Mid-Week Live Coaching: Sandra

Have you noticed how some people don’t simply go from level one to two, rather straight to 11? Life coach Sandra Possing was so fascinated by that amazing upward trajectory that she can’t help but explore the concept of quantum leaps. In this episode, she joins Adam Quiney to talk about what that means, how it works, who it happens to, and how to be one of those people. She also gives examples of the need for why projects and tangible goals matter. If quantum leaps interest you as well, this episode is for you.  

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Mid-Week Live Coaching: Sandra 

Sandra Possing is who we’ve got in this episode. Sandra and I met in Costa Rica at a place called Rythmia where we were both sitting in the Ayahuasca ceremony together. That’s how we came to know each other. Her husband Chris, her, myself and my friend, Brian, who I was there with hit it off on the first day. As tends to be the nature when you’re doing deep work with people, we became fast friends. It wasn’t until I got back home and did that thing, reconnect on Facebook and all that and discovered, “She’s a coach as well. How cool.”  

Sandra put her hand up and that’s who you’ll get to know in this episode. This episode is another great example of why projects and tangible goals matter. You’ll know in this conversation that Sandra’s wanting a quantum leap in her life to move forward towards that thing, speed up and not be left behind but doesn’t have a clear idea why. The metaphor I used is someone walking in a circle feeling like they’ve been left behind in life and then trying to figure out how to run faster. If you speed them up running faster, they’re still going to go around in a circle.  

Are they getting to where they want? Is it speed or is that a reaction to the fear of going too slow? What do they want that would move them away from the circle? It’s a metaphor that applies to a lot of stuff. It’s part of why it’s important as coaches that we support clients not just with mindset, being or whatever shift in how they experience the life they want but what’s the tangible measure of you have achieved that? What is the thing that’s going to move you forward in the foreground of your life rather than that work focused on the background, how you experience life and who you are in your life? 

What are you capable of if you go faster, go deeper, cut out the distraction, and laser focus more? Click To Tweet

It’s when we work with both of those places, both the foreground and the tangible results and the background and how you want to experience your life as you create those results, that’s where transformation occurs. When all of the focus is just on the tangible results, people create the results but often, in such a way that they’ve been creating their results all their life. They don’t get as much of a shift in experience. They get a different tangible set of results, which is why the four-hour workweek falls down a bit.  

That CEO who’s working hard can stop working hard, drop everything and go sit on the beach and work four hours a week but he hasn’t created any internal shift so that’s not going to create much of a different shift in his life. It changes the circumstances. He’s changed the water in his aquarium or rearranged the furniture in his apartment feels cool at first but then eventually, he’s like, “I’m still in the same apartment.” When we put all our attention on mindset or being or whatever, that’s cool, too but where it leaves us is, “I feel different maybe.” We don’t have any real way to measure it other than how we feel.  

What’s the impact of that? Not that much. It’s more of the same. It’s the marriage of these two that makes potent coaching and moves the needle for people’s lives and the lives of the people around them. The way I’ve heard this put best is by Werner Erhard who said, “The measure of transformation is not that your life changes. The measure of transformation is that the lives of the people around you change. In order for that to happen, you’ve got to do something more than shift your internal state. You have to probably shift your internal state but then act into the world from that new place, create results that are a reflection of it and that then transforms the way people around you are showing up in their lives.” I hope you enjoy this conversation. 

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What was your experience the day after the first night? 

Both Chris and I have noticed that it was underwhelming and we thought, “I’m sure we’ll get more in the next few nights or whatever.” To your point of what you were talking about how we show up in one situation is maybe how we’re showing up in other situations. We both realize that the thing that we did the first night was what we were doing that was blocking the experience from coming to us and it’s exactly what we both do. We had different versions of it.  

My version was most of the first night, you’re mostly supposed to close your eyes and be in your own experience. I would open my eyes every minute and be like, “Why does everybody else do it? Am I doing it right?” I would hear noises and hear people having experiences. I get concerned about them and I’d wonder if maybe I was missing out. There was FOMO, self-criticism and doubt around like, “I must be doing this whole experience wrong.” There was a lot of that going on so we blocked it. I was not present for my own experience because I was worried about what was happening outside of me. 

I had that same realization but still disappointing like, “Everyone’s getting off on a rocket ship to the moon and here I am, left out once again. I’m having this peaceful, relaxed experience but I’m disappointed by that fact. How many people would love to have peace and relaxation and here you are disappointed.” I was like, “That was the medicine. Lame. I can see the value of that medicine. I got it.” I remember the morning after the second night coming and sitting with you two and then we were all smiling because that has been a more impactful night and then things just kept picking up from there. 

I’m definitely still integrating and still extracting powerful medicine so I’m super grateful. 

What are we going to talk about, Sandra? 

I thought it would be the perfect time to bring up a topic that I’ve become obsessed with and I feel like you’re the perfect person to riff on it with and get some support on it and that’s the idea of quantum leaps. I’m interested in the idea of facilitating my own quantum leap, which is like, “What does that even mean?” I don’t know but I have some ideas about what it means for me and what it can mean for us as humans. ​​Human potential is the field we work in. I’m becoming more fascinated by high performance and what makes some people improve and go in a great upward trajectory over time, consistency, determination and level of that.  

Some people go from level one then instead of 2, 3, 4, 5, they just go to eleven. I’m like, “Why did you do that? What was that little leap that you took?” I’m at the beginning of a journey where I’m like, “What does that mean? How does it work? Who does it happen to? How can I be one of those people?” I want to experience it myself and then I want to figure out how to do that for other people. How do you facilitate faster, deeper, more intense transformation for others?  

I’m in this place where I’m like, “I want that for myself.” I don’t know what it means and I don’t know how to make it happen but I’m wanting to lean into it. My coach recommended a book called The Quantum Leap Strategy. It’s the tiniest, little pamphlet eBook. The sequel to it is called You2. I’m sitting on my nightstand as the beginning to symbolically mark the chapter of this quantum leap exploration but beyond that, I haven’t done much other than think about it a lot. You seem like someone who maybe plays in that world on that level so I’m like, “Let’s go there.” 

It sounds more like there’s this notion of quantum leap and there’s you, having seen people where it occurs as they went from a 1 to a 50 or a 10 or a 100 or whatever the number is, as opposed to the linear progression. You’re like, “I want that.” Is that more or less where we’re starting from? 

Yeah.  

How come? Since you don’t know what it would look like or what your version of a quantum leap would be like, what is it about that appeals to you that has you want it? 

Live Coaching: The measure of transformation is not that your life changes. The measure of transformation is that the lives of the people around you change.

A lot of it has to do with my history, the kind of person I am and the things that I’ve gone through. My journey largely has been one of getting out of my own way and letting go of holding back. I was a perfectionist, people pleaser and self-doubt. All the things that I’ve worked through that I helped my clients with are the kinds of things that slow you down. One of my breakthroughs at Rythmia was like, “It’s okay that I go at my own pace.”  

One of the most amazing visions I had was briefly, I was on a hospital bed like one of those psychic surgery situations and then Mother Ayahuasca showed up by my bedside. She was this 25-year-old short, brown-haired, sassy doctor lady in a lab coat and she was like, “Come with me. I have something to show you.” I was like, “I’m sure I’m getting surgery right now. Maybe I should not move.” She’s like, “You can leave your body there. It’s fine. Come with me.”  

I was like, “Okay.” I went with her and she took me on a tour of my soul, which was a house. It was a real estate spec house or something. She was like, “Each one of these rooms represents a part of your soul. One of the ways where you’ve judged yourself in the past.” One of the rooms was the room where I judged myself for taking too long. That’s always been one of my big limiting beliefs and stories. I’m always worried that other people are bored or they think I’m boring because I’m taking too long. Everything is too slow or whatever.  

She showed me that like, “That’s okay. It’s one of your superpowers if you just own it because one of your superpowers is that you slow down time for people. You can slow it down to this place where they can be present. Stop judging yourself for taking too long and know that it’s okay.” I feel like I’ve healed some of that. Because part of my journey is that I have taken the longer, slower, gentler route in a lot of ways, I’ve healed so much of that and I’m ready to go faster. Not go faster but I want to make up for lost time a little bit.  

There’s so much that I’ve learned and wisdom and strength that I’ve gotten in healing but now I’m like, “It’s effin go time.” I feel like a racehorse that’s been standing at their frigging starting line for a couple of decades and I’m like, “Open the gate. I’m ready. I’ve been training for this my whole life. Let me go.” It’s a little bit of that. There is an eagerness and a deep curiosity of like, “I feel like I know what I’m capable of here at this moment. What am I capable of if I go faster, deeper and cut out the distraction and the BS and laser-focus more?” 

I’m curious, what would you focus on? If we had someone who was walking around in a circle and they’re like, “I take too long. I’ve learned to accept that and I find it my superpower but now, I want to go faster and make up for lost time.” We taught them how to build sick thigh muscles, the proper running technique and all of that but what’s going to happen is now they’re going to run around in that circle faster. They’re moving faster, which might satisfy them but they’re not moving anywhere in particular. I’m curious, is it that you just want to have an experience of moving faster or is there a place you want to move to and start working on them? 

Definitely the bigger why is where I want to go but there is also a curiosity of like, “What it feels like to be a person that moves fast? I’ve never known what that’s like.” I would consider myself a high achiever but it’d be fun to be a high achiever who can get it done quickly. The real why is always a parallel two-fold path. For me, it’s my own personal development and rising up but then there’s always the impact that I want to have and the two are always related. It’s like, “I want to go higher so that I can bring as many other people up to whatever their higher level is as well.”  

I also feel like in order for me to even have the consciousness to be able to do that, I need to be operating on a higher level and always challenging myself to go to whatever the next level is and be in a healthy and grounded place. The why is facilitating the up-leveling and transformation of consciousness on the planet however many souls at a time as I can, including my own. I want to feel energized, lit up, passionate, determined and on-purpose as much of the time as possible so that I can help as many of the other humans in my midst, find whatever their version is of that and come play on the same level. 

One of the things I’m present to is the passion that you are. I can feel it in the torrent of words. Your words are fast. I noticed your energy is fast and there’s a lot there. Your bandwidth and expressing this wide, which is awesome. I love that. I can feel the passion. What I’m present to is we have a concept of something but we don’t have an implementation of it. If the government was like, “Sandra, we want to be the best we can be.” You’d be like, “Great goal. I’m glad you didn’t tell me mediocre.”  

How do we know if they’re moving towards that or not? There’s a couple of things I’ll put on the table. You can speak to or answer or whatever you like. I’m curious what your day-to-day experience of being what you’re talking about is. Do you feel like you’re moving quickly, taking on a lot of stuff or whatever doing a quantum leap? I’m also curious, how would we know if you were quantum leaping or not? You can answer either of those or a different thing.  

I would probably know because I would feel it. I’m a feeler. I’m an empath. That’s something my whole world is, how everything feels. I would feel it quickly if I got there. My husband hears me say things a lot like, “I released another layer of this,” sitting in the hot tub or something. He’s like, “What just happened?” I’m like, “I clicked into this next phase of something.” The tangible outcome or visible results would be probably something to do with visibility and impact in terms of the actual number of humans. I would say I have the capacity and the bandwidth to reach a respectable amount of people but nothing groundbreaking. I’m not on TV. I’m not Joe Rogan. I don’t have a massive audience. I’ve got my little hundreds or thousands of people here and there.  

If I was playing at that higher level, I would naturally be reaching the strategic stuff, list building and get that on Instagram or whatever. If I was vibrating at that higher level or performing at the higher level, naturally, more people would either find me or tell other people about me and they would come. Energetically, there’d be a bigger reach. I would think and hope that probably the people that I did work with, either one-on-one clients or my group programs or whatever, I would be expecting them to be getting bigger results faster. Same thing having such raving success stories that they can’t help but tell everyone they know kind of situation. 

Two parts. How would you know if you got there? You would feel it and it’d be a felt experience. What would be occurring in your life? Greater visibility, greater impact, more people would find their way to you and your clients would be creating more results. I have an assertion but before I provide it, I want to check something out with you. Let’s say that you had someone who is like, “Sandra, I want to be the best runner in the world, the best 100-meter sprinter.” You were like, “Great. How will we know if you got there?” They’re like, “I feel like I would just feel it like. I would have a sense that I was the best 100-meter sprinter.” What do you have for that person? 

So much of transformational work is about identity and our perception of ourselves. Click To Tweet

I would ask them what they care about and how their own experience of feeling like they’re the best runner or if they want to be measurably the best runner for other people. I would check then what was important and why and then look at it. If they’re the slowest runner in the world but they feel like the best runner in the world, that’s what makes them feel happy and that’s an identity that they would adopt and it’s not hurting anyone and they’re running through the forest feeling free, great. If they were trying to win the Olympics or something then it would be a different conversation about, “Let’s look at your tangible results, break it down, reverse engineer it and figure out how to get there.”  

To me so much of the transformational work, too, is about identity and our perception of ourselves. Not that we want to walk around being completely delusional thinking we’re the king of another rabbit hole there. That’s how I would go with that. 

It sounds like on the one hand, we’d have the question, is it just a way of feeling that this person wants to have or is there an actual tangible result? If it’s a way of feeling, great. It may not have any bearing on objective reality. They may not have any impact from feeling this way but we could maybe have some way of supporting them to like, “How can you relate to yourself? How can you think about this in such a way that you create the feeling for yourself?” Give them that. I get that. For you, is this rooted in a feeling of moving fast, a desire to feel like you’re quantum leaping? Is there some manifestation of having achieved that, that you’re like, “That’s what I want. I want to feel this way but I want to have some tangible impact on creating this in the world, too.” 

Definitely both. 

Where should we put our attention do you think? 

Probably on the actual tangible results because the feeling world is my comfort zone and I can hang out there all day. I’m clear on how I want to feel and I’ll recognize it when it arrives or when it starts to arrive on where the tangible side is. I have a lot of big goals and dreams but I haven’t thought too clearly about what does it mean to quantum leap. I’m like, “What are we talking about?” That definitely interests me. 

I’ve noticed that being committed to a certain result does not always equate to feeling a certain way. That person who’s like, “I want to be the fastest runner,” is going to train a bunch. If they’re tangibly wanting to win the Olympics, they’re going to get feedback and they’re going to see their time. There’s a lot of points along the way, where even though they’re being the fastest runner on the planet, they’re going to get feedback and feel like a slug and be like, “I’m so slow. I’m slower yet today than I was yesterday.” How they feel is going to be a different thing rather than the actual thing they’re creating. Would that be fair? Is that your experience, too? 

That’s the assertion that I want to make but I wanted to check it out with you rather than just put something on the table. That’s been my experience, too. If we go for the feeling then this may happen but it may not. Whereas if we go for this, we may feel that way more or less. We don’t know but we can definitely create tangible results. What would be an example of when you imagine yourself blowing past the linear going from where you are to where you want to be, how would we tangibly know that you’d created a quantum leap in terms of your results? 

The first thing that comes to mind is some of the big dreams and goals that I’ve had for a long time. They’re the bucket list stuff that I get excited about. One of those is being on Oprah Super Soul Sunday, for example. I get so excited about the idea anytime I think about it but I’m also not attached to it. If it never happened, I wouldn’t be heartbroken at all. It’s a fun idea to be working towards something like that or something better. In my head something like being on Oprah or having best-selling books and stuff like that, that’s always this faraway thing where I’m like, “I’m going to be doing all this work on myself and my business or whatever here and now.”  

Live Coaching: If you were vibrating or performing at a higher level, naturally, more people would either find you or tell other people about you. Energetically, there’d be a bigger reach.

Decades down the road, maybe that’ll happen and maybe a quantum leap looks like taking some of those goals and dreams that seem possible to me. I’m at a place where I feel so much conviction and fun and playfulness around some of the big goals that I would have no problem standing on top of a mountain screaming out the goals. I’m not afraid to share it because I don’t care what anybody thinks. I’m like, “It’s fun to work towards it. If you think it’s ridiculous, that’s fine.” 

What are you afraid of about them? 

About those goals? 

Sure. 

Probably the idea of who I have to become in order to get to that place. Because the timeline in my head is long, it feels safe. I’m like, “I’m sure I’ll get to that place within myself identity-wise in 10 or 20 years.” The idea of collapsing the timeline feels like the quantum leap and that feels scarier because I’m getting to a place where I become that kind of person. It sounds like it might be a lot of work. Because I work slowly, I’m sensitive and I’m an introvert, there are a lot of ways where I keep myself comfortable.  

I’m a little bit scared of, “That sounds like it would be a lot of work,” which is interesting to hear myself say a lot because I’m also determined. I love working hard and I love what I could do and I’m working all day but there is my own pace. Maybe some of those goals would require things that are far out of my comfort zone. There’s so much more work that I’m willing to put in. I’m not sure. I don’t feel afraid of sharing those dreams and risking failure. There’s a lot of other things where I care what people think. People knowing that I want to be on Oprah and then risking not ever having it happen, I couldn’t care less about that. 

What is the risk there? What I’m present to is that there’s a lovely idea of being on Oprah without any attachment to being on Oprah. What I notice is not there is a commitment to make it happen. It’s more like, “It would be so cool if but I’m okay if not.” I’m curious, what is the risk? It doesn’t occur like there are many stakes there. 

It feels almost like it’s one of those vanity goals that’s symbolic of having reached a certain place within my field or my industry, where I could be the kind of person who would get to be invited to be on Oprah. That actual goal maybe isn’t what’s most important to me. I don’t feel super drawn to spend the next 5 or 10 years doing all the things one would need to do to become the person to be on Oprah. I would rather focus on the things that I care the most about like having an impact and the ways that I want to impact people and figuring out how to have a bigger reach so that I can help more people. Do all my work on me so I can heal more so that I can help other people heal more and all of that stuff. Whereas the Oprah goal is more like a fun vanity thing. 

Is there a different measure of what a quantum leap would be that we should look at? Given that’s like a fun vanity kind of thing. 

I’m sure there is and I would love to find it. Setting those kinds of goals, the more tangible ones and the further away ones feels easier to me. It’s easy to sit around and visualize that. A lot of times, what’s harder for me is to see what I want in the short term. Even trying to picture where I’d like to be in six months or in a year, I have a hard time seeing the pictures in my head or even in the next year or 1.5 years or so.  

Part of what’s coming up is the idea of operating at a place where I can legit reach more people. Not like an influencer with however many followers but reaching people in an actual meaningful way that’s impacting their lives. There’s something around realizing that I can’t do it by myself. I need probably a lot more support that I have in terms of the actual team. I’ve had everything from one assistant to one assistant and a team of three coaches.  

Even when I had my team of four, it was still easy and it was casual. If I’m talking about impacting way more people on a much deeper level soon, that’s going to probably require a more serious team situation. Part of what scares me about that is that also requires being able to pay a team at that level consistently. Back in the early days of starting this business, I was like, “I want to be a solopreneur forever. I don’t want to have employees. I want to be free. I just want to work on my laptop on beaches.” 

The idea of collapsing the timeline feels like a quantum leap. That feels scarier. Click To Tweet

It was only maybe a couple of years ago where I was like, “If I want to have an impact, I can’t be doing all my own admin. I’ve got to have a team.” I’m at this place where I’m reaching bigger audiences. Means, things like having people to run your Facebook ads and having amazing client service and happiness-people. Part of what I’ve been present to is to go back to my day-to-day, what am I doing day-to-day question.  

I’m spending a little bit of time in my zone of genius. Probably most of my time, my zones of excellence or competence, to give a shout out to The Big Leap book. There’s probably a lot of things that would need to come off my plate and go into the hands of a trusted team. I would need to step into a lot more leadership and also be ready to be supporting a team, not just energetically and as a leader but financially. That scares me, too. I hadn’t thought about that. 

I want to ask you a question about one thing I noticed in the space. You mentioned two times how you’re slower or you can be slow but what I’m struck by is how fast you’re speaking. I’m curious about that. Are you aware of that, first of all?  

I am aware of that when I get excited. I was saying this to a client and I kept being like, “I apologize. I am spitting up the screen right now and yelling at you.” We’re talking about manifestation and that’s one of the things that gets me the most excited. Manifestation, mindset and money mindset stuff. When I get excited, the volume goes up and the speed picks up. Talking is not one of the things that happen slowly. It’s more like getting into action and processing information.  

I’m definitely like an internal processor and I tend to be a slower processor, which was something I always judged myself for. I always was worried that somebody would say something and I would be sitting there wishing I had a quick witty comeback. I was a person that’s like, “I’m going to go home and think about this overnight and then tomorrow, I’ll email you a response.” I don’t have that fast-twitch fiber response system in our brains. I processed information slowly but when I’m excited, I talk fast. 

One of the things you can distinguish is when you get excited, you talk fast. If you slow down and take a breath and check-in with yourself, is that what has you speaking quickly? 

Probably to some degree. 

Is there anything else? 

Probably testing out like, “Does this feel true?” Some kind of wanting to find the thing in each moment. It’s such a topic where I feel like I know what I want but I also don’t know what I want but I know that I want it. I still figure to put my finger on some clarity. 

Thanks for saying that, Sandra. I get that. The experience I have is when my dog has five toys out and he’s like, “Ha-ha-ha.” My dog is the greatest dog in the known universe so that’s a high compliment. I apologize for me comparing you to a dog in any way landed anything but it’s the greatest compliment someone could get great. You know you want something but you don’t know what it is but you know that you want it. What is the experience that creates internally? 

A mix of frustration and excitement. On the one hand, I’ve always loved surprises but I’ve learned to embrace the unknown because I like the mystery of things and I like seeing everything as a game or an adventure. I like not knowing. It’s exciting to me but at the same time, there’s maybe a little bit of, “I feel like I should know by now,” which is probably a whisper of old self-judgment tendencies coming up. “There’s the same one. You’re too slow. You’re taking too long. You’re taking too long to figure it out.” A little bit of also getting on with it.  

When I spend most of my day dancing in the space of human potential and constantly looking at what incredibly amazing things humans are capable of when we get out of our own way and when we believe in ourselves and seeing it in so many other people. Especially in clients who are newer to personal development work, I look at them and I see potential popping out of every cell in their body. It gets me excited about what we collectively are capable of but then it also has me look back at myself and be like, “What are you doing about your own potential?” 

I get in that question not so much like a question that opens up the possibility but more like a statement of judgment. It’s more rhetorical rather than like, “What am I? What would I love to?” When that rhetorical almost judgmental statement comes at you, what’s the knee-jerk response? It’s like, “What am I doing?” What do you then know to do or know yourself reliable to do in response to that? 

When I come at it, do you mean when I notice that I’m coming at it with a little bit of a judgmental? 

The danger here is now you give me a beautiful coachy answer and I’m more curious about if someone says, “Adam, you’re arrogant,” I know that the thing for me to do is to like, “You’re right.” There’s all of this stuff that I’m automatically going to do. It’s a great hook for me. For anyone that’s reading, if you ever want to hook me, you say, “Adam, you’re unwilling to look at yourself,” and I will immediately drop whatever I’m doing.  

Anything you’ve done wrong, I will stop it and I’ll be like, “Let me do all the work that’s over here for me to do.” I’m reliable from my fear to do that because the last thing I want to be is the guy that’s like the blind prophet loudly leading people. It sounds like there’s a button like, “What are you doing? You’re already too far behind. You’re already here.” All of that stuff. What do you know is, an automatic like, “Fuck,” the response that comes from that? 

There are two things that are coming up. One is a time thing. I’ve been in this phase where I’m wanting to change my relationship with time, get caught up in less of the unimportant stuff, get better at laser-focusing and being less distracted by little things. Do you know the feeling when you make your to-do list and you’re like, “I’m going to do all the easy things first?” You feel so productive and proud of yourself and then you get to the end of the day and you’re like, “I didn’t do any of the stuff that matters but I’m patting myself on the back for being productive.” There’s a little bit of wanting to change my relationships with time that way. The other thing that’s coming up was something about feeling uncomfortable. The question that’s coming in for me though when I try to remember what I was thinking was something like, “How uncomfortable are you willing to get?” Which could mean a lot of different things. 

Let’s play it out. Imagine, I was like, “Sandra, you’re wasting your time. Time’s running out.” I’m not saying it’s true. Just imagine though. You’re not doing what you should be doing to move forward at the rate you should be moving forward. What then does that have you almost want to go and do immediately? 

Live Coaching: NLP is a way to start to master the art of facilitating deeper, faster transformation in others and in your own mind.

The first thing that came to mind was to sign up for an NLP training interestingly enough because in my mind, learning a skill like NLP is a way to start to master the art of facilitating deeper, faster transformation in others but also in your own mind. 

Great answer. You’re doing great, by the way. I also want to acknowledge, I feel a bit of a slowing down in your being as we’re going into this so beautiful work. It occurs like, “Take a PNL training because that’ll allow me to go faster in a way,” or more efficient, which is a cooler way of saying faster in a way. Would that be fair? 

Yeah.  

That’s like the Silicon Valley. “I want to be efficient, not fast.” I get it. You’re using codes. That was integrating. That was the straw man, Silicon Valley CEO that created those. It sounds like when that like, “Time’s passing you by,” or whatever that stimulation is, whenever that shows up, that part of the reactive thing to do is to go fast, speed up. At least if the first 40 years or however old you are, we’re too slow, we’ll make up for it on the back end. Is that how it occurs? 

To a degree, probably yeah. 

When you say to a degree, what’s the part that we’re not capturing in that or feels off? 

There was another thing that popped up as you were talking that is also true for me, which is I was thinking about like, “What are the things that I’m doing that are taking up my time that isn’t things that I need to be doing?” Therefore, it’s creating some drag as I’m trying to move forward. There’s definitely a fear of handing things off or delegating things that even though I can delegate and the other person whether it’s somebody on my team or whoever that I’m asking for support could say no. 

“What are the things that are dragging behind? What can I let go of?” 

There’s a fear of delegating things to somebody who I’m afraid will think that the thing that I’m delegating to them is a boring task. It’s interesting because it sounds stupid when I say it loud. There’s a fear of not wanting to give a task to somebody on my team, even though I don’t need to be the one to do it but I’m like, “They’re going to think that I’m better than this task.” 

Why wouldn’t you give them the task? What’s the cost of giving them that task? 

They might think it’s boring or they might feel burdened or they might think, “Your time is so important that you can’t do this little thing and my time isn’t important so I have to do this,” which is silly when you have a team that you’re paying to do things that you want to not be doing. 

It also makes sense to me. What I get you to say as we were talking about this is there’s speed up, take NLP or take that speed-reading course that Jim Kwik teaches or whatever the thing is and then like, “I’ve got a parachute. How can I remove stuff from the parachute?” As you look at that, there’s another layer of stuff in the way. It seems like those are both versions of the same underlying thing, which is, “I’m not going fast enough or efficiently or whatever. How can I be more?” Take away the parachute soup-up the engine but both kinds of the same flavor more or less. I want to have you checked my feet on this. Is that how it occurs for you? 

Yeah, I would say so.  

First, from this altitude, this distinguished place where we’re not looking so much at what’s happening in the weeds but there’s this, “I got to go faster.” What do you notice about this as we look at it? 

It’s a feeling like one of those lovely paradoxes about living in this world that we both live in of fully accepting that it’s okay to go at the pace that I’m going and not judging it. Letting go of judgment of being too slow, aka not being enough and truly doing my best to not judge it or to release judgment when it comes up. Also, giving myself permission to desire to go faster but to not have the desire becomes a judgment of the fact I’m not going fast enough. This both full acceptance and total commitment to the desire, which is to go faster but to not waste my time, judging myself for not going fast enough while I’m working on going faster. That’s what comes up with a higher level. 

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Good noticing. Here’s what I notice. I noticed a lot of your attention is on velocity as opposed to the destination. It’s like, “I want to go faster,” but towards what? We have a concept but with the concept, all we can do is like, “I feel like I’m moving faster,” so that becomes our gauge of how we feel moment-by-moment. It does keep you safe from the risk of drawing a line in the sand and saying, “This is the result I’m going to create,” and then like, “The speedometer coupled with the direction, the distance I’ve traveled shows me I’m going slow.”  

It forces you to confront that thing. My experience is a bit of resistance or inability or avoidance. There’s a not-present tangibility to where you’re going so without that, where we’re left is, “I want it to be okay for me to slow down,” which is great but you’re still walking in a circle or, “I also want to be okay with a desire to speed up,” which is cool, too but now you’re walking in a circle faster. Where we’re left is in a circle being okay with how fast we go around in that circle but not moving towards any particular thing. How does that sit with you? 

It’s almost like getting a little lost in the process and analyzing it and losing sight of what the actual desire and destination are. I don’t know anything about airplanes or control panels but I’m picturing on a control panel locking in on the coordinates of, “This is the end goal.” Still, I’m such a believer in knowing what you want being clear and why you want it and moving towards it and then being open to things changing.  

You’re allowed to change your mind about what you want or whatever but locking in on the coordinates of that thing and being like, “Let’s go.” Looking at strategies and what can I do to delegate more, step more into leadership, work on my mindset and all that kind of stuff. Embrace the process and embrace the house but ultimately, be laser-focused on, “This is where I’m going and this is why it’s meaningful.” 

I’m curious, do your clients have a clear one-year goal that they’re working towards? 

Most of them, probably yes. 

You are supporting them with it and they’re like, “Here’s where I’m at. This is how it’s going.” 

I don’t want to say 100% at all because some of them are working on several different areas and focused on the short term. They’re in a job transition where they’re like, “We’ll look at the big picture and dream life and all of that,” but all they care about is getting through this job transition phase. We’re mostly focused on the 3 to 6-month. 

Do you have a 3 to 6 like, “This is where I want to be in 3 to 6 months?” 

Yes. 

What is that? 

A lot of it is revenue milestones. 

Are those revenue milestones a reflection of a milestone that would be a quantum leap? Are they more like, “What’s predictable? Here’s what I’m sure I can generate,” kind of milestone? 

I typically do a good, better, best. 

Live Coaching: Permit yourself to desire to go faster, but not have the desire become a judgment of the fact you’re not going fast enough.

What are you committed to out of those three when you do that? 

I would love to say I’m committed to the best but I’m realistically, energetically, probably committed to somewhere between the good and the better. 

If you took away all of those squirmy words like realistically, probably, etc. and you looked at your actions and who you’re being about those goals, which one would you say you’re committed to? 

It’s interesting because, in my mind, I’m like, “I can commit to the best goal.” If anybody knew all the numbers and knew what I did every single minute of every day, they’d be like, “You’re committed to good.” 

Thanks for owning that. It occurred a little edgy to own that fact. First of all, I acknowledge you, Sandra, for having goals. This can be common in the coaching profession where all they want is to feel a certain way, which is risky at best. It’s a little rickety because how I feel tomorrow is often unrelated to what’s going on in my life. It’s like, “I hope it’s sunny tomorrow.” It’s not impossible to do stuff to change that but it’s shifting sand. It’s great that you have goals.  

It sounds like the game is you’ve got realistic goals that won’t call you forward to create a shift in who you’ll be. You’re probably going to achieve them and it won’t require much of a breakthrough nor much of a breakdown in getting there. The other thing we’ve got is, we could call them impossible goals or aspirational goals, which are out there. They’re the quantum leapy ones but there’s zero commitment towards them. You’re unattached. It’s like, “If it happens, that’s cool,” but there’s not anything that’s going to pull you towards that other than it just being a cool idea. Does that sound about right, how I’ve laid it out? 

Yeah. When you said there’s no commitment, I was like, “That’s true.” Even playing in this zone of exploring what a quantum leap looks like in a way can be a convenient excuse to not being in the commitment of going after those good, better, best goals. The version of me that has quantum leap and is slaying those goals, not just revenue, impact, audience but even my own fitness and whatever goals. The version of me that is achieving those things is not sitting around being like, “What does the quantum leap look like? I don’t have time for that thing.” 

She’s got stuff she has to do because she’s like, “I’m not going to make my commitment.” Stuff is going to fall apart because you’re like, “This way of getting there is bankrupt.” It’s in that breakdown that the breakthrough can be created. My wife and I run this course called The Forge. It’s coaches and leaders. This isn’t a pitch. Don’t worry. What happens is that coaches come into it and they have these grand visions and they’re like, “I want to do this thing.” 

What happens is we have a project for each of you to succeed on. The project is to come to this retreat we’re running in Costa Rica. There is no cost to you other than your plane ticket there and the time. Everything else is covered. You got to get yourself there. That’s outside of the realm of possibility for most of those people. It’s not predictable. It is unpredictable that they’d come into The Forge and even less predictable that they’re going to create that in their life.  

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As you can imagine, people are like, “I’d like to but now it’s not the time.” “I just care about my partner and I want to spend his money on this.” All of the reasons and the excuses. Our work was to get them enrolled in that and committed to being there, which then drove up all of their crap. For the people that came, they created a massive breakthrough because they had to create a breakthrough to get there. It was otherwise unpredictable.  

They didn’t have the money. One woman came from India to spend three days in Costa Rica. That’s ridiculous. I wouldn’t ask that of anyone. She’s crazy. You can imagine, to get there, she had to show up differently in her life. That’s the power of creating the being of commitment and then acting from it towards that best or even better goal whatever the quantum leap version is. What do you get for yourself in all of those words I uttered? 

It was reminding me of the first big leap that I took in terms of trusting myself and making a commitment, which, not surprisingly, was an investment that I made in my own personal development. Back in the day in 2011, the coach training school I was going to have a leadership program. I didn’t even know that much about the program. I just felt this click inside myself where I was like, “You have to be there. You have to make it happen.” I looked at all the logistics and I was like, “Uhm.” It was a $14,000 program, which for me back then was like, “Where the hell am I going to find $14,000?” 

“I don’t have an envelope with $14,000 sitting on it.” 

I’m like, “I have no idea how I’m going to do it but I have to do it.” I committed to it and I figured it out. I got resourceful. I talked to the program advisor. She broke it down into so many different payments. I moved to a cheaper apartment, which ended up being better, amazingly. I lowered my expenses. I did a bunch of random things. I figured it out. I’ve done that many times before in terms of coming up with investments for coaches and mentors and things but I’m like, “Where else have I done that kind of a commitment where it’s like, ‘Stake in the ground. This is happening. I don’t know how but I’m going to figure it out.’” 

I noticed your voice got a little waver in it there. Was there anything showing up for you as you were looking at that or is it just a quirk of the voice? 

I like the idea of it being a waver so I’m going to go with that whether it was or not. This work is so important to me for many different reasons. There’s no reason why I wouldn’t commit. Commit to whatever I determined to be the marker of the quantum leap whether it’s a revenue goal or impact goal or audience goal. I like revenue goals because it’s easier to track the impact. “Number of souls you have transformed.” I’m like, “How do you measure that?” 

We’ll get to be in, “I’ll feel a certain way,” and then, “I hope I feel that way.” 

Numbers are easier a bit. It’s funny, too, it exists. It’s something that I talk to my clients about all the time in terms of the commitment to making a decision that’s just a decision. It’s like, “Period. End of story.” There’s no longer any question about this. It’s the decision that hasn’t been made. Certain things like the timeline or maybe the hour or whatever will be determined but the commitment is at stake in the ground. I don’t know that I’ve done that about this. 

Great distinguishing and great awareness. What do you see the practice coming out of this to put into action? 

I talked a lot about showing up as the badass, boss babe CEO version of me. The five years from now have laid all the goals as being on the shows and all that kind of stuff like, “How do I show up as that version of myself now?” I do a lot of that in terms of mindset but I don’t know that I do a lot of that in terms of my action. Especially being a mindset coach, I’m obsessed with all the identity work and how we talk to ourselves. I feel like I’m getting good at all of that but I don’t know that’s translating into what I do all day. The practical aspect of this is getting honest with myself about what am I doing all day and what, of all of those things, needs to change. It might look simple. There’s a lot of perhaps simplifying that needs to happen, a lot more delegating and a lot more of taking my own time more seriously. 

Not to take away from it but until we have a thing, we’re going towards like, “I notice I’m not choosing to go to Florida or California. Maybe what I’ll do is I’ll start to clean out my carburetor,” but why? Where are you going? Do we even need a car to get there? Whether it’s 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, I would suggest my invitation would be no more than a year. It’s meaty. It’s there in front of you. Twelve years? That’s too far off. Would it serve you to have a clear, “This would be a quantum leap result,” that you’re committed to declaring something like that? 

Yes, definitely. 

That would be a great practice to sit down. I noticed how much more accessible you feel when you slow down and I imagine you might feel more accessible to yourself, too. Slowing down and looking at this stuff and declaring a result, you and I are similar this way. I’m like, “This isn’t moving things forward.” I’m like, “I got to go, do all the work, take on all this stuff and be on the calls.” It’s like, “Why am I doing this? I don’t know yet. I haven’t created what I’m going towards.”  

To slow down and be like, “If I were to create a quantum leap over the next six months, what would the thing I would be committed to?” It might be as simple as looking at good, better, best and be like, “It’s the best.” That would be the quantum leap and then sweep good and better off the table and be like, “How am I going to create this? What am I going to have to do?” That then would provide a reason why, “I got to delegate. I got to confront that thing that’s getting in the way because I can’t create this goal any other way.” I have a few more practices but is there anything else showing up for you? 

Nope. I would love to know your other practices. 

One, I would invite you to practice to be in the practice of noticing when you’re talking conceptually versus like, “What towards?” That can also be when it’s like, “Here’s the stuff I should do,” and to bring it back to like, “What for am I doing this?” Is the what for a concept or a tangible thing you’re moving towards? One of the things I noticed about you, Sandra, is you are possibility incarnate. You are a fountain because it’s infinite and you’ll never be able to express all of that in the world. That will create a degree of heartbreak. What that’ll do is it’ll allow you to take the possibility you are, ground it on this planet, move towards it and manifest more that way. Doing that would serve you? 

Absolutely, yeah.  

The final thing you might take on is to look with your clients and see like, “What are we committed to? Are these results reliable to generate?” They might take something. We might have to work a bit harder and do a bit more but will they require a breakthrough to generate? Are they like, “We’re going to do a little bit more and we’ll get there?” You might get curious with them because as you’re taking this on, if it’s showing up over here, it might be showing up over there, too. How’s that feel? 

It feels great. 

Your energy feels lovely and soft. 

Thank you. I’m also savoring how lovely it feels to be on this side of the table so to speak. I’m such a vulnerability junkie. It feels so good to me to be willing to share. It would be as fun if it was just you and me. Maybe somebody else sees this and gets inspired or learns one thing from our conversation. One of the things that makes me feel the most alive is having meaningful conversations, either witnessing vulnerability or being the one being vulnerable. I definitely feel most alive when I’m being vulnerable/tiptoeing the edges a little bit. I appreciate the opportunity to sit here, too and to be seen, supported and philosophize and reach but also to ground it down into a little bit more tangible because I could sit around for the next ten years and be like, “What is the quantum leap going to look like?” and then not doing anything about it. It feels good. 

“What do words mean? It was a funny letter.” That’s what it’s like in my head all the time. I want to finish by acknowledging you and then we’ll do a little bit of a debrief. Is there anything for you to have the conversation be complete? 

I’m giving myself the homework to sit down and get clear on what that thing that I’m aiming towards is and decide on it and commit to it. I love philosophizing and I will continue to do so because I am possibility. I live in the vision space but I do want to decide and commit so that I can show up differently every day in the service of that commitment. 

Thanks for making that declaration. By when will you have created that goal for yourself? 

Before September 1st because I love the endings of things and the beginnings of things. 

Thanks for creating a timebox there, too. I acknowledge that. Sandra, I acknowledge the possibility you are. One of the things I’m present to when innately part of the essence of who people are is possibility is that every gift brings with it a corresponding flavor of fear. I’m often present to how possibilities fear is like, “It won’t get done.” All of this is available and it’s not all going to happen, which is, on one hand, an impossible problem. It’s like, “How do I manifest the infinite in a finite amount of time?”  

Learning to be with that tension is often part of the breakthrough for people on the path of possibility. It’s like, “There is going to be a bit of heartbreak because I’ll always see more available for myself and for other people and being able to be with that and then we don’t have to try to get it all done.” The way a coach gave this to me was that I was complaining and I was like, “There are so many emails and I can never get on top of them. There’s an infinite number.”  

He was like, “There’s an infinite number of emails so you’ll never get to the bottom of it. You’re always going to have more people you could serve, Adam. If you can start relating to it like it’s a thing you’ll get done and start relating to it as that then you can change your view about it.” I was like, “Screw you for being right and for not giving me a magic silver bullet to get all the emails done.” I acknowledge you for the possibility and whether or not that flavor is true for you or whatever flavor is there.  

I acknowledge that it’s not free to have that gift. I acknowledge you for your radiance. Sandra, you look glowing throughout this whole conversation and I’m a little jealous of how well you look colored. Your radiance coupled with the possibility you are, I can imagine what it must be like sitting in the rays of the sunshine for the people that get the gift of working with you so thanks for giving them that.  

Finally, I acknowledge you for your commitment to be your work as opposed to just talking about it. Your willingness to be here in this conversation and to see this stuff instead of to do that sophisticated end-run we can do as coaches where we’re like, “Yeah, I get that and but also,” and then it’s safe. Instead of being like, “Maybe, I don’t have the commitment that I thought I did towards that thing and maybe I’ll take that on.” Beautiful work.  

Let’s do a quick debrief. I’ll start this time by saying that the one thing I realized right out of the gate is there was a place where I was like, “I didn’t model us starting out this way,” because I didn’t get clear where did you want to be by the end of this show? It might have been a place where we could practice it at the moment. I was present to that. Anything that you were present to or that showed up for you that you were surprised by or just like, “Interesting.” 

What’s coming up for me is I’m present of the fact that my cheeks are hurting because I’m smiling a lot which is something that’s been happening a lot. I’ve found myself commenting that on calls with clients and staff, which is a great problem to have because I’m like, “It hurts that I’m still so happy.” What I’m present to is how much I love these types of conversations, a list of contexts. This is what I want so much more of and I’m doing my best to create more of that in my life outside of my work with my friends and with family wherever I can. It was a little harder but virtually, I can. It expands my heart so much to be in this place of presence, deep listening and conversations about things that are cool and amazing whether it’s and sports or whatever. No offense to the weather or sports because they’re lovely. It’s meaningful to me and I value it a lot. I’ve enjoyed this process a ton. 

The Quantum Leap Strategy

It’s sacred that we get to have these conversations and we get to put them into the world. I know there are some people that are like, “I don’t like any other conversation but this kind of one.” That’s not true for me. I love talking about Magic: The Gathering or whatever there’s to complain about. That part of me exists, too. We’re weighted in that direction. It’s rare that we get to have conversations for transformation this way. I’m grateful that you and I live in a time where until this stuff is distinguished, we can’t focus on it because it’s just part of it. It’s like, “That was a cool conversation,” as opposed to now we can say, “That was a transformative conversation. What made it transformative?” 

I’m grateful that we live in a time where people like Werner Erhard, Alan Watts and so on have carved this out so now you and I get to be like, “We’re going to lean into that and have those conversations.” That’s super-rich for me as well. Let me check-in if there’s anything I want to share before we go. If people want to know more about your work, want to follow and get an experience of your art or if they’re just like, “Can we get into a conversation?” Where’s the best place for them to do that? 

I usually say just Google my name because it’s the same everywhere, Sandra Possing. My website is SandraPossing.com. Same on Facebook, IG, Twitter and LinkedIn. I haven’t quite made it to TikTok yet. I would say I’m most present on Facebook and Instagram. Those are my main platforms. Did you see this coming? It’s in the baby stage. I love doing video. I know that, for me, that’s going to be a big part of my output and content in the future. It’s part of the quantum leap that I imagine that’ll be one of the main channels. 

Is there anything you’re excited about that you’re putting into the world? Anything you’re launching or that’s just awesome that you want people to know about? 

The thing I’m most excited about is my twelve-month mastermind called Unshakeable for women. It’s the closest thing to the tangible expression of my soul in a program that I could create in my own evolution. It’s evolved a lot over time. It’s my heart and soul. There are a lot of amazing, supportive and like-minded ladies in there. Everyone’s on a path to developing unshakeable self-belief. That’s why I call it Unshakeable. We’re tackling all kinds of different life situations with people but always through that lens of radical self-care, deep self-love and fierce leadership always coming from the inside out.  

For me, it’s a sacred container to support people in. There’s a quote that’s like, “What the world needs is people that have come alive.” I changed that into my own version, which is, “What the world needs right now most is women who have come alive.” For women to wake up to their own power and be able to go out and be in their power, express that and speak their truth. A lot of the women I work with is it’s about even finding their voice in the first place. Getting their voice out there, speaking their truth, setting boundaries, standing fiercely in who they are, authenticity, creating alignment in their lives, stepping into leadership and all that stuff. I love it. It’s fulfilling work. 

When does that start? 

It’s an ongoing program. It’s a one-year commitment. 

Everyone, thanks for being with us. Thanks to Mia, Heather and Em as she’s going by and everyone else reading. We’ll see you all next episode. Thanks. Have a great weekend. 

Important links:

• Sandra Possing 
• Werner Erhard 
• The Quantum Leap Strategy 
• You2 
• The Big Leap 
• The Forge 
• Facebook – Sandra Possing, Life Coach 
• Instagram – Sandra Possing 
• Twitter – Sandra Possing 
• LinkedIn – Sandra Possing 
• Unshakeable 

About Sandra Possing