Ep. 33 - Emotional Wealth

Ep. 33 - Emotional Wealth

Anna Thalman: [00:00:00] [00:00:00]Hi, I'm Anna. And this is film and family, a podcast for filmmakers who want to see real progress in their film, careers without sacrificing their health or relationships hit subscribe to never miss an episode. If you are already a subscriber, go ahead and leave us a five star review. If you would. That helps other people find this podcast. And. That would be great if you don't mind doing that for us. 

[00:00:27] Let's jump right in. So Kent is not with me today, so that's new. he is watching the kids and then he's going to be building camera because we are going to be shooting today. So we have another. Eight hour, day scheduled, and I wanted to get this podcast out. So I have time to release it by Friday. So I'm just going to jump in and record this for you and share some thoughts. 

[00:00:53] yeah. as far as updates, our film is going well, we are down to four or five shooting days [00:01:00] left that we've just been kind of waiting for the sun to come out, to be able to shoot. We have the last day in the narrative of the story is partially shot. We shot about half of it and the rest we need to match to what we've already shot. So it needs to be sunny. So we've been waiting for sun in the meantime, we've had. Lots of rain and a tornado that actually came and hit really close to our city. we're okay. Nothing happened. We just woke up our kids in the middle of the night and carried them downstairs and it was kind of scary, but we're all good. And we're continuing making the film, so it's going really well. 

[00:01:36]but today what I want to talk about is the idea of emotional. Poverty and emotional wealth. And this is an interesting concept. I feel like it's fun for me right now because I am starting to see a lot of results for my clients. So first I started [00:02:00] doing this coaching work and seeing lots of results for myself. I felt the difference before anyone saw the difference. And then over time, People started to also notice the difference in me and in my life. so what started as an internal thing eventually became manifest as, an external thing in my physical circumstances, which is usually how it goes. And I'm starting to see that from my clients that I had joined my program last year and that's been really fun to see. And I just kind of want to talk about this idea of investing in yourself. I think that when you decide to do coaching and invest in yourself and your mental health and your emotional health, that is a big decision. And I get it. It's not easy sometimes. is an investment of money and of time, and it's kind of a thing that might be newer. Maybe you're not familiar with it or how it works. It might feel strange. There's sort of this bad stigma with [00:03:00] needing to go to therapy, this isn't therapy, but I think people associate it with that. but it's more like as if you were an Olympic athlete, you're going to have a coach, right? If you think about coaching in sports, if you're just beginning, you're going to want a coach. And if you're. Training for the Olympics. You definitely want a coach. So actually the better you are at it, the more likely you are to have a coach or a private coach to help you keep improving, to be aware of your form, to be aware of things that you're just not going to see from your vantage point of being in it. And same thing with your life, the vantage point of being in your life. It's very difficult to. see the kind of progress and results that you want to, without that outside vantage point, especially from someone who does have training and being able to see that. 

[00:03:47]So that's pretty cool. I do try to provide ongoing support to those who joined my membership. you know, you get courses, you get the initial, coaching and then you get [00:04:00] ongoing support when you need it. And that can be really valuable. So, let me see going over my notes here. It's kind of hard not to have Kent, you know, to talk for a little bit. And then I get to say something. I just have to keep going for you guys, but I'll try to do this one-sided conversation. I think that there's a lot of this in the media misconstrued idea that. Money investing with money will create a net positive result when that is sometimes true. There's also this mistake that happens where we start to think that we can buy happiness and that our outside circumstances are what determine whether we're happy or not, or how good we feel and money can sometimes buy temporary happiness. But the thing is, it just doesn't last. And so you see a lot of people who are financially very rich. But there's still an emotional poverty [00:05:00]they're wealthy, but they don't feel good. And they're still not happy even with all that material wealth that very easily leads to shame. Because when you don't have the circumstances to blame, so it's either blame or shame, right? You don't have the circumstances to blame your unhappiness on you're either going to try to find things to be unhappy about or to blame your own happiness on, or you're going to start feeling shame and wondering what is wrong with me. There must be something wrong with me. If I have all this money and all this fame and all these things, and I still. Feel miserable. I still feel so unhappy and that's really just an emotional poverty. And this can happen for people who are not financially wealthy. You could be in material poverty and. Emotional poverty at the same time, which I have experienced. And I've also experienced the other side of that, which was being in material poverty, but still in emotional wealth. [00:06:00]And that is what I would say is kind of my story. As far as what happened when I first found coaching, I mean, it took some time before the physical circumstances around me began to change, but I started to feel different. Within my circumstances without them changing at all. And that was really amazing. I learned to take control of my emotions. I learned that regardless of the circumstance I could feel, I could decide and choose how I wanted to feel and what I wanted to think and what I wanted to do and create and create the experience of my life that I wanted. No matter what the circumstance was, and that is so empowering, it gives me control over my life, and the power to choose and know how to do it.

[00:06:49] So these are some of the tools that I teach inside of the membership and that I love to teach inside of my free coaching call, which currently you can still sign up for a free [00:07:00] coaching call on my website and just get a taste of how this works and why it works and how it applies to you specifically. So we're talking about wealth and poverty, right? I think that it's also important to realize that all investments start with. Kind of a loss. There's an initial, that's why it's an investment. You sacrifice something for a net positive result down the road. And so same thing with coaching. It's not immediately going to be an easy solution. I'm not going to tell you what to do. If I'm coaching you, I'm not going to give you the answers, but I'm going to help you access them, with your own wisdom. Learn the tools and do the work yourself to get those results and eventually become independent where you are not dependent on me to be able to do that work. and you can create the experience you want in whatever circumstance. So that's where you can start to access that emotional wealth. And I think it's [00:08:00] interesting that right now we're in the middle of a pandemic, right? Well, we've been in it for a long time. And even during a medical pandemic, I feel like the real pandemic is also this emotional pandemic that's been going on and everything that happens has. Good and bad that comes with it. So as we advance as a society with technology and social media, I think we've seen a lot of great things come of that, but I think we've also seen some challenges come from that And part of that is in the emotional health. I think there are some repercussions on emotional and mental health because of some of those advances that we haven't really had to deal with before. And that's why I think the coaching industry is. Growing so quickly. It is according to LinkedIn, one of the fastest growing industries out there right now. And it's been that way for a couple of years, it's becoming a little more mainstream. I think at first it was something that seemed really kind of Lulu [00:09:00] or, strange people who did coaching. And now we're seeing doctors and lawyers and psychiatrists and business CEOs who are becoming coaches and getting coached. And even before I ever thought that I would become a coach, I never, that didn't, didn't even cross my mind when I first chose to invest in coaching. I just wanted to learn more about this because I started to see the changes in my own life. And I wanted more, I wanted more control. I wanted more of being able to feel like I could choose the life that I wanted. And so. I finally invested in my first coach and I started getting coaching and I started learning about it and it was just a drastic internal change for me. Eventually my circumstances caught up. Eventually I went through the life coach school and got certified as a coach, which wasn't a huge investment. This was an investment of. About 20 K at the time. And this was during a time when our [00:10:00] family was making about 30 K a year. And so that was huge for us. That was a big investment. But I didn't even think I was going to be a coach when I signed up for that. I just wanted to learn everything I possibly could about this coaching stuff, because it was so valuable to me. So I was willing to pay that much just so that I could learn it on a deeper level. And once I finished I definitely got practice coaching people as part of it. And, you know, it just seems kind of silly to not. Share that with other people, when it's been so beneficial for me, and I do actually really enjoy coaching, And sharing these things that I'm learning. So I've been doing that. 

[00:10:41] So I have a coach friend who has a very similar story and she started out in. Poverty. And I mean, she was very poor. She was living in motels. she owned one spoon that she used to eat. She talks [00:11:00] about how she figured out how her bank account would allow her to withdraw more cash than she actually had in her bank. So she would withdraw $600 to live off of and then overdraft herself, and then find a way to make the money so that she could. Pay it back to herself, you know, like she would borrow $6 that were left on her friend's food stamp card to try to get the groceries that she needed for the week, because she was. Not going to eat anything, you know, she was poor and definitely I've been there too. Kent and I have lots of stories about our early days when we lived in this teeny tiny, I mean, 200 square foot, little apartment, and I was super pregnant with our first child and we had a cardboard box for our table that was turned upside down. We sat in camp chairs. That we'd gotten in our wedding registry and that was our dining room. And one of the camp chairs broke. So eventually we were [00:12:00] sharing a camp chair and we slept on a mattress on the ground. And it was a very simple life. We didn't even have very much wardrobe I remember our job was a cleaning check couple for this apartment complex. And they had t-shirts that they would have us wear while we were the cleaning check couple and they just let us hold on to those t-shirts. And we just wore those all day, every day. Like that was our wardrobe. So definitely been there where we have no money or negative money and it's, pretty, tough. And she talks about how she was wanting to invest in coaching. She found out about coaching and felt like. It was what she needed. And she was so grateful to her coach for not, telling her that she shouldn't, because she was kind of aware of her financial situation. And some coaches will feel a little nervous about that. Like, Oh no, you really shouldn't go into debt for this. You really shouldn't do some great expense to be able to do coaching. And she was so grateful that her coach didn't do that. She just said, [00:13:00] okay, well, how are you going to come up with the money? And she said, I will find a way I'm going to do this and that. And, put it on a credit card or whatever. And she said, okay, let her make that decision. And she did. And now she is a multimillionaire. in a totally different situation, she has the fancy cars. She has the fancy house. She flies private. She is living a life of luxury. And she still says that the coaching is what made her happy. You know, it was not the material things. And she knows that when she doesn't do the work on herself, doesn't do that thought work. She still can feel miserable. Even though she has this fancy house and fancy cars and all these material things that she always wanted. 

[00:13:43]so it's just worth questioning, which kind of wealth is more important. The other story that she tells that I just think is really, touching is about her parents getting a divorce when she was younger, she said her parents took her to [00:14:00] Disneyland or Disney world. Four times when she was a child and she's had people say they can't sign up for coaching because they have a trip planned for Disney world and they want to spend the money on Disney world instead. And if it's my coaching program, it's probably similar in price, depending on your family size. it's no hamburger, right? To sign up for coaching. It's going to cost a little more than that. she said my parents took me to Disney world four times and it was fun. Those are good memories. She said, but they still got a divorce and they still ended up not being emotional adults and not being able to deal with their own emotions, much less consider the emotions of a child. She spent her childhood somewhat traumatized by that and being passed back and forth between mom and dad and hearing both of them talk about what was wrong with the other person. And that was really hard for her to grow up in that circumstance. And she said, I. Definitely would have preferred that they had coaching. Was that even an option for them, then the trip to Disney [00:15:00] world, even as a child, that would have been more valuable to have her parents be able to take care of their own emotions so they could help take care of hers and her and each other in that relationship. And you guys. I've seen marriages be saved through this coaching. And just in the last year, several of my clients were on the brink of divorce were in bad places in their marriage, or they just wanted to improve their marriage. some of them were struggling because one of the, People in the couple was an actor and portraying relationships on screen. And that was kind of tricky. And there's been all kinds of situations. I had a couple in New York who were both actors and they were both pretty poor living out in New York in this little tiny apartment. And they were feeling stifled and feeling like. Even though they,were in New York, they were still doing a day job. That wasn't exactly the dream job. And, didn't feel like they could start a family yet because their careers hadn't [00:16:00] launched yet. And they weren't making a lot of money at their day job. And, I had a client who, again, was on the brink of divorce, basically. In the process and they had already separated physically from each other and were moving forward with divorce planning and it was not looking good. And she was able to realize that she actually wanted to make it work. She wanted to do the work to fix her relationship, which was really great. And now they're. back together and they seem really happy. And you know, again, a lot of the results you can't see because they are inside. And when I talked to these people who are my clients, I can hear it in their voices. Their confidence has increased their. feeling of not being a victim in their life and being able to choose the life that they want has, changed. And even in their grooming and their dress, I see them healthier. They're exercising more, they're eating healthier. They're [00:17:00] grooming themselves better there. And because of that, there's other. Advantages, they're getting promotions at work. They are getting dates. Those who are wanting to date, they are finally sitting down and writing their screenplays. have a lot of clients who finally wrote their feature screenplay for the first time. one of them just last year was saying, all I have are some ideas on dusty hard-drives and all I do is work and come home and watch a movie and go to bed. And he finally started writing again and before we knew it, he had a feature length screenplay, and then he was pairing with producers and then it was just happening and the screenplay was getting made and now he's scheduled to shoot it in. Hmm, I think, sometime next year, not positive on that, but soon, and that's getting put together and he has a pitch and it's getting funded and he's doing it. His life is totally different, you know, there's clients that I didn't even know what happened to them. I had one [00:18:00] client who, did well with the coaching. He started riding again and. Was getting his health and his life kind of under control. And then I just didn't hear from him for awhile. I didn't know what happened. And he gave me a call. Actually. He emailed me and asked if I could give him a call the other day and said, Hey, I'm moving to Georgia. To do film and he's going to quit his job. And he got promoted after our coaching and was making a lot of money and things were going really well. And he finally was going to make the leap and go into film, do even more and do that step of faith. And that was really cool to talk to him because I just didn't know what had happened. And I always ask for. Feedback or testimonials from my clients, if they're willing to give them. And he was one who I never received a testimonial from. I just didn't know what his thoughts were. And on the phone he said, he felt like it was divine Providence that. He went to a film [00:19:00] festival where we met. He said, I only stayed there for 45 minutes, 15 of which I was watching your short film and the other 15, I was talking to you about it. And that was most of his visit to that film festival. But in the end, he ended up coaching with me and the coaching he said was phenomenal. It was making a big difference in his life and. Now he's moving out to Georgia, which was sort of an idea he got, because that's what my husband and I did. We moved out to Georgia and did film out here and made our feature and all that stuff. 

[00:19:30]I'm really proud of all of my clients and all of the results that they're seeing because they've invested in themselves and I'm not trying to brag or say that I gave them these results because I didn't, these are tools that have worked for me and I'm seeing them work for other people, especially in our industry. And that is such a cool thing. this is emotional wealth and I just think it's worth considering. Because sometimes we think emotional or [00:20:00] sorry, like physical wealth or material wealth is more valuable or even just that it's more responsible. It's the responsible thing to do. And I just think it's worth questioning if that's really true or not. And considering you might be doing yourself a disservice, if you keep believing that because yeah, the money will. create some temporary happiness. It will create, something physical that you can see. And yes, the emotional health is something you don't really see at first it's internal, but what is the point of everything looking great if you don't feel great inside?

[00:20:34] so I just wanted to share that with you and celebrate a little bit of the results that my clients are getting. A lot of them are making feature films now or have made feature films. since getting coaching had another client, she was working a bunch of jobs. She didn't like. And, Not doing anything at all in the film industry, she actually didn't have a degree in film. She didn't have any experience on film sets [00:21:00]and she just made her first feature, worked on her first feature and got paid for it. She was a production head department head and. I think learned a lot and had a really good experience. And so now she's moving forward with her next feature film project. And I've had actors who have now had their lead roles in feature films, and they're moving forward. They've written their own screenplays. a lot of them actually have written their own screenplays. I'm realizing, but I'm not trying to say that you have to do any of those things. But I just want you to know what's available to you and what could be possible for you and just to think about investing in your emotional health.

[00:21:40] So that's why I wanted to share today. hopefully it wasn't too rambly or too boring without Kent here to supplement or, you know, kind of go back and forth with, I do miss him, but we'll be together all day making our film. So. just to wrap up, if you like, what you're learning again, the best compliment you can give us is a five star review, [00:22:00] just because that helps, people find us and find this podcast. And if you feel ready to try this out, to try this coaching thing and see how it applies to you and your situation, if it's a good fit, I offer a free coaching call, which you can sign up for on our website, invisible mansion.com. And you can read some of the. Feedback that I've gotten from my clients on there. You can sign up for the emails that I send every week. and of course, keep listening to the podcast. Those are all great ways to learn that are free. And this coaching call is free. I will tell you about my program at the end, and we'll see if it's a good fit, but it's no obligation. If it doesn't seem like it's right for you, I'm not going to try to. force you into anything you're not comfortable with. And I understand that maybe it's not the right time or you're not ready. but that's definitely something worth taking advantage of in and of itself. It's very valuable to have that one-on-one assessment of your life, see kind of where you want to move forward. And what is, the cause of the struggles that [00:23:00] you might be facing. And. We'll kind of help you discover your unique story and make your life its greatest masterpiece. So thanks again for joining me and we'll see you next time. Bye.