going to cut you off for two minutes. You're going to talk about what you want.

Just openly, just let me receive you telling me what you want because most people don't have anyone who's going to listen for two minutes, right? And so what often happens the 1st time is people will start and they'll get maybe 30 seconds in and the 1st 30 seconds they're doing it. This is what I want.

But right around that 30 to 40 2nd mark, they'll start talking about either why it won't happen or what they don't want. And I won't cut them off. I'll let them go the whole 2 minutes. And then after the two minutes, I'll come back and I'll say, okay, so here's what happened. There's never been a single person that has went the whole two minutes the first time telling me what they want the whole two minutes.

Right. So then I go back and I'm like, all right, so here's what happened. We got around whatever minute Mark, whatever second Mark, and you started telling me why it can't happen. Or you started telling me what you did not want. And then they're like, Oh, so then I have them do it again. I say, okay. Okay. For two minutes.

Only talk about what you want and then I'm more descriptive the second time around and I say, I want you to talk about it as possibility. I want you to talk about it as if there's no restriction. I want you to talk about it as if there's no fear. There's no problems. There's no trauma. What do you want?

And then when you prompt them that 2nd time, they go through it. They do the whole 2 minutes. Every time they do the whole two minutes, the energy is up, their vision is up, their clarity is up. And just this little, basically five or six minute exercise gets people from, Hey, I never thought about what I want to now I can think about exactly what I want.

And the consequence of doing this is now you can create from that space. If you never think about like, what do I want? You can't create. I mean, you can, you're creating, but you're not really creating the life you want. You're just creating a life on autopilot. So now when it's like, okay, I've just, I've just spent two minutes thinking about what I want.

Now my brain is rolling. Now I got creativity rolling. I can create more consciously from that type of vibration and that energy and that type of intentionality.

Chris McDonald: That sounds like a great exercise that therapists might enjoy to, to use with clients. Cause I'm all about writing internally. Cause there's something about that process too, of actually writing it down that makes it.

more real. I don't know if you've found that as well.

Sylvester McNutt: Yeah, I saw a study and you know, don't quote me. It could be wrong. You know, you never know what the studies, but I saw a study. It said that if you write something down, you're 67 percent more likely to do what you're writing down.

Chris McDonald: Are you struggling with burnout and feeling exhausted?

Do you always put others first? Now's the time to put you first. My Self Care for the Counselor Companion Workbook was written with you in mind. This workbook provides simple strategies that are not only practical, but easy to integrate into your busy life. Discover how to boost your energy and how to improve healthy habits for eating, exercise, and sleep.

Revitalize your practice with holistic morning and evening self care routines. Plus, get access to links for soothing meditations, self massage techniques, and grounding yoga. Elevate your well being and become a more mindful counselor today. Check it out at hcpodcast. org forward slash workbook. That's hcpodcast.

org forward slash workbook today. So it sounds like you, cause I know you're a writer, so, but you put a lot of journaling in there, so you really see that power for. People that read your book then, yeah, to actually really reflect and take a moment.

Sylvester McNutt: Oh yeah. I try to journal every day. I don't, I don't every day, but I try my best every day.

Um, I try to journal and try to clear my thoughts. I try to be intentional, right? Like, Hey, today you're going to have a great day. You know, everything that I'm teaching, I've done. You know, I do it. It's integrated.

Chris McDonald: Yes. So can we talk about law of attraction? Because I know you touched on that, which is just amazing.

So can you talk about your journey with that and how that helped you to bring you where you are today?

Sylvester McNutt: Yeah. My father was the one that introduced me to that. Yeah. Back in the nineties, I'm dating myself. So you can guess my age here, but back in the nineties, when I was a kid, my father was the one who he used to always just say little things like, you know, you're attracting your reality.

Be careful what you say. He say, think twice when you speak. He's like, your words have power. You know, if I would say something like, ah, I can't do this, you know, kids are like, oh, I can't do this. You know, And he would say, never say what you can't do. So you're attracting it if you say that. And so my father was really the one putting me on to this, like this level of thinking.

And what happened for me as I got a little bit older, that same job at Verizon I was talking about, uh, actually came across a book called the Law of Attraction and it was by Esther and Jerry Hicks. Now at the time they're signed to Hay House. Hey, house is the number one publisher of personal development work in the world.

And at the time, the book that I was reading, a law of attraction book, she was talking about how they moved out to like Phoenix, Arizona, and they met some woman and it was all these, like these moments that were just syncing up. That basically put them on their path. Now, this was ironic for me because I'm from Chicago, Illinois.

And when I moved to Phoenix, Arizona, I was working in Phoenix and I was reading this book in Phoenix about this couple who moved to Phoenix and they were using the law of attraction to create their life. And I'm just like, Oh my God, this is all syncing up. You know, I'm like, this is syncing up. So then it was like around that time period where I was like, man, like I want to be on Hay House.

These are the type of writers on Hay House. I want to be on Hay House because this is, and this is before I have any books out. This is right before I became an author, but I was always working on it in the background. I'm like, Oh God, I gotta be on Hay House. Right. But I wasn't really privy to how publishing worked or even what that means to be on Hay House.

I just knew that they were on Hay House. And I was like, Oh, I gotta be on Hay House. And you know, as I'm speaking to you now, some 14 years later, I am signed to Hay House. That's the law of attraction. That is the law of attraction. That thought I had when I was reading that book in Phoenix, Arizona, about a couple who was in Phoenix, Arizona, 30 years before I was ever there and them telling me and confirming in me that the law of attraction is real.

And then 14 years later being signed to the same publisher as them. Like for me, it's like, Oh, that's the law of attraction. There it is. There's your proof. Right? So here's the thing though, when you're in that journey, whether, you know, whether it's like you're attracting money, you're tracking a partner, better health, better clarity, better relationship with God, better relationship with nature, whatever it is that you specifically are looking for, you may not see it.

Like you may not see if you're broke and someone's like, Hey, like you have no money in your account. You're negative. Actually, you. You have credit card debt. You got, you got debt from college and someone's telling you, Oh, well, if you change your thoughts, you'll, you'll get out of it. You're not trying to hear that.

You don't want to hear that. I know that because I've been there. You don't want to hear that. You're like, what? I don't, I don't want to hear about changing my thoughts. I need 10, 000. 10, 000 to change my thoughts. Right. But that's just, that's just the level one resistance. Of the thing is though, it is the truth.

And it took me years to finally accept it is the truth. If I change the way that I'm thinking, I will change my financial landscape in order to not be broke. You just have to change the way that you're thinking. You just have to change the way that you feel about yourself. Because here's an example. The way that I felt about myself.

When I was quote unquote broke, I agreed to a certain job that basically kept me broke JLB just over broke. It wasn't until I said, no, I deserve more than this, that I demanded jobs that paid me more. That's a thought that's a level of how you feel about yourself. Right? And so it is true that you can change your situations by changing your thought relationship wise.

I remember I was in a relationship. It was the only relationship that I would consider toxic. Now, the reason that it was toxic was because the, the, my leadership was poor, like her ability to control her emotions was. Absent. I don't know how you say that in like therapist language. My leadership was poor.

Definitely. I was definitely a terrible leader and I think that that's a essential part of relationships. Healthy relationships require leadership. That's why I say that. And then I was not in integrity. I was not honest. I lied to her a lot. And we were young, you know, we were young. And so the way that we, we coupled, it wasn't healthy.

It wasn't healthy. And so when I left that relationship, I wrote an eight page letter to myself. And that eight page letter to myself was, this is the exact type of woman that I want to be with. I wrote every little detail, how she's going to respond in conflict, how she's going to handle stress, how she handles, I mean, every, I wrote every, it was eight pages.

That's a lot. It took me like three or four days to write and write eight pages. This is the type of woman that I want. Now what ends up happening is two years after I write that letter, I find that one. We have been together now for 10 years. We have a four year old son. We've been together. This relationship has been ideal.

It's been healthy. It's been a lot of fun. There's a lot of rewards have come from it. And she is almost to the T, the exact woman that I wrote on that paper. That's the law of attraction, you know? And that's why I now feel confident. But that's, that's why, you know, at first we're going to have friction with the law of attraction because it's like, no, you telling me to change my thoughts.

I don't need my thoughts. I need 8, 000. And so like, I want to empathize with that and have compassion for that because I've been there. I've been there. I know what it's like. It's like, Oh, I need money. Right. I need this partner or I want to heal the relationship with my mother. I know what it's like, and I can guarantee you just by shifting your thoughts just a little bit, just a little bit, Can change everything in a big way

Chris McDonald: because I know in your book, you mentioned, I think it was, I am a bestselling author.

Was that one of the ones that you had said over and over? I'm a bestselling author. So you kind of just put it out there and you kept saying it over and over and owning it too. So do you think that was helpful with where you are now?

Sylvester McNutt: Yes, because I was telling myself that I was a bestselling author before I sold any books.

Yeah. That's amazing. Before I sold any books. Right. And what that does for you is that changes your confidence. It changes how you speak. And it's not about being arrogant. It's not about being cocky or being disrespectful to the journey, but it's just about believing in yourself. You know? And it's like, yeah, maybe, you know, you don't necessarily have to tell everybody that.

But it's you, what you believe, that's the most important thing. It doesn't matter what you tell anybody. It matters what you believe in the frame of the law of attraction. It matters what you actually believe. So I was telling myself, Hey, I'm a bestselling author. I'm a bestselling author. So I put out my first nine books and sold over a hundred thousand books independently.

Independently, just because I believe like, Hey, people need to read these books because I believe that think about this energetically, if someone's listening to this and I say, Hey, you know, you should read my book. It's a good book. You probably didn't even hear what I said. I'm muffled. I'm covering my voice.

I'm looking away. The energy was low. You know, what's going to buy that book? You're like, what'd you say? Like, I got to struggle to hear you. Right. But if I'm like, Hey, you need to read my book. This book is going to change your life. The energy is there. My posture is here. I'm smiling. The energy's on my face.

It's like, okay, no brainer. Let me order the book. The same thing applies for dating, for friendships, for healing.

Chris McDonald: So can we talk about careers with that too?

Sylvester McNutt: Yeah, please. Because a lot

Chris McDonald: of therapists listening to, you know, they have their own business, their private practice. So what would be helpful do you think for listeners that might be trying to be successful with their business?

Sylvester McNutt: Yeah. So with therapists, therapist's business model is I'm exchanging money For time.

Chris McDonald: Yes.

Sylvester McNutt: Right. And what happens is the work in therapy is extremely hard. You're carrying a lot. You're carrying a lot of water. And even the best therapists who have practices to decompress and to get things off of them, it's still so much work seeing clients back to back, to back, to back, to back.

It's so much work that it doesn't really put them in a position financially to scale. So what I would do. If I was a therapist is there's two major things I would do. The first thing I would do is I would develop programs that people could buy. The reason I would develop programs that people could buy is because you don't have to be present for them.

So the way that I like to approach money is I want to build out a suite of products and services that can fit different customers. So you have low ticket, you have middle ticket, and you have high ticket. And that's talking about the cost and then you have things I need to be present for and things I don't need to be present for.

So things you need to be present for will be your therapy sessions. 100 percent things you don't need to be present for selling courses doing like an online, let's say, once a month, you do like an online. A two hour event online, two hour event at that event, what you sell is, let's say, I mean, you could sell courses, you could sell books, but you could say, let's just sell like a six week transformation and bring 10 people in, charge them each.

You know, I don't know, 2, 000, just 12, 000. Right. So you could do that plus your sessions, plus your courses. Uh, another thing you could do, and here's the thing that, that most therapists are going to struggle with is Well, one, you got to be, you know, certified in your state. So there's certain things that you have to do to keep your license.

So you have to figure that part out. But then the other part that I think a lot of therapists struggle with is like the moral aspect of like gatekeeping information. It's not that I don't see it as that. I see it as you are a professional at what you do. You are, you are a professional at what you do to be a professional in anything there has to be an exchange.

Period. Right? Like I go to a car wash, they charge me 40 at this car wash. I could go to the car wash that's five bucks. But when I go to the car wash that's five bucks, I have to do everything pretty much myself. And I don't want to do that. I want the professionals. They come through with the towels, they're spraying stuff.

They put like, right, right. I'm not doing, I'm not getting out of my car and doing this stuff. Like I don't have time for that. So. What I want therapists to understand, and this is goals for any business, but specifically therapists, because I have worked with a lot of therapists is there's people who will pay a lot of money for what you offer.

And then there's people who can't afford it. And that's why we have low, middle and high. So every customer can fit somewhere. Right. And like, I'll give you an example of how I can kind of do this for my business. This book is 25. $25 is low entry. It took me two, three years to write this book. This is a great investment.

You are going to get so much information and knowledge and expertise, but it's only $25. The next thing I have is I have a lower ticket coaching. Uh, it's $200 a month. Now that may sound like a lot to some people it may not sound like anything. It's 200 a month. It's low ticket, it's group coaching. Then I have one-on-one coaching.

I charge a thousand dollars. And that's my entry fee. And there's another one that's 1, 500. Boom. Hired ticket. I have a client right now. I'm going to Well, I don't want to say where I'm going just for safety reasons. But I'm going to go to this person's location and work with them for a whole weekend. 25, 000.

And I have multiples of those. That are individuals. And businesses. And so to get there though, is building relationships. It's all building relationships. To get there is also believing in yourself and being clear, like I was talking about leadership, being clear on what they're getting. The only difference between, and I learned this working at Verizon, working at My corporation that I talked about earlier, the only difference between a 10, 000 sale and a 100, 000 sale is how you pitch it.

And what I mean by when I say how you pitch it with 10, 000 or a thousand. So let's start lower. If you ask somebody for a hundred dollars, that's nothing. Most people are going to be like, whatever. Most working people will be like, okay, cool, not a big deal. If you ask someone for like 500 bucks, people are going to want some clarity.

If you want to ask people for like 1, 000, they're going to want some clarity. If you ask people for 10, 000, they're going to want some clarity. Once you get to like 25, 30, all they want is more clarity. And then once you get to like 100k or more, you need to be extremely specific because they just want speed.

But here's the interesting thing that anybody business wise, if you're in your own business, this is the most interesting thing that I figured out in 14 years of business. The hardest customers to deal with are the ones that pay the least amount of money.

Chris McDonald: Really?

Sylvester McNutt: They are the hardest ones. They're the ones that miss meetings.

They're the ones that are like, Oh, well, this happened and I didn't do the work. They're the ones that aren't doing the things that you're telling them to do. The people who pay you more. They do the work. They're accountable. They show up. If they can't show up, they're letting you know ahead of time. They give you that professional courtesy.

The best, the best clients are the people who can pay you.

Chris McDonald: That makes a lot of sense. And that kind of goes in alignment with where I'm going with my private practice to move more to. Cash based only, because I feel like when clients don't have that investment of they only pay a copay or nothing at all, they aren't as invested

Sylvester McNutt: in the whole process.

And I'll say this, to kind of like summarize that, it's, it's not a thing of, you know, being greedy or taking advantage of people.

Chris McDonald: Not at all. It is a

Sylvester McNutt: thing. It's not that at all. And it's not about, oh, I'm not going to be available for people from a certain demographic money wise. It's not that at all. I have, I have two people on scholarship in my program, my 200 program who can't afford it, but they're great people.

And I, I, I see so much in them and I'm just like, Hey, I make nothing from you being here, but me pouring into you. And that's the other thing as a, I feel like, okay, live the life you deserve. That's the other thing. When you're on this end as an entrepreneur, you have an opportunity to bless people, you know, and to serve and to give.

And so we can talk about money coming in. But there's things going out that have no compensation for I have, I'm doing more giving than I'm receiving. Right? And that's, that's part of the reason why I feel like I'm living the life I deserve because I make sure is business wise. I make sure that giving is a part of every single thing that I do.

How can I give? How can I serve? How can I help? And I do that within my boundaries. I will not break my boundaries to give, to serve, and to help. But I have, I have deep boundaries where I can go and give. So as you or anybody listening to this is thinking about like, okay, let me evolve my business a little bit.

It's not about just, let me get all the top dollar customers. It's not even about that at all. It's just about you recognize, we recognize, hey, we do great work and we should be getting a little bit more or a lot of bit more, whatever the language is. For sure. Maybe it's a lot of bit more and there's nothing wrong with that.

There's nothing wrong with making that pivot because this type of work you're doing is hard work. And this type, I'm sure whoever's listening to this does hard work. So why not get paid?

Chris McDonald: Agreed. Yeah. And I think the reach can extend so much further when you're doing, especially what you're doing too with group stuff.

And then the book, I mean, there's so much, so many more creative ways you can reach more people. And that's what therapists want to do. They have a compassionate heart. So they want to help people.

Sylvester McNutt: And that's all scale. So a book lets you scale, courses let you scale, group coaching will let you scale. Oh, retreats, therapists, retreats, retreats, retreats, let you scale.

They let you scale, right? Great question. Appreciate

Chris McDonald: all that. Cause I think that that's helpful. Cause I think we do get stuck in the traditional therapy model. So I think it's good to start thinking outside the box and look at your strengths. If you like to teach, then, you know, maybe consider courses, but like you said, value aligned.

So where are your values? How do you want to give back? So that can take some reflection, I think. And maybe do his exercise. What do you want for two minutes?

Sylvester McNutt: What do you want? That's your North star. What do you want to do? What do you not want to do? You know, because part of scaling is also delegating, right?

And it's like the things that you don't want to do, you either get rid of or you delegate. Right. And like, that's a part of the work too. If all of your work is like, or if the majority of your work is like, Oh, I don't really want to do this. Like you're, you won't scale the majority of my work. I want to do the majority of the things that I do, the things that I don't, I don't like writing newsletters.

I hire someone to write my newsletters. He messaged me once a week and I say, Hey, this is what I need you to do. Write a newsletter on this topic, right? And he does it. Every, every Monday I get the email that the newsletter has been sent because I don't like doing it every, we talked about alignment, right?

I love writing newsletters for a long time. And then my, my capacity got to be so much that I had so many things on my plate that writing a newsletter felt like a chore. And so I said to myself, man, I know a guy who loves writing newsletters. Like he's a great writer. I called him up and I said, Hey man, here's my offer.

I want you to write a newsletter for me once a week. Here's how much I can pay. Can you accept this? He said, cool. When do we start? Been with me ever since. You know, emails like you, this podcast got set up through my team. I'm not the best, I'm not the best at the, the emails I get in there and it's like overload If information overload for me, and by the time I get done with my emails, I have no more brain power left to do the work that I want to do.

I've experienced this so many times. Where I have logged in, I've done an hour emails and I was so burnt out that I couldn't even do my work. So I made that, that switch, like, you know what, let me offload as much as I can so I can get the support. That's a part of scaling is getting things off of you, delegating them or deleting them that don't allow you to do what you do best.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. And that's some food for thought for therapists, because I know a lot of times people hesitate to initially hire people, but it's such worth the money and you get the returns on that for sure. So what's the best way for listeners to find you to learn more about you and your book?

Sylvester McNutt: Uh, come to Arizona, find me at one of these coffee shops, get me a coffee and let's talk.

If you're not that ambitious, I'm all over social media. Um, I would say whatever social media platform you prefer, just type my name and I'm in there. I'm on Instagram. Uh, I just started TikTok. I've been on YouTube since 2011. And then I'm also on Twitter. And so, yeah, I would say Instagram or, uh, YouTube would be the best.

YouTube is obviously the best because I can talk, you know. But then also on my website, there's a lot of great resources. There's articles on the website. There's videos. There's a newsletter that we just talked about. So there's, there's a lot of ways to, you know, Tap in and there's a podcast as well for your energy podcast right now.

I'm not recording episodes because I'm in the middle of my book launch. And so like I talk about respecting my boundaries, I don't have the capacity to record podcasts, uh, as a host and do, you know, so I try to, I'm right now I'm just in this lane. I'm just showing up as a guest and this feels so good, you know, so I'm all over the place, wherever you, wherever you, you like to be on the internet.

I'm there.

Chris McDonald: Okay. So we'll get some of those links for your social media as well and website. But thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, Sylvester. This has been great. And thank you listeners for tuning in today. I hope you got a lot out of this episode. And I just wanted to let you know that I have a gift for you and help you on your holistic journey.

I have a free 30 day Aura meditation app guest pass to help you find peace and get restful sleep. Check it out today at hcpodcast. org forward slash better sleep. That's hcpodcast. org forward slash better sleep. And once again, this is Chris McDonald sending each one of you much light and love until next time.

Take care. Thanks for listening. The information in this podcast is for general educational purposes only, and it is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are giving legal financial counseling or any other kind of professional advice. If you need a professional, please find the right person.

Hi

James Marland: there, I'm super excited to welcome you back to the brand new season of Scaling Therapy Practice Podcast. This is the show where we encourage you to take deliberate steps towards sustainable growth. I'm your host, James Marland, and season two, we're specifically focused on one main topic, marketing for mental health providers.

Every week, we're going to share about different parts of marketing, giving you simple tips and tricks to grow your mental health business. Every episode from season two, we'll have a download for a handout from the show. So sign up for our newsletter so you don't miss these valuable resources. Good news.

I'm not going to be doing the show alone. I've got some awesome friends who are going to be joining me from the Psycraft Network. You're going to hear from Lisa Mustard, Steve Bisson, Don Gabriel, and other special guests. We've joined forces for this season to share helpful advice on things we've learned, and even the mistakes we've made.

So that you don't have to make them as the weeks go by, listen to us, cover lots of topics on marketing, such as social media, how to market your own therapist, how to speak in public, and even how to start your own podcast or even just guest on podcast shows. We really want to hear from our listeners. So send us your questions, your comments, your thoughts.

to james at course creation studio. com. That's james at course creation studio. com. Make sure you check out season one, which, which is out now, and it has lots of tips on scaling your therapy practice. Just go to course creation studio. com and click the podcast section. So join us every Monday. We're going to learn a lot about intentional and sustainable growth for your therapy practice.