How to Reclaim Your Power with MSG with Sallie Wagner

Kathi: Hi everyone. I am back and I am with Sallie Wagner. She's a life alchemist, and this is pretty exciting because she does a lot of different things, and we're going to dig right into it and see what's up. So I want to welcome Sallie to the show. Thanks so much for taking the time to be here.

Sallie: Thank you so much for inviting me.

Kathi: Absolutely. So talk to me, Sallie. You're a multifaceted girl. I know that you're an author, a real estate person, a lawyer, a life alchemist. It sounds like you blended them all together. Talk to me a little bit about your backstory on how you got to where you are right now.

Sallie: Sure. When I was in college, I started out as a physics major, and I was one of those who couldn't decide, so I have minors in lots of stuff. I eventually majored in theology. So it was physics to metaphysics, and that was my trajectory. I was going to go to graduate school and postgraduate, and I was going to be a fabulous professor. And then I met the person who would become my first husband, and the first night we met he said, you should go to law school. And so guess what? It took some convincing, but every year he would bring me the application materials, and finally I applied. So he wore me down. And so I spent most of my career in the corporate world as a lawyer, working on real estate related issues in the big companies around the country. And I still had my interest in the science and the spiritual stuff. So about 16-ish years ago, I started doing EFT, Emotional Freedom Techniques, and then I just added pieces to it. I did some coaching. I did some NLP, picked up my studies about NLP. And really, through a series of life events, dreams, all kinds of things, I finally got this big thing upside the head and said, I'm a life coach. So that brought it all together.

Kathi: That's so funny. Isn't it funny how people can influence us? I know I started college as a music major, and then my boyfriend at the time, for many, many years, said, oh, you should go into audio engineering. So I did that, and I followed that path. And then eventually life will hit you on the head and say, wait a minute, you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing here.

Sallie: Yeah.

Kathi: And no matter what your success level is, if you don't feel it inside and you don't feel like you're really benefiting the world, then does it even matter? It doesn't even matter. So good for you for coming around. Meanwhile, you have all these kudos and all these influences in the background. I think it's interesting, too, that you started in physics and then you went into metaphysics. I find a lot of people that are in my life have taken a similar path. It makes a lot of sense. What do you see as a correlation between the two? How did you see that jump, or that bridge, happen for you?

Sallie: So I was always interested in the theoretical stuff, the quantum physics and the nature of reality. So that's the common thread with the physics and the metaphysics: the nature of reality. And I think what quantum physics, cutting-edge physics, is telling us is all the things that the mystics and the spiritual people told us. It's true. Reality is energy, and everything is energy. It just moves at different frequencies.

Reality is energy, and everything is energy. It just moves at different frequencies.

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Kathi: Yeah, absolutely. So when you work as a life coach, what do you feel is your superpower?

Sallie: I think it's coming from that perspective that everything is energy. Our thoughts are energy, which means that energy affects energy. We can affect our world when we change our thoughts, and that is an amazing power.

Kathi: Change your thoughts, change your life. I am with you on that for sure. Tell me about a client that you've helped in the past. Tell me about one of your typical clients that you'll work through the process with. How does that work? Tell me their story and what happened.

Sallie: Yeah. So I have a variety of people, and typically I work with women 40 and better who have experienced some type of change. It can be a dramatic change like birth, death, marriage, divorce, job change. Or a less dramatic and still significant change. I call it life creep, when you wake up one day and just wonder what happened to your life. I work with people in all of those kinds of phases. I worked with another woman recently who just felt like, I'm not on my path. I don't even know what my path is. Is there a path? And just to work with her and do some different modalities and interventions to help her gain clarity and focus and motivation to do what the next step was.

I call it life creep, when you wake up one day and just wonder what happened to your life.

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Kathi: I think it's interesting that, as coaches, as people that guide them into things, it's always when they're in transition that they are the best person to help. When they know that they're transitioning and they're going from one thing to the other, that's when we can make the biggest impact, I believe, for sure.

Sallie: Yeah.

Kathi: So, as far as a life lesson for yourself, you've had several careers. You still do a lot of things with different careers. What's a life lesson that you feel you've learned yourself that helps you help other people, or that just helps you as a person?

Sallie: So I think it's to use everything that comes to you as an opportunity for growth. We can get caught up in the trauma and the victimness of things, or we can look at it as a growth opportunity. And so we can look at it as post-traumatic growth. And then we can actually move from post-trauma into post-ecstatic growth, where we create our own growth opportunities. And so I think that's the lesson: we don't have to wait for life to hit us on the head to get the message. We can actually create the growth opportunities for ourselves.

We don't have to wait for life to hit us on the head to get the message. We can actually create the growth opportunities for ourselves.

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Kathi: Yeah. As an entrepreneur, you've been an entrepreneur for a very long time. Tell me about a time when you were just feeling down in the dumps, or you were ready to grow but you felt just stuck. What happened, and how did you pull yourself out of it?

Sallie: Yeah. So it all goes back to the mind. One experience I had many years ago: I was ill. I had fibromyalgia, and it can be a devastating illness. And I was to the point where I thought, I can't work anymore. I need to go out on disability. And just the agony of, how am I going to take care of my kids, all that kind of stuff. And something, and I honestly can't really put my finger on it, something in my thinking changed. And I experienced a miracle. The shorthand term is it was a miracle. I didn't change my life and then I was healed. I was healed, and I changed my life to reflect that healing. And so that was a pivotal moment for me. And it still wasn't a straightforward path. Lots of upheaval in life. I refer to it as taking the scenic route. And yet I think all of those things really brought home to me the power of our thoughts and our mindset.

Kathi: So your pain went away from your fibromyalgia like that?

Sallie: Yeah.

Kathi: That's amazing. I just keep thinking of Wayne Dyer: change your thinking, change your life. And I think you're being prepared for another loss and another setback, and that's what we do. Everything that we overcome makes us stronger and stronger and stronger, and better able to handle those types of things.

Sallie: Yeah. Absolutely.

Kathi: Thanks for sharing that story. That was pretty impactful. So what's the most memorable thing that has happened in any of your careers? When you think of, that's the one that makes me excited, what is it that happened with you or your career?

Sallie: So I love all of the things that I do. On the law and real estate side, it's not traditional. I have a consulting company with a colleague, and we're like the broker on call for all these real estate brokerages across Florida. I love that. They call me up. They ask me questions. I teach classes. I love to teach. That's my calling, right? To be a teacher. And that, to me, is very energizing and exciting. And then on the coaching side of things, same thing. I love to coach with people. I love to share with them and help them reclaim their own power to change their lives. I love to speak, I love to write, and I feel like it brings together all of that creativity and intuition and awareness and allows me to give it expression.

I love to share with them and help them reclaim their own power to change their lives.

Kathi: I love when you said 40 and better. That really rang home for me. I think it takes us as women, or probably as human beings, a while to nurture and to see what we really want to do, what we love to do. I know I had to spend 40 years of my life figuring out what I wanted to do when I grow up, and that's how I became a professional organizer and stylist, because that's really all my life combined into one career. And it sounds like the same thing for you. And thank goodness. I don't think we're meant to maybe do that. There are very few of us who start on the path and do what we do for the rest of our lives. Some of us are blessed to find that out, but I think generally, for us, it's an amalgamation of our life experience, what we love, what we're good at, what brings us joy. And speaking of joy, when you have a moment where you're ready to celebrate, and I've started asking this to all my guests because I realized I don't celebrate enough, how do you celebrate when it comes to that point where you're just ready to do it? What do you do to celebrate your life?

Sallie: So I'm with you. I think we don't celebrate enough. And so my mission lately is to incorporate joy and celebration in all the little things. And so all of the little things, I celebrate. I say, yay you, or I take a moment to give thanks and gratitude. If I can, a little story. My daughter, many years ago, was working in a daycare, a preschool place for little kids, working with the two- and three-year-olds. And they're very literal. So they would do something, and she would say, "Yay, me," to try to get them to say "Yay, me" to celebrate themselves. And as literal as they are, they said "Yay" and my daughter's name, because they thought she was saying to them, say "Yay, me." And so it became a family joke: somebody would do something, and we would say "Yay" and my daughter's name. So it's those kinds of things, just to give ourselves a little cheer, and say thank you. I think that gratitude is so important.

Kathi: Yeah. And I think the movement, too. I like that: "Yay, me." Okay. So everybody out there listening, I'm going to pause here. I'm going to say, what do you have to say yay to yourself for right now? I'm going to give you just a minute or two to think about it. Okay, you got it? Okay. We're all going to say it right now. "Yay, me."

Sallie: "Yay, me."

Kathi: Yeah. I hope you all did that, because just adding that really helps. Anytime, anything you can do physically, it's like, "Yay, I love it."

Sallie: Yeah.

Kathi: Go for it. We all need to celebrate more. So remember that if you find yourself down in the dumps, just say yay you anyhow, because it doesn't even matter. It's going to boost your energy.

Sallie: It will. Yeah. Absolutely.

Kathi: Okay, so as a professional organizer, I have to ask you this question. What is your favorite organizing hack, tactic, program? What do you love to do that keeps you organized in your life?

Sallie: So I'm like extreme in that area. If things are too cluttered, I can't work. So my approach, as with all things, is to have a system and a process in place. If I have to look at a whole room or a whole house, it's overwhelming. And so my tactic lately has been, when I walk into a room, do five little things. If there's something that needs to be put away, if there's something that needs to go to another room, just do five things. And it's so easy. It's not like I have to make a major time commitment. And it makes such a difference because I do it regularly.

When I walk into a room, do five little things.

Kathi: Right. I love that. Love that. You're talking my talk. And I always feel, when you get to that space, and I'm sure that your life is very organized, when you get to that space, which I call the zero space, where everything has a home with a yard around it, you're really neat and organized. If you do those five things a day, or five things anytime you walk into a room, you're back. When you're organized, it only takes less than five minutes to get back to what I call the zero space, where everything has a home with a yard around it. So good for you, Sallie. That means that you're super duper organized. And organizing is an ongoing process, right? So it takes time. It's never done.

Sallie: Right.

Kathi: You're never done. It's just a process. And if you can get those systems to support you in the background of your life, then it is those five easy little things, five easy little minutes, to get yourself into that space. So yeah, thanks for sharing that. The five little things is what we can call it. Stay tuned for that.

Sallie: There you go.

Kathi: So if you could turn back time and talk to your 18-year-old self, what would you tell her? What would be your word of wisdom, since you've been through so many iterations?

Sallie: Yeah, a couple of things. The first thing is, it's not as serious as you think it is. When we're young, at least when I was young, I took myself so seriously. And it's really not as serious as we think it is. And the corollary to that is, it's never too soon, it's never too late to really, truly do what brings you joy.

Kathi: Yeah, amen to that. And have fun along the way. You might as well have some fun. And I agree, seriousness is way overrated. So let's go out and say "Yay, me" more. Okay, Sallie. I know you have something that you want to offer to the audience, so let's talk about that a little bit. What valuable free resource are you going to allow them to download today?

Sallie: So I would love to offer an ebook. It's called Reboot Your Thinking with MSG. And MSG is a thing that I use in my coaching. It stands for mindset, skill set, get off your asset. It brings together a lot of important concepts, right? We need the mindset. Sometimes we need new skills to have that mindset. And then ultimately, we have to take action, because if we don't take action, it's just like a nice picture on the vision board, and nothing really happens in life. So it's an ebook. I'm happy to share the link for that with you for the show notes. And I would love to invite people to just download that little book and see what tips you can find out.

Kathi: Yeah, and I'm sure when you all download it, you're going to be laughing as well, because that's what it's all about. We will definitely have the link in the show notes. Everybody, download it, check it out. See if you resonate with Sallie. You're going to be reading it probably with joy, and you'll probably be laughing along the way. I have a feeling about that. Okay, so as we're at the end of the show, of course I always have to ask: what did I not ask you? What do you want to talk about that we haven't touched upon? Is there anything burning in your mind where you're saying, why didn't we talk about that?

Sallie: So one thing is resilience. I speak a lot about resilience. I think it's a really important concept. We've touched on it and what it means, but just to talk about it directly: resilience really is putting MSG into practice every single day, because as you build resilience physically, emotionally, mentally and socially, you enhance your life.

Kathi: Ooh. Okay, talk about that a little bit more.

Sallie: Yeah. It's so easy. It's so simple. Even that little yay you moment, that was building physical resilience. So it's so easy. It's just taking little steps every day. And as you do those steps every day, you experience success every day, because you're moving in the right direction.

Kathi: I absolutely love that we all have a very similar message and we just say different words. I love your mindset, skill set, get off your asset. It's awesome. I always say that when you learn how to embrace change with grace and ease, then you're able to move forward. It's a very similar thing. And the more that we can feel good about change, because change happens every day anyhow, the more that we can be resilient and move through change with ease and grace. We need to be joyous and not take things so seriously, as you have told your 18-year-old self. I love it.

Kathi: Well, thank you, Sallie. It's been a pleasure. Make sure again to download Sallie's free ebook. I'm going to download it and check it out real quick. I think it's going to be amazing, and I know I'm going to laugh through it. And if you want to get organized in your life, make sure to download my PDF, Six Steps to Organize Your Amazing and Fabulous Life. Check it out, download everything, and absorb, learn, grow, reach. You can do it. And I will say for you, yay you. And yay Sallie. Thanks for being a guest. I really appreciate it.

Sallie: Thank you so much.

Kathi: Thank you, everyone. Signing off for now.