Thinking about a liquidity event? Click here to book your FREE strategy call.
April 6, 2021

Waleuska Lazo On How To Leverage Gratitude For Massive Success In Business And Life (#49)

Waleuska Lazo On How To Leverage Gratitude For Massive Success In Business And Life (#49)

"Enjoy your journey because this is where the magic happens" - Waleuska Lazo
Waleuska Lazo, the creator of the 28-day online course FMTG The Gratitude Experiment, is a passionate, expressive, serial entrepreneur and mother of two. Born in Nicaragua, Wale...

"Enjoy your journey because this is where the magic happens" - Waleuska Lazo

Waleuska Lazo, the creator of the 28-day online course FMTG The Gratitude Experiment, is a passionate, expressive, serial entrepreneur and mother of two. Born in Nicaragua, Waleuska immigrated to Canada with her family as a teen. She earned a bachelor of arts degree and a Master's degree in Criminal Justice from the University of Toronto.

Waleuska splits her time between Miami and Toronto, Canada. In 1995 Waleuska was one of the co-founders of Embanet a pioneering e-learning provider of higher education solutions and services. After selling Embanet in 2007, Waleuska co-founded the Magnum Opus Group, which is a real estate company that builds homes for discerning buyers.

In 2011 Waleuska founded Dream Catcher Print a book publishing venture through which she has published a series of books about real-life heroes for young readers and books on personal transformation for adult readers.

Works include The Gift of Bravery: The Story of Ellie Cohen, Confessions from a Mom to Her Child, and her memoir, The Best Worst Thing That Happened to Me.

Having transformed thousands of lives through The Gratitude Experiment. Waleuska's latest book is The Gratitude Blueprint: The Ultimate Strategy For Extraordinary Happiness.

Waleuska attributes her success to leading a life that is focused on service and helping others. 

The Deep Wealth Experience has you learn the 9-steps of preparation in 90-days. At the end of the 90-day,s you create a blueprint to help you optimize your business value. You also have the certainty of capturing the maximum value for your liquidity event.

SHOW NOTES

  • Waleuska shares the emotional challenges experienced after her 9-figure liquidity event
  • The importance of  a "why" in creating fulfillment
  • How Waleuska created The Five Minutes To Gratefulness (FMTG) system to heal herself
  • Why the FMTG has transformed thousands of lives with people from over 83 countries
  • How a practice of gratefulness helps you learn a new habit in 28-days instead of 66 days
  • The extraordinary results people received from Waleuska's FMTG system
  • Why gratitude shifts your focus to unleash creativity and success
  • The science behind FMTG with epigenetics, neuroplasticity, and heart-brain coherence
  • Why people focus on heir problems instead of what's working and what to do about this
  • How stress robs your body of energy and creates illness
  • What negative thoughts do to your brain and emotions to take you off your top performance
  • How to teach your body to feel grateful through gratefulness and meditation
  • The correlation between energy and frequency that shapes your experience
  • Why your inner thoughts become your outer world
  • How to liberate yourself when you drop the "victim" mentality and take responsibility
  • The importance of surrendering to external circumstances and the benefits you receive
  • Why forgiveness is essential to restore your passion and purpose
  • How gratitude helps you enjoy your business journey and elevates your life
  • The importance of strengthening your "bounce muscle"
  • Why you must realize that other people's actions are not personal
  • How gratitude helps you create the type of life and legacy you desire
  • How gratitude helps you dominate and win in your liquidity event
  • Why gratitude makes a difference when going through due diligence
  • The power of a mastermind group to help transform your life
  • The special offer The Sell My Business Podcast audience when you buy The Gratitude Blueprint book
  • How to enrich your company culture through Waleuska's FMTG system
  • How gratitude helps employees be calmer and happier
  • Why happiness is an inside job and is already inside of you

This podcast is brought to you by Deep Wealth. 

When it comes to your liquidity event, you have one chance to get it right, and you better make it count. Enterprise value is created from preparation and not the event itself. 

Learn how the Deep Wealth Experience helps you maximize enterprise value. Master the same strategies our founders used to increase their company value 10X. 

Access the same 9-step road map of preparation that paves the way for success. Enjoy the certainty that you'll capture the maximum value on your liquidity event.  

Click here to book your free exploratory call.

Enjoy the interview!

SELECTED LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE

The Gratitude Blueprint: The Ultimate Strategy For Extraordinary Happiness

Claim your free FMTG course when you buy the paperback book

Waleuska's website

Email Waleuska through Waleuska[at]FMTG[dot]us

The Deep Wealth Experience

Book Your FREE Deep Wealth Exit Call

 

Hey there, did you enjoy the latest episodes of The Deep Wealth Podcast? I have a small favor to ask, and it could mean big things for you. 

Subscribe to The Deep Wealth Podcast and join us in changing the game for business owners like yourself. Subscribe now on your favorite podcast platform. By subscribing, you'll be ahead of the curve with insights from industry leaders, innovators, and disruptors shaping the business world. Whether you're commuting, at the gym, or unwinding, the Deep Wealth Podcast is your source for the next big idea that could take your business and health to new heights. Click on that subscribe button, stay inspired, and step into the future with us.

Also, have you considered leaving a review for The Deep Wealth Podcast? Your feedback fuels us to bring you top-notch guests and world-class content. Your insights are invaluable to us.

The Deep Wealth Podcast is proudly presented by our flagship 90-day Deep Wealth Mastery program.

Avoid the fatal mistake of assuming the skills that built your business are the same for your liquidity event. Up to 90% of liquidity events fail. Even worse, "successful" liquidity evens have business owners losing out on 50 to over 100% of the deal value. 

Why take that risk? 

Deep Wealth Mastery is here to boost your profits, enhance your business value, and arm you with strategies that guided our founders towards a 9-figure deal. From startup entrepreneurs to those edging towards billion-dollar revenue marks, our system is delivering real results.

Deep Wealth Mastery is a game-changer and the only program designed from our founders' 9-figure deal. 

Our graduates have had nothing but praise:

"I wish I had access to Deep Wealth Mastery before my liquidity event as it would have been extremely helpful. Deep Wealth Mastery exceeded my expectations in terms of content and quality," shared Stacey C.

"The investment I made in the Deep Wealth program pales in comparison to the value I've created and will receive in the future," said Sanjay S.

"A company that is attractive to sell is also a great one to own. The Deep Wealth Mastery program gives me the best of all worlds," voiced William S.

Subscribe to The Deep Wealth Podcast now and weigh in with your review. 

If you're ready to ignite your success journey with Deep Wealth Mastery, click here to email us to take the next step in securing your future.

Transcript

Steve Wells: [00:00:05] I'm Steve Wells.

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:00:06] And I'm Jeffrey Feldberg. Welcome to the Sell My Business Podcast.

Steve Wells: [00:00:10] This podcast is brought to you by the Deep Wealth Experience. When it comes to your liquidity event or exit, do you know how to maximize the value of your business? You have one chance to get it right, and you better make it count.  Most business owners believe that business value is determined during the liquidity event.

Unfortunately, most business owners are wrong. Your enterprise value is a direct result of the depth and quality of your preparation. Who are we and, how do we know? We're the 9-figure exit guys. We said "no" to a 7-figure offer. Two years later, we said "yes" to a 9-figure offer.

Despite having the same people, the same company, the same services, we increased our business value 10 times.

How did we do this? We spent millions of dollars and years of time to uncover strategies that level the playing field. The end result is the 12-week Deep Wealth Experience.

We've created a proprietary solution that is relentless, resilient, and gets results. Learn how to master the art and science of a liquidity event. We've leveraged the same strategies that took us from 7-figures to 9-figures.

The Deep Wealth Experience levels the playing field so you can dominate and win.

Book your free call today to find out if you have what it takes for the Deep Wealth Experience.

Visit www.deepwealth.com/success to book your free call.

That's www.deepwealth.com/success.

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:01:39] Welcome to episode 49 of the Sell My Business Podcast.

Waleuska Lazo, creator of the 28-day online course FMTG The Gratitude Experiment, is a passionate, expressive, serial entrepreneur and mother of two. Born in Nicaragua, Waleuska immigrated to Canada with her family as a teen. She earned a bachelor of arts degree and a Master's degree in Criminal Justice from the University of Toronto.

Waleuska splits her time between Miami and Toronto, Canada. In 1995 Waleuska was one of the co-founders of Embanet a pioneering e-learning provider of higher education solutions and services. After selling Embanet in 2007, Waleuska co-founded the Magnum Opus Group, which is a real estate company that builds homes for discerning buyers.

In 2011 Waleuska founded Dream Catcher Print a book publishing venture through which she has published a series of books about real-life heroes for young readers and books on personal transformation for adult readers.

Works include The Gift of Bravery: The Story of Ellie Cohen, Confessions from a Mom to Her Child, and her memoir, The Best Worst Thing That Happened to Me.

Having transformed thousands of lives through The Gratitude Experiment. Waleuska's latest book is The Gratitude Blueprint: The Ultimate Strategy For Extraordinary Happiness.

Waleuska attributes her success to leading a life that is focused on service and helping others. 

Waleuska, welcome back to The Sell My Business Podcast. I'm delighted to have you here. Waleuska was one of the founders of Embanet. And Embanet that's the company where myself, Waleuska, and Steve that's where we had our nine-figure exit.

So, Waleuska was there from the beginning. She's been there throughout. It's been a terrific journey. So, welcome back to the podcast.

You've come out with a book, your latest book that chronicles your journey and puts together this wonderful system in writing that has changed thousands of lives. The Gratitude Blueprint: The Ultimate Strategy For Extraordinary Happiness. So, Waleuska why don't you go to the story behind the story?

What happened to have you create this Gratitude Blueprint and the system that is now forever changing for the better thousands of lives?

Waleuska Lazo: [00:04:00] Thank you, Jeffrey. It's so great to be back. I guess the journey for me began after we had sold Embanet and we had transitioned the business to the new owners. And I clearly remember waking up in the morning and having this feeling of, oh my God, I have nowhere to go, nothing to do.

I can do whatever I want with my life. And I was so excited. I thought that was it. I was going to be happy ever after. And a few days of that freedom turned into huge despair because the one thing that had given me a purpose in my life was gone. And so a few days after I remember waking up with this emptiness in the pit of my stomach and then fear set in because I have no clue what I was going to do for the rest of my life.

And that's when it hit me. If you don't have a "why" to live for, if you don't have a purpose, your life is always going to be one of emptiness. You're always going to be looking for things to fill it with. And I felt salt lost. And from that, I just cascaded into a life that was very negative. We got a divorce and those were really hard times for me.

And then developing an illness that unfortunately for a period of three years, doctors couldn't diagnose or cure. And so, I decided that if doctors couldn't cure me, that I had to become responsible for my own healing. And I started to investigate and read about people that had healed themselves.

And I started to apply and study everything that I could get my hands on. So, that took me to learning about epigenetics, neuroplasticity, heart-brain coherence, transcendental meditation. And I began to apply everything that I was learning, including going to the Amazons in Peru and working with shamans to see if I could heal this illness.

And little by little, what I found is this incredible way of changing my life. What I didn't know then is that the illness I had was caused by an emotional imbalance in my body. Every disease exists at the same frequency of an emotional illness or, trauma. And until you're able to release that emotional trauma, the physical illness cannot leave you.

And so I developed this system for myself and I called it Five Minutes To Gratefulness (FMTG). And what it does is that it takes a person through their life 28 layers. Why 28? Because it takes roughly 28 days to develop and you have it. New science is saying that it takes up to 66 days now, but when you do a habit under a concentrated meditation, the habit wires into your brain a lot quicker.

So, I developed this system. And it started to, heal my life, cure my illness completely within three months of applying it. And then I started helping other people that were going through the same thing. And what I found is that it was so time-consuming for me to help them. So, I thought, there's got to be a better way.

And so I developed a step-by-step guide to teach people how to transform their life in a manner that was easy. That's why it's five minutes. It's something that you can do from your bed, in the comfort of your own home, a place where you feel safe. And because I had an e-Learning background, I thought let's really see if gratitude can truly heal.

And so I did a gratitude experiment with people from around the world and the results were extraordinary. Better than I could have ever expected. And what I understood from the results of my students and a lot of them were, owners of their own business is that it helped them release a lot of the stress they had. Because they were looking at the world through negative lenses. It's human nature to always focus on the 10% of our life that is actually not working. That's where we placed most of our attention. And we don't realize that 90% of the things in our life are actually working pretty good for us. It's our nature to constantly go to the negative. And so, what it does, the FMTG system allows them to shift the way they look at the world. Where they have to now focus on the positive and the more you look for the positive, the more the positive finds you. That’s a law of energy. We attract what vibrates at the frequency that we operate on.

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:08:50] And so Waleuska that's a remarkable story.

And I know the story obviously, but for our listeners, just to clarify, are you saying that through a simple five minutes, a day of gratitude that you healed yourself, you healed this enigma of an illness that medical doctors weren't able to figure out or solve for you? Did that actually happen?

Waleuska Lazo: [00:09:13] Yes. As simple as it sounds, the answer is absolutely yes. And I have tested this program with a thousand other people from 83 countries and the results have been positive. I have students who suffer from chronic illness, MS, and they have been able to completely improve their lives, the way they look at the world, the way they feel about their jobs, about their families. And the reason behind it.

It's not just that it's gratitude, Jeffery. It's the sequence in which the person re-examined their life and their past events. They are prompted to look at their hurtful events in a different light by focusing on the lessons. By focusing on the gift that is often hidden. They say that our best tools for personal growth are hidden in some of our most painful of circumstances. And so that's what the system does.

It shifts the way people think about their life and what you do with that is now you're releasing a lot of energy that people tend to allocate for worrying about the past. 70% of our time is spent thinking and reliving a past event, always focusing on the person they hurt us.

And that puts your body into survival mode constantly. And when you are in survival mode, you're sending a signal constantly to your body that eventually over time, when you're out of balance, it will create an illness. 90% of the doctors visits are due to a chronic illness and all related to stress.

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:10:59] And for our listeners out there. I know some of you are probably thinking, okay. Yeah, Jeffrey, Waleuska great story. That's nice. But come on. What does gratitude have to do with running my business? What does gratitude have to do with preparing for a liquidity event? And the answer is everything. And it wasn't just Waleuska or myself or others who have said this.

I'm going to take you back to what many consider the business bible. Napoleon Hill's Think And Grow Rich. And in Think And Grow Rich Napoleon Hill he states it right out there, which was very progressive at the time. He didn't have the science that we now have today. Where he said your thoughts, what you think about on the inside that becomes your outer world externally.

So, your thoughts are things. And when I look to the nine-step roadmap in the Deep Wealth Experience, I have to tell you if your mindset isn't there. If you're not thinking with a clear mind of opportunities, of all kinds of wonderful creative solutions that you can come up with, you're limiting yourself.

So, the ability to have a positive attitude, to have an attitude of gratitude, to make sure that physically you're feeling well, that mentally you're doing terrific. You can't run a business unless you have those things. And Waleuska I know that when you and I were running Embanet, and even today, as we coach people just in different ways, a core philosophy is never making an important decision when you're feeling low or down, or when you're feeling frustrated or angry.

Waleuska. I'm curious about the science behind emotions. So, when someone is feeling down, what does that do to their brain? What does that do to their thinking process? And compare that to when you're feeling good, when you're feeling grateful, when you're feeling vibrant and recharged, why you're in a better state to make important decisions.

Waleuska Lazo: [00:12:50] So, what happens is when we have a negative thought, that thought produces a negative emotion. So, you feel it in your body. So, if you have a thought of a disgruntled employee who is now taking you to court, that will cause an emotion in your body. And then that emotion loops back into your brain and it tells your brain to create more thoughts, to match the very emotion that you are feeling.

So, what that does to you is that immediately release a stress hormone into your body. Now all the energy that your body is supposed to have for healing for creation for repair is now sent to certain parts of your body because we have a very primitive system it's the flight or fight response that gets turned on.

So, it is very difficult as a business owner to have a clear mind and to be creative and to be pleasant and happy and think about the future, if your entire system is being set up to live in the past.

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:13:54] It's so true with what you're saying, Waleuska. And you know, as I look at the Deep Wealth Experience and our nine-steps at the very center of all the steps, step number five is winning mindset.

And we actually embedded a winning mindset right in the due diligence process. Now, for all of you logical types out there, you may be thinking, hey, wait a minute, Jeffrey, you know diligence. Come on. It's data. It's facts. It's hard numbers. There's no soft side to this. And actually, it couldn't be further from the truth.

When you have the right attitude, when you have a winning mindset, that mindset is going to help you sail through the challenges that are inevitably going to come up from the buyer or from the process. And that winning mindset, when you have that, it's going to help you understand what the situation is and how you can create a positive win-win solution for everyone involved.

So, a winning mindset that's really on the art side of a liquidity event, but I can tell you story after story. Both from our experience from other business owners. If you don't have that right mindset, if you don't come from a good place physically or emotionally, you're really setting yourself up for a big-time failure.

So, Waleuska you mentioned something interesting. You mentioned that it's 28 layers that you've created. And it’s five minutes a day. I take it is day over day back-to-back of doing these five minutes to gratitude. And so, walk us through some of the science of what's behind these five minutes?

What kind of topics do you cover in these 28 days?

Waleuska Lazo: [00:15:35] The topics are divided into four weeks and during the first week, if the person is not used to, waking up in the morning and having to think of something to be grateful for as the first order of the day, it's going to be difficult. I'm not going to lie. It takes time, like anything, it's like a muscle that you're working.

So, the first week aims to teach the person to teach their body what it feels like to be grateful for various things in your life. And we start with a very obvious. Then we go into a very targeted meditation where they have to give thanks for simple things in their surroundings. The fact that we have electricity and clean water.

Where so many people in the world don't and the idea behind it is that when you're at work and things get stressful and you think life is against you and nothing's working out for you, it makes you realize how there are so many things that are actually working for you. So, it shifts the way you look at your stressful situations.

In week two, the person is taught everything about energy and frequency. Most people don't know that every thought you think emits a frequency and that frequency carries a vibration. And you attract into your life, things that resonate with that vibration. So, it teaches a person how they have to become responsible for the life they have attracted.

And that's a very difficult lesson for people to understand because it means that you're no longer the victim, you are responsible because if you were vibrating at a low level, you're responsible for attracting the good, the bad, and the ugly into your life.

Week, three teaches people how to let go, how to surrender the need for control, which is a huge thing for us business owners. We think we need to constantly be in control and it's an illusion. We really cannot control the outcome of anything, but it teaches you that your job it's not to control but to stay in the frequency of your goals and the frequency of your dreams.

And then from there, it teaches people how to forgive everything that has been done into your life, how to forgive yourself, because you can't heal your life or any physical illness if you're holding onto anger. And if you're holding onto resentment. The last week of the course teaches them how to find their passion, their purpose, how to create the life that they actually want to manifest.

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:18:09] Wow, Waleuska, as you're talking through that I think we can retitle the book from The Gratitude Blueprint to the liquidity event blueprint. How true is that you have to surrender. Well as a business owner if we can't surrender to the advisors that we're hiring, we're going to blow the liquidity event. We're going to tie them up, hold them back. Where we have to step back, trust them, and let them do what they're going to be doing. If we can't find our passion both in life and in business, well we're not going to be able to create another market disruption that's going to just catapult revenues and profits and the enterprise value.

So, step by step, as you're talking about these things it's a direct correlation and ties directly into the nine-step roadmap for preparing yourself to capture the maximum value in your liquidity event. And I hope for our listeners that you're actually seeing that correlation and how everything is so nicely tying in together.

So, one of the things that I'd like to ask you Waleuska. I'm speaking now as a gratitude coach, which is what you're doing. But also speaking from the side of things, when you were running a very large and thriving and successful business. You know, nobody's ever perfect. If you knew today what you couldn't know back then, when you were running Embanet how do you think that would have made a difference with the gratitude both personally and what that would have allowed you to do with the business that perhaps you never had that chance to do?

 Waleuska Lazo: [00:19:39] From my standpoint, if I had known the system that I know today, I believe that my experience with Embanet would have been a lot different because I would have been enabled to look at the wonderful things we were doing for the world. Instead, what I remember focusing on was the enormous amount of problems we had with employees.

Attracting talent was a very difficult one for us. I remember focusing so much on all the negatives, how our competitors had more means than we did instead of just being grateful for the opportunity and for the, oh my gosh, for the very thing that we were creating, we were achieving the impossible.

When we started the business, everyone gave us a hundred reasons why we were going to fail. So, it would have allowed me to really embrace the changes that we were making in the world, which I never saw. So, that's a pretty big regret that I have. To be able to not be so stressed, not to look at everything from the negative standpoint and just to appreciate life more, to appreciate the employees, the effort that they put into the business every day, they would show up no matter what. I mean for you and Steve and the creativity that you brought to the table, we were always futuristics. Always ahead of the market, thinking of new ways to reinvent ourselves. When you're a business owner, if your internal state is one that is balanced, your external world is going to be completely different. And I'm not saying that you're never going to get stressed or you're not going to feel the impact of, problems because these things happen. But you are going to react to them very differently. The amount of time you're going to stay in stress is going to shrink. Because your bounce muscle becomes so much stronger when you live in gratitude and you learn to see the world differently.

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:21:41] Wow. I like that term, your bounce muscle, your ability to bounce back. You know, Waleuska, as you were talking about that, two things really jumped out for me. And the first thing is, and we said this at Embanet a lot. It's that resourcefulness trumps resources. We ran like a cockroach startup. We bootstrapped everything.

Our competitors had all kinds of venture capital, money, millions, and millions of dollars. And we simply didn't have that. And at first blush, it would look like it's a huge disadvantage. But actually, it was a tremendous competitive advantage. Because it forced us to really become creative of how we're going to be doing things.

We figured out how to do things that made us more productive, more efficient, and more successful than the competitors. And as you think about your liquidity event for all our listeners out there, and you put yourself in the shoes of your future buyer, show your future buyer, how you're resourceful, not just in your business today.

But what you can do on a go-forward basis, because that affects the bottom line in terms of what you're going to be able to do. And the other thing that you said Waleuska was enjoying the journey. So, for all those business owners out there, be honest with me, say yes or no question. Are you enjoying the journey?

Or are you complaining about this problem or that problem? You know, the problems are always going to be there. Waleuska I know, you'll agree with me at the end of our nine-figure exit. When we look back, it was the journey that stood out.

The journey, that's where the magic happens. That's what really makes it so special. So, as you're talking about all these things, it's so important for our listeners to really dive into and embrace. And so Waleuska let's talk about something that's very relevant, both in life, as well as in business.

For people that go through the Deep Wealth Experience, step number three is the future buyer. Now in many liquidity events the business owner can look to a future buyer in a negative way. Just like we can look to a person who perhaps crosses us in the wrong way in a negative way. How can you use gratitude to turn that around? So, someone who maybe is trying to take advantage of a situation or you feel you're not being treated right.

What are some strategies that you talk about in the 28 days and in The Gratitude Blueprint that somebody can apply to get them to a better place to actually look to that person as a gift to help make the impossible, "I'm possible." 

Waleuska Lazo: [00:24:10] Jeffrey, I think it's all a matter of you know, controlling your own reactions.

You can't control what other people are going to say, what other people are going to do. All you have is how you choose to react to the world. And if you are constantly putting out there a positive energy and energy that is calm, and energy that is compassionate. Eventually, that's what you're going to get back.

And I think as business owners, we go through a lot of rejection, I don't know if you realize how much rejection we go through. From our employees, from our potential buyers, but it's understanding that nothing is personal. That's huge. It allows you to move through situations a lot quicker rather than to stay stuck in the negativity.

So, realizing that nothing is personal. You have to develop thick skin and if you are centered and you're balanced and you're looking at the world from positive lenses, that's, what's going eventually returned to you. So, you have to keep your center, and this is why it's so important to learn to self-regulate.

And if you're dealing with someone that you feel is trying to take advantage of you, again, you're the one who's in control. You always have to realize you're in the driver's seat. You're the one who chooses how to react. You're the one who can say yes or no to the transaction. And I think it's just a matter of putting the right energy because you will attract the same energy back. The universe acts as a mirror and that's what people do. People mirror our energy,

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:25:41] How true you are with Waleuska and particularly in a liquidity event, that's done Deep Wealth style. Where you're in an auction, you have many different buyers that are all competing for your business.

So, yes, you do have that control. If you see the liquidity event going in a direction that you're not comfortable with, you can always change and look to a different buyer. So, you're spot on. We have many choices, but let me transition now. As we sit here for this interview today, we're still in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

And although there's light at the end of the tunnel, we're not quite there yet. So, I'm wondering what kind of suggestions and strategies would you have for business owners who take care of the mental health, not just of themselves, but also of their employees, of their families or their employees, families. What's going on from a gratitude side of what we can be doing every day to make sure that we're handling the new normal and the stresses of the pandemic in a way that keeps us healthy and terrific for business?

Waleuska Lazo: [00:26:43] That's where the FMTG system really can help someone because from the comfort of your own bed, that's the safest place for a person. That's where you get to prime your body for success. That's where you get to decide, how are you going to be, how are you going to interact?

What kind of day you want to have? What kind of legacy you want to build? You are always in control. Many people don't realize how much power they actually have. FMTG teaches the person to decide ahead of time, the kind of day they're going to have, and that goes in spite of whatever life throws at you.

Because the whole point is that you don't have to like everything that you encounter, but even in those moments, you can still find something to be grateful for.

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:27:29] That's well said, last Waleuska, and for all of our listeners out there, your mental health is key. If you can't look after yourself, how in the world are you going to be looking after anyone else?

And so Waleuska what I really like about what you're saying, you're giving us practical strategies of how to take care of ourselves so that we can be that terrific entrepreneur or founder or business owner, or father or mother or friend or colleague, brother, sister you name it. It crosses all the different dimensions.

So, Waleuska I understand that you've come up with a special offer for the listeners of the Sell My Business Podcast. And I know that when you have your course that you're doing personal coaching, you're doing the one-on-one coaching now that you put together something that coincides with the release of your book.

So, why don't you tell our listeners what that's all about and how they can begin to take advantage of this?

Waleuska Lazo: [00:28:22] Thank you, Jeffrey. Yes. When someone buys the paperback, it has a journal built into the book. So, you can start to reflect after every single one of the days of gratitude, but for a limited time only I'm offering people the ability to buy the book, but instead of doing it completely on their own to join other people from around the world, there are three different cohorts that you can choose. You can enroll in any one of them. Whichever one is more convenient time-wise, but you are going to be placed with other people. And we're going to go through the lessons on a daily basis.

So, it will keep you accountable to make sure that you are applying the concepts properly, and that will give you access to various course guides that you can ask questions to. I will be there also guiding you through your personal journey and you will get access to the 28th powerful five-minute meditations that are going to allow you to synchronize your heart and your brain so that you can prime your body for success for calmness, for health, for longevity.

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:29:33] What's interesting you call it a cohort at Deep Wealth we call it a mastermind. And the power of a mastermind group where you're not going through something on your own.

You're learning in this case with a Deep Wealth mastermind, you're learning from other business owners, successful business owners who are looking to have a liquidity event. And we saw this firsthand Waleuska at Embanet. We were fortunate enough to have millions of enrollments go through our company and we helped create some of the wonderful best practices that are still being used today.

When people go through The Gratitude Blueprint and they're in this cohort or this mastermind group, as I like to call it, what are some of the results that you're seeing of the differences because they're not going through it alone because they are working with people that could be either around the corner or around the world, but you're going through this together and you're doing this virtually. What's that been like?

Waleuska Lazo: [00:30:27] It's actually amazing because at the beginning, people are afraid to open up and to contribute and to talk about their lives and their issues, their challenges.

But as soon as they see other people begin to open up and post about their lives It adds incredible perspective because if someone's feeling like the victim and life has been bad to them, and then they read why another person has gone through, they realize how their troubles are really insignificant compared to what other people have gone through.

And the beautiful thing is that one person helps the other. They start to help each other. They start to comment on your life experience and, giving advice from their standpoint, there's communal healing that actually takes place. And the most beautiful thing is the friendships that you can make, that relationships that are created from people that otherwise you will never know.

And they're all in it together. Everyone comes from a different place trying to heal something different, but everyone is coming under the same umbrella with the same purpose on how to use the habit of gratitude to heal their lives.

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:31:40] You say it in the subtitle of your book, The Ultimate Strategy For Extraordinary Happiness.

I know that you shared with me offline, you've begun to receive inquiries from even the medical community who have reached out to you of how they can take The Gratitude Blueprint and take it out to their patients and their communities to really make a difference.

 As business owners, one of the responsibilities that fall upon us is to ensure that our business culture is thriving and rich. Money can buy a lot of things, but it cannot buy a culture. And your competition, they can copy you with the technology that you use, but they cannot buy the culture that you have.

And so, as we talk through this, I'm thinking this is a wonderful opportunity for a business owner to take the gift of gratitude to the employees, to the management, and to enrich the culture, particularly as we go through this pandemic. So, I'd love to hear your thoughts on how would that work in a business environment where a business owner says I’d like to have this for my entire organization. How am I going to do this?

 Waleuska Lazo: [00:32:45] So, how it would work is I use a platform called Teachable. And it's a secure system. So, the company would have their own logo and be able to take the course in a private setting and go through the system as a cohort together.

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:33:03] So, that's terrific. So, it's a private system. It's branded as the company.

So, it's white-labeled that they can have their logo. Their employees are going through this and then day over day themselves and their employees and their management are learning this together. So, one question for you. Is this something that you recommend that the business owner and the management go through first and then the employees, or would they all go through that together?

Waleuska Lazo: [00:33:29] I think it will depend on the culture of your business. But as an employee to know that my managers are also going through the same process, it will be pretty incredible. It will make me feel special that everyone is going through it together because what you're trying to create is a single culture of gratitude.

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:33:49] And what's been your experience. So, from the proverbial, janitor up to the CEO and everyone else in between, if they all have an attitude of gratitude and they've gone through your Gratitude Blueprint as a business owner, what can I expect to see in my business?

Waleuska Lazo: [00:34:06] What you can expect, Jeffrey is a better culture.

Your employees will be calmer, they'll be happier. They will have more patience when dealing with your customers. When you have the right mindset, now you have a lot of energy left in you to create, to think out of the box to think more clearly.

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:34:24] I really like how you referenced culture in your answer just now, because culture in step number two of the nine-step roadmap, X-Factors that insanely increase the value of your business. Culture is one of those X-Factors. When you get your culture, right the world is your oyster. And I'm just thinking out loud here with the Coronavirus travel is either extremely limited or just not happening. Company retreats have gone by the wayside. Perhaps this could be an alternative where instead of having a traditional one-, two- or three-day company retreat, or even a week-long, company retreat, you can have a 28-day virtual company retreat learning The Gratitude Blueprint, and embedding that into your culture.

So, many opportunities and possibilities as we're talking here. Speaking of The Gratitude Blueprint, your book. I understand that's available on Amazon, in both the Kindle and the paperback version?

Waleuska Lazo: [00:35:24] It is Jeffrey. And if you're living anywhere in the world, Amazon distributes internationally.

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:35:29] That's terrific. So, Waleuska as we begin to wrap things up here, there's a question that I'd like to ask every guest on the Sell My Business Podcast. And so, for a moment, I want you to think of the movie Back To The Future. And in Back To The Future, you had that magical DeLorean car that would take you back to any point in history that you wanted.

So, Waleuska imagine that tomorrow you wake up and sitting right outside your door, is that DeLorean car. And you can go back to any point in time. Maybe you're going back to Waleuska as a child, or Waleuska as a teenager or a young woman, or some point in adulthood. What point in life would you go back to and what would be some lessons learned or some wisdom that you would share with a younger Waleuska.

Waleuska Lazo: [00:36:16] The only place to go back to is childhood because that's where we learned our belief system.  The way we interact with the world, the things that we believe, the things that trigger us, the things that we love. Everything goes back to our childhood. So, if I could go back, I would tell her to believe in herself more and to know that you have more power than we are led to believe. That happiness is not something that you can chase.  Happiness is an inside job. It's already inside of you.

So, what I would tell people is that you have to get into a model of cause and effect. By fixing your internal world, your external world gets fixed, not like the old model where we are relying on something external to make us happy to make us feel fulfilled. That's cause and effect.

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:37:12] Love it.

Happiness is an inside job. What terrific words of wisdom. Now I will put all this in our show notes. For our listeners who would like to reach you online, where would be the best place for them to reach you?

Waleuska Lazo: [00:37:25] They can send me an email at Waleuska[at]FMTG[dot]us or they can visit my website at www.waleuskalazo.com

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:37:35] Terrific. Waleuska thank you so much for coming back onto The Sell My Business Podcast. Wishing you all of the success with your new book, The Gratitude Blueprint: The Ultimate Strategy for Extraordinary Happiness. And as we wrap things up here, please stay healthy and safe.

Waleuska Lazo: [00:37:49] Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, Jeffrey.