How to Befriend Yourself for Greater Personal Power with Sunni Brown

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation! JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire! Brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Hustle and Flowchart. Today, we'll be breaking down how to befriend yourself for greater personal power. To draw these value bonds, I brought Sonny Brown into EO Fire Studios. Sonny is a social entrepreneur, acclaimed author, keynote speaker, internal family systems, experiential facilitator, deep self-designer, and American Zen chaplain in formation. In today's foundation, we'll talk about the inner world, inner work, deep self-design, outcomes and benefits, deeper confidence, and oh, so much more.

0:38And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Sonny and our sponsors. The Next Wave, your chief AI officer hosted by Matt Wolf and Nathan Lands is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Matt and Nathan are leading AI creators in your guiding light in the AI and technology frontier. AI technology is transforming the way we do business and the media landscape is fragmented. The Next Wave strives to be the leading podcast on AI technology and how you can apply it to growing your business. Listen to The Next Wave wherever you get your podcasts.

1:11Are you looking to start or grow a successful business? Attend the world's highest rated and most reviewed business growth workshop taught personally by Clay Clark and football great Tim Tebow at thrivetimeshow.com slash EOfire. Again, request life-changing tickets today at thrivetimeshow.com slash EOfire. Sunny, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Okay, John. Well, so I want to unpack successful actually first because I think that I disagree with the definition of success. So I'm going to start by being provocative in that regard.

1:54So for me, success is not necessarily the conventional perception of it. So most people think success is material or based on power or popularity or status. And I don't agree with that perception, deeply disagree with that perception. So when we're talking about entrepreneurs, I am an entrepreneur, a two-time entrepreneur, and I define success as my team having affection for me, my legacy being relevant and interesting and valuable and nourishing. and if success, material success follows, that's fantastic. So I just want to make sure that's crystal clear. The other piece is that people don't understand, in my experience, where deep success, the kind I was referring to, comes from.

2:43So a lot of times people perceive that it's an external resourcing situation and I perceive it as an internal resourcing situation. And we can unpack that and I think we will in the conversation. but I think that there's a misunderstanding of what confidence, where confidence comes from, where visioning comes from, where steadiness and equanimity and clarity and courage come from. And that is sort of a misinformation that I would like to disrupt. And you are correct. We're going to be getting into all this and more as we chat today about how to befriend yourself for greater personal power. So let's start, Sonny, by talking about the inner world.

3:26What the heck is the inner world? I know. And that's actually points to what we were talking about, that it's a mysterious place for most people. But it's the driving, it's the place from which all of our actions come, all of our thoughts come, and all of our emotions come. So interestingly, we have a total lack of familiarity around the inner world, and yet it's the biggest driver of our decisions and ultimately the direction of our life. So the inner world in a nutshell is the, if you make what I call the inward turn, which means that you turn your awareness into your own experience internally, then you'll notice that there are thoughts and sensations and perceptions and ideas and assumptions and history and energy that is completely the impulse from which we act.

4:21And most people's awareness is outside of that. And so the inner world is the place where you can solve a lot of the mysteries of what you're afraid of, why you're not doing what you're hoping to do, why you said the thing you wish you hadn't said. And you can resolve a lot of that so that you can lead from a much different space. And so that is the inner world. It's right there all the time and we don't really turn our attention to it. So if we understand inner world, let's talk about inner work, because what does that mean for us as individuals? What is inner work? So if you imagine becoming an adult, right, which, you know, entrepreneurs are, we're very, we have a lot of power and passion and fire and energy, but we're not necessarily emotionally or spiritually mature people.

5:14And so when I talk about inner work, I mean that when you're leading, you're not leading from what I call the little minds, right? So inside of all human beings are these sort of unresolved tiny minds that are a function of developing into a mammalian brain. And those little minds have a lot of ideas about reality. And they're usually the ones that lead. And when you do inner work, then you start to have a big mind. You start to have a bigger mind. That is what I refer to as grandmother mind or grandfather mind that ultimately helps the little minds make better decisions, be more clear when they're thinking through something, express themselves more effectively rather than alienating people in the room.

5:56So when you do inner work, it means that you're starting to ultimately mature into being the leader of your, the captain of your own ship, frankly. And you're not just reacting and defending and protecting yourself from potential threats or challenges to your authority or whatever. So inner work means that you're essentially becoming awake and you're becoming grounded and centered and clear and much more confident and powerful. And that's why it serves. There's no one it doesn't serve to move into that kind of practice. Sunny, you were on this podcast, Entrepreneurs on Fire, over a decade ago.

6:32We're talking June of 2014. So you know that my audience are entrepreneurs, are small business owners, they're side hustlers. So let's talk about the inner world, the inner work, specifically why? Why does it matter for entrepreneurs, creatives, leaders, and human beings in general? Why? So I have been an entrepreneur, as I mentioned, and I've done it twice. And you know, when you're an entrepreneur, just as you are, there's the perception of what you're doing, and then there's the actual experience of what you're doing. And entrepreneurism can be very stressful. It's very uncertain. You don't know how things are going to unfold.

7:11You don't know what kinds of circumstances will change. So you can do it with anxiety and dread and terror and fear, or you can do it with clarity and confidence that you can weather certain storms. And so the reason that I am always advocating for inner work is because I want people to rise to the occasion. I want people to meet the moment. I want people to lead teams and to make bold decisions, but I don't want them to do that from a place of stress and being freaked out and not being sure of themselves and being reactive, right? So I want them to lean into all the challenges of being an entrepreneur, but with the certainty and confidence of somebody who is leading themselves in a way that is actually meaningful and mature.

7:57For example, in my first business, which I don't know if you remember it, but it was a visual thinking. It was a global visual thinking company, and we did a lot of advocacy around visual literacy. And in that business model, it was very, very useful for me to do a lot of creative solutioning. So I would come, I would design services constantly and all the time around, okay, here's some customers. I'd listen to the customers. Here's a new idea, and here's a new design of something potentially that we could do. So I was always scrappy, super resourceful, and I was always designing new products and services.

8:31In the business I run now, that kind of divergent focus is not helpful, right? Like I sell one service and we do one educational campaign and it's around inner work in the inner world. So it's not useful for that part of me who really, really knows how to find opportunities and how to be resourceful and how to design spontaneous services. It's not useful for me to have the divergent thinking. So it's more useful for me to be really streamlined and really precise and really focused. And so in order for me to do that, I have to understand what is the impulse inside of me that wants to constantly chase opportunities and figure out another path and sort of diversify all the time.

9:12And if I can't do that, then I'm going to be constantly losing focus on what my actual mission is, you know? So when I do work with the inner world, it means that I'm alleviating that concern or that drive. And then I'm leading the ship, not that little part of me that is up to that. And then I'm making decisions that are totally on point with my actual business mission. Fire Nation, I really hope you're understanding what Sonny's talking about here. It's a great concept to really practice, to try, because at the end of the day, what do you have to lose? And B, I mean, again, Sonny's been doing this for a while now.

9:51And there are some great processes behind this that we're going to be getting into when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Being a small business owner comes with a lot of challenges, especially now. It seems like everyone is working with smaller budgets, shorter timelines, and sky high expectations. And that can make growing a business feel pretty painful. Thankfully, HubSpot can help. HubSpot just announced dozens of major product updates that'll make impossible growth feel impossibly easy, like Breeze, a suite of new AI-powered tools that deliver personalized insights to level up your work, plus AI agents designed to automate your work for you.

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11:05Are you looking to learn the proven success systems that have been used to create thousands of millionaire success stories? See thousands of success stories and testimonials from real people just like you, who Clay Clark has mentored and coached into prosperity at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO fire. Clay's proven business coaching program is month to month and it costs less than hiring a minimum wage employee. Yes, it's month to month and costs less than hiring a minimum wage employee. Schedule your free personal 13 point assessment with Clay Clark himself today at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO fire.

11:41Because Clay only takes on 160 clients and only allows 300 attendees to each business conference, you will interact with Clay directly, see thousands of real success stories, and learn about attending the Thrive Time Show two-day in-person workshop featuring football great and entrepreneur Tim Tebow today at thrivetimeshow.com slash eofire. Become the next success story. Schedule a free consultation and request tickets to join Tim Tebow and Clay Clark at the next business conference today at thrivetimeshow.com slash eofire. Sonny, we're back. And before the break, we did talk about some steps, some processes that you've created.

12:18And I really want to go through your steps to deep self-design. So I run the Center for Deep Self-Design. And it's essentially a third space to support people, entrepreneurs in particular, in doing inner work so that they can make their experience in their inner world better. And therefore, when they take action in the outer world, that action has a lot of the impact that they're actually looking for. Okay. So in order to do that, we teach a method called deep self-design and there's 101 and there's 201 because as I mentioned earlier, John, most people have no experience with their inner world.

12:55So you really have to start with the basics. So deep self-design 101, I call it DSD 101 is essentially, and it sounds very simple and it's actually quite difficult for most people, not for all people, but it can be is first you, before you're about to take an action. so say you have a team member who is not finishing something and what you want to do is belittle them like you have an impulse and you want to just sort of downgrade them or dismiss them you're frustrated with that person so you have to pause before you do that right like as a leader a team lead that's not a useful behavior right it's not going to get the outcome that you want so you have to first pause you have to notice that you're about to do something that's going to be alienating or not helpful, then you have to turn your attention into your own self.

13:45So you have to understand what is happening in my system, not what is that person doing wrong? Not why is this whole company a mess? What is happening in my system? So you have to get information from your own self. Then you have to stay with whatever is there. So people, as soon as people experience an uncomfortable emotion, we bounce out, we go, I don't want to know that. So you have to stay with it. You have to have the courage to stay with it. And then you do what I call befriending the little mind. So there's a little mind there that has an idea like that guy never finishes anything. He's going to mess everything up.

14:19Right. So you make friends with that part of you. And then in the process of doing that, you extend respect and positive regard to yourself so that you can calm down and meet the moment more effectively. That is literally the five step process. And in application, there's all kinds of different challenges. So that's why we train people to practice and practice in community. Now you've touched on some of these things lately, but I want to dive deeper on specifically what the outcomes and benefits are of this. They're really bottomless, but some that are relevant for entrepreneurs are things like clarity around decision-making, right?

14:59You have to make courageous decisions or you have to make really clean decisions and they have to make sense and they have to tuck into your strategy, right? So you can find yourself having deep clarity and less fuzziness or confusion. You also have a sense of confidence. So if you need to ask for money or if you need to make a pitch or if you need to go speak in public or if you need to recruit a bunch of people and it might stress your budget, you have more confidence around that process and you also can weather the storms a lot better. And you can vision more effectively. Like you might have a desire to do something that other people would call crazy and you might want to be innovative and you have, you start to develop the capacity to not be concerned about what other people's opinions might be about what you're doing.

15:45So there's no place that inner work doesn't improve your experience, not only of your inner life, but your outer relationships with your team and your entire longevity of your career, frankly. So that's the other place. that's part of the reason I get so passionate about that kind of work because there's nothing it doesn't impact and improve. Fire Nation, imagine making courageous and clear decisions on a daily basis. I mean, wow, that would have such an impact on your life, on your health, on your wellness, on your relationships, on your business. I mean, it really doesn't end. So I love this.

16:22And I will say, Sunny, and you were part of the early journey. I mean, 2014, I was only two years into the podcast. Now, you know, over 12 years in, I mean, it's been a grizzled veteran, grizzle, literally, I'm, I'm scruffing my scruff right now. It's, it's very grizzly. But I want to talk about confidence because I can tell you, I've interviewed 4 ,423 incredible entrepreneurs over the past 12 plus years. And I can tell you that confidence is an incredibly common trait that essentially 99.9 % of them have at a deep level. So how does inner work lead to deeper confidence. That's so interesting, John, because I have, I'm working on, I have a book around inner confidence that I'm building.

17:06And, um, I don't, I distinguish confidence from, again, some of the common perceptions of it. So I would be curious about your experience with entrepreneurs, but, um, like, I don't think of it as chutzpah. I don't think of it as bravado. I don't think of as self-promotion. You know, I think of it as a quiet certainty that you are going to be just fine and that your worth as a human being is not dependent or contingent on external forces. So that's a very different approach to confidence, you know. But so when I talk about confidence, I'm not saying, oh, you're going to be bold and brave and jump and the net will appear.

17:47You know, I'm saying that even if the goes down and your solution bombs in the marketplace or you do a talk in public and you embarrass yourself or you feel mortified, you're going to be just fine. So you're going to get yourself up. You're going to be resilient. You're not going to internalize that as you're a failure. You're going to figure out what the lessons are and you're going to keep going. That's the kind of confidence that I'm interested in. I'm not interested in somebody saying I have 12 billion followers on Instagram and none of them know you or care about you. I don't care. I'm not I don't think that's impressive.

18:23I'm not interested. I'm interested in you saying, wow, nobody wanted me to hire this person. They were all opposed to it. And yet I had a strong sense that this would be the perfect puzzle piece that fits. And I'm going to express that to my team and I'm going to live into that. And I'm going to weather the storm. of all that, like that kind of decision-making, you know? So when you say confidence, I wonder if I can ask you a question. Yeah, go for it. When you experienced, you said 99.9 % or something of the people that you're talking to, what does it look like in your experience when you notice that they're confident?

18:57What does it look like for you? So for me, when I say that, I mean that they are really confident in their convictions. Like if they've become an entrepreneur on fire, in my mind, that means they've achieved a high level of success. And the reason in the way that they've achieved a high level of success is because they're confident in their solution is providing real value. And that is in that moment in time. And by the way, that can shift and change over time, which is very interesting as well. And that can really shake the confidence, but that's specifically what I'm referring to. Yeah. Okay.

19:30That, that helps. So they have a lot of conviction and they're also confident in their solution. So that is actually at that layer that I was describing, which is helpful and good. And it's kind of what compels entrepreneurs. Cause that's how I started my first business was I had a lot of confidence in visual literacy and I knew it would make a difference. And I was super passionate about it. And I wasn't at a place mentally or psychologically where if it, if it floundered or failed and I misread the room and didn't get it right, that it wouldn't have hurt, you know? And now at this season of my career, it's like, I'm just going to see what happens because I'm going to be fine no matter what happens.

20:07And I'm just going to design something else and keep moving and keep adapting. And that kind of confidence is a deeper well, much deeper well to draw from. And I you get a lot of that from experience, from practice, application and learnings. You can. But a lot of people get less confident when they when things don't work because they start blaming themselves and they start thinking maybe I don't have good ideas or maybe I'm not perceptive or maybe I don't have what it takes. So it corrodes your confidence. So I'm talking about the kind of confidence that survives all kinds of conditions. That's a different thing.

20:39Love that breakdown. And Sunny, we've talked about a lot of cool things today. Let's have Fire Nation walk away with your number one takeaway that you want to make sure they remember from our conversation today. Number one takeaway. My number one invitation would be to be brave and to start to discover what is happening in you so that you can meet that with respect and appreciation and curiosity and resolve any kind of thinking distortions that you have so that when you are in a leadership position, you are crystal clear and you have that deeper well of confidence. You're going to figure that out when you go into the inner world and start doing inner work.

21:21That is my invitation. And Sonny, if Fire Nation wants to connect with you, learn more from you, what is your call to action for our listeners today? I would love for people to go. I don't know when this comes out, but we have a workshop on July 17th and 18th that is the introduction to deep self-design and intro to inner world. It's going to be awesome because the people who come are fantastic. But otherwise they can visit me on Substack at Nothing in the Way and also at the center for deepselfdesign.com. Those are the great places to find us. Fire Nation, you're the average. Of the five people you spend the most time with, You've been hanging out with SB and JLD today, so keep up that heat.

22:02And maybe another 10 years, Sunny, we'll be chatting away about something similar or maybe a little bit different. Who knows how the life can happen? But all you need to do, Fire Nation, is go to eofire.com, type Sunny, S-U-N-N-I in the search bar. The show notes page will pop up with links to everything that she mentioned. And Sunny, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute you and we will catch you on the flip side. You're the bomb. Thank you, John. I appreciate it. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Sunny for sponsoring today's episode.

22:34And Fire Nation, are you ready to rock your very own podcast? Check out our free podcasting course where I will teach you how to create and launch your podcast for free, freepodcastcourse.com. I will catch you there or on the flippity flip side. The Next Wave, your chief AI officer, hosted by Matt Wolf and Nathan Lanz, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Matt and Nathan are leading AI creators in your guiding light in the AI and technology frontier. AI technology is transforming the way we do business and the media landscape is fragmented.

23:08The Next Wave strives to be the leading podcast on AI technology and how you can apply it to growing your business. Listen to The Next Wave wherever you get your podcasts. Are you looking to start or grow a successful business? Attend the world's highest rated and most reviewed business growth workshop taught personally by Clay Clark and football great Tim Tebow at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO fire. Again, request life changing tickets today at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO fire.

23:4410 Thank you.