Transcript of Natasha Graziano & Alisa Jacobs | Mindset, Brand & Feminine Leadership | Coffeez Ep. 302 New

1, 2, 3!

Hi guys!

Hi, how are you?

Welcome to Coffee with Jo Shelby.

How are you? I'm good. Good. Amazing. What are we drinking today?

Ooh, yes. I will get a chamomile tea, please.

Yes. Ooh, classy. I'm gonna go with a latte.

Latte?

Any flavor? It's your favorite. I'll definitely take a—

Do you still have chocolate honey?

Uh, we might be out. Can we do— These are dark chocolate. I think this one's intense dark. Oh, I think you need intensity. But you can have this one for backup.

Thank you! I love it. Thank you. All right, cool.

I'll take you over to Joe if that's okay. Great, absolutely.

Rad. It's right over here.

Please welcome my guest, Natasha Graziano, the number one female motivational speaker on the planet, a best-selling author, top podcast host, and serial entrepreneur. Also, Please welcome Alisa Jacobs, founder and CEO of Loop Studios and an absolute genius brand architect and a female that's smarter than pretty much 99% of people out there. Thank you so much for joining the show today, Alisa.

Thank you.

All right, ladies, we're gonna jump right into it. I like to start the show with what I ask every single guest, and I've been doing this for years. What is your morning routines? We'll start with you.

Oh, I love this question. Okay, when I get up in the morning, the very first thing that I do is I pray. I thank my body. I'm like, thank you so much, I love I love you, Natasha. Like, I really give love to my body. I let her know how much I love her. I treat her like a baby. I even nickname myself Baby, and I'm like, hey baby. Like, I just talk to myself and I pray, and I'm like, thank you, God. I go through my gratitude list at that point. I open my journal and I script while my brain is still coming out of sleep mode, from theta to alpha back to beta. I like it to really focus on the things I want to inject into my life. So I start writing things in gratitude. I'm so grateful for— and I list 10 things, and then The key is I list 10 things that I'm grateful for as though they're already mine. So I'm so grateful that I did this, that I had this person on my show, that I met Joseph, that I did— and I go through this list. And then after that, I go in the garden and I stand barefoot in the grass and I do what I call habit stacking.

So I'm naked, my feet are in the grass, so I'm grounding. I'm getting the sun all over my body, the healthy UV rays, because it's early in the morning. And then I'm doing qigong and I'm doing it under a tree. And all these things combined set my mind and my body up for discipline and clear mentality so that my day is amazing.

Wow. That is an awesome morning routine. And I think you take the cake for the best morning routine I've ever heard.

Thank you. Is it the fact that I'm naked in the grass?

It might have been that. That, that, that really set it off for me.

Y'all need to stop having such dirty minds and thinking about me naked under a tree. I'm doing it for health, to be better. And anti-age.

Yeah, I get it, but it threw me off when you said that, so it just got— it totally distracted me. I'm just kidding.

I will say that's the best I've heard too.

Yeah, that— but, but really, when you habit stack like that, it does have, you know, I try to habit stack as well, but mine is more like vitamins and red light therapy and other stuff, you know.

No, that's all great.

You can, you know, ice plunge and all the, you know, and I do a lot of stuff concurrent, but, but that's pretty cool because I don't have a garden to go do that in. And well, if I did in Newport, it'd be weird.

It'd be— people would be like, there's a naked man in the park, get him out!

But I'll try that, maybe on my balcony.

I don't know. Yeah, your balcony's just—

you will make neighbors very happy, I'm sure.

I know what you could do. You could buy a little like plant box that you grow plants in and put the plant box on your balcony, stand barefoot in the grass, and then you're technically on a patch of grass.

Yeah, that, that does. And I heard standing under a tree is actually a big thing.

Tree has huge benefits. Like, standing under a tree, it inhales your emotion. Trees— and it's proven online, go take a look. Yeah, scientifically, when we stand under a tree, we hug a tree, it lowers blood pressure over time, it releases anxiety. The benefits are just profound. So I really and truly do it for benefiting my health, and it's brought down anxiety just by doing 5 minutes of qigong every day, 6 days a week.

Qigong, there's like tai chi, like tai chi.

Yeah, it's just like, uh, moving meditation. It's really slow with breathwork, and it's just incredible. In fact, if you go back in time, and even in today's world, we can go back as far as you want in the West, the Eastern world, in, in China and Japan, you'll see people in the parks in the early mornings standing doing qigong or tai chi under trees in the early morning. And this is where we picked it up from.

Yeah, I know. I've read about that and people have mentioned that before on my show as well. And what about you, Elisa? I mean, I should have started with you, huh? Yeah, it's a tough act to follow.

You know, I don't stand naked in my garden singularly because I don't have a garden, but goals. I actually grew up with my mom doing qigong and tai chi outside in my yard and playing the music. And so I weirdly have integrated that in a lot of— not my everyday morning routine, but when I am having high anxiety or if I am just overwhelmed throughout the day. It's really moving the energy. It's a very palpable way of changing the flow of your actual environment. My morning routine is not as consistent. And only recently have I really been more disciplined in it because I go through these waves of I want to do everything all at once. I don't always have an hour and a half in the morning to do all of these exciting rituals. But every morning, I do my gratitude. I do my meditation. I do my prayer. A lot of the meditation for me is circular breathing and getting into bodywork. So it's integrations, not just affirmations, and shifting belief systems, not thoughts. I do kind of an interpretive intuitive yoga. I don't have a set routine. It's whatever my body needs, and it could be 5 minutes, could be 15 minutes.

And I've actually just started ritualizing and romanticizing little habits. Like, I have a really cute dog, so getting him his vitamins, his walk— actually, I do go to the park near me, not naked, it's Roxbury, but I will go barefoot and like let him run around and just have my moments to ground Sometimes that's in the morning, sometimes that's in the afternoon. I really have to flex to fit because as an entrepreneur, my schedule is very shape-shifting, right? Sometimes my day starts at 8 AM, sometimes I don't have to deal with other people until 11. So I really have to have an adaptive morning routine. But I always take my supplements and my protein and all the things that make me feel well physically. I do the things spiritually that I need through prayer and through meditation. I do the things I need mentally just to clear and declutter because a lot of the time we're carrying the residue from the day before. We're carrying the the doom scrolling or the expectations we put on ourselves. So the biggest life hack for me has been not touching my phone for the first at least 30 minutes to an hour when I wake up, which is the hardest thing because sometimes I need it for my meditation mix or to check the time.

And to the point where I recently like bought a timer, got a regular clock again, and created all of these systems to not have to be dependent on my phone because you start taking in and you consume, right? So you are what you eat, but you eat energy. You eat whatever you're looking on your phone, whatever you're consuming on the television, whatever energy. If I woke up and you called me with something really great news that might shift my day, someone could call me with bad news and my whole day is off.

It does actually shift the consciousness, by the way. Like, if you open a text in the morning, I tell this to people, don't go on your phone immediately, because if you go on your phone and you're reading other people's messages straight away and going to other people's agendas, that's their agenda, not yours. So now all of a sudden your entire day is to someone else's agenda. We have to prioritize us first before going to them.

I love it. I love it. Both your morning routines are very, very powerful, and it works for everybody. I've learned so much about optimizing my morning routine through my, my various guests. Yours is definitely— seems like it takes a while, um, but it's amazing. It's amazing. And to have the ability to stand in nature, and I know how, how much of an impact that has. I mean, I live on the beach, so I could probably do that if I really wanted to walk on sand and water. And when I was walking on the sand barefoot along the ocean, kind of like habit stacking with my foot in the water and foot in the sand. It definitely changed my day, but my dog would get so dirty I stopped.

Oh yeah, being in water is even better. Like being on the sand, feeling the ocean on your feet, I mean, that's the most accessible place but the hardest place for a lot of people to be because they don't live near it, right? But if you do, that is the most accessible energy. That is everything that we could ever soak up and more. It's like abundance on abundance. I stand in the ocean. I do all kinds of rituals. I mean, I could talk till the sun comes down on this one, but another time. But literally, you know, spiritual rituals, meditation rituals, talking to the ocean, releasing my fears, bathing in the ocean, like, you know.

So let's dive right into it. Natasha, you've built a massive brand from rock bottom. You're a single mom and you've managed to coach some, coach some major celebrities. So let's talk about it. How did you build yourself up as a single mom from absolute poverty to this multi-million dollar brand? And how did you do it in debt, facing all types of adversity? Let's tell the audience, what did you do to overcome all those tribulations, and what kind of mindset did you have to really endure all this?

So the very first thing when I was at the rock bottom was, is there any lower? No. When you realize that you're in adversity on the worst level— I was in financial debt, I spiritually not there. I was in the lowest physically, mentally, in every single way. I was sick as well. So just to add on to that, I was actually sick. I had an autoimmune disease at the time called hypothyroidism, and it was terrible. I was in the worst place. And because of that, I was at such a low, I didn't know how to get out. So I was like, how am I going to get out of this? Like, how am I going to evolve from this place? But I knew in that moment something spoke over me. I suddenly was standing in front of this mirror, tears streaming down my face. My son is asleep on the side, you know, in his, in his little bed, and I'm looking over at him and I'm crying and I'm thinking, I don't want to be here anymore, but I can't leave him. He doesn't have anything. I have to be here for him. And I remember looking in the mirror thinking, something has to shift, something has to change.

And these words came over me and it said, you're going to be a motivational speaker and you're going to change millions of lives. I was like, me? I'm sick. I've never spoken on stage. What is a motivational speaker? I, I started to question all these things like, who am I? What is this? But it was in that moment that Natasha Graziano was born, that the Natasha you see today started. So I stood and I decided in that moment that I was gonna investigate what that meant and that I was gonna commit to something greater because the point was up until that day, I had been focusing only on myself. Up until that day, I'd been focusing only on me. I've been only focusing on the things I was going through. But hey, how about thinking about other people? Somebody else is going through something like this, something else. Somebody else going through something worse than this. I need to be there to show them. And how about if I heal, how I go out there and talk about how I healed to the world? So I started to work on my healing. I prayed to God and I said, God, show me how to heal.

And if you show me how to heal, I'll go out and show the rest of the world what you taught me and what you showed me. And from that day better, I got 1% better. And I focused only on getting 1% better, not 100. I wasn't trying to be 100% better overnight, but I knew if I could just heal my body and get 1% better, 1% better, 1% better in my finances, 1% better every day, if I could just start to get better, surely my life would get better. And I now have my why, my son, who I want to be a role model to, but I also want to be a role model for somebody else in the world. And so I started to heal, so I started to get better, so I started to go out there and look for opportunities, and the world started to light up, and I started to see that life was actually good, and not everything was happening to me, it was happening for me. I started to write a story, and this is really how I started to get out of the rut. Up until then, I've been writing down, journaling, how bad my life was, all the things I was going through.

So I shifted it. I decided I'm gonna script, which is what— where scripting was born, which I did a whole TED Talk on recently. So I started writing. I became the number one female motivational speaker, whatever that means. At the time, I didn't even understand it, didn't even know who motivational speakers were. I then started to write how I healed my body, how I got out of the debt, how I changed my life, how I moved to America. Mind you, I was living at the time in the UK. How I met the love of my life and got married.

And I wrote this, manifested all this, manifested the whole thing, the whole thing.

I just wrote it down. I got crystal clear on what I wanted. I mean, Michael Jackson literally wrote everything down, and we've been watching it with all the movies out, you know, lately. We've seen how when you write it down, you bring it to fruition. And I just knew if I started to write it down, I would start to believe it. It didn't matter whether it was true or not. It's whether you believe it that counts.

It's amazing. And, you know, manifestation is definitely real. I've seen it in my own life. This is a wake-up call for those who aren't scripting it, you know. This is a wake-up call for those who aren't really manifesting it. And the fact that you manifested that and you wrote it down and now it's materializing— maybe not every attribute of those, but I'm sure the rest will follow.

Everything you wrote down happened.

Everything.

I got married to the love of my life at the time. Um, I became a best-selling author. I went on the biggest stages in the world. Every single thing happened.

Wow.

There are still things now— the goalpost moves once you achieve a goal. It doesn't stay there. It shifted. It moves. So now, forget being on 10 stages a year. I want to do 50 stages a year. I want to— I want to impact 1 billion people as opposed to just 100 million. I— you know, the goalpost moves every single time. And so yes, now there are many things I haven't manifested, but now I'm starting to script those things. And other goals. Like, one of my biggest goals, one of my biggest dreams was I wanted to build an orphanage. So I was like, okay, how am I gonna do this? We're on a stage when I say, guys, I'm committing in front of you. This is 2021, beginning of 2021, at the stage, 3,000 people in Vegas. I— first stage I'd ever done out of the UK, like in America. I just got here, boom, fresh off the boat, baby, bang, straight on stage. I was like, okay, what are we doing? I was like, I'm gonna build an orphanage. When I tell you that was clipped and put everywhere. I had so many accountability partners.

It was good that it was clipped, and it was good that people started to say one year later, oh, she said she was going to build an orphanage, she's a fraud, she never did it. Okay, okay, okay, okay, you're right, I never built an orphanage. But 2 years ago, I built a school in Guatemala for 600 children with a charity.

Wow.

The Graziano School. So yeah, okay, maybe I didn't build an but I did one step bigger and I built something that impacts the entire community. And I did it with Pencils of Promise, the charity. That is my biggest achievement.

God bless you. That's an amazing achievement. That's amazing. I love it. And I know that God's going to bestow many, many more achievements upon you because you serve with that success and you have a great vision. Amen. Before we get into it, ladies, is there anything else you want to order from the barista here?

I'd love to.

Can I get another chamomile tea, girl? You made it so good with the extra honey and a chocolate.

Yes. Oh, she just changed my order. I'll also take a chocolate, but that latte was wonderful.

Thanks, Meredith.

Okay, Alisa.

Yes.

You were a brand authority and a brand architect before personal brand was even a thing. You started to build cultural relevance, first marking it before it was a trend. How did you know that brand authority would become such a trend in culture, and how are you leveraging that now?

Such a great question. I've never actually been asked that. I love that question. I don't think that I knew. I think that I trusted. I think that the idea of if you build it, they will come is a concept, but truly you have to go to where people are. And I think at the end of the day, we're all just humans. And so even when you're thinking about big corporate Fortune 500, Fortune 100 companies, it's comprised of all humans. And so there's a trust in the one-on-one. And I remember at a really young age, my dad always told me two things. One, this— I'm sure you can appreciate this— don't co-sign a lease you can't pay. And two— and that had to do with referrals, that had to do with co-signing, vouching, like Your reputation is whatever you lend. And so only lend what you trust. And then the other was really around people invest in people, not products or things. And so I carry that into even fundraising and investing strategy. I've carried that into business. But when I got into the brand side of business at a really young age— I've been doing PR, marketing, brand building since I was 18, and maybe even earlier.

It's so crazy watching "The Devil Wears Prada 2" come out, because while it was an Anna Wintour story, My first internship was with Norma Kamali in New York at 16. And while we had a different relationship because while she was intense, she saw herself in me. So I got a bit unscathed compared to others. It was such an incredible experience because she was the brand, she was the business, and everything revolved around that. And so that carried over into then working with the NFL and sports and everything else in college and recognizing Even in football— NBA, it's always your face is out, so there's a character there. When you're covered in a mask, you are more so the name on the front of your jersey than the name on the back. So they had to work harder to build brand, to build identity, to build persona and audience, because there's also a lot more players on the field. And then coming out to LA, I was working in all different kinds of entertainment marketing. I always call gift suites analog influencer marketing because It was sort of the Price is Right, Vanna White, before there was even social media.

And again, brands became personified and it was guilty or innocent by association. And so I'm just a people person. I truly believe that the humanity and even in this AI world, it's going to become even more prolific and more profound and more important because I do believe in technology. I'm very futuristic in that way, but I'm analog when it comes to humanity. And creativity. And so I really kind of sit in between these two worlds of having done the national stages for AI and Web3 and tech and all of these things and building businesses around that, having been a former executive in— well, venture-backed CEO in gaming. But on the humanity side, nothing is ever going to take the place of heart and creativity. And so when you think about this world in which it's not just brand authority, it's Trust. We have broken trust at a global level so deeply that the younger generations don't want polished or perfect or packaged. They don't want everything already done. They want to see the work in progress to believe it. And I think that's actually a huge opportunity because we're all allowed to kind of let go of all of the millennial, I will say, residue of infrastructure and corporate and having to be perfect and no crying in baseball.

I joke all the time when I'm working with Gen Z, I'm like, mental health day? We— that was called go cry outside. What do you mean? Like, I don't— you can't make it to a Zoom? But there's this new wave of I have to trust you, I have to put me first, and I have to actually want your referral. And so I think it's only going to increase. I think it's going to increase multigenerationally because the shift, the biggest shift has been when we were coming up, adults were the authorities. We are now in a wave where the adults are learning from the kids. And so the kids are actually setting the direction. So when you look at even whether it's Apple or LEGO doing the honestly, it's not AI or showing the making of, because when things are too perfect, people think it's fake. And I think that's going to be the biggest wave in brand authority. And even what you're doing, Joe, it's like you probably have a couple of competitors in the marketplace, even if you're light years ahead of them. And your job, whether you're a challenger brand or the lead, is to make people care about you more than the product.

The product is your business, right? And so I am more interested in connecting with someone that I want to give my money to or earn money from. And the biggest difference from even 5 years ago to now is that before we didn't want to be sold to. So we would allow celebrities or brands or influencers, quote unquote, to sell to us, but we didn't want to be sold to by our friends. We didn't want to be sold— that would be transactional. That would be uncomfortable. And people were actually haters to their closest and celebrators and supporters of people they didn't know. Now this new generation does not care. It is no longer the marketing funnel of that upside-down triangle for awareness and consideration and conversion and purchase. It's now really circular. It's not just a marketing flywheel. It's like, I need to connect with you, and I I expect you to sell to me and I don't mind it anymore. And so if you do not have a face, if you do not have an identity, you do not have a brand. And this is at the highest corporate level. PayPal, Fortune 100 companies are hiring content directors for CEO branding.

This is no longer just startups and founder identity because you have low budgets. This is now 6-figure jobs, high 6-figure jobs to make sure that the founders and the faces of brands matter and have relevance. And I think it's only going to get more and more impactful.

CEO identity. Wow. So there has been a huge shift in personal brand now because of AI. Now people want to, to deal with the personal brand. And actually it's statistically proven, I think it's 90% of consumers don't want to deal with the company anymore. They want to deal with the person. How do you think AI is impacting brand relevance in terms of Personal branding and the importance of personal branding in a world that's kind of drowned out by AI and a lack of human connection.

I think it's already become really important, and I think in the next couple of years it's going to be even more important. I think either you work for AI or AI works for you, and if you do not know it, it will destroy you. And I don't mean that in a big apocalyptic way that a lot of people are thinking about it. I mean it in the sense of Think about in music, if our artists said, "Down with technology, it's the devil, you can never use it," we would only have acoustic music in all of perpetuity. Now there's synthesizers and producers and DJs and all of these things, and when you allow the tools to enhance and accelerate and propel, it becomes incredibly additive and it actually frees you to do the things that you really want to do because if someone's so focused on the technical aspects, they're not living in their creativity or their strategy. They're not living in allowance. It's always chase, go, go, go, go, go. Now with AI, it's tricky. I do have a cognitive and spiritual battle with the kind of man versus machine, and I will always be on the side of humanity.

But I really do believe that technology can benefit humanity when used by stewards and shepherds of it. I felt the same way about Web3. I felt the same way about crypto. I felt the same way about social media. These are all just iterations of the internet. Truly. So to me, AI is scary in that we are not having enough disclosure and disclaimers for clarity and everyone's guessing. So when you see and hear wild stories, whether that's politically, socioeconomically, war, et cetera, and everyone's in the battle of the comments of like, this is real or not real, the blurring of reality, the Truman Show of it all is terrifying. But I think that as we put protocols in place to actually know what is real and what is surreal. I wouldn't even call it fake. It's surreal, right? When you do a twin or an AI entity, it's an extension of you, right? But if someone is creating something in my likeness and I'm not getting paid for it, and you don't know if it's your granddaughter calling you or your brother calling you, and they're able to do all different kinds of just deepfake and copycat.

Yeah, exactly. Copycats and deepfakes and anything just imaginary. But I think at least from my perspective as an agency, we are incorporating AI, which could absolutely take our jobs too. For the record, most companies are verticalizing and do not want to hire boutique agencies. They're either grandfathered in with big box multi-year contracts with the big dogs, or they want to hire you internally or freelance and just sort of use AI until they realize they don't know how to use AI.. And I can always tell when a press release is written by AI. I can always tell when a caption is written by AI. I can always tell when someone's headshot is created by AI. Most people can't. And so you can get away with it. You can fake the funk. I don't work with brands and I don't work with people that lead with falsehood. And so I love the enhancement. And here's where it works. Where it works is if I'm trying to build personal brand or in my case, build your personal brand, because I don't do my own very well. I am more a servant in the space than I am a leader as a face.

But I'm looking at it as commoditization and productization. You are no longer the person in front of me. You are the product. What shelf? What packaging? What department store? Is it boutique? Would you be wearing Converse or Gucci loafers? Would you be carrying Samsung or Apple? I look at you as a product. And if I'm looking at you as a product, how do I then create storytelling around that where you are the main character in that story. That's where AI can come in to help with data, with research, with analytics, with expediting, accelerating a lot of the admin so that I'm not bogged down with 60% of my job doing all of the in-the-weeds stuff or having to hire a huge team to do a lot of the operational aspects. And I've actually built with a partner different forms of AI-powered tools that help me monumentally expedite what would take Boston Consulting Group or any other, uh, 6 months for market research to the point where when the focus groups are finished or the research is finished, it's obsolete because the world is moving way too fast for that. Where I can do deep dive data and analytics on any company and any brand in the world and have more insights than if I had had a team working on it for 3 months.

It's not doing my job for me, but it's allowing me to pressure test my ideas and whether they're aligned with proprietary information that I might not be able to go look up just asking the brand or kind of looking on the internet. That's where it shifts. It shifts because it alleviates and it accelerates. If you let it do your homework for you, you will fail. If you create a singular AI model that you do not have any humanity or touchpoints, you will fail, in my humble opinion. But if you allow AI to work for you and it's your intern or it's your bitch, it's going to actually help everyone around you in corporations, in startups, and as solopreneurs. Like, there's a lot of folks that don't have entire teams around them or even assistants. So if you're spending most of your time on either business development or admin, how are you doing your superpower? Whatever gives you your dopamine, whatever is making you your money, when is there time for that? That's the problem.

Very well said, very well said. Now, Natasha, I want to dive into what you're most known for, which is the MBS Method. That's a combination of breathwork, that's a combination of— that's the MBS Method, that's a combination of breathwork, neuroscience, and subconscious reprogramming. I want to ask you, how did you come up with that, and how can the audience, the viewers implement the MBS method in their life and take action on it today?

Okay, so it stands for Meditational Behavioral Synchronicity. I came up with it when I realized I have ADD. I cannot focus.

I know you, you know, we all have ADD. The whole, the whole world now has it.

Okay, so that's what I mean. I didn't want to medicate it, so I'm sitting there going, what? Like, I can't, I can't sit and meditate. How do I do that? And then I started to realize, well, hang on, I can meditate if I habit stack again using breathwork first. So instead of doing real calm breathing, which worked for me until my brain went, oh, squirrel, like, wake up, you need to go and do this. Like, suddenly it was like, wait, what are you cooking for the kids for dinner? Did you buy the steak? That, like, all the—

right, okay, so wait, wait, there's ADD meditation strategies? I, I gotta—

this is what I do for it, and it works, and it's worked for so many of my students. Okay, so this is what you do instead of the calming breathwork. If you are someone who can't focus and you want to get that hit, that high on your natural breath, and it releases the DMT in your brain, helping you to see all kinds of other things, but also just enhance your focus, enhance your concentration, enhance your success, your visions, your visualization when you're there. So what we did was we created this thing which is what I did. I would do heightened breathwork, like a Wim Hof style breath of fire, and then, right, and then holding the breath in a certain way and then releasing it. And again, now I'm really starting to feel calm now. I'm like, uh, your hands are tingling, your body's tingling.

Wim Hof style without any ice water.

Without any ice water. And all the oxygen is going to every cell in your body, and I'm feeling revitalized, I'm feeling alive. And now I'm feeling super high on my own breath. Naturally, it's a good feeling. Okay, always consult your doctor first. And so when you feel really good and then you're like in this zone, and then now press play on the meditation. Only after you've done that, because you're literally in like a calm, natural calm state. Now you meditate. Okay, so you don't have to go through the— what I was doing before, which really is beautiful for when I go to Sleep Method, you know, calming breathwork where I slowly naturally fall into a deeper state of mind where it's just the subconscious reprogramming tape I'm playing overnight. This one is like a 5 or 10 or 20 minute exercise, usually around 11 minutes is like the peak. And I've created them so you can go online, you can type it into YouTube for free, Natasha Graziano MBS Method. There's a few on there and you can literally do it. You do the heightened breathwork for about 4 to 5 minutes. You can also do it for 3 and you're totally great on it.

Then you do the meditation. It's all inside that one tape. We've put it all together. And then it taps into neuroscience, it taps into ancient wisdom, all at that peak point, a lot like my book. And so what happens is your brain relaxes, you start to manifest all the things you decide, you start to think about all the things you want, you have clarity of mind, your brain waves are so much slower, so one thought is prolonged. Have you ever meditated and like, why am I only thinking about this one thought and it's taking 5 minutes? Amazing. You're in the theta state. When it goes that slow for one thought, it's because you're in a deeper state of mind. The brainwaves get slower as we go deeper and deeper from beta, where we are now, through alpha and into theta, as I was saying earlier. And so when I'm there, I'm visualizing my goal. I'm visualizing the one thing I want to focus on during this meditation, the solution to the problem which I want to overcome, whatever it is. Or I'm focusing on more money, I'm focusing more abundance, I'm focusing more health, whatever it is I'm focusing on.

And then while you're in that state, then after it, you do affirmation as you're coming around, as you're coming back to beta state. So I'm imprinting it into my mind, rewiring my subconscious brain. If you do this for 21 days, you form a small habit. You do this for 66 days, form a large habit. So if you can do this every single day repetitively, that is what neuroscience is—

repetition.

So we could get this for free on YouTube? Yeah, guys, you gotta check this out.

I mean, I have a whole school for it, like not just for them. School.com, that would be freaking awesome. What is that?

That's where you launch a school, is it? Yeah, we have a school as well, guys. School.com, Coffees for Closers, make sure you check it out.

That's so cool.

Yeah, how did I— I just totally pitched your thing. That's, that's amazing. Yeah, so I have a school where we inside of it have workshops, courses, brick and mortar schools, uh-uh, online. Oh, okay, well, scripting society. And we gotta teach people all of these meditations. We teach people all of it. And inside of it, it's all on demand. So they go inside and they learn how to get an abundant mindset versus a lacking mindset, how to recreate their identity, how to become a magnetic identity and brand. And it's all these programs and subconscious reprogram meditations, courses, workshops, things that they can do to actually become that person, to become the version of them that they want to be. And then they get some like coaching calls with me as well during it.

Love.

It's a membership, but it's so great, so cheap. People can just get my, my attention for like free almost.

I love the reverse too of your breathing style when you're talking about ADHD or just being hyperfunctioning in general. I did a self-discovery— excuse me, a Self-Discovery Life Mastery course for a while and was doing this practice for probably 7 years, and I just recently started tapping into it again. It's very similar but reversed, and I think for my mind, the reason I struggle with letting the passing clouds that are really fast slow down and be the one thought for a prolonged period is it starts with the relaxing side. Yes. And so for me, it's very similar in the deep kind of circular breathing. Yes. And almost getting— it truly is a high state. Like, it is actually creating more space in your body and more presence, and we're all just atoms, right? It's all frequency. It's just ours happen to be tighter together. But if you look around this room, there's more space than stuff, right? And so creating more space and more form in your body— when I said intuitive yoga, that comes out of after this practice. And for me, it's doing kind of 3 minutes and then 7 minutes of outside of my body and inside of my body breathing.

But then the breath of fire, or the— what is it called?

The— Wim Hof?

Wim Hof, yes. Very similar. It's to create frequency and energy. So then when you're doing the affirmations, it really is integrations because it's programming your body-mind, not your, your mind. Got it. And you get so much release that you will fall into splits. You will literally do backbends. Your entire body releases. But I want to try the reverse because I feel like mentally I would probably move faster.

Right. Natasha, you build people, and Alisa, you build brands. Now I want to talk about women in power in this society navigating through a male-dominated industry. There's power, credibility, navigating influence. What's your take on that?

I think that it's not always about femininity or masculinity or male versus female. It's about environments and are those environments safe and supportive and strategic in ways that everyone has a shot. I think in certain industries, no, we are not there yet. And it takes a lot of support and a lot of extra effort to even get a seat at the table or to step into power roles.

Right.

But I do think that things are shifting and I do think that it comes down to credibility. It comes down to confidence too. The biggest piece that I've had to learn was someone shared with me recently, no one's coming to save you. And it sounds— it always sounds very morbid, like, well, gee, thanks. But as women, we are growing up on Disney complex, which, by the way, was totally toxic in hindsight. And we are growing up on the, the white knight. And I think in business, you don't always advocate for yourself. You don't always come in with a certain ferocity or readiness because men respectfully at 60% feel like, okay, it's good enough. And most women until 98% don't want to let that fly. And so whether it's advocating for your salary or your rate as an entrepreneur, whether it's the confidence to step into something that you've never stepped into— Natasha and I were talking about this earlier— like, I've always been a hard way learner. I learned to swim in the deep end, literally, not metaphorically. I learned to ski on the black diamond, literally, not metaphorically. Every job I've ever had, I was either other only or youngest.

And so I've never had a choice to have imposter complex even when I did, because it was always sink or swim. And I think that allows you a certain level of not necessarily confidence, but capability where you just know it's going to be okay. You don't know how, you don't know when, you don't know where. For men, they're not required that same level of certainty. And so a lot of times growing up, and particularly white men in America, but globally in general, there is a more expected way, right? That you're supposed to be decisive, you're supposed to be confident, you're supposed to come in, which also isn't fair to men because not every man is so sure and ready. And there has to be a bit of a balance. So I think that navigating that looks like, yes, acknowledging it and making sure that you weaken your weaknesses and strengthen your strengths. But also, I don't want to say ignoring it because you can't ignore it. But one of the things that we're also speaking to is You can either focus on what's working or focus on what's not working. And the more attention you give something, the more intention you have.

And even if you are not complaining, you're talking about it, you're giving it life, you are literally clapping for Tinkerbell on what you don't want. And so the more that you can focus on what is working, what can solve, that you just leave that by the wayside. I do think that there's a huge element of just showing up every day and also requiring those around you to have a certain bar of capacity and competency and conviction that you have to be 2 times better, right? If you are not the norm, you have to be at least 10 times better for some, but at least 2 times better than your competitor. And that is just a reality. But if you go in knowing that you can be, that's really the dealmaker and the game changer in a lot of ways.

That level of confidence always levels people up. Yeah.

Natasha, I think in a world where it's male-dominated everywhere, you just got to be a badass as a female. You just got to show up in the room and just be who you are. I've been on stage about to go on, come out, as soon as they say, and it's a female, and they can see a female walking on, I have watched the back of the room turn around. Some people start leaving the room, and the minute I come on that mic and I'm like 'What's up, New York?' Or what? Boom, they freeze frame and I start talking and they turn and they slowly come back and sit down. Why? Because they see that a female with that kind of energy— okay, you got my attention— or a female who's doing something different, you know, like you were just saying, she can get through in that market. I've only ever known it to be— I'm literally on stages sometimes, 10 men, I'm the only female. I'm Oh, I'm just all I ever know. So I love advocating for more females to do what I do. I love helping people to grow their brands. As a man or woman, whoever, Unicorn, grow your brand.

Be what you are. Like, be the best at what you are. And even if you're in a dominated male industry, go out there and show up and just be a badass so that people don't say, oh, because she's a female or whatever. Just be the best of what you are. Don't train your brain to think, oh, I'm gonna get less. No, I never got less. I get paid more than a man most times because I help people to become what they are born to be, to help them with their personal brand, to help them become a huge name in so many aspects, to help them to grow who they're meant to be and get out there online, be seen and heard with visibility. And so I never worry about being in a male-dominated space. I just do this for everyone. I'm like, I'm gonna show you that I can make a grown man cry with my voice on stage the same way. I can make a man show up better than he's ever shown up online. I can make a female show up. However, it doesn't matter for me. Like I said, you can be a man, dolphin, iguana, like I don't care what you do.

But you ladies are unicorns. Women just don't have that kind of confidence on stages. I haven't seen it other than you, you know, when I see you speak on stage, but it's not something that has been bred in society. And I think, you know, with your voice and the impact that you ladies have, the ability to make an influence, you know, you are changing and creating a cultural shift.

Confidence is competence. Yeah, like, you go out there and the reason that you shine is because you are great at what you do. The reason I'm so confident is not because I was necessarily born with it, it's because I created it. I knew that if I was the best at what I am— I'm so good at talking about my field That is confidence. It's something where competence takes over. So I could talk till the cows come home about certain things, but don't ask me about politics because I'm not going to talk about it with confidence the same way that somebody who works in politics does. What's your take?

I think that competence and confidence are interchangeable. Confidence can breed confidence and confidence can breed competence. And I think you don't need to compete where you don't belong. I'm never going to outman a man. I am a woman, but I'm also never going to shirk or shy away from my power or my purpose or my potential. And I've had it from both ways. I've had it from, I know I'm the most confident, I know I'm the best at what I do. So that confidence comes out of that. But as I said, I've also learned everything the hard way and everyone starts as an amateur. There is no OG, no success story, no affluent entrepreneur, no co-CEO or CEO or CMO that did not start in the figurative mailroom. Everyone started at the same place. So what is the difference between people that have this monumental trajectory or high success rate and winning streaks, as we were talking about in the car? It's truly confidence, and it's truly you see the wins on the board and you keep winning. And I think that for me, there are times where my confidence bred confidence because I was just so convicted.

I learned fast. And there's other times that I just had to be better than everyone else. And the reality is it's truly your resilience. I think doing hard things breeds confidence and competency. I think when you do hard things, it's your prefrontal cortex. It's actually the only way that you can physically, physiologically, scientifically grow your brain as an adult is doing things you didn't think you could do, facing hardships physically. A lot of times for men, it's physical challenges. And for women, it's things that you just feared and survived. So that resilience, I think, breeds an immense amount of confidence because most people have a 25% success rate. Every actor, every musician, every entertainer, every success story you've ever heard. I actually had a really great conversation about this yesterday and my friend was pulling up stats because I'm like, yeah, it's not 25% for everyone. Literally pulled up Beyoncé, Michael Jackson, anyone— every major athlete, anyone that you've ever glorified fails more than 75% of the time. And we are such perfectionists as women and a lot of men too, that we're so afraid of failure. But those failures are just chinks in the armor.

They don't even mean anything. And even in music, if you have 3 singles that hit on a track of 12 to 15 songs, it's a successful album. Most of your album flopped, right? And so I think having that fearlessness, not absence of fear, but ferocity in the face of fear allows you and affords you that level of conviction. And to your point, I really think that men don't always want to hear it from a woman, whatever the it is. And so you have to come with a level of expertise, authority, and build trust in a way that not everyone naturally will give you. It's earned. And I think that's okay. I don't think it's ideal, but I think it's okay. So it is how you build the trust with an audience too. The confidence that you exert and the decisiveness is also what makes a good leader because people want to follow a North Star. People naturally want to be led. All of us.

It's like a relationship. Think about it. Like a man leads a relationship in the Greek culture. You know, if you watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the man is the head, but the woman is the neck. So we literally guide it, but the man leads. It's the same in business. It's the same thing. Like, the man wants to lead, but he needs to be also guided by—

you, you bring up a really good point because this is a major debate right now, is that women are losing their femininity. And that's because of this, like, you know, this new culture of like becoming independent. And, you know, and you still— one thing I admire about both of you, you guys are still very, very feminine.

—And appreciate that. Don't always feel that though, because you have to lean into your masculine for survival until you can release it. And so for me, I will say that like in my late 20s and early 30s, I felt like while I presented very feminine, I had to survive through being dominant and decisive and a little bit more gung-ho. And where feminine is different than female, and I think you can attest to this as well, is around allowance. As a man, you are— the masculinity in a man is seen as the dominance, the penetration, the go-get-it, the hunter. And as a woman, you have to do that because no one's coming to save you. And unless you are looking for a white knight or Daddy Warbucks and you actually want to have your own in addition to whoever you end up partnering with, nobody's going to save you. And so I think where you have to allow the feminine to come back in is the allowing, the magnetism that you talk about a lot as well, is you can't magnetize to you if you're always pushing forward, right? If I threw a magnet against the refrigerator, it would not stick.

I have to place it there. And that's where I think there's an opportunity to allow more and to create more femininity. And what's so interesting to me about the romantic part of it that you were saying with relationships, one of the things I researched recently was everyone always goes back to the biblical— the man is supposed to be the head of the wife, right? Or the head of the household. But actually, in Greek— this is a Greek language component— head never meant the head of the neck or the head at the top. It was the head of the river or the water, which is the source. It's the life source. And so for a woman to be able to have the vibration, the river, the flow, it starts with that source from the man. It's not necessarily dominance or submission. It's actually collaboration. And I think that can actually translate really beautifully to relationships and business where you can both be the best at what you're being. And that's why I say you don't need to compete where you don't belong. You need to actually lean into feminine leadership, which is less nearsighted, which is very collaborative, which can balance really well.

And we all have masculine and feminine, right? But I do believe, perhaps controversially, that a woman at her best is leaning into her feminine. If you're, you know, traditionally heterosexual, etc., blah, blah, blah. But like, I think you operate your best at your most natural state. And I think a man operates at his best when he's able to be in that natural state. And that's where I think in business we need to partner more and figure that out.

Okay, ladies, we're heading into the final segment. So this is your opportunity to promote whatever projects, whatever book, whatever shows you're working on, and just tell the audience what's new in your world.

Okay, amazing. I would just say to everybody, follow me at natashagraziano.com, like just my Instagram, Natasha Graziano. It's the same thing everywhere. If you want to DM me, I love your DMs. Reach out to me, connect with me. If you want to know about becoming a magnetic identity and brand, it's my favorite thing to do for people, helping them be seen, feel that confidence within their fire, within their soul, to go out there and just be seen with visibility. That's how I built my following to 22 million people, is through understanding the power of visibility and how to be seen online. And like you say, having the CEO identity, having that before anything else. People buy from people, and that is where it's at. So I'm right now excited about my book, which is always out there. You can get that everywhere online, bookstores and everywhere that you buy books. Be It Till You Become It. And that one is actually for you.

Oh, thank you so much. Of course.

So you can get your own one. I'll sign it for you after the show.

Awesome. Is it on Audible by chance?

Of course. The Audible took me like 18 hours to record.

It was so long. Don't waste that voice.

Yeah, that was big. So we did that. Um, but yeah, I'm excited about All the things we have coming up this year. My Scripting Society is helping so many people and I just love it. I love pouring in and helping people to build who they are in the mindset and then in the brand.

Love it.

And what about yourself? I would love to connect. I am @gingerjacobs, G-I-N-G-E-R-J-A-C-O-B-S, on Instagram and any other social media. My agency is called Loop Studios. That's loopstudios.com, L-O-O-P-S T-U-D-I-O-S. But we are Loopsays on Instagram, L-O-O-P-S-A-Y-S. My business partner and I have really been at the forefront of the shifting market with agency world. And so I'm really excited and proud of some of the pivots we've been making, not only with AI empowerment and augmentation, but also really leaning in on what we do best. While it's a full-stack marketing agency and we offer strategy and PR and events and founder development and things like that, content. We're the best at the intersection, truly. And it's an incredible place to be when you have such a vast network of trusted individuals. And so we've really leaned into collaboration and content and focusing on partnerships and IP development, because you have to be able to own. And that is something whether we are advising and consulting major brands or founders that is allowed to be more project-based too. So we were always very heavy on like the traditional advertising agency style of the big box retainers, and I love that we're now more accessible for project basis and different kinds of formats.

On a personal level, I'm really excited about getting more in the film space and doing my first projects in animated production and packaging for major feature— excuse me— and packaging for major feature films and being able to lean back into my creative as a storyteller and get back in front of the camera, get back on stages, and get back into those those kind of writers' rooms and creative worlds that I feel like I let lie dormant for a little bit. So I don't know if that's promotion, but it's certainly my excitement and purpose right now.

Well, that's what it's about. Whether— whatever you're excited about, whatever is your purpose, let the world know. Yeah. Now we're going to get into a brand new and very fun segment, the first time we've ever done this. I'm really, really excited to do it with the both of you.

Yay!

I'm excited, and I don't know what it is. Meredith, can you please bring the paddles? Here's the rules: be fast, be witty, and more than 3 red flags and your application is denied.

Oh my God, this is like being in a relationship. Yep. If you get 3 red flags, they're out.

That's right. Oh my God, they're out. So I kind of read through these and there's a lot of, a lot of red flags here in my opinion.

So we just raise it whether it's Green or red? Yeah, exactly.

All right, so here's the rules. 0 to 2 red flags, approved. Over 3 red flags, conditionally approved.

Conditionally approved on 3 red flags? Honey, you're out if you have 3 red flags in my world.

You know, I, I— mine too. Uh, more than 4 red flags and their application is absolutely denied.

Oh, 9 lives of the cat here. I would not give 9 lives. You're out, really, for me? Like, 1, 2, 3rd time, bye baby.

Yeah, you're gonna—

the bags are already packed at that point.

Okay, first one: first date is at Erewhon.

Oh my God, I have a date at Erewhon today! Oh my God, that's actually crazy, isn't it?

That's wild. That is, you know, serendipitous.

Y'all have probably, by the time this show's out, seen it everywhere online. That's so funny. I'm I'm so sorry to interrupt the game.

Number 2.

Yeah, they asked to split a bill on the first date. They—

if they ask me, it's a red flag, but like, I don't really—

they still follow their ex on Instagram.

Fuck no. Oh wow. But by the way, I just want to follow with that. If you follow your ex and then suddenly you unfollow in a relationship, this is what happens to the girl. She says this: Oh, I'm so important. Look, my ex's new girlfriend made him unfollow me. And then as soon as they break up, I get followed again. So it's a really touchy subject. Really, you need to just unfollow before me.

I was going to say, that's the life hack. You should not be still following them in the first place. That we shouldn't be having that conversation in the first place.

All right, so we're red. Next Next thing, they call themselves a serial entrepreneur. That's great. Okay, perfect. Alright. If it's true. They have a roommate.

Depends on your age and stage, but at this big age, hard no.

I mean the guys you're dating, if they have a roommate.

No, I'm saying if you're in college. The only roommate you should have is me.

Like. That part. Literally, I should be your only roommate.

Well, let's get to know our candidates. Same answers. High credit score, weak communication.

What do you mean? High credit scores, yeah.

But weak communication. But they're weak communicators.

No, I'm not dating you.

So do you care if they got a good credit score but they communicate?

Oh, I see what you mean.

You need both. You need both. Oh, I don't care about that. That's a red flag, okay. High net worth, emotionally unavailable.

Oh, oh, you really went to the ATM, red flag. Only just though, because I'm being PC today. No comment. Ask me on another day. Like, it would be—

can close deals, can't commit.

Massive red flag. This is easy.

Stable portfolio, unstable personality.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Knows how to invest, doesn't know how to invest in people. All right, round 3. This is This is the underwriting stage. That was the loan— round 2, which is what we just finished, was the loan disclosure stage. This is the underwriting stage. Okay, this is more of an in-depth review of each candidate, so let's see if they meet your standards. Successful but never available.

Red flag. I'm gonna give that a tentative green flag. Never is a hard word, but if you're dating someone highly successful, they're not going to be as available unless they're already the second half of their success. It's a low green flag, but that's workable.

They cancel last minute but always have a good excuse.

Oh God, no. Red. Ciao. Good night.

You know before it's last minute.

I've already met someone else.

They say they want a relationship but don't make time for it. Ah. Red flags here. Highly driven, but work always comes first.

Green. Your purpose should be your career. I should not be your purpose. I want to see you as the most ambitious guy. Whatever you do, whether you're a salesperson or whether you do anything, you should be the most ambitious guy in the room. I absolutely love it. We can build a brand together and make millions.

Love it. Love it. Okay, you feel the chemistry But something feels off. My intuition is off the fucking charts. Snap. All right. Bonus round. The Rate Lock round. This is not a red flag, green flag. This is just, just answer. Broke but passionately creative versus wealthy but unavailable.

Oh God, that's so hard. I need it. I need available. Just whatever.

Just be available. So you'll take broke and passionately creative?

Uh, depends if you were a billionaire and became broke, like, can you make it back?

I also think it's what's your ambition with that passionate creativity, because if you're broke in this season but you have the bounce-back game and you're incredibly entrepreneurial and enterprising, your capacity is uncapped. That's right. If you gonna be broke and stay broke, you can stay over there.

Meredith, what about you? Broke but passionately creative? Versus wealthy but unavailable.

Um, I really like the 'are you a billionaire' and then lost it. I think that really, you know, but honestly broke is fine for me as long as I'm not a shitty person. Girl, if they're working towards something, like if they're broke now for like growing, you know, eventually they're gonna be fine. But no, like lazy sitting. So would you pay for him like if he was broke?

Would you like help him? Been there. Yes, same, twice. I was a sugar mom.

If there's gonna be success and like I actually believe it, then yeah. But like if I'm like, uh, you know, then probably not. Oh my God, I would never—

I think I need to listen to you guys. I'm allergic to broke. No.

Well, when you fuck around and find out that it's not about you, it's about what they need— 10 out of 10, don't recommend.

Ladies, thank you so much. That was our game. It's been wonderful having you on the show. You really have changed my mindset me in many, many ways and elevated me. Folks, if there is a friend or someone who comes to mind that you think this episode will help them or change their mind or elevate them, make sure you share it and share it right now. Thank you so much for tuning in, ladies. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I look forward to having you guys. Been absolutely a pleasure to have on the show. God bless you both. Thank you. Back at you.