[Feature Friday] Cindy Van Arnam on Mastering TheBrainGAME to Change your Life: The ROI Online Podcast Ep. 70

Cindy Van Arnam: 0:04

It's good work. And it's not the kind of work that means you're sitting in front of your computer for 15 hours a day, seven days a week, busting your butt trying to make ends meet. It's the spending time visualizing what you want to create for your life. It's spending time dreaming and imagining it to be true. It's spending time out in nature, just living life, we're human beings, not human doings. But we've been trained by society that we need to hustle and grind to do do do do do. And then one day, you'll just magically make it. That's not true. It's not going to happen. The only way it's going to happen is if you step back, think about, Okay, who am I? And how do I want to show up in the world? What do I really want?

Steve Brown: 0:52

Hi, everybody, welcome to the ROI Online Podcast where we believe you, the courageous entrepreneurs of our day, are the invisible heroes of our economy. You not only improve our world with your ideas, your grit and your passion, but you make our world better. I'm Steve Brown. And this is a place where we have great conversations with winners just like you while we laugh and learn together. Cindy van Arnam, welcome to the ROI Online Podcast.

Cindy Van Arnam: 1:27

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be on the show.

Steve Brown: 1:31

I'm excited to have you. So the folks that are listening, obviously in the very first opening of a podcast, they decide whether they want to listen to this or not. Right? And like what in the world does Cindy have to share with us? Well, let me let me just ask you. She has this beautiful journey. But I think something that will all relate to the folks that listen to this, that she'd created this belief that life had to be hard. And through her journey, she finally understood that she was this big mountain that she had put in the way and was having to climb, and it was hard. And she realized that you were the obstacle. What in the world Cindy? Why would you dare admit that when everyone else like we're totally comfortable blaming everybody else, and everything else? What happened?

Cindy Van Arnam: 2:34

Well, when I was a little kid, I climbed a mountain with my dad, which is the reference of the mountain, that's where that comes from. I think I climb that mountain five or six times when I was a little kid, the first time I was five years old. And my dad worked hard. He was a farmer. He was an engineer. He was constantly working. And he was one of the healthiest people I'd ever met, like what we thought physically and mentally and all of those pieces, but he worked so hard. He died of a heart attack when I was 16. And so I created this belief that life had to be hard. That was just how it was you had to hustle and grind. growing up on a farm, you get that work ethic where you just go, go go, you're up at five in the morning, and you don't crash until 10 at night. And that's just how it was and working on a farm seven days a week, you never stop, there's never a day off, the chickens always need to be fed. And so I developed this belief from a very young age that that was how life was and hearing stories about, you know, the universe's conspiracy to separate you from your money and money doesn't grow on trees. And so you just had to hustle. That was how it was done. And throughout that I had a series of very poor decisions in my life, I did not take responsibility for any of my choices. I ended up as a cocaine addict, an alcoholic, I was traveling all over the world just trying to figure out who I was, could never hold a job for more than a year because I'd get bored. I'm a bit of a rebel, I don't do well being told what to do. And throughout that I just knew I was an entrepreneur. But what I saw of entrepreneurs was this big shiny lifestyle where all I saw was on social media. And I had gone to some of T Harv Eker events and Brendon Burchard events and it was just this rah rah rah. If you just do these things, you'll be successful, except that when I sat down and started doing those things, it was really hard. And I couldn't figure out why. I was like, why can't I breakthrough? Why can't I just do what he said to do, and all of a sudden have this breakthrough. It's because my mind and my beliefs were standing in my way. And so every time I would try to do something, I'd have this huge mountain in my way that was my own brain. And so in discovering that I cleared out a lot of those beliefs, removed the mountain. And now I just float down the stream.

Steve Brown: 5:11

So you call yourself a certified universal laws coach, facilitator of mastering The Brain Game, a quantum numerologist. And, but wait, there's more, music operations manager. My world so. So in your story, you met this lady named Joy? Tell us about that.

Cindy Van Arnam: 5:41

Oh my gosh, Joy. I still work with Joy to this day. She's one of my best friends. She's a colleague. We're actually business partners now. She's not really a mentor so much anymore. But I met her when I had first started my business. And I had started my business as a virtual assistant. So I was working behind the scenes, building the websites, managing the technology. I was good with technology, but I hated it. But it made money land in PayPal for me. And so I thought that was the ticket. That was the golden pass. And I met her and she taught me numerology. And at the time, I was not into anything spiritual. It's like, what is this crazy lady talking about. But when she shared my numbers with me and my mathematical code, I couldn't help but go, Wait a second. There's something to this. And so I dove down the rabbit hole of numerology. And what I discovered is that it's mathematics. It's not woowoo it's not spiritual, it is straight up math. And that really helped, kind of helped me land into it. And so I started studying it started learning it, it is probably one of the purest forms of personality assessments that I've ever seen. And I've taken a lot trying to discover who I am. From there she taught me, she created the course mastering The Brain Game, and I became so obsessed with it, because it changed my life. It got my mountain out of the way. And it helped me to really understand the science of how our brain operates and how we function and what holds us back. And I became so obsessed with it that I made her, just said let me teach it, I was like, This needs to be known worldwide. I'm obsessed with brain gaming becoming a household verb. And from there I've just taken, if Joy puts something out I take it because it's magical. It's amazing. Everything she does is good. But her work saved my life.

Steve Brown: 7:40

The Brain Game, so I, I'm feeling a little intimidated and maybe insecure. But tell me what's The Brain Game?

Cindy Van Arnam: 7:51

Yeah, so The Brain Game is a 10 week journey, a journey of transformation. So we start off with untangling some of the roots that have been planted from past beliefs from what our parents taught us, from what we learned as we were growing up and throughout life experiences. And we kind of untangle what's really going on in the brain so that we can understand how the brain actually functions. So we spend the first four weeks doing that. And what I found with a lot of, I've taken a lot of personal development courses in my life. And what I find is that they take you through this clearing process, and then they say, Cool, now you're done, off you go. But what happens is the brain falls right back into old patterns, because we're not, the universe abhors a vacuum. It doesn't like empty space. So if you create empty space, it's just going to fill back up with what you're used to. So what we do in The Brain Game is we give you the tools of what's next. How do you create the life that you want the business that you want, the wealth that you want? And so we provide the tools of that and how to take inspired action, the 80-20 rule, there's a lot of other pieces that go into that. But it's an incredible course, I take it every year, I teach it, and I take it every year, because every year there's another deepening another layer of the onion, you can pull back to discover more about who you are, what you want, and how to get it.

Steve Brown: 9:16

Wow. You know, and I think that people do wrestle with a lot of things, you know, and I love the thing you and I met in the marketing world, the marketing layer conversation, and I love marketing that's designed to really honor the way that the brain craves communication. Okay. And so I'm very fascinated and curious about this Brain Game, and how, how we can start maybe communicating to our own brains better.

Cindy Van Arnam: 9:53

Mm hmm. Yeah, I mean, if you've ever heard that voice in your head that says "Oh, could have done that better. That was so stupid. What were you thinking?" That's what the brain does to us. And we can literally brainwash ourselves to believe something different. The brain doesn't know the difference between witnessing an event and actually experiencing it. If you've ever watched a sporting events, you know this to be true, because you're sitting on the couch, and your favorite team is skating down the ice to go score the goal. And you jump off the couch and the adrenaline's pumping, you're like, yeah, and you get so excited, you're not playing, you're just watching. But the brain sends a rush of adrenaline and those hormones into the body, it believes you're actually participating in the game. So what we do in The Brain Game is teach you how to participate in the game you want to play. So if you want to create a beautiful relationship, or a beautiful business, or you want to create wealth for yourself, then you have to participate in the game, by teaching your brain how to think how to talk to yourself, what to visualize what to think about all the time, we get to control our thoughts, we get to choose what we focus on and what we don't, despite popular thinking.

Steve Brown: 11:09

So I love your quote, it says you realized that you were working by 15 hours a day, seven days a week living, PayPal, to PayPal just barely making ends meet. I think a lot of people can relate to that. If not, they're not experiencing it. Now they have done it for sure in the past. So it's just like a silver bullet, we just fix one little thing, and then everything's good?

Cindy Van Arnam: 11:38

Well, it's not a silver bullet, there's no such thing, you still have to do the work. But it's a different kind of work.

Steve Brown: 11:46

Work is a four letter word, but this is good work?

Cindy Van Arnam: 11:51

It's good work. It's good work. And it's not the kind of work that means you're sitting in front of your computer for 15 hours a day, seven days a week, busting your butt trying to make ends meet. It's the spending time visualizing what you want to create for your life. It's spending time dreaming and imagining it to be true. It's spending time out in nature, just living life. We're human beings, not human doings. But we've been trained by society that we need to hustle and grind to do do do do do. And then one day, you'll just magically make it. That's not true. It's not going to happen. The only way it's going to happen is if you step back, think about, Okay, who am I? And how do I want to show up in the world? What do I really want? And focus all of your attention on that.

Steve Brown: 12:45

So our brains are this beautiful machines, but it's really, it's amazing. It's a daydreaming machine.

Cindy Van Arnam: 12:51

Yes, exactly.

Steve Brown: 12:53

And so we do Daydream, whether we like it or not, whether we're driving or not. It is doing its magic is daydreaming. But for me, it seems a little bit. It's hard to kind of control you're daydreaming when often you don't realize you're daydreaming 'till you're way down the road.

Cindy Van Arnam: 13:20

Yeah, this is one of the things I say to my clients all the time, awareness is everything, paying attention to the thoughts you're thinking all the time, because the mind has a lot of power. But it ain't running the show. You get to choose. And there's this part of our ourselves that can observe the mind can observe what's going on in the brain. And it takes practice to get to that point where you go, Okay, what am I thinking right now? What am I feeling right now? But as you develop that awareness muscle, then you start to notice that inner critic that's beating the crap out of you like you would never talk to a five year old child like that but you're talking to yourself like that. And when we bring awareness to that, then we can start interrupting it every time it happens. Oh, I'm thinking that thought again. What else could I think? Oh, I'm thinking that thought again, how can I interrupt this? And there's tools that we provide in The Brain Game to help you shift that. But it is as simple as being aware of what's going on in your mind all the time.

Steve Brown: 14:19

How do you, so give us some tips on how to be more aware or at least to start recognizing that we are daydreaming or beating up on ourselves or being too hard on ourselves.

Cindy Van Arnam: 14:32

Yeah, one of my favorite things to do is called, Brendon Burchard introduced this to me a long time ago in regards to productivity, but I kind of twisted it a little bit for my own purposes. But it's called transition recovery. Because oftentimes, we go from our day to day tasks, just one after the other after the other check, check, check, check it off the list right and we're not pausing in between to move from one task to the next consciously with awareness. So if we have a particular task that needs to be done, we come at it with like, yeah, I'm really excited to do this. And we get it done and an hour later, if we just took a moment and just take a step back, get up, go get a drink of water, how am I feeling right now and just checking in with yourself, oh, I'm actually feeling really tired, maybe I could go for a walk and just kind of get energized right now. Or, actually, I really need a break, I feel like crap right now. Even just those little things are enough to help shift because if you're doing the thing, and then you just switch to the next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing, at the end of the day, your shoulders are sore, you got a headache, you're kind of grumpy, you're tired. And then you go home to your spouse or significant other and then you take it out on them. And then you just repeat the cycle over and over and over again. But if you're pausing just for a moment, and checking in, how am I feeling? What's going on right now? And giving yourself permission to take the break if you need it, not trying to force things and climb a mountain.

Steve Brown: 16:04

I want to pause here just for a moment and talk to you about a program that we have just released called ROI QuickStart Academy for Authors. Every day, I talk to business owners just like you who struggle with quickly getting their fundamentals in place. We want to create a great foundation and we want to grow our business. But the things that are in our way, our lack of knowledge about the specifics, we should put in place, what kind of technology what kind of messaging and what kind of campaigns and that problem exists for authors as well. And we just chill so good with authors because, well, I'm an author, and I understand everything that you struggle with, you have a great idea you have a great book, but what do you want to do? You want to get your book in front of more people? You want to make it easy for them to find you? Learn how they can schedule a time to talk with you? Hire you for a conference? Or maybe sign up for the services that your book promotes. So what is the QuickStart Academy for Authors? Imagine working with a small group of like minded authors, and the experts from the ROI QuickStart Team, it's a great way to get your messaging clear to be confident with the technology in your marketing automation, and how to run a strategic campaign to get you more of what you want from the investment of your book. To learn more about the QuickStart Academy for authors, you can visit roionline.com or click in the link in the show notes below. And now, back to this episode. You're working with a lot of business owners or folks that are really wanting to take control and drive bots better. What are some of the common themes that you're seeing?

Cindy Van Arnam: 18:01

Now, one of the biggest ones is wealth activation, which is one of my favorite topics these days, it's that I see a lot of entrepreneurs who are just struggling and they can't figure out the money piece. And money isn't actually this thing that sits in your bank account. It's not real. And we have been trained that money is everything. We've been trained to chase the almighty dollar. Our minds hold a lot of beliefs around what money actually is. And so one of the things that I work with clients a lot is understanding the energetics of money and the relationship that we have with money so that we can create it without being attached to it without thinking that money creates safety. Because that's not true. If the banks crash, we don't have any money and we don't have any safety. So that's not the issue here. But money is an energetic tool to help us to create the life of our dreams. So for focused on creating the life of our dreams, first, the money is a side effect.

Steve Brown: 19:00

And yeah, maybe there's a big block in a lot of folks because they haven't given themselves the permission to receive it or to to be good at accumulating it or generating it. What's, what?

Cindy Van Arnam: 19:16

I see a lot of stories I see you know, the money doesn't grow on trees, you got to be evil to be rich, and only the nasty people in the world have money. If the world is here. It's a conspiracy to separate you from your money. You know, we see the separation between rich and poor. And we think that it's evil to be rich and it's you know of service to the world to be poor. God universe source didn't give you your gifts for you to starve. You. We are all abundant. We all have the capacity to create incredible wealth, wealth for ourselves and for the world in service to the world. If you aren't making money, you can't have as big of an impact. I believe every entrepr neur should be wealthy.

Steve Brown: 20:06

So the folks that you work with, give us some insight on what it might be like working with you, right?

Cindy Van Arnam: 20:15

It's a lot of fun. I'm a bit of a rebel and I don't play by the rules. So working with me is a lot of fun. We have a lot of laughs. But usually it depends on the particular situation, what it is that you're looking for, there's a lot of different services that I offer, I am almost always will take somebody through mastering The Brain Game first. It's a bit of a prerequisite for working with me, in order to move into any of the other things that we do so that you know how the brain works. Once you know how the brain works, then everything else just gets so much easier. And so for me to try to teach any kind of business strategy, or you know how to do this is the strategic operations fees where I support partner launches affiliate programs, I do a lot of the spreadsheets and things behind the scenes. But I won't do that for you unless you know how your brain is operating and you know, who you are and what you want. So usually The Brain Game is the first step of coming to work with me. And then we go from there.

Steve Brown: 21:13

So like, is there a book or curriculum? What? You have the secret? You have the secret curriculum?

Cindy Van Arnam: 21:23

Well, I wouldn't say it's a secret curriculum. I'm very intuitive. And I follow what I believe is inspired in that moment. The Brain Game is a mapped out curriculum, there is a 10 week curriculum to that. But beyond that, whatever you want. If you want something, you can have it period. There are no ifs, ands or buts about it. So depending on what you want, then we go from there. And I'll just create something customed for you.

Steve Brown: 21:53

So a quantum numerologist. You know, there's a lot of misconceptions or things about numerology. But I think one of the big epiphany for me was that mathematics is really the one true universal language. That it's, it's deep in every, every domain of the world, right?

Cindy Van Arnam: 22:20

Yep. Yeah, not that I always joke around the numbers never lie, is even if you look at the scientific process of observing nature, and then coming back and reporting what nature is doing, the bias of the human being is still at play. We can't prove that that scientists experience is real or not. If we look around at our surroundings, and everything around us, everything is energy. It's not an actual physical thing we think it is. We perceive it as as that. But our eyes are deceiving us, there are nothing but waves and particles. And so the math explains the waves and particles, and all of the quantum that we can't see. But if I look at my surroundings, and I look around, I'm like, well, is that really real? Like somebody might see that as gray, somebody else might see that as purple. Right? We've seen those posts on social media between the blue dress and the peach dress, or whatever it is, nobody really can agree on anything. We can't agree on the details of a car accident. We sure as heck can't agree on politics or education or healthcare or anything else. Because none of its real. But the math is real.

Steve Brown: 23:36

Yeah, so you know, I'm, I think, the light bulb went off for me when I was thinking of all the cultures that have existed on Earth in our history. The common thing is math if if we were to be dropped back in time, or even forward in time, the one thing if we were comfortable with math, would be the one immediate way to relate.

Cindy Van Arnam: 24:04

Yeah, absolutely. You see the number seven and nine in almost every culture around the world. Even ancient cultures, you see the the temples, they have nine layers, they will walk around seven times. The number seven is very prevalent in the Bible. We see the numbers absolutely everywhere. If you just flip through the Bible, you can't deny that it is, there's numerology all over the numbers are there.

Steve Brown: 24:31

So how can one start benefiting from I guess a better understanding of that?

Cindy Van Arnam: 24:40

Yeah, I mean, there's lots of ways you can google what your life path number is or whatever, you'll get a very surface level of what's going on. I do have a free offer on my website called monthly momentum and mastery where you can come in and learn how to calculate the energy of each day. So every day of the week has a particular energy to it based on the numbers one through nine. And just by tapping into that alone without knowing all the other calculations of who you are, and all those other pieces, you can start to understand your own bio rhythm. And you can start to understand what days work for you, and what days might you might feel a little bit off. And you're not quite sure, I actually live my life based on a nine day cycle, not a seven day week anymore. Because I know that there are particular days where I'm fired up and ready to go and just like I can get the things done. And then there's other days where I'm like, time for a nap. And so I will give myself permission to take those days off, maybe just ease off the gas pedal a little bit. And just understanding your own bio rhythm gives you full permission to live life to its fullest instead of trying to force things and make things happen.

Steve Brown: 25:55

Just good. There's so many directions to go with this conversation, right?

Cindy Van Arnam: 25:58

I have a lot of rabbit holes.

Steve Brown: 26:01

And I'm trying to go, alright, but what can we grab and apply to, you know, to benefit us immediately in some, some way to feel more in control or to feel a little more empowered about how we should because you know, a business person, you have to make hundreds of decisions a day and they have a battle, no? Whether you feel good or not, whether it's a good energy, day or not you're still are compelled to make decisions,

Cindy Van Arnam: 26:35

Are you?

Steve Brown: 26:37

Well, you sure feel like it or people are waiting for you. Right?

Cindy Van Arnam: 26:40

Right. The biggest piece of advice that I could give any business owner, awareness is everything. If you are making decisions from a place of "I'm stressed out, I'm worried I don't know how to do this, I feel like I need to force it", you're creating the same results from that energy. So I'm sure many people have heard of the idea of fight-flight versus rest-repose. When we are in fight-flight, there are pieces of our brain that are actually turning off, they, it's making it so that our body can only run, freeze or fight. That's it, that's all we have available to us. So if we're worried about money, or we're worried about making the right decision, or if we're tired, and we're trying to force things to happen, the energy you're putting into that task is creating the exact same results. If you're in rest-repose, your intuition is firing on all eight cylinders, your parts of your brain are actually opening up to receive information from the quantum field, you're breathing at a deeper level, which means you're receiving more oxygen, which is making your brain work even better. And guess what you make better decisions. So awareness is everything. If you are in fight-flight, stop, drop, walk away, get yourself back into what I call dolphin brain, the rest-repose brain and those, there's lots of different ways to do that. But you can't interrupt it if you're not aware of it. So if you're just in decision making mode, and you think you need to make decisions all day long, and then by the end of the day, you're like, what did I even do? You're in fight-flight all day long, making decisions and the results you're getting aren't going to be what you want. But if you take a moment in between each task and say, How am I feeling right now? Take a deep breath, go outside, get some fresh air drink a glass of water, something as simple as that can bring your brain back into that rest-repose state where you're making better decisions.

Steve Brown: 28:46

So some words, some people might put terms like meditation or prayer or on on this. What are the commonalities here that you're packaging this concept in a similar way? And then before you answer that, is it like really frustrating to talk to someone who's like that? Not really tuned in to all the, all you're delivering here, I mean that's part of your process. Bu, but true, right?

Cindy Van Arnam: 29:23

Yeah, meditation is one tool that helps us to get into that rest-repose state. But there are a multitude of tools. So meditation is not your jam, find something else. I know lots of people that like to just dance around the living room, listen to good music, painting, drawing, any kind of creative expression can help shift that too, because our emotions and our thoughts are nothing but energy that's moving emotion, energy in motion, that's all it is. And so we're designed to experience our emotions for about 15 minutes, and then they shift until we judge the emotion. So the moment that we're like, oh, I'm angry, and then we think about all the reasons why we're angry, then we get angrier and angrier and angrier, we perpetuate that. But if we're focused on all the reasons why we're inspired and lit up and excited, then we perpetuate that and we create more of that, whatever that tool is, that gets you to that doesn't matter. If you want to meditate, cool, if you want to go outside and walk in nature, cool. If you want to dance around the living room, great. I like to cook that's my favorite way of creating, where I've had a stressful day, I just go into the kitchen and make a mess and get creative, and I feel better at the end of it. So it's not necessarily this spiritual, like magical thing. It's just being aware of how the brain functions, and how results how your brain is creating the results. And if you are willing to just practice that awareness for even two weeks, just give yourself, put phone reminders in put post it notes up, just write transition recovery. And just take a minute in between each task and take a deep breath, watch the results, watch how much it will shift. And you'll start noticing the inner critic, you'll start noticing that I need to just get this done. Versus I am so inspired right now. And I can't wait to do this and be of service to my clients and to the world. And to create impact. It's a big difference. And then you go to bed happy instead of grumpy.

Steve Brown: 31:36

So how long? How long did it take you to remove the mountain that you had become? In your way? You became aware. Okay. And then you had to work? Do the work, right? And it's not like an easy one. Often we can get this done in a day, two days a week?

Cindy Van Arnam: 31:58

Yeah, no, it doesn't work out. And I always say just because you do this work doesn't mean things don't still happen. I'm still triggered, life still happens things I still get angry. It's not like all of a sudden, it's rainbows and kittens and nothing but lollipops. There's still stuff that happens in my life that I have to navigate. But how I respond to it has changed. So if you're asking for timeline, 20 years, I guess, but in the last year, I've really noticed a shift. And I've noticed that most of my clients coming in most of the people that are doing this work, they're seeing faster and faster results. I don't know if you've noticed, but it feels like time is speeding up. It's because it is, things are moving faster. So we have the ability to shift this a lot faster than it took me. I would say from the moment I took Brain Game until now it's been three years, but I don't think anybody has to wait that long anymore if they're willing to do the work, the inner work

Steve Brown: 32:59

If there was every year that we questioned reality. I mean, there has been all these things that happen this year is like, unbelievable. If, if we would have talked about hey, you need to get kind of prepped to go buy some toilet paper, do these things. If we would have had this discussion a year ago, then it'd be like, Cindy she's weird, right?

Cindy Van Arnam: 33:31

Yeah, but now not weird anymore.

Steve Brown: 33:33

Right? But now it's like we've had unbelievable things happen that we would have never conceived never believed never would know. And that's no way, actually way. Yeah, way. So I think a lot of people are more open to wanting to understand what in the world, right?

Cindy Van Arnam: 33:56

Yeah, the the being weird isn't weird anymore. I remember when I first dove into numerology, I was like so afraid to share it and I actually started off my practice with pulling tarot cards. And for about two years, I never told anybody that I was using tarot cards because I was like, Oh, no, that's like, really weird and woo woo. And, and then one day, I was like, I'm gonna do a Facebook Live and pull tarot cards for people. And it wasn't weird. It was so popular and it boosted my visibility through the roof. And I was like, Okay, hold on a second. And because I've been doing this work, and I live and breathe it, I've been working with the fear of, you know, being strange and being weird. I have a podcast, Rebel Radio. I don't care anymore. You don't like it. Don't listen to me. But I know that it works. I've seen it work for myself, all of my clients. I've had incredible results with the people that I work with. And I'm here to say own You're weird. Just be you.

Steve Brown: 35:01

Yeah, that's a big thing right there.

Cindy Van Arnam: 35:03

Yeah.

Steve Brown: 35:05

So what? What is it that we need to? If we're running a business, and we want to own our weird a little bit, you have to grow in confidence. What are some things that we can do to grow and the confidence is showing up and being comfortable with our unique value that we bring?

Cindy Van Arnam: 35:26

Mm hmm. Yeah, there's a couple of things to that. Number one, awareness is everything. There she goes, again, noticing the self talk, if you're telling yourself, oh, I suck. I'm not good at this. I can't do this. Everybody's gonna think I'm weird. Well, guess what? You're right. But if you're telling yourself, okay, I'm going to lean into this, I'm going to be open, I'm going to be curious. I'm going to try it. And if it doesn't work, well, then I'll tweak it. And I'll try something different. But I'm willing and open and curious to see what happens. then guess what? You're right. The other thing, practice. So they say, you know, the 10,000 hours makes an expert, right? And I remember when I was a virtual assistant, I was working behind the scenes of my computer, I was not visible. I built my business on word of mouth. I never did video, Facebook Live nothing like that. I'd never been on a podcast. And I had somebody challenged me to do a Facebook Live. And I was like, Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, I no, I work best behind the scenes. Yeah, except that who I am is very flamboyant, very out there and loves to be on video. I love to be the center of attention. I'll admit it. That's who I am. So I did my first Facebook Live. And it was horrible. It was the most awkward, terrible thing ever. But what I realized was that I was committed to becoming visible. And so from that moment on, I did a facebook live every single week day for three years straight. Really good on video now, but it didn't happen by accident. It happened because I was committed to the process. And I practiced and I went at it with this positive mindset of, I'm gonna learn. I'm open. I'm curious. I'm going to try this and see what happens. Not Oh, you suck. You should never be on video again, that was terrible. I still keep that very first Facebook Live. It comes up on my Facebook memories every year. And I just watch it to remind myself.

Steve Brown: 37:28

Yeah, I like that saying The first is your worst. Yeah. But it's also like, no one's watching. Really?

Cindy Van Arnam: 37:36

No, right? And I mean, when we're kids, when we learn how to walk, we don't judge ourselves for falling down, we just get back up again and do it again. And we keep trying and trying and trying. And pretty soon we know how to walk. But within we become adults, and our brains are so programmed by everybody's judgments and all of our own self judgments that then we're like, oh, I'm gonna look stupid. Look stupid. Who cares?

Steve Brown: 38:04

Yeah, I realized I look stupid most of the time, anyway, I'm just one that shocked by it. Everyone else is seeing it every day. Right? Like, you know, the first time you've heard yourself, speak on a recorded recording how you like, that's my voice?

Cindy Van Arnam: 38:17

That's me?!

Steve Brown: 38:20

Really embarrassed. But what you don't realize is everybody hears and they just accept you anyway.

Cindy Van Arnam: 38:25

Yeah, exactly. You are your own worst critic most of the time. And our self judgment is really what stops us 90% of the time, if not more than that.

Steve Brown: 38:38

So The Brain Game, well, let's wrap up with a little review maybe on three things that we can start to drive a little better up with, with those. What are those?

Cindy Van Arnam: 38:52

Yeah, so first and foremost, knowing who you are. I don't care if you use numerology or any kind of personality test or whatever self reflection but understand who you are, and really explore it on a deep level. Not just I'm an entrepreneur, but what kind of entrepreneur How do you show up? What is it that, you what is your key sabotage, like, just notice and be aware of those things. Self Awareness is really key. Also, know what you want. So many of us are kind of flailing thinking that we should want certain things, you know, as entrepreneurs, we should have the six figure business, maybe you don't want a six figure business, maybe you only want an extra 500 bucks a month, but here you are hustling and grinding because somebody told you you should have a six figure business, right? So understanding who you are and what you want. And then understanding that if all you do is focus on those two things, and nothing else outside of you, you can have it, period. It's universal law.

Steve Brown: 39:55

Well, I think that we would be shocked that most of us, like if we got asked the question just kind of, in a surprising way. Hey, Steve, what do you want? It's like we're stumped.

Cindy Van Arnam: 40:11

Yeah. Because we don't spend time thinking about it. One of my questions that I always asked my clients, what are your top three values? And what do you want? If you know those things, you can have whatever you want. But you can't get what you want. If you don't know what you want, you need to know what that is. So spend time thinking about it, dreaming about it, visualizing about it, spend time in nature. I mean, Richard Branson was famous for this. He spends more time dreaming than he does doing. Olympic athletes spend more time in visualization than they do participating in the physical activity of it. Those are the ones that win. So if you want to win at life, dream about what you want.

Steve Brown: 40:57

Cindy, so where can people connect with you who maybe wanna get The Brain Game tightened up?

Cindy Van Arnam: 41:06

Yeah, absolutely. I am all over Facebook and Instagram as Cindy Van Arnam. And my website cindyvanarnhem.com

Steve Brown: 41:15

Cindy, you've been an excellent guest, I really enjoyed it.

Cindy Van Arnam: 41:20

Thanks. Always a pleasure.

Steve Brown: 41:22

Thanks for being on the ROI Online Podcast.

Cindy Van Arnam: 41:25

Thank you.

Steve Brown: 41:27

Thanks for listening to another fun episode of the ROI Online Podcast. For more, be sure to check out the show notes of this episode. And feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn where we can chat and I can help direct you to the resources you're searching for. To learn more about how you can grow your business better. Be sure to pick up your copy of my book, The Golden Toilet at surprise, thegoldentoilet.com I'm Steve Brown, and we'll see you next week on another fun episode of the ROI Online Podcast.