Nicole Laino
Hello and welcome to the limitless entrepreneur podcast. I’m your host, Nicole Laino. And I am here with my very special guest. Today I’m here with Makita Ren Feng pen. And she helps exhausted powerhouse couples and married women entrepreneurs reconnect with their forever love and amplify their intimacy when they find themselves sacrificing their relationships, because they’re so consumed with the wild success they’re experiencing in business. It’s, I help you prioritize the important things while you’re being like superhuman achiever. So an Akita Ron, welcome to the show. How are you today?

Naketa Ren Thigpen
I am magical. Thank you so much, Nicole, for having me, I really do appreciate you opening this space for it. limitlessness on all the levels.

Nicole Laino
Yes, we are all about being limitless here. And I love like we were talking just before the show. And I I love what you embody. I love your your message. And I love really the message that you embody, which is and we’re going to talk about a few things kind of centered around your book, but just around the idea of, it seems like what you embody is is stepping into your greatness, like even introduce yourself like I am magical. You own that. And and I love that. So tell the listeners just a little bit about you what’s not captured in that that little snippet of the bio that I read that little

Naketa Ren Thigpen
byline? Well, I have to say that I was looking at yours because I did it professionally, digitally stalk you Right. And, and I was on your website, and I was really loving how but I think it’s under the like who I am introduction of yourself. And you break down, I guess I’m dope. I’m analytical, I have all these accolades. You know, all this corporate stuff, all the sides of me that were fantastic and made money and help do all kinds of things in the Fortune 500 world. And I am someone who is intuitive and spiritual and very connected. Like I loved how you said, like, there’s so many more hats to me than just the dope list. That is my portfolio on paper. So I resonate with that. And I wanted to give you some kudos for it was very well written, I really enjoyed it. So similarly, you know, the caption, the umbrella term for me is balance and relationship advisor because that’s what clients over the last 10 years have basically, they said everything from Queen of balance to Queen of intimacy to my relationship guru, and we kind of settled in on balance and relationship advisor. My background is I’m a licensed clinical social worker, and a trauma specialist. That’s what I was doing for nearly 20 years before I became an entrepreneur, almost may will be 10 years old, we’re about to have an adult birthday. Coming up in just a few seconds. The being a trauma specialist opened up a whole new world for me doing a lot of the psychotherapy, helping families in the way that I was doing it in systems and hospital systems and crisis centers and judicial systems. Those are all the places that I would show up as a trauma specialist. It showed me that there was a lot going on behind the scenes besides some just surviving that that moment of crisis they were in including how it was impacting the quality of their life and their other relationships, not just with their forever love as I call it, but with their sisters, their brothers, their cousins, their their kids, their parents living and dead. Like there was a lot of challenges that were being brought up because of the trauma and where they were trapped, which led me down the rabbit hole because I love all things human behavior into a plethora of other certifications and going for my Doctorate in Public Health and doing all the things in sexology to really bring me to the space that I’m in now where I use all of my collective gifts, all of my dope pets, if you will all of the great pieces of the portfolio with helping 10s of 1000s of families at this point quite like row number. And you know, honestly, it allowed me to step into the coaching world and infuse those modern coaching techniques in a really interesting and different way without losing my clinical skill set and tools. So that’s why we kind of settled into like, instead of saying clinician, consultant strategist, Coach, you know, like, that was a topic. I don’t have like balance a relationship advisor just feels really good because at the essence, that’s what I’m doing. I’m helping you balance yourself and your relationships that matter the most to you. So you can create intimacy and ultimately joy

Nicole Laino
and I think that’s what most people are want, even if you don’t necessarily know it. Like some people think they’re after the money thereafter. But but the real vision usually involves some version of your idea of what balance looks like, you know, being able to Have this fulfilled whole existence. Yeah. And we have different areas, we think that we think that things, usually where we think needs pressure or needs help, it’s more of the things on the periphery, that need to be strengthened need to be healed. Because you know, and I just, I love that you, you went into trauma therapy, because and now you help people with their relationships, you help people with their business, you help people. Because operating out of wounding is a real subconscious problem that all of us have, on some level,

Naketa Ren Thigpen
absolutely walking wounded God, I’m first partaker I definitely was a walking wounded therapist, who was helping other people like there were so a lot. Let’s be very clear here. Most people that go into human behavior are going in to figure out what’s wrong with them, or with what’s wrong with their family, right? Like, whether it was the psychology route sociology, anthropology, right, like whatever the route was that they went as a helper it was because they really wanted to help some part of themselves and or the people that were closest to them. And I was no different. It took me a really long time to figure that out. I helped a lot of people along the way, while I was still ultimately trying to figure out what was my what my mama what was my what my path was, like, Why did my family had to be so dysfunctional? And I also had a little bit of honestly, I would say, Nicole, I had some survivor’s guilt. You know, I’m the oldest of five children, I’m the first to do a lot of things to first to graduate high school, the first to go to college, grad school, post grad school, I’m the first to get mocked up and still finished school, right? Like, I’m the first to do. I’m the first to get married. And I still kept him. We kept him around all these years. I’m the first to do a lot of things. And I had some, many of my siblings are very well known. And they’ve come to come into their own. And a couple of them, especially the boys and our family had a really hard time and they would ask questions like, well, how come you survived it? How come you don’t have any addictions, I’m gonna go slow your road I do. It’s not sex. It’s not drugs, it’s not alcohol. It’s not some of the things that you know, the world would persecute you for my addiction was stress. I was celebrated for being addicted to the adrenaline rush that would allow me to have three jobs working on masters breastfeeding a kid kid, you know, walking another, like, my addiction was celebrated by other people, which is why it wasn’t seen as an addiction. But in fact, it was a full on rush that I was connected to the next problem. But next problem solving the next problem, so I didn’t have to look at myself.

Nicole Laino
Yep. And I mean, and that happens to so many of us and I think that that’s like the that’s the overachievers addiction. Is is that the feeling you’re then and I always say, like, be careful, you’re addicted to some feelings. You’re asking yourself, like, what is the feeling that I’m emotion, feeling that I’m addicted to hear. And for me, I have a similar one, which is that, you know, it’s like people do very well in corporate when you’re codependent and because you’re, it’s like, I get the review. And I get you know, I get great reviews. And then I get this and then I just achieve and I do and I and I produce, and I’m rewarded with either Pat’s on the back, or, you know, deposits in the bank account, and it all feels good, and they’re all little dopamine hits, where I’m getting to feel like it’s numbing me out to all the other things that I’m just not paying attention to.

Naketa Ren Thigpen
I don’t want to I don’t want to let less to slow down from all this good high feeling with being productive and and and knowing that you’re actually doing good, right? Like, whatever the good is that you’re doing, where you’re getting the adrenaline rush and the dopamine hit from your you’re justifying every time like, look at all this magic I’m making Yes. And you know, you’re justifying it for yourself. The world is also justifying it with a little girl, or boy or guy, whatever inside of you, is questioning everything, like who do you think you are? Do you think you’re good enough for this? This isn’t enough, you got to do better, you got to do more, you got to add something else to your resume. That’s not enough, right? You know, take on that next client. Like, it doesn’t matter that you don’t feel alignment, like just go ahead. You have room on your schedule, you don’t have room or your schedule, take them anyway, you’re trying to get to $2 million this year. You know, whatever your thought process is, you still have something in you that wound I’m calling it the little person inside of you. Yeah, whatever that wound is, is constantly mind chatter talking to you about why what you’re doing isn’t sufficient and how you need to do more, go further, even if it’s in the wrong direction. Just so you can continue to get the fix, which is if you happen to be like us as high achievers for everyone who’s listening to this podcast, then that adrenaline and dopamine feels really good is very some Over to heroin, you know, it’s very hard to come off of it, you feel really guilty. When you’re on vacation with your family, even though you’ve planned it six months or two years in advance, you’re thinking about how you should be doing the work, how many podcasts interviews, you have yes to do, how many RFPs, you have to sign how many projects you could be working on right now, how slow your business is going to be, because you took a whole two days off, you know, whatever the case is, like you’re, you’re constantly dealing with guilt and shame and resentment and regret, and all kinds of things when you’re not getting your fix. And the reality is our bodies need so much more from us. But you have to slow you literally pun intended here, you have to give yourself permission to slow down before you can speed up. And that’s that’s one of the challenges for most high achievers and high performers, male and female, quite honestly.

Nicole Laino
So I’m curious. And I’m thinking about the person who’s listening to this right now. Yeah, like, but if I want to get more, and I want to have more and in this life, and I do that through achieving, then why would that be wrong? Even if it’s coming from a place of wounding? If it’s working for me, technically, you know, what would be the benefit to me slowing down to paying attention to that voice when I’m pretty adept at tuning it out? Or just telling it to shut up? And I go and, you know, numb myself with something else?

Naketa Ren Thigpen
Yeah, no, that’s a great question, we get that question a lot, honestly, it’s really fantastic. In the short term, that’s the reality, it probably helped you get to where you are right now, wherever you are in the world, for everyone who’s listening, if you’ve earned a couple of degrees, certifications, if you’ve made millions of dollars for someone else, or for yourself, whatever it is, it’s gotten you to a certain place, but it won’t take you to where you really want to be. Like if you really want to actually enjoy your journey, and not just rush through the process, if you want to participate in the life to not just, you know, plan the trip. So you can have an Instagram moment by the beach. So you can you know, say how much fun you’re having and how much relaxing you’re doing. But you actually didn’t relax, you took the picture, you made sure your caption was just so Right, right, you know, your hashtags, whatever it was, and I’m picking on Instagram, but apply this to any other moment in your life, maybe you’re taking the picture to send to your ex and make sure they know that you still got it right. You know, whatever the case is, but you’re you’re having this captured moment that you’re not actually even enjoying and living, because you’re not turning things down, let alone trying to turn them off. Many people can’t turn it off, because there’s 20 3040 years of history with doing it. So it takes a long time to get you into a space where you can turn it off. But you can turn it down pretty quickly. If you are willing to slow down and be selfish, quite honestly, you can’t get to that other side of where you’re going if you don’t stop breastfeeding the world. Because that’s ultimately what you’re doing right like it whether you have biological children from your body or not, you are breastfeeding every time that you’re nurturing and giving out some part of your energy to someone. And for any woman who has had a child and who has whether you’ve actually done the breastfeeding or not. And you know, your breasts swell up. And it’s a whole big thing. And it’s achy, and it’s painful, and it’s sore. That happens a lot when you’re gorging because you’ve given too much milk or you haven’t given enough, right. And for most of us who are high achievers, your breasts are constantly swollen and someone is connected to the city. I hate to say it that way. But they are like on it constantly and you have no space for your breast to just calm down, the swelling to go down and for you to refill. That’s exactly what’s happening in your life and in your business when you’re constantly going. So, you know,

Nicole Laino
I’m I’m down with this whole breastfeeding analogy, because first of all, any excuse to say the word pity. But also, also speaking, as someone who wasn’t gorged who went through that the way that you because what I like about this metaphor is that the way to get out of it is actually to regulate and to pay attention. And it’s because you’re not paying attention. And because you’re just kind of you’re, you’re giving and giving and giving and giving and your body’s producing when you don’t want it to and when you don’t need it to because it’s used to it, because it’s saying you’ve you’ve trained it now to say like produce all the time, produce, produce, produce, produce produce, and and so it’s it’s a fabulous analogy that I would have never thought of and I love it. Thank you for for sharing it on the show. But, but I love that because it’s it’s paying attention to and saying like okay, well let’s get on the schedule. Let’s start to look at what’s happening here. Let’s take ownership of this and take a step back. And let’s regulate this little bit so that everybody is healthy here, and nobody’s choking on the milk. And, and I’m not worn out and in pain, yeah, and just doing it because this is how it’s been going. And this is apparently how it is now, yeah,

Naketa Ren Thigpen
or in a space where and and not even at work. And when you do keep doing that you end up resenting like we love our babies, right? We love our children, we want to give them nourishment, we want to continue, and I’m taking this a little bit more literal into the breastfeeding, but take it out to the figurative you love the work you do. That’s part of why you’re doing the work you love having the opportunity to create the life you have and make the money and change lives and impact and all the things that you do, which is the proverbial breastfeeding, right? Like you’re constantly on, you’re constantly giving. But if you are super sore and swollen and exhausted, because you’re not regulating to, you know, pull it off in the way that you set it, you’re going to start to resent when you have to show up for work. Now you have that client who used to be excited about calling because they’re, you know, they have the perfect problems for you to solve. Now you’re annoyed when you see their number come up on the phone because you’re tired. You’re just like, Oh, my God, I just talked to you. Three days ago. Why are you calling now right? And it’s actually probably not even more than it usually is. But you’re hitting a spot where now you’re getting resentful. This is when you start to question things like your gifts. This is where you start to find yourself in this world. When am I doing what I really want to do this analysis paralysis kicks in. This is when imposter syndrome goes really high. This is when you go from edging burnout to being burnt out and waiting for someone to stick an IV in your arm of hydration, right? Like held me. And a lot of us won’t give ourselves that full permission to pause or to slow down until we are sick. When our bodies Say no more. And then the world says oh yeah. Oh, you don’t feel good. Nikita. Okay, yeah, take a couple days off. Oh, Nikita has been out for a week, what’s wrong with her? You You are what’s wrong with me, I kept giving myself to you constantly. And when I really was deeper, I’m really what’s wrong with me because I allowed it. I didn’t create boundaries for myself. But the book that I wrote selfish, which I know, we were talking about earlier, pre pre in a formal interview. In the Green Room, the subtitle of the book is permission to pause, live, love and laugh your way to joy. You’re not going to get to your joy by working really hard. It’s working smarter, enjoying the process, whether you have 30 years on this earth or 80 years on this earth actually creating memories that you’re a part of not just captured moments, so you can throw it up on the gram. It’s really what it’s about.

Nicole Laino
Yeah, and I did want to talk about your book because I the title definitely caught me I was like, selfish. And I wanted to dig into that because I think you know, particularly women feel like selfish is a really dirty word we do we have gotten more comfortable with self care that is a buzzword out right now. Which I you know, I believe in although sometimes I’m just like, enough with self care, like we talked about a lot. And what the what the whole thing is, it’s just me, I’m just kind of snotty like that. But, but but I love the concept of of, of being selfish. And I want to, can you give to the listener? The person who’s listening, tell them what your view of being selfish is, I know that you kind of said it a little bit in your tagline. But talk about why someone should be either looking at themselves and saying, Am I being selfish enough? Or or really looking at if how they can be a little more selfish in a good way.

Naketa Ren Thigpen
And yeah, no, thank you for asking. That’s a really good question. So giving a little pre context to it, because I know a lot of us get Vax. When we hear the word selfish, especially if you’re a woman, you hear it and you’re like, I’m not selfish. No one you shouldn’t be selfish self. We’ve even seen the quotes all across LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, all the places self care is not selfish. Yes, it is. It is selfish for you to stop literally pun intended here with the other example breastfeeding everyone else to take care of yourself. You have for you to say No, not right now. I’m going to do me that means you’re taking away from someone else. Now if you go by the dictionary, that is actually the definition of selfish the fact that you’re not giving and doing and being for someone else in that moment. But let’s give some context to the history of the word right like the word was created by an older white man in the 1600s who had a religious authority and the text changes depending on the journals for reading what or who was Pentecostal a Catholic doesn’t matter. He was An older white man who had women coming to him in the 1600s, asking and seeking permission to not have to have sex with their husbands. Whenever their husbands wanted to roll over and do it, they wanted some power to be able to say no. And he said to them, you not giving yourself to your husbands as whatever religious texts you’re following the Bible, Koran, whatever it is, as God has told you to do is selfish of you. You are supposed to constantly be available for your husband, that is your writing your duty. I’m sorry, I love my husband. We’ve been together since we were 17. I love swinging on chandeliers, return and any anywhere else that he wants to, I have to agree to do it. That is my choice. I want to be able to say Yes, honey anytime and No, not right now. And be not feel bad about it, because I’m doing it. So when you look at where it came from a space to shame women and to hold you in a box to put you in a place of chattel as property for other people, specifically for your mate. And that word we now lock ourselves in by we lock other women in by like, Oh, you mean that you’re not putting your kids and 25 activities this week, how selfish of you, you mean you’re four months pregnant, and you haven’t gotten your baby on a preschool list, because they’re already you know, lining up, even though you don’t know the gender or have a name or you know, any of that, like that’s selfish of you to not do like what in the world and we do it to each other, to keep us small. And we do it because of a history that we bought into as truth instead of redefining it. So I’ve honestly taken the word back, and I’ve reclaimed it for myself and anyone else who wants to follow suit with it. And I’ve redefined selfish as a personal intimate gift and gift as an acronym to create your joy. The gift acronym is what you’re doing with your selfish time, you’re sitting in a space of gratitude, but not hiding behind it. Because a lot of us hide behind gratitude will say, Oh, I’m just so grateful. I don’t have a right to complain or ask for more. Yes, you do. The God I serve says that you are the head and not the toe, that you are the borrower and you know, the lender, not the borrower that you are able to do all things, I can be grateful for this opportunity to talk to Nicole Laino on limitless entrepreneur be really excited about it and want more like, oh, I can’t wait to my next virtual T conversation with her off air. I can have both of those things and still be grateful. I can have a booming business for 10 years and want it to be a billion dollar business. There’s no shame and you wanting more, but a lot of us are like, Oh, you’re asking for something you’re not grateful that I don’t subscribe to that narrative anymore. The old Nikita with the walking wounds definitely would have been like, oh, just be just be complacent, like you’re good. You’re doing well enough, right? Like you guys are not hungry for anything like you’re fine. But the ambitious woman who was created to impact on a greater level than even I can imagine, once more. So the G in that gift is really gratitude. The AI is imagining yourself becoming who you were meant to be. And being able to see yourself forward. And all the ways you are not wounded in the 10.0 or 100.0 version of yourself. The EFF is to forgive yourself. If you are not selfish, you cannot forgive all of the people you need to including yourself. Because you’re moving too fast. You’ll say the right words, I forgive that person who assaulted me, I forgive that person who made me feel less than I forgive that bully. I forgive that queen bee and corporate who really tried to destroy my life. You know, take me down, I forgive I forgive, you’ll say it, but not actually embody it. And part of it is because you haven’t forgiven yourself for anything that you allowed. You got to really take full, Extreme Ownership of the toxic people that you still allow in your life, the sister, the cousin, the friend that’s been calling you for five years having the same conversation over the boyfriend that they’re not leaving, and you answered the call every time knowing you have 5000 Other things to do, but you still allow it even though you might pull a talk with your lover, I can’t believe Lisa called me again talking about the same thing, right? But you’re allowing it to happen. And so the F is really the forgiveness is huge. To forgive yourself. And the T is to take action you need space to take action and whatever you want to do to become the whatever that I was you saw yourself becoming, you need the space to do it. And you can’t do it if you’re not being selfish, because otherwise you’re just giving to everyone else. You’re running everyone else’s marathon for them and with them carrying their weight. And when you’re dead and gone and buried, someone will be able to say she was a really good person that worked hard, but they won’t be able to say that you lived a good life because you didn’t actually live one in the first place. You were helping Everyone else live, there’s

Nicole Laino
Yeah, and one of the things that just keeps coming up, as you were saying all of that so eloquently and I subscribed to every single thing that you said, I totally believe in it, that there’s one thing underneath it that that is like the sinister thing in there. And that’s, it’s the needing validation. And that coming from wounding, so hiding behind your gratitude, because I need validation that I’m a good person. And I’m trying to please rather trying to please the people out there in our world, the people who are close to us, the people who are watching us now because we feel like the world is watching us with social social media. And we have this greater collective to show off for and then we also have there some spiritual realm for some of us where if if you are religious, if you are just spiritual with whatever you believe in, that you feel like you are being watched and you are being judged. Am I being a good enough Catholic, Christian, spiritual healer? Am I enough this and when all of that falls away, that’s when all of the work just happens. And things get easy. And the nonsense kind of falls away? Yeah. And for me, like, first of all, I want to kind of just throw this little soundbite in here, because you heard from Nikita, here that that? So self care is selfish. And that’s okay. Yes, yes. Yeah, we said it self self care is selfish. And that’s okay. And, and the goal, like, so many people are trying to be perfect. So many people are trying to, to get things right. And again, comes from the validation. It keeps you from the gift, like you’re like you’re saying, because we’re chasing something that doesn’t really exist. Because you’re chasing something, something exterior to fill an interior wound.

Naketa Ren Thigpen
Absolutely. The void. The voids are what makes people do all the things that they write books about later and say, I can’t believe I did that. The Void is what made you date that guy and you know, daggone Well, he was no good. He was shiftless. Right? Like, you know, he might have a cute face and a nice body. But outside of that you couldn’t stand him, you dated them anyway, because he filled the void. He was someone to talk to. He was someone to keep you busy from that moment, whatever that 2.2 minutes that you might have had in the day, to think about yourself to talk to yourself to look at your own self in the mirror and tell yourself that you are lovable and worthy and deserving and enough and enough for you enough for whoever you’re supposed to attract. And and you were talking about that in the greenroom, like being more than enough for you maybe too much for someone else. But those are the people that aren’t for you anyway, but you instead of having that moment, you gave that 2.2 minutes to that x, right and now you know, Monday morning quarterbacking, the Sunday night game, or whatever that reference is. You’re looking like what made me date so and so like John was horrible. Well, that was that void. That was that walking around? And you know, there was something seeping up from it. It was something calling you trying to talk to you tell you pay attention to me like nobody has time for that. Oh, you’ve given me some attention. Okay, let me let you be. Let me let you bother me for a little bit because it keeps me off with me. At the end of the day, we are our greatest champions and our biggest barriers, right like, on all the all the levels, you’re not looking for your purpose outside of you, you’re not looking for your lover, the greatest person you’ll ever find. You’re going to attract everything you need, because your spirit is creating it for you. When you think about, you know love and light and, and waterfall. All of a sudden you find yourself taking vacations in places that are filled with love and light and waterfalls. Focus on it, you’ll find more of it. You focus on all the negative things and all the shiftless people in your life. You want to attract more of it and try to figure out like, why is my life filled with so much drama? What are you thinking about most of the time? What do you talk about? Who are your five closest people? What are they constantly talking about? Like what’s really happening inside your vibrational orbit that’s attracting a lot of this nonsense to you?

Nicole Laino
Yeah, there’s a a, like mantra that I that I heard, I think Carolyn Elliot’s book, existential kink. I think that’s where it came from. Yes, it’s interesting. She says having is evidence of wanting and I love that because it sort of it takes the victim pneus out of all of it. That if I have something coming into my world if I have a feeling if I have chaos if I have nasty boyfriend If I have, you know, whatever it is, on some level, I want it. On some level I am, I’m calling out to this energetically, and it is being attracted to me. So and something I always say is, you know, exchange criticism for curiosity. So instead of beating yourself up for, like, why am I attracting these terrible things like like, what is it about me what’s wrong with me? And don’t go into that place? And instead just be like, Why am I attracting this? Let me think about that. Let me feel into it. Yeah. What about this? Might I be enjoying and liking and or what’s it satisfying? And me? Yeah. And, and that, so I love what you’re saying and completely agree with it. And then if we start paying attention to the things that are happening, that kind of clues us in to the areas that need healing?

Naketa Ren Thigpen
Exactly, even, you know, for the wanting part of and I didn’t read the book, I’ll have to just because I love the title, you know, I think that’s a great time to cover. But I’m just saying. There’s also when we lean into the fear of what we don’t want, but we pre separate on it so much, that it sends a signal to the universe that we want it. Right. So some of the wanting that you’re like, oh, no, like if they you know, for anyone who’s listening like myself, who read who hasn’t read the book, yet you go read it and be like, this woman, what did she talk about? I didn’t, I didn’t want to, you know, have that moment in the I don’t know, on the street. I’m trying not to try not to traumatize anyone with you know, traumatizing example. But I didn’t want that moment where someone you know, snatch my purse, even though I got it back or whatever. But if you were already walking down the street, constantly fearing hold, clutching your pearls. I hope no one takes anything from me. You really are sending that out my husband and I, my son who is almost 25. He was just born a few months prior. And we weren’t living together at the time. We were young, obviously, I had him while I was in college. And we were walking, he was walking to the bus stop. He was keeping the baby that night. And I was going back to class after being off for that six weeks, or whatever it was that I could afford to take off after I had him. I went to Drexel University for undergrad and it’s trimester base. So you know, quick, fast semesters. So this is late December after Christmas. He’s walking me to the bus stop. And we’re literally talking about stick up kids, as we call them from Philadelphia. So for anyone listening sick of kids, or people who are arriving, you know, they’re waiting to rob you. They’re looking to rob people to stick you up, basically. And I don’t know why we were having this conversation. It just kind of came from nowhere. But we were both like, yeah, you know, because stick up kids. And I don’t know if I have time for that. I don’t even know what we were talking about. But for some reason for at least two or three blocks. And we probably had about a 12 block walk for two or three blocks of his walk we were talking about stick up kids rowdy and what happens before where a half a block from the bus stop, we get stopped by two or three, I think it was three of them. Stick up kids that were trying to rob us Now mind you, we didn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out. So I’m not really sure what they thought they were gonna get from us. My husband has always been a watch collector. But back then, I mean, like, the most expensive watch he had was like a guest watch for you know, $100 or something. And I had literally nothing, I had my, my medical cards, my IDs and just enough money for my trans pass the next day that I was want to buy plus my bus money to take it in. So when they stopped to rob us, and you know, they’re young, and they’re dumb, and they’re being ridiculous, and bravado and all the things I had of all the moments that were happening, all that kept thinking was Don’t take my son’s medical card. He’s only a few weeks old, and I need to be able to take him for his shots and a couple of weeks. And I literally was saying I was like, Don’t give me my medical car back. Like I was so aggressive and so serious. But I was blinded by the moment I didn’t even know and my husband and I can joke about it now because we were safe and we were fine. After all, it was done. years later, we were able like don’t talk like that, like we were calling get in when we were having this really deep fearful conversation about not wanting to get robbed because you know, stick up kids were like coming in masses because, you know, it was post Christmas time. So they were hoping to get people’s gifts, you know, whatever the case was, where we were talking about, we just call it forth in the middle of it. I still didn’t catch what just happened. All I was doing was zoning in on what I could protect in that moment. And we’ll all do that with fear will call into fear by being some of the fearful moment by thinking about it so much maybe even talking about it out loud to someone maybe to just to ourselves, then it happens and sometimes we just fall right into it or we try to shift out of whatever the the crisis moment is happening and think about something we can control supply Dressing the crisis that just happened. And waking up tomorrow as if it didn’t happen, you have all of that and dealt with adrenaline that got just like shut off in a box. And now you’re trying to figure out why you had an anxiety, attack in the bathroom at work three weeks later, when nothing was happening. Because of all that, we will do that to ourselves if we don’t slow down enough. And really think about what we want. And be careful what we say, what we vibrate out and how deep we’re willing to allow those fears to be expressed out of us, because we will ultimately call in the reality of it.

Nicole Laino
And I think that’s a good place to kind of, to kind of wrap things up and just with that message of, of really realizing that when we are that the emotions that we the emotions, that we feel the things that the things that happen, that we do have to feel them, they will find their way out, somehow. And you can either control that and be part of it, and be part of the process. Or you can be a victim to it and be at its mercy where it comes out. However it comes out however it chooses. And that typically is not at the time that you would choose or in the way that you would choose. And sometimes it’s just very sneaky. And firstly, I know a lot of business owners it shows up as just as a lot of fear holding them back and the playing small. Because we haven’t forgiven ourselves for allowing something to happen. And there’s a little child inside of us that’s going you’re so stupid. Think about all the times you’ve screwed up all the times that you’ve done all the times you’ve wasted money, and all the things that didn’t work out. You can’t be trusted with this now, what are you crazy. And so I feel like that is like a broader message here that the being selfish is actually about preserving, and and bringing out the real you.

Naketa Ren Thigpen
Absolutely self preservation is crucial, especially when you’re trying to preserve who you’re becoming, and not hold yourself bound to who you are, when you were younger, maybe not as fast, not as strong, maybe not as brilliant, you know, and adapt to whatever lessons you’ve learned along the way. But self preservation of who you really are becoming is so important. And I stand in it completely. Be selfish not to be egotistical not to put other people down not to be mean to people, when you have to tell them know, your boundaries should be expansive enough to allow who you’re becoming to come forward to you. They shouldn’t just be restrictive with no, no, no, no, no, although no is my second favorite word boundaries is my first right, like, you know, and I encourage all of you who are listening, especially as entrepreneurs and business owners, be in a space where you are making lots of room for all the opportunities to say No, put yourself in a position where you have lots of people coming to you like, oh, Nicole, I need you for this. Nicole, can I have you, Nicole, where you get to say, No, thank you, here’s an application. Here’s a filter. Here’s, you know, here’s something else until you’re ready for me. Let me push this check across the table to a referral partner or power partner or someone else? Because I’m saying these knows not because I’m being high and mighty? Because I’m making room for the yes, that I really want. I want to be available for that. Yes and not look at my schedule, booked and busy with a bunch of things that I’m not really interested in and aligns with, because I couldn’t say no.

Nicole Laino
And that all comes from trusting enough that the Yes, opportunity is coming. Yes. That you know, because because we say yes to things that we don’t really want to say yes to because we’re afraid that they’re there isn’t the right opportunity around around the corner.

Naketa Ren Thigpen
Scarcity thinking right versus limitless thinking absolute worse

Nicole Laino
or? Well, I think that is a perfect place to to wrap this up. Because I think that that kind of sums up everything right there. But But Nikita, this was such a wonderful conversation. Thank you for sharing everything that you shared just just you speak so fluently about all of this stuff. And obviously you embody what you teach, which is just it’s lovely for me to talk to people like this, but I know that everybody listening really got a lot out of it as well. Can you tell everyone where they can stay in touch with you? How can they get more of you out in the world?

Naketa Ren Thigpen
Yeah, I think the easiest place to go is think pro.com That’s our website where you can get access to the calendar if you want to an official Joy activation call to talk about alignment. If you really are not sure and you just want to enjoy the conversation a little bit more, go to our certified selfish Facebook group. It’s free. It’s private. So you know no one necessarily sees what you’re writing inside. But the women there are fast scaling married women entrepreneurs and we’re talking about everything from physical and sexual and emotional intimacy all the way through crisis and aesthetic intimacy and fun recreational intimacy, like everything that you need to be able to really amplify who you are inside and become, who you’re meant to be. And lots of free trainings and all kinds of good, juicy things that are in there. So if you really want a little bit more, I would come in there before you go make a call.

Nicole Laino
I love that I am. Well, first of all, I’m going to join that group because that sounds awesome. We’ll link all of that up in the show notes. So you do not have to worry about it. If you were not able to write that down. We will we’ve got you. Go check the show notes. And we will link up all of that so you can just be teleported right over to both of those destinations that Nikita just share with us. So thank you so much again, Nikita, thank you for being here. And thank you to the listener who’s still here listening to the very end of the show. We appreciate you for staying with us and for being part of this conversation. Remember, you are only limited by the limitations that you accept. And when you stop accepting those limitations. That is when you become limitless. We’ll see you on the next episode.