How to Make Big Ideas Happen with Shana Recker

Today, I am blessed to be joined by Shana Recker. 

Shana Recker is a business and quantum leap coach who empowers people to take action on their biggest dreams and desires.

Her experience building her own successful online coaching business has taught Shana that bold, scary ACTION mixed with the right mindset is the path to incredible growth and RESULTS. She learned it's impossible to have everything figured out before you get started.

Shana has helped hundreds of women believe in themselves and their abilities so that they can take action on their dreams. She is a Pritchett Certified You2 Coach and has helped hundreds of people get over their fears and pursue their goals!

“I am the kind of person who follows their heart and refuses to stay in something that isn't bringing me joy” – Shana Recker

Highlights

💫 1:44    Meet Shana Recker

💫 10:26    You don't have to go back to school to make a career change

💫 12:50    Some tips on how to make a Quantum Leap 

💫17:06   Every single successful person has to start somewhere

💫24:32   You're never too old to make a pivot

💫 29:59  What are the 4 stages of the Quantum Leap?

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Make A Pivot And Still Be Successful

Well, I've just found that I believe fully that each one of those situations has led me to like, I learned there was something in each of those things for me, and I'm definitely somebody who likes to follow my heart, and I don't like to stay in something that isn't bringing me joy. So if there's something that's coming up for me, I have learned through all of those pivots, that I can make a pivot and still be successful, like, I don't have to always like start from the scratch like I'll figure it out, and I hate, I don't want to ever see people like this is part of what I do is I don't want to see people stuck in something they don't love. Because I've been there multiple times. So if I can prove to people that you can make a pivot and make success happen quickly, because I think that's what a lot of people think when it comes to making the pivot is like, Oh, I got to go to school for four years, and then I got to start at the bottom of the ladder. I don't have time for that, because I've made these pivots have happened since when I left my corporate career. I was 30, 35, 36, and when I started coaching, I was just turning like 40, 41, and so I have kids, I have three kids, I didn't have a lot of time to like figure stuff out to make an income, I needed to do it quickly. So I feel like that's something when people want to make those pivots, they want to do them quickly.

Mindset of Achievement

I think the biggest thing for me was where I would get myself caught up in and is the comparison piece. So when I first started coaching, I spent way too much time looking at what everybody else was doing, and I know when you were on my podcast, you said the same thing that comparison is the thief of joy, and what it was doing was actually making me feel like it was making the imposter syndrome even stronger. So I would look at the people who had been doing this for 10 years, and here I am doing this for two months, and wondering why I'm not as good as them, and it would make me feel bad. So, you know, we have to sort of, I would say the first thing is, is to put the blinders on. Like when you're making a pivot, yes, you can look at what other people are doing to get inspiration and maybe emulate some of the things so that you can get your footing. But once you kind of gets there you kind of have to shut it off. Because if you start comparing yourself too much to what everybody else is doing, and then you're not comparing yourself, you're comparing apples to oranges kind of thing. You're not comparing apples to apples. You can really get yourself into a funk and then it stops you from making progress. It stops because fear and doubt crystallize into inertia. It's like you just all of a sudden stop because you're just like so much fear and so much doubt. So you've got to turn that off so that you can keep going, just keep going. I remember Oprah Winfrey saying that she never watched anybody else's talk shows when she was creating The Oprah Winfrey Show, because she didn't want to get distracted, and by what they were doing, she wanted to keep her vision, her way, and follow her heart. So, I feel like that whether you're making a career transition or you're starting in entrepreneurship you have to just do it your way. 

You can't be successful in anything, you can't try and be like somebody else, you have to be yourself, and you have to be unique, whether it's in a new job, a new position, or a new business. You have value. Your voice has value and not when you try and be like somebody else, it doesn't work, and so that's what I ran into a lot in the beginning was, you know, some of that stuff, and then once I turned that off, and really just started going. No, wait, how do I want this to be? How do I want to sound? What's my message? That's when things started to click.

Your Uniqueness Has A Space In This World

Your unique tone, your voice, and your personality have a space in this world, and there's a purpose for it. I know sometimes it's hard because of social media, and there are all kinds of stuff, there are all these distractions, but when you try and change yourself to be like somebody else, it just doesn't work, and you have to the way to get the promotion, the way to get to that next level, the way to get the management's position, or the way to find the success in the business, is by bringing your uniqueness to the role, to the job, to the career, to the whatever it is, and it's taken me a long time to really embrace that. I think that comes with age, like I think as you know, as I turned 40, into my 40s, I'll be 46 this year, that's really become something that I've become more proud of is my own voice where I think in like my 30s, and even into my late 30s, it's still about like trying to fit in trying to be and I think that happens to a lot of I'm going to say women, I can't speak for the men so much. I think for a lot of women when we turn 40 it's like where we really start to see our own value, we really start to value our uniqueness, and we stop caring so much about what other people think. For me, I think that's where a lot of career transitions happen. You know, we've raised our kids, our kids are older now we have some more time to think about ourselves and look at our own passions and what we really want. For me, that's where I started to really go, wait a minute, do I really want to keep doing this? Or what do I really want and allow my uniqueness to come out and come to the table? I know that kind of took a couple of twists and turns but messaging is still

Do Not Fear Judgments

We went into massive amounts of debt to try and put this lifestyle on to show like, we were something, we were somebody, and at the end of the day that I did at one after we went through all that what I learned was none of that I didn't care about any of that stuff. I cared about making sure that I was doing work that I loved that my kids were healthy, and that we had a great family life, and those were the things that were important to me. I mean, yeah, it's nice to have stuff and all that stuff. But it's that secondary to all of those things, once those things are fulfilled. Yeah, and I have the nice house and the nice, all the things right. So and that's what I want to share, and I don't care what people think about me and what I went through, people can have their opinions, and that's fine. But it's a story that I want to share and help people through kind of things. So yeah, I think that as we get older, we care less about that thing. But here's the caveat to all of this is that you will be more like when you are yourself. Because people can feel fake energy when you're trying to be like somebody else, or you're trying to fit in and do they that energy comes across, so you'll actually have more authentic relationships and be more, I don't wanna say like, it's not even about that, but you'll have those more authentic relationships with people when you are yourself fully.

Age Means Nothing

I would say, just don't even like age means nothing, and actually, this is a great segue into the Quantum Leap strategy. The first part of the strategy is, whatever you want to achieve. Age isn't even a thing. But whatever it is that you want to achieve, it must be a burning desire. If you have that burning desire, then that initiates, that initiates your Quantum Leap that initiates so much towards you getting whatever it is you want, regardless of your age, regardless of your status, regardless of whether you have income or don't have income, regardless of your limitations. If you have a burning desire for something, then you are on the path to achieving it. That’s when I made that transition from corporate to graphic, from a corporate graphic designer to network marketing. The reason I was able to accomplish so much so quickly in the first year of my business, was because I had a burning desire because I was like I am making this work. Once I understood that this business could get me out of my corporate job. I was like blinders on burning desire, I'm making this happen, and I’m getting this promotion so I can get this income so that I can leave that job, and that's why that was one of the reasons why I was able to make that shift so quickly, was because of the desire. So age means nothing.

The Four Stages Of The Quantum Leap Strategy

The first step to initiating a quantum leap is one is picking an aiming point, which is something that you're passionate about a burning desire. So, people often pick goals, so pick a goal, and they'll wonder why their goal isn't happening, and if you're looking at your goal right now, and you think, okay, if everybody who's listening what's your goal this year? Look at your goal. Think about your goal. Is it something that you've got that burning desire for like, you're almost obsessed with it? Tony Robbins says that all the time, you got to become obsessed with your goals. That's how you make those things happen. Because here's the thing, if you're not obsessed over your goal, if you don't have that burning desire to make it happen, then the first obstacle, the first Roadblock, the first thing that doesn't work out, you're so willing to just kind of go Oh, well, that didn't work or I'll try it again next year, or you know, you just kind of like me, and so the burning desire has to be there. That's one of the things. 

There are other pieces and parts to it, but that's pretty much the main thing. The other thing I will say, when it comes to picking your goal, your goal has to be your goal. So oftentimes in careers, people will pick a career goal because their parents were a doctor or a lawyer, or a thing, and their grandparents were and so they feel they ought to, or they should be that same thing, and then they may become a doctor, they may become a lawyer, but they're not satisfied. They're not as successful as potentially they could be. Oftentimes you hear about people who are midway through law school, and then they quit, and then they become like an artist or, a rock star or something like that, because the goal was never theirs, and so you have to make sure that the goal is something that you want, and it's something that you really, really desire, and to be honest, I don't think you can have a burning desire for something unless it's something that you really, really want. So if you're going for that promotion, and your business, or that management role, or whatever it is, or even if you're starting your own business, it's got to be that burning desire. So that's the first real big step is picking a goal that you are passionate about. 

Once you pick that goal, I actually reverse these steps. So when I was training this, there's, there's this mind-work piece that you do, and then, of course, there's the action piece. I was taught to do the action piece first, and the mind works second, but I actually believe the mind work should come second because we've got to start getting our mindset set up for success. I won't take the action. So the mind workpiece is the second part of the strategy, and this is where you are starting to program your subconscious mind with your desire. So there's an actual Quantum Leap Ritual that I share, and I'll share it here as well. It's basically a 15-minute ritual, I'll give you the length of the short of it, and it's really you write out your goal. You want to visualize your goal as if it's already accomplished. So if your goal is to have that management leadership position, how does your life change once you've achieved that goal? So let's say you've been in that management position for six months, you're getting that salary, what’s changed? Do you have a new home? Do you buy yourself a new car? Do you like would you have to live in a new city? What's changed and so when you visualize you don't visualize yourself getting to the goal you visualize yourself from the goal achieved, and that puts your subconscious mind into a place of Oh, this is already happening, oh, this has already happened, and your subconscious mind goes to work to match your reality to your vision. So the Ritual is about setting up that programming for your subconscious. So you visualize yourself, you spend about 10, 15 minutes you close your eyes, you visualize yourself almost like a little movie you're watching in your mind, of you playing out the role of your goal. Like, what's changed for you? What are you doing? What's your day like? Are you driving a new path to work? Or are you starting this new business and you're seeing yourself going into your home office or whatever it may be, and while you're visualizing that you spend about 10, 15 minutes, visualizing that, sometimes this happens, and sometimes it doesn't. So it's a ritual, you do it every day, its part of it becomes a habit. You write down any insights that come up when you're visualizing your goals. So when we do this visualization work, our subconscious mind while we're quiet and sort of being in the feeling of our goal, will give us insights and answers to how to make that goal happen. 

So you might get an idea to do a TED talk, or you might get an idea to go ask somebody about a position opening, or you might get an idea to like there are so many different things that have popped into my mind while doing this work. So you listen at the same time, while you're visualizing for any ideas, thoughts, or things that pop into your mind, and you write them down, and then those are action items. Those are things that you can act on, and so that brings us to step three, which is actually the pursuit of the goal, and so once you get into the pursuit part really what it comes down to, and this is something I know you're great at, because we've talked about this is you have to take action, but it's got to be an action that's out of your comfort zone. When you're pursuing a quantum leap. You can't get to a new level in your life, a higher level, doing the same things you've always done. Like the reason your career, when you talk about how you took that management role, the reason your career propelled so quickly, you made that huge Quantum Leap was because you said yes to something that was completely out of your comfort zone and you figured it out as you went. 

The thing with your goal, you can't possibly map out how you're going to get there. It's impossible. The only way the map reveals itself is by taking an action. You got to take an action, and then the next step appears and then you take the next action and the next step appears. We're oftentimes where people get tripped up. When going after their goals they wait until they have all the answers until they make a move, or they wait until everything feels like it's all scheduled out, and that’s okay, I'm going to do this first, and I'm going to go do that, and then I'm gonna do this, and that's going to lead me to this. But the thing is, is that when you do that step, you don't really know if it's gonna lead you to that, it can lead you to something else, and you have to be open to those unexpected things that pop up, and you got to say yes to that. 

So the pursuit part is really about taking moves that are out of your comfort zone, how can you get to where you want to go quicker because taking small, little easy moves that are comfortable, are not going to get you there quicker, you've got to take moves that are out of your comfort zone, when I started my network marketing business, totally out of my comfort zone, I went from working behind a computer eight hours a day to standing in people's living rooms, giving skincare presentations, like out of my comfort zone. But that's what propelled me to you know, forex my income and become a top leader, and on all of those things, it was because I was doing new moves out of my comfort zone, and then the fourth part of the strategy is all about accountability and tracking. We know we need accountability when it comes to wanting to make these goals happen. 

So having a coach, having an accountability partner, someone to help make sure that you're not drifting away from the actions from the mind work and that kind of stuff, and then as well, it's about tracking, it's like, can you if for instance, we talked about you doing your TED Talk, it's like, okay, the first move is I'm going to book the date to do the work, then the second move, and you're tracking your results, like, you've got this laid out, and you're going, okay, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this, and you're open to the unexpected, but you're tracking the results to see, okay, did that work? Did that not work? Do I need to make a new move? So it's more about accountability. But yeah, and that's the strategy in a nutshell.

Transcript

Danielle Cobo

Hey, beautiful. Welcome to Dream Job with Danielle Cobo podcast. I am Danielle Cobo, an elite career coach, and I believe every woman has the power to step into their dream jobs, earn the salary they are worth and live the life they desire. Each week you join me, you're going to hear from the inspiring women who have overcome adversity and levels up their career. You're going to learn how to eliminate that inner credit that is holding you back from pursuing your dreams, how to build confidence, create healthy boundaries to transition, burn-out to reenergize and gain clarity on how to accelerate your career. It's never too late to pursue your dream job. The time is now. Are you ready? Welcome to another addition, another episode of Dream Job with Danielle Cobo today I have another incredible guest. Her name is Shana Recker, and she is a Quantum Leap Strategist. She is a business coach, and she is the host of a podcast. She and I have had this amazing opportunity to connect, and her message is so powerful, and I'm so honored to have her as a guest. So thank you so much, Shana, for being on with us today.

Shana Recker

Well, thanks for having me. I'm super excited to be here to chat with you.

Danielle Cobo

Oh, yes. So tell us a little bit about your career journey and how you transitioned into being a Quantum Leap Strategist.

Shana Recker

Yeah, absolutely. So I spent about 15, almost 20 years as a corporate graphic designer. So I was in the corporate world for a long time, did the nine to five, three weeks’ vacation a year. That whole thing, and for me, it's actually even started before I got into corporate. I always knew that I had this desire to be my own boss, or at least to be the boss I used to watch. This is really going to date me. But I used to watch who the boss as anybody is. I don't know if anybody remembers that. But remember Angela Bower. I don't know if you know that show, but she was like a marketing guru. She was the boss, and I used to always be like, I want to be like her. So I got into corporate. I got into graphic design. I got into marketing. I did that for 15, 20 years and never got to the place where I was the boss. I always wanted to get the promotion, keep moving up the ladder. I found myself in a place where I was stuck. I was like, this was a kind of as far as I could go as the graphic design marketing background. There really just wasn't a position for me to be able to in the place that I was in a position for me to be able to move up, and so once I really realized that I had kind of hit my peak in the corporate space, I knew that for me, my next level was going to be leaving corporate and starting my own thing, becoming my own boss, becoming an entrepreneur, and to be honest, I thought that was going to be working with my husband, who was also in graphic designer and marketing as well. He did have his own business, and I was going on maternity leave, and I was like, okay, well, I'm going to go on maternity leave him while on maternity. We're going to build your business together. That was the plan, and that was going to be my way out of corporate and getting me into this place of becoming my own boss. But what happened was and I truly believe the universe works in mysterious ways to help support you to get onto your purpose. While I was on maternity leave, I was actually introduced to network marketing. Network marketing was not something I ever thought I would do. It's not something I even really knew a lot about. I just had a friend who did it. She introduced me to a product. I love the product, and I saw potential for me to, you know, potentially make this into something. So I am not somebody who overthink things. I'm actually somebody who I see something that I think could potentially be. I jump, and so I did. I jumped into network marketing. I very quickly made a decent amount of money and that I actually replaced my corporate income within my first year, more than replace my corporate income. In the first year, I moved to the top of my company within Canada. So I made it to the top of my company within the first year in the Canadian division, and really loved what I was doing. That was really the first time I made a quantum leap in my life, and I didn't realize it at the time that that's what I was doing. I was making that quantum leap. But I went from being an employee in a Corporation making about $2,400 a month to making five figures a month as a network marketer within twelve months. So it was like a pretty big jump. But that's what my first intro into becoming an entrepreneur was, and being my own boss was network marketing, and so I did that for a solid seven, eight years of my life. Really built a team. I had hundreds of consultants in my team was my first introduction to being a leader, leading people. As prior to that, I was working behind a computer for 8 hours a day. So I really learned a lot in that career as a network marketing leader, about entrepreneurship, about leading a team, about just who I was as an entrepreneur and as somebody who had to be my own boss. So, I loved what I was doing, and then there became a time where I started falling out of love with the job. I started falling out of love with the selling of the products. There were just some things that I just started feeling like it wasn't an alignment for me anymore, and what I started noticing were at the time. This was back in about 2015, these women and men who were out online creating businesses, coaching and selling programs, and creating training programs and courses. I started seeing people doing that in that industry. I was like, that's something that's really cool. Maybe I could do that. Maybe I could create a course. Like, I had a lot of experience in network marketing. I had created a six-figure business in network marketing. Maybe I could create some sort of coaching program to teach network markers. I had the idea. But I have to admit, after getting that idea, I procrastinated resistance. So the imposter syndrome, all of those things. For a year, I held on to that idea. I just kept having all the excuses as to why I couldn't why shouldn't all of that? Finally, in about a year later, our life got kind of turned upside down. We went through some financial stuff. It's a whole other podcast episode, but happy to chat about it. But we just went through some stuff, and my husband said to me, he's like, what about that coaching business? Like, what if we start that coaching business that could potentially help us? I was just like, it was one of those situations where one of the excuses I had could hold water anymore. I had to actually do it. I was like, okay, let's do it. So, I jumped in. I started at that time, which was called Girlfriends Guide to Network Marketing, my first coaching business. I did that for about a year, and then what I learned is creating that business is I actually fell in love with the process of creating the online business, about teaching social media, about understanding social media, about how to create courses and programs and put yourself out there, really fell in love with that and started teaching business. I kind of transitioned out of the network marketing space and more into teaching online business, and I did that. I still do some of that for my clients because I have that knowledge. I've been graphic designing and marketing for many, many years. So a lot of that still comes out in the business that I have today, but where I transitioned again. So speaking about career transitioning and finding your dream job, I've definitely made a few in the last year. I really went all in on mindset because what I was seeing in the online space, where people who were building businesses or starting new online businesses, and they were getting all the mechanics right. But they weren't finding success because their mindset wasn't right. There was a lot of things going, and they weren't finding the success they wanted because they were holding themselves back mindset wise. So I started jumping into understanding the mindset of achievement. So working with mindset, coaches, mindset, mentors, all of that. I did that all of 2020 just really going deep into what it takes, what you need to flip in your mind in order to find success, and that led me to a book and the book, the book is called U Squared. It's called U Squared by Price Pritchard, and this book is a small little book. Its 35 pages long. It's not very big, and I read this book and it's a high velocity formula for multiplying your personal effectiveness and quantum Leaps is what this book is about, and I literally read it in 30 minutes. I loved it so much, and it really just changed everything for me. I understood after reading that book, I could understand why I had such quick success in my network marketing business is because I was following this Quantum Leap strategy, and I was like, if I could really learn this strategy, this is what I could help. This is what will help me teach people how to actually find the success they're looking for. Once they get the mechanics set up, then if they understand the strategy, then they know that they can make the leaps that they're looking for. So back in December of 2020, I became certified as a quantum strategist with Price Pritchard’s certification programme, and I see it's not that I switched out of business coaching, like I said, I still do that. But I'm more now about the mindset of achievement. So it's like, whether you're a business owner or you're in a job, or you want to make a career transition, because I've experienced them all the strategies that I teach help you in all of those areas, and so I just really fell in love with that, and love to teach that, and yeah, it's just sort of led me to where I am today.

Danielle Cobo

That's a very incredible story, and what I really love hearing so much is you've made some major career shifts throughout your lifetime, where you've worked for network work, you've done graphic design and marketing for a corporation, then you did network marketing, and then you were doing business coaching, and now you're doing a mindset of achievement. There's so many different pivots that you've made within your business and in your career, that have brought you to where you're at today, and I would imagine, you're probably going to pivot even more as each year goes on.

Shana Recker

Well, I've just find that, I all I believe fully that each one of those situations has led me to like, I learned there was something in each of those things for me, and I'm definitely somebody who likes to follow my heart, and I don't like to stay in something that isn't bringing me joy. So if there's something that's coming up for me, I have learned through all of those pivots, that I can make a pivot and still be successful, like, I don't have to always like start from the scratch like I'll figure it out, and I hate, I don't want to ever see people like this is part of what I do is I don't want to see people stuck in something they don't love. Because I've been there multiple times. So if I can prove to people that you can make a pivot and make success happen quickly, because I think that's what a lot of people think when it comes to making the pivot is like, Oh, I got to go to school for four years, and then I got to start at the bottom of the ladder. I don't have time for that, because I've made these pivots have happened since when I left my corporate career. I was 30, 35, 36, and when I started coaching, I was just turning like 40, 41, and so I have kids, I have three kids, I didn't have a lot of time to like figure stuff out to make an income, I needed to do it quickly. So I feel like that's something when people want to make those pivots, they want to do them quickly.

Danielle Cobo

So talking about mindset of achievement, I think this is where sometimes we can get stuck within our own minds and our own critics as to what we can achieve in our career and life and just our overall state of mind, and so tell us a little bit about what are some strategies that you can share with us when it comes to shifting that mind and taking that quantum leap to where we want to go?

Shana Recker

Yeah, absolutely. I think the biggest thing for me was where I would get myself caught up in and is the comparison piece. So when I first started coaching, I spent way too much time looking at what everybody else was doing, and I know when you were on my podcast, you said the same thing is that comparison is the thief of joy, and what it was doing was actually making me feel like it was making the imposter syndrome even stronger. So I would look at the people who had been doing this for 10 years, and here I am doing this for two months, and wondering why I'm not as good as them, and it would make me feel bad. So, you know, we have to sort of, I would say the first thing is, is to put the blinders on. Like when you're making a pivot, yes, you can look at what other people are doing to get inspiration and maybe emulate some of the things so that you can get your footing. But once you kind of get there like you kind of have to shut it off. Because if you start comparing yourself too much to what everybody else is doing, and then you're not comparing yourself, you're comparing apples to oranges kind of thing. You're not comparing apples to apples. You can really get yourself into a funk and then it stops you from making progress. It stops because fear and doubt crystallizes into inertia. It's like you just all of a sudden you stop because you're just like so much fear and so much doubt. So you've got to turn that off so that you can keep going, just keep going. I remember Oprah Winfrey saying that she never watched anybody else's talk shows when she was creating The Oprah Winfrey Show, because she didn't want to get distracted, and by what they were doing, she wanted to keep her vision, her way, and follow her heart. So, I feel like that whether you're making a career transition or you're starting in entrepreneurship that you have to just do it your way. You can't to be successful in anything, you can't try and be like somebody else, you have to be yourself, and you have to be unique, whether it's in a new job, a new position, a new business. You have value. Your voice has value and not when you try and be like somebody else, it doesn't work, and so that's what I ran into a lot in the beginning was, you know, some of that stuff, and then once I turned that off, and really just started going. No, wait, how do I want this to be? How do I want to sound? What's my message? That's when things started to click.

Danielle Cobo

It's interesting that you say that with putting the blinders on because whether you're an entrepreneur, because I also experienced the same thing. I was comparing myself to people like Tony Robbins, or saying, oh, my gosh, here I was going, oh, my gosh, why am I not having success or traction like that, like they are? Why am I not innocent, I'm like, wait a minute, I had to take a step back and say, in three months, and three months, I started my LLC, I built and designed my own website. I'm not a website designer. I started a podcast. I've been a guest on several podcasts. I've published articles in like three to four short months, and so you really have to celebrate, if you are an entrepreneur, you really have to celebrate the milestones that you make, because everybody, including the Tony Robbins, and Simon Sinek started somewhere, and they also had to do that journey. In addition, I would say, if you're looking if you're in corporate America, and you want to take that next step, and you want to level up your career, and, you know, whether it's being in a leadership position, or VP position, every one of those VPS has started somewhere. Yeah, you can't compare yourself to somebody that's been doing it for five years, and expect you to do it the same way. They've learned and evolved, and they continue to learn and evolve, and you're gonna bring your own unique perspective and your experience is going to bring value in itself.

Shana Recker

Yeah, and you're like, I don't know where I got this one, but your unique tone, your voice, your personality has a space in this world, and there's a purpose for it. I know sometimes it's hard because social media, and there's all kinds of stuff, there's all these distractions, but when you try and change yourself to be like somebody else, like it just doesn't work, and you have to the way to get the promotion, the way to get to that next level, the way to get the management's position, or the way to find the success in the business, is by bringing your uniqueness to the role, to the job, to the career, to the whatever it is, and it's taken me a long time to really embrace that. I think that comes with age, like I think as you know, as I turned 40, into my 40s, I'll be 46 this year, that's really become something that I've become more proud of is my own voice where I think in like my 30s, and even into my late 30s, it's still about like trying to fit in trying to be and I think that happens to a lot of I'm going to say women, I can't speak for the men so much. I think for a lot of women, when we turn 40 it's like where we really start to see our own value, we really start to value our uniqueness, and we stop caring so much about what other people think. For me, I think that's where a lot of career transitions happen. You know, we've raised our kids, our kids are older now we have some more time to think about ourselves and look at our own passions and what we really want. For me, that's where I started to really go, wait a minute, do I really want to keep doing this? Or what do I really want and allowing my uniqueness to come out and come to the table. I know that kind of took a couple twists and turns but messaging is still

Danielle Cobo

You're so spot on with this. I remember I was working for this incredible woman, and she stepped into a leadership position for the first time at 50 years old, and I was really struggling in my earlier years of leading a team of going, I want to be liked, I want to be liked, and I want not only it was this. I think on the surface level, I was saying, I want to make an impact and I want to be a great leader and I want to be known for being a great leader. I think deep down inside. I was having a lot of insecurities because I wanted to be liked, and she said exactly what you said was as you get closer to your 40s, you'll start to care. It's not that you don't care what people think. But you start to your own confidence and your self-worth, and you really start to be value who you are as a person, and I'm seeing that transition as I get to my 40s. Because I would say the things that I've shared on social media this past year, I've talked about losing my mom to suicide and being raised by a mother with bipolar disorder and my suffering from postpartum, all these deep, deep dark kind of secrets that I've held in I'm sharing them.

Shana Recker

Yeah.

Danielle Cobo

You're right, it's as you approach, like, and you just become more confident in your own skin in who you are.

Shana Recker

Well, and I think you also realise that the things that like I look at some of the things that I've gone through, like my financial situation, and stuff like that, and I go, I didn't go through this just to harbor it inside and make it this little secret that I have, I went through this because I learned something from this, and I want other people to learn from what I went through, like, I want to write a book about it someday, I want to share the experience, because the reason I went through that was because I cared what other people thought.  We went into massive amounts of debt to try and put this lifestyle on to show like, we were something, we were somebody, and at the end of the day that I did at one after we went through all that what I learned was none of that I didn't care about any of that stuff. I cared about making sure that I was doing work that I loved that my kids were healthy, that we had great family life, and those were the things that were important to me. I mean, yeah, it's nice to have stuff and all that stuff. But it's that secondary to all of those things, once those things are fulfilled. Yeah, and I have the nice house and the nice, all the things right. So that and that's what I want to share, and I don't care what people think about me and what I went through, people can have their opinions, that's fine. But it's a story that I want to share and help people through kind of things. So yeah, I think that as we get older, we care less about that thing. But here's the caveat to all of this is that you will be more liked when you are yourself. Because people can feel fake energy, when you're trying to be like somebody else, or you're trying to fit in and do they that energy comes across, so you'll actually have more authentic relationships and be more, I don't wanna say like, it's not even about that, but you'll have those more authentic relationships with people when you are yourself fully.

Danielle Cobo

I think we talk a lot about women, and whether you're approaching your 40s, or you're in your 40s, and that misconception that I think a lot of women believe is when they're looking to step into their next job, and they're saying, well, no one's gonna hire me, because they're gonna see me as too old, or they want to hire a younger and pay less and things along those lines, let's really talk and open up the conversation about the perceptions of ageism whether you're in a corporate environment, or whether you're starting a business, because sometimes we have that mindset of, well, I'm too old to start my own business. Let's talk about that.

Shana Recker

Yeah, and I actually think that I wouldn't have been able to start the business that I have today in my 20s, or 30s, because I just wouldn't have had the experience, I would have been able to handle like, there's a lot of stuff that you got to do as a business owner, the books, the receipts, the taxes, I wouldn't have had the maturity for that I barely, sometimes have a maturity for it. Now, you know what I mean? So it's like, there's just so many things that I wouldn't have been able to handle at an earlier stage, and I know for me, I definitely needed to be in my 40s before making this kind of switch, because there was a maturity level there was, you know, had been through a lot of experiences. So I knew that I could, you know, kind of overcome some things like I'd been through a divorce, so I knew what it was like to have to go through something and come out the other side and pick yourself back up, and so even those, those experiences, you know, I wasn't thinking like, oh, I've been through that. So I'll know I'll be able to start a business, those things subconsciously set me up so that I could put myself out there, and if it didn't work, I knew that I could figure it out. I just knew that I had the ability to overcome things because I'd had that life experience. So, I think that I don't I think that there's a lot of wisdom that comes with age and not even just from school and things that you've programmes and things like that, but just life experience in itself. I see my husband, who’s made a recent career transition but when he was in his graphic design marketing career, he spent 25 years as a graphic designer doing brand design and he charged when he was doing that charged a lot of money for his brand, and designs, and when people would complain and say, well, that only takes you like a couple of hours or even a day to do like, how do you how do you charge them and she goes, it's taken me 25 years to learn how to do this in a day, you know, that's why I charge you're not just paying for my two hours or three hours of creating your design, you're paying me for 25 years of experience to be able to do it in two hours. So there's value in in somebody who's had more experience, and so yeah, I don't even sign up for that sort of mentality of thinking that just because I'm older, I can't do anything. I know, people who have started businesses in their 70s. I'm actually working with a woman a client right now she's in her mid-60s, and she's starting an online nutrition business. I'm in awe of her all the time, just like she's putting herself out there. She's designing her own website, she's doing her like, and it's amazing, and she's just in there doing it, and I just love it. I think it's incredible.

Danielle Cob

It's interesting, you say this, because the perfect timing, I rarely turn on the TV in the morning, I try not to have TV around with my kids unless it's really cartoons for them, and I was listening to the news, and there's probably purpose as to why I turned it on this morning for our conversation. There was a woman who just graduated from her bachelor's degree at 99 years old.

Shana Recker

Yes.

Danielle Cobo

I mean, I have goosebumps even thinking about it just  to say that she was like, I want to do this, and I'm going to do this and doesn't matter age, something she wanted to accomplish in her life. Shana Recker

Yep.

Danielle Cobo

My father in law's doing the same thing. My father in law is a retired, highly respected, general surgeon, and right now he's getting his master's in, I don't know, like Christian studies or something. I mean, he's an elder at the church, and he's saying, this is what I want to do. It's never too late to do what you want to do. We really need to shift our mindset around age, and it's, you know, you're not 40 years old, you're 40 years young.

Shana Recker

Yeah, I would say, just don't even like age means nothing, and actually, this is a great segue into the Quantum Leap strategy. The first part of the strategy is, whatever you want to achieve. Age isn't even a thing. But whatever it is that you want to achieve, it must be a burning desire. If you have that burning desire, then that initiates, that initiates your Quantum Leap that initiate so much towards you getting whatever it is you want, regardless of your age, regardless of your status, regardless of whether you have income or don't have income, regardless of your limitations. If you have a burning desire for something, then you are on the path to achieving it. Like that’s when I made that transition from corporate to graphic, from a corporate graphic designer to network marketing. The reason I was able to accomplish so much so quickly in the first year of my business, was because I had a burning desire, because I was like I am making this work. Once I understood that this business could get me out of my corporate job. I was like blinders on burning desire, I'm making this happen, and I’m getting this promotion so I can get this income so that I can leave that job, and that's why that was one of the reasons why I was able to make that shift so quickly, was because of the desire. So age means nothing.

Danielle Cobo

Now it means nothing. You just got it, and we're all young at heart, and that experience is so valuable that we can bring. So let's talk let's kind of talk before we wrap up, what are the four stages of that quantum leap?

Shana Recker

Yeah, so the Quantum Leap strategy, there's four steps, and the first step to initiating a quantum leap is one is picking an aiming point, which is something that you're passionate about a burning desire. So, people often pick goals, so pick a goal, and they'll wonder why their goal isn't happening, and if you're looking at your goal right now, and you think, okay, if everybody who's listening what's your goal this year? Look at your goal. Think about your goal. Is it something that you've got that burning desire for like, you're almost obsessed with it? Tony Robbins says that all the time, like you got to become obsessed over your goals. That's how you make those things happen. Because here's the thing, if you're not obsessed over your goal, if you don't have that burning desire to make it happen, then the first obstacle, the first Roadblock, the first thing that doesn't work out, you're so willing to just kind of go Oh, well, that didn't work or I'll try it again next year, or you know, you just kind of like me, and so the burning desire has to be there. That's one of the things. There's other pieces and parts to it, but that's pretty much the main thing. The other thing I will say, when it comes to picking your goal, your goal has to be your goal. So oftentimes in careers, people will pick a career goal because their parents were a doctor or a lawyer, or a thing, and their grandparents were and so they feel they ought to, or they should be that same thing, and then they may become a doctor, they may become a lawyer, but they're not satisfied. They're not as successful as potentially they could be. Oftentimes you hear about people who are midway through law school, and then they quit, and then they become like an artist or, a rock star or something like that, because the goal was never theirs, and so you have to make sure that the goal is something that you want, and it's something that you really, really desire, and to be honest, I don't think you can have a burning desire for something unless it's something that you really, really want. So if you're going for that promotion, and your business, or that management role, or whatever it is, or even if you're starting your own business, it's got to be that burning desire. So that's the first real big step is picking a goal that you are passionate about. Once you pick that goal, I actually reverse these steps. So when I was when I was training this, there's, there's this mind work piece that you do, and then of course, there's the action piece. I was taught to do the action piece first, and the mind works second, but I actually believe the mind work should come second, because we've got to start getting our mindset set up for success. I won't take the action. So the mind work piece is the second part of the strategy, and this is where you are starting to programme your subconscious mind with your desire. So there's an actual Quantum Leap Ritual that I share, and I'll share it on here as well. It's basically a 15 minute ritual, I'll give you the long of the short of it, and it's really you write out your goal. So one of the things I'm really big on and for everybody who's listening, here's a tip. You want to visualize your goal as if it's already accomplished. So if your goal is to have that management leadership position, how does your life change once you've achieved that goal? So let's say you've been in that management position for six months, you're getting that salary, what’s changed? Do you have a new home? Do you do you buy yourself a new car? Do you like would you have to live in a new city? What's changed and so when you visualize you don't visualize yourself getting to the goal you visualize yourself from the goal achieved, and that puts your subconscious mind into a place of Oh, this is already happening, oh, this has already happened, and your subconscious mind goes to work to match your reality to your vision. So the Ritual is about setting up that programming for your subconscious. So you visualize yourself, you spend about 10, 15 minutes you close your eyes, you visualize yourself almost like a little movie you're watching in your mind, of you playing out the role of your goal. Like, what's changed for you? What are you doing? What's your day like? Are you driving a new path to work? Or are you starting this new business and you're seeing yourself going into your home office or whatever it may be, and while you're visualizing that you spend about 10, 15 minutes, visualizing that, sometimes this happens, and sometimes it doesn't. So it's a ritual, you do it every day, its part of it becomes a habit. You write down any insights that come up when you're visualizing your goals. So when we do this visualisation work, our subconscious mind while we're quiet and sort of being in the feeling of our goal, will give us insights answers to how to make that goal happen. So you might get an idea to do a TED talk, or you might get an idea to go ask somebody about a position opening, or you might get an idea to, like there's so many different things that have popped into my mind while doing this work. So you listen at the same time, while you're visualizing for any ideas, thoughts, things that pop into your mind, and you write them down, and then those are action items. Those are things that you can act on, and so that brings us to step three, which is actually the pursuit of the goal, and so once you get into the pursuit part really what it comes down to, and this is something I know you're great at, because we've talked about this is you have to take action, but it's got to be action that's out of your comfort zone. When you're pursuing a quantum leap. You can't get to a new level in your life, a higher level, doing the same things you've always done. Like the reason your career, when you talk about how you took that management role, the reason your career propelled so quickly, you made that huge Quantum Leap was because you said yes to something that was completely out of your comfort zone and you figured it out as you went. The thing with your goal, you can't possibly map out how you're going to get there. It's impossible. The only way the map reveals itself is by taking an action. You got to take an action, and then the next step appears and then you take the next action and the next step appears. We're oftentimes where people get tripped up. When going after their goals is they wait until they have all the answers until they make a move, or they wait until everything feels like it's all scheduled out, and that’s okay, I'm going to do this first, and I'm going to go do that, and then I'm gonna do this, and that's going to lead me to this. But the thing is, is that when you do that step, you don't really know if it's gonna lead you to that, it can lead you to something else, and you have to be open to those unexpected things that pop up, and you got to say yes to that. So the pursuit part is really about taking moves that are out of your comfort zone, how can you get to where you want to go quicker because taking small, little easy moves that are comfortable, are not going to get you there quicker, you've got to take moves that are out of your comfort zone, when I started my network marketing business, totally out of my comfort zone, I went from working behind a computer eight hours a day to standing in people's living rooms, giving skincare presentations, like out of my comfort zone. But that's what propelled me to you know, forex my income and become a top leader, and on all of those things, it was because I was doing new moves out of my comfort zone, and then the fourth part of the strategy is all about accountability and tracking. We know we need accountability, when it comes to wanting to make these goals happen. So having a coach, having an accountability partner, someone to help make sure that you're not drifting away from the actions from the mind work and that kind of stuff, and then as well, it's about tracking, it's like, can you if for instance, we talked about you doing your TED Talk, it's like, okay, the first move is I'm going to book the date to do the work, then the second move, and you're tracking your results, like, you've got this laid out, and you're going, okay, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this, and you're open to the unexpected, but you're tracking the results to see, okay, did that work? Did that not work? Do I need to make a new move? So it's more about the accountability. But yeah, and that's the strategy in a nutshell.

Danielle Cobo

That's a powerful strategy. There's so many bytes of nuggets that you can take from each of those steps, and really resonating as to how you can take that quantum leap into where you want the next step in your life to be so where can everybody find you because you are such an inspiration to follow?

Shana Recker

Yes, thank you, if people want the actual Quantum Leap Ritual that I talked about, you can pick that up at my exchange of record.com forward slash leap, and it's a guide that gets you started on your aiming point plus, I give you the Quantum Leap Ritual that you can follow in that guide as well. Yeah, it's an interesting way to go after your goals. It's not a typical goal setting strategy or goal achieving strategy it does move you out of your comfort zone. It does get youth getting you think differently, which is why I love it because it does, it brings you what you want faster, but you have to be willing to do the work and there's proof of it everywhere. You've got proof of it. I've got proof of it. So yeah, so people can follow me on Instagram. I'm at Quantum Leap Queen on Instagram. I love talking about how to achieve and make it happen faster for you there. I'm also on shanarecker.com, which is my website. I am on LinkedIn. I'm not as active on LinkedIn, but I am there as well, and of course on Facebook, I have a free Facebook community. It's Quantum Leap with Shana Recker, and I do free live training in there every other Tuesday. So lots of places and spaces to learn for me and yeah, teach you more about how to make a quantum leap in your life.

Danielle Cobo

Well, I'll be including all of the links to find you in our show notes, and I will be downloading your Quantum Leap Ritual and starting this today because I love it. That's such a powerful ritual to start, and thank you so much for being a guest on today's podcast for the dream job with Danielle Cobo. I encourage you and our followers to hit subscribe so that you can make sure that you are receiving a notification every time an episode airs. If you love what you heard, then write a comment, write a review and if there's something specifically you want us to talk about on future episodes, direct messaged me. The goal of this podcast is to support and serve you and taking that next step into your dream job and earning the salary you are worth and living the life that you desire. So thank you so much for joining us and I look forward to joining us again and linking arms on our next week's episode.