Embracing Your Inner Challenger: How Disrupting the Norm Can Lead to Success with Cami Travis-Groves

 

I'm Kimberly Spencer, your host at Crown Yourself podcast, and I'm thrilled to share some exciting insights from our latest episode. We had the pleasure of hosting Cami Travis-Groves, a transformational coach and founder of The Freelance CEO, who shared her wisdom on transformational coaching and the power of good juju in businesses.

 

Here are some key takeaways:

 

🔓 Unlocking Breakthroughs: We discussed how breakthroughs are like unlocking a safe, where surface-level limiting beliefs are like a piggy bank that can easily be opened, while core beliefs require more effort to unlock.

🍀 Good Juju in Business: Cami explained that good juju is another word for love, and love has a place in business. It's about bringing positivity and warmth into your work environment.

🤗 Embrace Vulnerability and Curiosity: We highlighted the importance of vulnerability and curiosity in personal growth and manifestation. Embracing failure and practicing new things can lead to growth and learning.

🥂 Celebrate Your Progress: Cami emphasized the importance of self-comparison and celebrating personal growth. Remember to turn around and appreciate how far you've come.

😄 Choosing Happiness: We discussed the significance of choosing happiness and embracing vulnerability. Happier and more joyful people tend to be more successful, healthier, and live longer.

📣 The Role of Coaches: Coaches act as guides and mirrors, helping clients see their own potential and envision a better future.

👐 Embrace the Challenger Role: We shared our experiences as Enneagram Eights and how embracing our challenger nature has been a journey of self-acceptance.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Honoring Diversity: We discussed the significance of honoring diversity, not just in terms of gender or race, but also in terms of thought and perspective.

🏷️ The Value of Coaching: Cami reflected on the transformative power of coaching in getting out of one's own way.

🌄 Morning and Evening Routines: Cami shared her routines, which include setting intentions for the day and reading before bed to signal her body that it's time to sleep.

 

This episode is packed with wisdom and insights that can help you transform your mindset and approach to life and business. So, why wait? Tune in to the Crown Yourself podcast and let's unlock those breakthroughs together!

Remember, your reign is now.

 

Connect with Cami Travis-Groves

• WEBSITE: https://www.cami.coach/
• FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/goodjujucami
• INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/goodjujucami/
• TWITTER: https://twitter.com/goodjujucami
• LINKED IN: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coachcami/

APPLE PODCASTS: ‎https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/deep-dive-coaching-for-creatives/id1551664653

Transcript:

Kimberly Spencer (00:00:00) - Hello, my fellow sovereigns. I am so excited to be here on the Crown Yourself podcast with my guest, Cami Travis Groves. Cami is a transformational coach like Moi, and I love bringing on people who do similar work. Eh, Because it's not competition. There is an abundance of clients for everyone out there, and B because maybe I've said something in some way that landed ish but didn't fully land, and maybe someone else who does similar work but has a maybe different toolbox of tools or uses different colors to paint with your transformation, maybe they will help unlock it for you. I like to think of breakthroughs, especially with self-limiting beliefs, as like a safe. So you have locked away some belief system. It's deeply unconscious. It's buried in a safe somewhere. And if it's a, you know, surface kind of limiting belief, it's like a piggy bank. You just unscrew the bottom and suddenly out comes all the beliefs and you're like, Oh, there it is. But if it's a really.

Kimberly Spencer (00:01:20) - Like Fort Knox worthy safe like and it's Fort Knox worthy like core belief. It's going to take a few turns of a dial to get to that breakthrough. And so maybe you hear it on one podcast and you're like, okay, it turned the knob one way. Maybe he heard it on this podcast and it turns the dial again and maybe you hear it from Cammy, which is it's the same thing, but it's a little different and it comes with a different background and a different toolkit and a different strategy and it just unlocks it for you. And that is my goal beyond anything. And what I love about Cammy is that she comes from a graphic design background, her voice to me, like being in the center of view. It just felt like a warm hug the whole time. She's just so beautifully relaxed. And she and I come from very similar backgrounds and had very similar experiences growing up. We're both Enneagram Eights. We love to challenge and we do challenge our clients. She is the founder of the freelance SEO and she is a good juju spreader and I believe that everything happens within divine timing.

Kimberly Spencer (00:02:37) - And this episode was recorded. I kid you not a year ago we found it in the backlogs of our Dropbox I had been looking for it and it just hadn't shown up somewhere. Like we have some pretty sturdy processes, but it was, it was not there. And then suddenly we discovered it and it was there bringing us some good juju. And so I know that maybe it's you, maybe it's another listener, but maybe it's you who needs this level and this style of good juju in your life to help you transform to your next level. And with that, I give you Cami Travis Groves. Welcome to the Crown Yourself podcast, where together we build your empire and transform your subconscious stories about what's possible for your business, body, and life. I'm your host, Kimberly Spencer, founder of Crown Yourself, and I'm a master mindset coach, best-selling author, and TEDx speaker, known to my clients as a game changer. Each week you get the conscious leadership strategies you need to help you reign with courage, clarity, and confidence so that you too can make the income and impact you deserve.

Kimberly Spencer (00:04:02) - Imagine this podcast as your royal invitation to step into your full potential and reign in your divine purpose. Your sovereignty starts here and your reign is now. I am so honored to be here with you today and with some good juju from Cami. So Cami, I love to dive in. What does what is good juju? How do we bring that to our businesses?

Cami Travis-Groves (00:04:29) - Good juju is. I like to explain. It is another word for love. And a lot of people think oh love. Love has no place in business but good juju and love are interchangeable and good Juju absolutely has a place in business because what do you think has the highest ROI? Love or fear? It's going to be love.

Kimberly Spencer (00:04:51) - Love definitely has a way higher ROI like ten X.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:04:57) - And then some.

Kimberly Spencer (00:04:57) - Yes, and then some. So as a coach with your clients, because you work specifically with a lot of creatives and you do transformational work, that is awesome and that I've been blessed, to experience in a way on your podcast by being interviewed by you and you and I share similar ideas around transformation.

Kimberly Spencer (00:05:20) - What is the transformation process when going from building a business, from fear scarcity, running away from what you don't want into translating transforming it into good juju?

Cami Travis-Groves (00:05:35) - Mm Great question. So often we believe that we are logical, rational beings and we have bouts of emotion that we need to control when in fact we are highly emotional beings and we have small bouts of logic reason, and rationale. And when we understand that that is actually our strength and not our weakness, then we can tap into that. The best advertising, for example, taps into the emotional decision-making process. Of the five triggers, three of them are based on emotion. So understanding that if we really want to pull on those emotional heartstrings, the best way to do it is through love. We are motivated toward love, right? And as we're moving throughout our day, we could be on autopilot and be thinking, oh, I've got to do this and I've got to do this. Or notice those thoughts because you can't really change what you can't see.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:06:34) - Notice those thoughts and think, Does that thought actually serve me? Or is there a way I can spin it the way I could reframe it, a way I can look at my life or my situation or my business differently, that would then serve me. So instead of I got an I get to instead of I've got to figure out some way to make payroll this week. How might I? How might I take all the pressure off? How might I? Allows you the space to experiment. And what if instead of thinking of your business as I got to do this and I got to succeed, I got to do this? What if it's viewed as an experiment? It takes all the weight off. It takes the idea that it has to be perfect. The right the first time has to be just right. All that pressure comes off and you start to see possibilities you never saw before. So there is there's a great window of opportunity that opens as you move away from a fixed mindset or a scarcity mindset, which is focusing on everything you don't have.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:07:47) - Into an abundance mindset or a growth mindset that's based on love. It's based on good juju.

Kimberly Spencer (00:07:52) - I think to touch on that piece of emotion since emotions can be so consuming and I regularly say feelings Trump thinking like every time.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:08:03) - We're emotional creatures, we're emotional creatures first.

Kimberly Spencer (00:08:07) - And so in theory and in practice, with the practice of shifting from how might into how might I instead of I've got to when you're in that fear-based state of like, how might I pay payroll or how might I manifest the next $2,000 that I actually need to fulfill my present circumstances and responsibilities of rent or whatever? How do we navigate through those perceptions of reality that are stimulating all of those fear-based emotions and that attachment to that? Those circumstances of like. But no, you don't understand. My rent is literally due next week and I need $2,000. How do we detach from that and move into that abundance mindset when we're being consumed by those emotions?

Cami Travis-Groves (00:09:01) - So how do you practice or how do you do anything that you want to get better at since you practice? How do you how do you learn how to drive a car? Well, the first thing you have to do is get behind the wheel.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:09:15) - And then you start you you've got to start somewhere. And at first, your brain is going to say, no, no, no, this isn't the way we think. We have to. Oh, my God, We've got to find that money. We've got to find it. Well, why can't you create it? The creation of it is a new thought. Your brain is going to resist because your brain likes to do things on repeat and is really good at conserving energy. So practice those things, practice thinking. And it's going to, you know, at some point, it's going to be too late. Like, yeah, you've got a week, but can you how might you create 2000? I remember when I was going through the Creative High Growth program, which is the 100-day program that changed my life and I am now licensed to teach. Woohoo. I was at a financial low. I had $0 in the bank and I knew the following week that my insurance was going to pull and my internet bill was going to pull from my account and I had $0.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:10:11) - Got a notification from the bank that my balance was zero. And I thought, Oh my God, what the hell am I going to do? And about that time, my mentor who was guiding us through this work said, This week we're going to approach glad giving. And I thought, I've never heard of glad giving. He said, You're going to take $100 and you're going to give it to ten random people, $10 to ten random people. And I thought, Hang on, I don't have $100. Nope, not going to do this. And he said, Is that what your heart is telling you or is that what fear is telling you? And stopping and pausing and thinking. I know the power of giving money away. I've experienced it before. It feels so terrifying right now because I have a freaking zero balance. And I thought, well, I'm going to do the unthinkable. My scientific brain, I just put it on pause and I thought, I'm just going to be open. I kid you not like 2.5 hours later, I go to check the mail and there is a $100 check in the mail.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:11:14) - I'm like, no flipping way. Did I just get 100 bucks? Holy cow. I was like, All right, this is proof positive. Cashed it into $10 bills, and I started giving it out like the guy behind me at the grocery store. I was that this was around the holidays. I gave it to somebody I met at the holiday. I mean, I just was like, I'm going to trust the process. And this was like on a Wednesday. And then that same Wednesday I got the check and I started distributing it. Friday was the holiday party. And then Monday I got a call from an existing client saying, We have a brand new project and the budget on it is about, I think it was between 3 and $4000 and I was like, What? No problem. I got this. I got this. I was open. I trusted the process. I wish the science part of me really my science brain wants to know why that works. But I'll be damned if it doesn't work.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:12:05) - But it took the practice of being vulnerable going, I don't know why this is going to work, but I trust my mentor implicitly, he says. It's going to work and I'll be damned if it didn't work. It worked beautifully.

Kimberly Spencer (00:12:18) - The power of belief.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:12:19) - Yeah. And practicing that over and over again. Of taking the step, knowing that the step feels right, but not knowing where the step is leading.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:12:31) - Yeah.

Kimberly Spencer (00:12:31) - So when? When does it become easier?

Cami Travis-Groves (00:12:35) - Well, when. When does anything become easier as you're practicing it, right? Hmm. The first time you used a spoon, it was really hard. And you end up. You ended up with baby food in your eye and in your ear and all over the floor and whatever. The first time you drove a car, you were terrified. You were scared shitless.

Kimberly Spencer (00:12:55) - Actually, that was my mom who was scared shitless screaming in the background with red under a pillow. That I was that bold, empowered Enneagram eight teenager.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:13:08) - There we go.

Kimberly Spencer (00:13:10) - I completely agree that sometimes there's that that comes from that practice and from that curiosity as well. And I think, you know, having two children and being able to witness that curious growth rather than are like. Older, perceived, wiser, sort of plagiarized programming of like, No, I know how this goes. No. Watch a baby learn and you will learn so much. No, because they learn through curiosity, through practice, through failure. But they don't identify with the failure. They don't make that failure. Those mistakes are part of their identity.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:13:52) - What did I learn from doing that? Okay. That didn't. That didn't have the desired outcome. Let's try something different or let's try it again and see if the outcome is the same. I mean, it's it's adopting that childlike mindset. I know in Buddhism that that's the goal is not to be childish, but childlike, and that incorporates being vulnerable and being curious and being grateful. Somebody hands you a sucker and you're like, Oh, that made my day a celebrating the small things as well as putting that enthusiasm and that love towards the future is what would I like to create? How might I create a future that gets me that excited?

Kimberly Spencer (00:14:30) - I think that curiosity also puts people in the space of the requirement almost of needing to be vulnerable to not knowing the answer.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:14:42) - Yeah, that's as in Graham et myself. Vulnerability is the thing that is still hard. It's still hard. And I cringe and I go home that I'm cringing because that's vulnerability, I feel. And that means that's my path of growth. For me specifically, that is my path to growth. So I recognize that. I'm conscious of it and I lean into it and it's uncomfortable.

Kimberly Spencer (00:15:08) - And it's uncomfortable as hell. It really is.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:15:14) - Say that it gets easier. It has gotten easier to recognize. But has it actually gotten easier to lean into it? No, I just do it anyway. My husband and I were moving into a third-floor apartment and we were exhausted. We've been driving for like five hours and we're there's no elevator and we're carrying boxes up and I'm looking up at the stairs going, Oh my God, how am I going to? He says, Honey, don't think about it. Just do it. I'm like, What? Don't think about it. Just put the body on autopilot.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:15:40) - Don't think about it. Just do it. Okay. So when vulnerability comes up I feel that cringe. Oh, okay. Don't think about it. Just do it.

Kimberly Spencer (00:15:48) - I mean, Nike, speaking of like design, Nike coin, that saying, and yet it's so apropos. I remember running my first marathon back in 2011 and I was so inspired by the t-shirts on the backs of all the other runners because there were slogans that just kept pushing me through like, Just do it. Just do it. That was one of them. And then, you know, pain is temporary. Pride is forever. That was another one. But just recognizing that when you get into the discipline and the practice of doing the dang thing, yeah, it's going to be done. But sometimes you have it. You have to stop the brain from doing the thinking thing.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:16:34) - Yeah, well.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:16:34) - The brain conserves energy. It's going to do the thing you've always done. It will default to the thing you have been doing.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:16:41) - And if the thing you have been doing isn't the thing that you want. Then it's going to take more energy to change it than to do the thing you've always been doing. That's that's physics, You know, that is your neuro physics in action. I was talking to Dr. JJ Kennedy, who is a behavioral neurophysicist in South Africa, and I was asking him if the thought comes first to change the neuro physics of the brain and then that that directs the behavior, or if you do a behavior thing first, which changes the brain, which changes the thought. And he said yes.

Kimberly Spencer (00:17:15) - Chicken or the egg?

Cami Travis-Groves (00:17:16) - Yes, exactly. Our brain’s neuroplasticity is such that if we're doing something, then we're changing our neurophysics. Our brain itself is being wired differently. If we think different things, it's the same thing. And why not approach both? So if there's something that you want to change in your life, then you plant the thought and you start the behavior and they're both going to support the change you wish to see, the change you wish to be, the thing you wish to manifest, to use some new language there.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:17:50) - It's. It's all based on science, like the recipe for magic, but it's all based on science.

Kimberly Spencer (00:17:56) - Yeah. And I love the fact that you back you like to back the magic with science as well.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:18:02) - Because of both.

Kimberly Spencer (00:18:03) - Yeah, because. Same here. And it's it's sometimes it takes a while for science to catch up with ancient spiritual principles.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:18:12) - But they used to call it all magic. Understand it. We may not have the language for it, but it's all the same stuff. Yeah.

Kimberly Spencer (00:18:21) - So how does vulnerability play into manifestation?

Cami Travis-Groves (00:18:26) - Um. Well, first of all, human connection can only happen when you're vulnerable. You can't show up in a room and think, I know everything there is to know. I am the best person in the room. There is nothing that is out of place and expect to connect with any other human beings in the room. But if you show up and think, What do I have to learn from these people? Let's see. I know my hair isn't just so you know, I'm not wearing any makeup.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:18:53) - These people look like they might make more money than me or whatever. You're showing up and just being you, being vulnerable and saying, hi, you know, what are you here for? And I'm hoping to meet blah, blah, blah, or I'm hoping to accomplish. And it's putting down the wall. And allowing yourself to be vulnerable through that vulnerability, you can access your own courage. Because if you have nothing at stake, there's no reason for you to be brave. Courage can only be accessed through vulnerability, even if it's only being vulnerable to ourselves, admitting ourselves as to ourselves that we aren't perfect. We aren't. We don't have all the answers. We're not there yet. So all of those things together then play a role in your success, in your growth in in how you move in the world. Yeah.

Kimberly Spencer (00:19:45) - I think the piece is like with vulnerability. Courage is intimately tied. And you said something very apparent and very prevalent that I know my audience would definitely resonate with.

Kimberly Spencer (00:19:59) - Is that courage to not know the answer? Yeah. And I know that so often we love to know the answer, but the belief that we know the answer to what is to come is an illusion or a repetition of what's happened in the past. And if we don't like what's happened in the past, Yeah, Then you don't know the answer. You don't want to know the answer.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:20:25) - Yeah. And so often I don't know how many times that I showed up thinking, Well, I know what's going on. You know, Oh, I don't need these people. I know. I know what's going on. It showed up as an eight hole and I gained nothing. Nothing from the experience, nothing from the people around me. And they gain nothing from me. A completely walled up. And it never serves us as human beings to be so arrogant and closed up. Like being vulnerable is being open. I'm like, open up the barn doors. Let it all out. Let your freak flag fly.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:20:59) - We are all freaks. We are all afraid. We are all struggling in our own ways. They're all like, everyone is in this storm, but we're all in our own boats. And some people's boats are leaking. Some people's boats have yachts. They may not have engines, but they have yachts and some people have sails, and sailboats and their sails need mending. And everyone is in their own story and everyone is struggling in their own way. But we're all in this shit storm together and nobody gets out alive. Why not be vulnerable? Why not reach out and help somebody? My friend Terry Trish show, she expounds on this in her book called Unfollow Your Passion. Fabulous read. I thoroughly recommend that expanding our comfort zone is the goal and not getting out of our comfort zone. Because the research shows that when you are completely uncomfortable that you are in fight or flight, you are completely shut off from your prefrontal cortex. You're shut off from the smartest part of your brain, you're in survival mode and you gain nothing.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:22:01) - But if you stretch it and you push the edges of your comfort zone just a little and I give you an example as if you the very first time you decided to drive a car, what if you were ten years old and somebody just handed you the keys and said, Here to go drive, you'd be terrified. But if someone said, okay, I know you're only ten years old, but here's how it works. Here's the steering wheel, here's the blinkers, here's the gas, here's the brake, here's the gears. And and gently coaxed you into it. By age 11, you'd be a proficient driver. The same thing goes with your comfort zone. You don't want to just abandon it completely. And, you know, I'm just going to jump out of a plane with no training. I'm going to learn about this. I'm going to practice it first. I'm going to stretch my comfort zone until it includes this thing that I want to do or this thing that I want to accomplish, and you'll get much better results.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:22:54) - The idea that we have to know what we're doing is, of course, false as we're trying new things. And the idea that we have to get it right the first time is so unhelpful an idea that it has to be perfect or whatever.

Kimberly Spencer (00:23:08) - Where do you think that's learned?

Cami Travis-Groves (00:23:10) - Oh, that's our environment, that's our entire society. And it's how.

Kimberly Spencer (00:23:15) - Do we unlearn?

Cami Travis-Groves (00:23:16) - That? Well, it's exacerbated by social media. We think, oh, we're comparing somebody else's end to our middle.

Kimberly Spencer (00:23:23) - Exactly. I love that. I always when I first started my business and I was comparing myself with like seeing how farther along people were who started the same time as me. I had first had to remind myself that they didn't have children and I had a baby, an infant. But then looking at I always encourage my clients to do what I did and scroll back like, if you're really stuck in the comparison and looking at somebody's graphics where they are now in their multi-million dollar business and thinking, Oh, I need to have that level of like scroll back to when they didn't have a graphic designer and they didn't have a copywriter and look at the quality of the work that they were putting out.

Kimberly Spencer (00:24:03) - And I guarantee you it was probably something around what you're doing. Yeah, Yeah. And the.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:24:07) - The only person you're allowed to compare yourself to is.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:24:10) - You.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:24:11) - The previous versions of you. And I'd love to do this thought experiment with my people in general is, you know, we're, we're on this mountain, we're climbing up. And some days, you know, the thing that you want at the top of that peak is shrouded in clouds and we'll never get there. And there's cliffs and my God, is that growling? Is that some mountain lion? Oh, my God. Or is that a bear? And we forget to turn around and look behind us. And we forget that when you turn around and you look at everything that you have not only accomplished everything that you've survived, everything you've overcome. And there are times when you stopped and rested in the valleys behind you and you refocused and there was a time you were way the hell back there and you were only dreaming about being where you are now.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:25:01) - But when you got to where you are now, did you stop and celebrate? Or did you just think, I got to do this and I got to do this and I got to. I got to keep going. I got to keep. For fuck's sake, stop and rest every once in a while and look behind you and celebrate that shit. Celebrate how far you've come. Celebrate every major milestone that you reached for and got and celebrate the person you used to be and that you have become now. And by just that perspective, as you turn around and face the mountain again, you're going to know that you're not going to get there in one big leap, that it's going to be a wandering path, just like it was to get to where you are now that you're going to have obstacles. But there are valleys for you to stop and rest and refocus. And all of that is taken at a pace that you get to decide. It's not anything that anyone else can dictate. So when you stop, stop comparing other people climbing up their own mountains and only compare yourself to where you used to be and who you used to be, then you get a better sense of who you are, where you are, and how you are in the world.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:26:09) - You can embrace your vulnerability. You can understand that you're not the person you used to be and you're not the person you're going to become. But you're here now. And the more time you spend in the present and the less time you spend dwelling on the mistakes you made in the past and all the things you haven't done in the future, the clearer your path becomes, the more joy you'll have in the world, the more joyful you'll be in the world. And studies show that happier people, joyful people, are more successful over the course of their careers. They make more money over the course of their careers. They're healthier and they live up to ten years longer. So why not just choose to be happier? Right? It's a mindset and it's and it's a little shift. It's day-to-day. It's moment to moment. It's not, you know, earth-shattering. It's stretching that comfort zone a little bit. How might I be happier today? How might I be happier in this moment? What thoughts are I experiencing right now that aren't serving me, that I can shift and spend just a little bit? That lets me operate from a base of love a growth mindset or an abundance mindset.

Kimberly Spencer (00:27:21) - So powerful because I think that the biggest thing is it's our power to choose and to just choose joy. And that's something that I have consciously now, unconsciously do is when I'm in a moment of like, oh, okay, I'm doing this thing or I'm going to work a little later, I'm going to wake up a little earlier and do this thing, and I'm like, I'm choosing to do this with joy. I'm choosing to do this with joy because I can choose to do this and be miserable and like dread it and hate it, or I'm going to choose to do this with joy.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:27:59) - And it will always serve you.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:28:00) - Yeah.

Kimberly Spencer (00:28:01) - And I think that that's something that for me, I've really been realizing as I've been on this 75 hard journey of doing twice a day workout and seeing as I'm like, okay, I'm on my second workout of the day, I'm choosing to destroy. My legs are slightly dying. Um, but just, just recognizing that, that, that joy is a choice and it's in our power of accepting like, the circumstances, but also accepting that we also have the power to choose how we respond to that.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:28:33) - Oh, absolutely.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:28:34) - That's the only thing in our power is how we respond to life, to whatever. We can't we can't control how anybody else thinks or what anybody else does. We can control how we operate in the world and how we respond to any given stimuli. As a matter of fact, there's I finally found the measurement after years of looking, there is one-fifth of a second between something happening to us and us responding. And it doesn't sound like much, but our brain operates almost at the speed of light. So one-fifth of a second point two seconds, plenty of time. And I'll give you a good example. I was in a car accident when I was 19. And I was at a four-way stop and I was looking to my right and the car, he was looking down, doing something, I don't know, car problems, looking at a map, who knows? And he signaled me on and I was like, Oh, finally. And I zoomed into the intersection, not looking to my left.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:29:28) - And there was an older woman in a very old, very big metal car. And I was in a little tiny Honda Accord and we crashed. And in that split second, after my head hit the door frame on the left and I bounced off my mom in the passenger seat on the right, I thought, God damn it, I only had one car payment left. And I decided at that moment to be mad, I decided to be angry. And this woman was hanging on to her independence by the skin of her teeth. She got out and she was in a walker and she could not lift her feet up. She was shuffling her feet. I almost cost this woman her independence because I got so angry and the police came and I was I was ugly at the time. I was, you know, yelling at the women, turn your damn car off a lot. I was knocking on people's doors trying because that was before cell phones. Trying to get somebody to call the police.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:30:26) - And I was so mad that I would knock and I would wait two seconds and go to the next house. I couldn't wait for them to answer. When the police finally got there, this policewoman said, you know, if anybody would be given a ticket, it's you, because she was further out in the intersection than you were. And I was like, Oh, shit. I chose to be angry, and I feel like life handed me a lesson right then. And it took me years after that before I recognized, Oh, that's what happened. Your mood does not determine your reaction. Your reaction determines your mood. And in that split second, my mood, I decided, would be pissed off. So we all have that opportunity to choose how we're going to respond to any given stimuli. How are you going to choose? And if you if you're working on inner work ahead of time. And you know, you want to be a less angry, less uptight person. Choose ahead of time.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:31:21) - I am a calmer person so that when that comes up, your brain is used to thinking that you've practiced that line of thinking already and maybe that'll be your new default is I'm not going to let this get the best of me this time. I'm going to choose to respond a little differently because that's the only thing in my control is how I respond.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:31:43) - Yeah.

Kimberly Spencer (00:31:43) - And so how do we do the dance? Because a feeling is a biological response that scientifically lasts for the 90s. And so we have that feeling and it wells up and it's that surge of 90s. The choice is to either hold on or release it let it go process it or hold on and then have that feeling turn into a mood and a state. So where do we do the dance between the choice and the biological response?

Cami Travis-Groves (00:32:19) - Well, it's noticing as like, say you're in a car accident. It's, you know, you're noticing. Wow. You know, I just hit my head up against the door frame.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:32:29) - That hurt. And there's a 17-year-old girl driving and, you know, she just T-boned me, which happened a block from my house. You can't change what you don't notice. Right? And so are you already in the practice of noticing your thoughts? Do you spend time daily? Gazing inward, looking at observing and not absorbing your thoughts. And the more you can do this, the better you get at it. The more you can be the designer of your life instead of the passenger who's along for the ride. And this meat puppet you inhabit.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:33:04) - I've never heard it called a meat puppet.

Kimberly Spencer (00:33:07) - I've heard meat sack. But Meat Puppet I think is just epic. I like to think of our bodies as, like, a really nice rental unit.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:33:15) - It is?

Kimberly Spencer (00:33:16) - Yeah.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:33:16) - And how do you choose to take care of your rental unit?

Cami Travis-Groves (00:33:21) - Yeah, like a nice Airbnb.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:33:23) - Yeah. And you ultimately are in control of your thoughts. And your thoughts drive the emotions. The emotions drive the behavior.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:33:32) - The behavior creates your reality. Right. So if you can back that up to the you that is observing the thoughts, the you that is creating the behavior. Who is that that you are? Who is it that you want to become when you think about that mountaintop that you're trying to climb to? Who is going to be standing up there? What if you spent 3 to 5 minutes a day occupying the emotions of that future self, occupying the emotions of that? Successful, fulfilled, satisfied person. Studies show that if you can do that 3 to 5 minutes a day, you get there faster. You recognize the emotional breadcrumb trail that leads you down the path that gets you up that mountain. But if you think I'm going to become a doctor, come hell or high, I'm going to become a doctor. Well, what if that's down? Down a different path? Completely. And you've been. Aiming this, you know, aiming up at the mountain, but then down this path and you're divided attentions and you're probably not going to get anywhere if you know how you're going to feel.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:34:44) - How you want to feel as a doctor or as a business owner or as an entrepreneur or whatever. How is it that you want to feel when you've, quote-unquote, made it? Can you imagine? And you can because we're all human. We have vivid imaginations. Can you imagine what it feels like to be that person? What needs to change between who you are now and that person? Is it more positive thinking? Is it more generous thinking, or more vulnerable thinking? More vulnerable behavior? Who is it that you need to become and what's in the way? As you start to observe these thoughts and behavioral patterns, then you can start changing them. But you cannot change what you cannot see. So serving and not absorbing.

Kimberly Spencer (00:35:31) - I love that. And also looking at that path of detaching from the form and reawakening the feeling. And I just recently had a very personal example because last year I subscribed and I love James Wedmore and I joined his course on like all launches. And I was like, That's what I want to do.

Kimberly Spencer (00:35:55) - I want to do some, you know, big ass launches. I just realized that launching is not at this point in my journey, nor has it ever really been a part of my success strategy in that form of the launching, the presupposed scarcity and so from that failed launch of being able to see that a program that I was so excited about had great responses from our initial founding students, but that I tried launching multiple times and I'm like, it's not like, what was that? And then I really it allowed me to detach of like, well, what is it really that I want from the business? And that's what ended up becoming both the agency that we've now developed for guest podcasting and the platform that I shared with you about that we're building and that startup, because that was me detaching from the fact that I had this perception of like, this is how I'm going to be the business owner that I am. And I'm like, actually. And actually, the beautiful part about that is that I realized thanks to Mercury in Retrograde, which always gives us some beautiful retrospectives, that as a child, I always used to think that my job was transforming people's stories and that is that kind of that's what I love to do as a coach.

Kimberly Spencer (00:37:20) - That's what I've done in all of my businesses and really sharing and presenting those stories. But I forgot the peace of sharing and presenting and leading a team that I'm like really skilled at doing that I've done since childhood that I never gave myself credit for. I always thought, Oh, I'm the the creator of these stories, rather than like I'm also the director and the producer and realizing how to translate that skill set into launching an agency in a way that actually feels like a launch that aligns with me rather than being saying, This is how I'm going to be launching with this formula and detaching from that outcome and allowing for that curiosity of who is that person at your core, who you've always been before, before the plagiarized programming and of of others and of who people have. Wanted you to.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:38:16) - Be. Yeah.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:38:17) - You recognized that you weren't the hero. You were the guide. You are the Yoda to all the Luke Skywalkers in the world as coaches especially. That is our role is to help people, businesses, and business owners become the heroes of their own stories.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:38:34) - We are holding up the mirror, helping them see what we see so that then they can understand what it is we see and maybe envision a different, better, more authentic future for themselves.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:38:48) - Hmm.

Kimberly Spencer (00:38:48) - And I use that like I love the metaphor of being the Yoda, because with. When you share your story on podcasts or anything, it's being that guide. If you're in the audience sees you as Luke Skywalker, yeah, they may be cheering for you, but they aren't going to be buying from you because.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:39:08) - They don't need it.

Kimberly Spencer (00:39:09) - You're where they're at.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:39:11) - Yeah, they don't need you. It's our job to show that, this is the destination of the path you're currently on, and it sounds like you don't want to go there. This is the consequence of staying on that path. But here's a new path, and here are some tools that you can use on this new path. And it sounds like this is the future that you want to envision. Here are some things to watch for.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:39:34) - Here are some tools to help you get there. Who is it that you need to become to end up there? Yeah, that's part of what I love about coaching I'm not the hero, nor do I have to have all the answers. All I have to do is polish my mirror and hold it up so that people can see what I see.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:39:49) - Mirror, Mirror. Um. Love that book.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:39:53) - That was a great book.

Kimberly Spencer (00:39:56) - So looking at holding up that mirror, what is a strategy or a system that you've used of reflection that really has helped and served your clients to see themselves through that process?

Cami Travis-Groves (00:40:12) - Um, well, that mountaintop exercise that I just talked about is very powerful. I would say about half the time people end up in tears as they're looking back behind them. And tears for me mean a core truth has been touched and the healing has begun. But then also understanding that I don't have the answers that they do, that, you know, you as the as the journey are the one who's on the journey.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:40:37) - You have the answers, you have the destination you have in mind, or at least deep buried in your heart or your soul, whatever who it is that you want to become. It's not my job to tell you who you want to become or who you need to become or to should you or should anything. But to ask questions and help you find out who it is that you want to become. Help you see the things that I see that other people see? And help you get there.

Kimberly Spencer (00:41:12) - I know you and I are both Enneagram eight. Woo hoo!

Cami Travis-Groves (00:41:16) - Woo hoo!

Kimberly Spencer (00:41:18) - And it's known as you taught me the phrase of the eight whole, which I certainly have been from time to time in my life. And owning that. And that vulnerability is that asset of the eights instead of going for the achievement, which is very ego-based. So looking at that for the other Enneagram eights out there, what is the best way that you have navigated your journey to accepting and embracing that challenger in you?

Cami Travis-Groves (00:41:56) - Um.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:41:56) - But you know, I have a funny story. I was at a conference design conference and they were going through the results of the predictive index that they had everybody take ahead of time. And it's a test that the US government uses to place people. How they are motivated. And there are A's, B's, C's and D's. So A's high. If you score high in a that means you're self-motivated, low means you need to be micromanaged. Bees are motivated by positive feedback, like, Give me the carrot, give me the reward Commission sales who are motivated by positive feedback. They work great. Or actors or comedians that applaud they thrive for it see our process-oriented like tell me step one, step two, step three. If you're high and C and then hides are what's been done in the past. What's the dress code? What's the what's the expectations? What, what's the box I need to be in? And John Randolph, the guy who was running the course, went through all these different scenarios except mine.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:43:01) - And so I finally raised my hand and I said, Mr. Unleaded, that my results aren't anything like what you've talked about so far. He said, What are yours? I said, highest, a 99 for self-motivated, middle of the road for positive feedback, middle of the road for process-oriented, and -88 for how much I cared about other people's rules. And he said, Oh, you're what we call a pain in the ass to manage.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:43:29) - I said, Oh, I beg your pardon.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:43:31) - I am not.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:43:32) - I'm nice. I mean, this a room full.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:43:35) - Of 200 people they're all laughing at me. I was mortified. And he said, Think about it. How would you motivate you? You're only motivated by what goes on in your head and you don't care about other people's rules. How would you manage you? I was like, Yeah, but but. And he said, Let me guess. You've had a string of really bad managers, haven't you? And I went, Well, yes.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:43:59) - As a matter of fact. Oh, shit.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:44:03) - It's me, isn't it? He said, How would you manage you? He said, Your gifts are your challenges and your self motivated. That means you will forge a new path. You will find a better way to do things. Not because you know you want things done your way necessarily, but because you know there's got to be a better way. You're a natural problem solver. You're a natural challenger. It's like, oh my God. And once I understood that about myself and this was before I knew anything about any grams. I could explain it to somebody. Don't tell me how to get there. Tell me what the goals of the company my department or this project are. Tell me what the goal of that is and I will find us all a better way to get there. If the goal is to increase membership. Okay, then. Then let's find a new way of doing that, not do the old same thing we've been doing all along because that makes me crazy.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:44:58) - And as an eight, recognizing that disruption and challenging is my gift. It's when I didn't know how to value it. It was my curse. There's a great book by Sally Hogshead called Her first book was called Fascinate. I think the second one was How the World Sees You. It's how how you are helps you explain your value display your value and demonstrate your value to the world. So that whole idea of. Yeah, I'm going to challenge things. And it's not because I'm a diva and not because I want things done my way. Although I do like things done my way, it's because there's got to be a better way. There has to be a better way. We're the disruptors of the.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:45:48) - Group.

Kimberly Spencer (00:45:49) - And I have worked with a lot of disruptors. So as a coach, sometimes you get those reflections. Looking at one of the most common questions that I've had for many of my clients is that the people around them in their workspace, their partners, their employees are like, I don't know what it is.

Kimberly Spencer (00:46:12) - They don't understand the visionary role of the organization. And the difference between that visionary role, that disrupter, that challenger, that relationship builder versus the worker be the doer, the implementer, the integrator, the operations, you know, get in and get it done versus that visionary. And the world, quite frankly, isn't really trained to see that.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:46:39) - Especially in.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:46:40) - Women, especially.

Kimberly Spencer (00:46:41) - In women, and especially because of the system and society and environment that is trained, has trained most of society to be the worker bees, the doers. And so when we see that disruptor, the visionary, the person with the ideas who doesn't look like they're doing much, it can be quite disrupting.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:47:04) - Yes.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:47:06) - And that's okay. In the triangle of behavior, the victim, the hero, and the perpetrator, also known as the asshole, the corner that the perpetrator sits in or the challenger sits in, is the only corner with an exit door. And so as the challenger, you need to be okay with people thinking you're the asshole, even if you're not.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:47:27) - If your goals have been shared, if your vision has been shared. If you can adequately paint the picture of the after and get everyone's buy-in, you'll find that it's much easier to be the disrupter of the challenger. What does that afterpicture look like? And everyone. And in that same in that same workshop where Mr. Reynolds said that I was a pain in the ass to manage. We did an experiment. We put all the high A's together, all the high B's together, all the high seas, and all the hides in their own groups. And he said, All right, your job is to plan a party. And the A's were like, Oh, it's going to be great and people are going to be so comfortable. And the B's were, We're going to have music and we're going to have, you know, all these little things. And then the C's were, well, first we're going to get a guest list together, and then we're going to we're going to plan out the theme.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:48:21) - And then and all these, you know, process things. And the D's were.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:48:26) - What.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:48:26) - There have been some successful parties in the past and blah, blah, blah. And he said, Did you notice that what you all defaulted to? He said the best teams have an A, a B, a C, and a D, all working together. Someone's got the big idea. Someone loves working with the details. Somebody knows what kind of ambiance to make you feel. And somebody will do the historical research and together you will have one hell of a party. So as a challenger, who can you enlist to be the one who who handles the details? Who can you enlist, to track the progress, to create the roadmap of what's next and then what's next and then what's next? And realizing that you are best utilized on a team of people with divergent skills. Rather than everybody doing the same thing, everybody being the worker bee.

Kimberly Spencer (00:49:16) - When you get a. Having that diversity.

Kimberly Spencer (00:49:20) - I mean, because a lot of times we think of diversity as just gender or racial diversity, but really it's diversity of thought. Yeah, I had one client whom we looked at his team with a different personality test using the bank personality system of values based on how you get people's values-based buy-in. And he was wondering like, why do I need to have these long, drawn-out conversations with each one of my employees? They desire these like really in-depth like they want to feel significant. And I looked at all their coats. I'm like, Dude, you hired all nurturers. Like, there's no diversity of the person who's just going to like, take what you want, implement, and put it into a process. And like, they don't need a conversation. They just, they just need the rules. Like, but if you hire, it's that diversity, of culture that actually makes a very rich, wonderful party work environment, culture and.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:50:20) - Yeah.

Kimberly Spencer (00:50:20) - Honoring the diversity of perspective as well.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:50:26) - And.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:50:26) - Allowing holding space for those people, holding space for those who think differently than you do. A friend of mine, Stefan, has written the books Caffeine for the Creative Mind, Caffeine for the Creative Team, Creative Bootcamp, all these creativity boosting books. And he says, you know, it's. If you're going to brainstorm, first of all, there's no editing. And it has to be. Yes. And. Like invite, invite the receptionist, invite the lady from the mail room, invite the guy from it, invite everyone, because those people are going to have the most novel and different ideas than anybody else. They're not going to know what's been done before. Here are the parameters and what can be done. And then the more constraints you have on that, the more creative you have to be. He's got this great exercise where he says, All right, team up with three people and create a baby carriage. He's like the best baby carriage known to mankind and goes And people are like, Well, and he's like, All right.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:51:34) - Constraint number one, about a minute in constraint number one, it can't have wheels. And then like another 2 or 3 minutes constraint Number two, it has to hold a full-size adult constraint. Number three. And he goes on and he just and because of those constraints, people are forced to get more and more creative. But the more diverse and divergent your team's thinking is, the more creative ideas you can come up with. I mean, you've never heard of baby carriages like this before. It's just amazing. Or baby strollers. Just amazing. And he said, That's that's how you do it. You put a time limit on it, you put constraints on it, and you get a divergent team together and you've got a recipe for amazing things.

Kimberly Spencer (00:52:16) - Cammy, you are just the queen of creativity. And I love how your mind works and how all of these pieces that you've brought together to this podcast. And so I would love to dive into a little bit of rapid fire.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:52:34) - Sure.

Kimberly Spencer (00:52:35) - So let's go. Who is your favorite female character in a book or a movie and why?

Cami Travis-Groves (00:52:42) - Hermione Granger. She's a badass but doesn't require the spotlight, and she's in it to support her friends.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:52:50) - Uh.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:52:52) - She's based in love. Yeah.

Kimberly Spencer (00:52:54) - What woman is alive or alive in her timeline? Not necessarily presently alive. Would you want to switch places with her to be in her body and see how she thought? Just for one day?

Cami Travis-Groves (00:53:05) - Wow.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:53:07) - When given those thought experiments of who would want to be in the past, I always thought I didn't want to be any woman in the past because there were so many limitations of that experience of being female in the past. Margaret Thatcher. She was a woman in power who was respected, who had her head on straight, and who influenced influence a lot of things.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:53:33) - Awesome. What answers?

Kimberly Spencer (00:53:38) - There are so many answers. Like I've had Joan of Arc. I'm like, Oh, to be in her head. That's a lot of voices happening.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:53:50) - No. Or to find out that she was either completely mad or completely sane would be heartbreaking.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:53:57) - Mm. Yeah.

Kimberly Spencer (00:53:57) - And I would I would definitely choose the day as well. Like not being on the day of execution, maybe being on the day of, like, leading into battle. But yeah. So if you were to look at the success that you've had, what would you do differently if you were to have your success at twice the speed?

Cami Travis-Groves (00:54:21) - I would have hired a coach in my 20s instead of my 40s. Oh my God. That would have saved me so much time so much heartache and so much banging my head against the wall. Oh, my God. Yeah. Hiring a coach was the most brilliant thing I have ever done. I hired two different coaches, a business coach, and a life coach. I tell you what, they got me the hell out of my own way. And it took it until my 40s. And had I started in my 20s? Oh, I would have I would have saved myself decades and thousands and thousands of dollars and tears.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:55:00) - Yeah, yeah.

Kimberly Spencer (00:55:02) - Yeah. Same here. What is your morning routine?

Cami Travis-Groves (00:55:08) - Oh, my morning routine. I usually wake up usually about 7:15, naturally, without an alarm clock because I hate alarm clocks. I pee of course. And I then go downstairs and I have two scrambled eggs, two pieces of toast, and either a glass of iced tea or a cup of chai. And I greeted the morning when I was in the fifth grade, my mother had a desk mat for me and on it it said, Greet the morning, love the day, and do much. That is beautiful. Rebecca Thomas Shaw. And I still remember because every time I sat down to do anything at my desk, I would read that and go, Yeah. Yeah. So I greet the morning. In that time between awake and asleep when your brain is in theta. I set my intention for the day, which is it's something that goes along the lines of everything that is always working out for me. Recently it's been Everything I need is racing towards me as I need it.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:56:10) - And that's my intention. That's my mantra for the day. And then I get up and start my day.

Kimberly Spencer (00:56:18) - What's your evening routine? To set you up for an epic morning.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:56:23) - Oh, my evening routine is I kiss my husband, I open a book, he drifts off to sleep, and I read. That's my signal to my body. That's bedtime. And I like right now I'm reading Atlas of the Heart. Ebony Brown. And I'm also reading a fiction book, but it's not very good, so I won't even mention the title.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:56:45) - But it puts me to sleep.

Cami Travis-Groves (00:56:46) - So it does its job.

Kimberly Spencer (00:56:51) - What would you define to be your kingdom?

Cami Travis-Groves (00:56:56) - My kingdom, my five-foot radius that I am the center of. That's my kingdom.

Kimberly Spencer (00:57:03) - And how do you crown yourself?

Cami Travis-Groves (00:57:06) - With self-love every day? Biggest, most beautiful, intricate, delicate. Strong. Big ass crown and it fits over my entire body. It radiates light.

Kimberly Spencer (00:57:21) - Can we? Where do we find you? How do we work with you? How do we get more of all that is you and all the Yoda wisdom that you have to share and guide?

Cami Travis-Groves (00:57:34) - Well, the easiest place is my website, and it's so easy to remember. It's my name. Cami. Cami. Coach. Super simple. And on there, you'll see you'll find information about my foundations of inner work. 12-week course. You'll find information on my podcast, Deep Dive Coaching for creatives, and any upcoming events that I have. I've got some free downloads there specifically for freelancers. I have a recommended reading list, I have a blog. There are all kinds of things there so my website can coach.

Kimberly Spencer (00:58:10) - Awesome. Cami, it has been a pleasure chatting with you again and just being able to see you week after week for these past few weeks as we've met and podcast swamped and all the things. But that's like I just want to end on a note that this is the power of building relationships in your business and to the expansion that is possible. And Cami is a true testimony to what she preaches and is a living, breathing example and a fabulous power connector of just the revolutionary act of connecting one human to another.

Kimberly Spencer (00:58:49) - And she does that epically well. And so I encourage you to learn from this episode. Go to her website, and listen to her podcast. I was just recently a guest on it, and she has some epic episodes that will be of supreme benefit to your transformation and to your creativity. So as always, my fellow sovereigns own your throne, Mind your business because your reign is now. Thank you so much for tuning in today. If what you heard resonated with you. Be sure to subscribe and start creating a bigger impact now by sharing this with a friend. Just by doing that one simple act of kindness, you are creating a royal ripple to support more people in their sovereignty. And if you're not already following me on social media, connect with me everywhere at Crown yourself now for more inspiration. I am so excited to connect with you in the next episode and in the meantime, go out there and create a body, business, and life that rules because today you crown yourself.