"I became this sensation, the headline was pastor turner stripper, but the truth is I just wanted to be a free woman"
-Nikole
In this episode we have the most beautiful conversation about authenticity, self expression, the human experience and finding forgiveness. After recording this episode I felt like it had opened my heart, and I felt exactly the same again when I listened again while editing it, I know you will feel it too.
Nikole:
NikoleMitchell.com
Instagram.com/mitchellnikole
https://www.facebook.com/nikole.s.mitchell
OnlyFans.com/NikoleMitchell
Join Michael for Free Live Sessions as he holds powerful space for sacred healing and self-discovery:
https://pages.michaeledwardslive.com/registerlive
Connect With Michael:
https://bio.michaeledwards.live/
"I became this sensation, the headline was pastor turner stripper, but the truth is I just wanted to be a free woman"
-Nikole
In this episode we have the most beautiful conversation about authenticity, self expression, the human experience and finding forgiveness. After recording this episode I felt like it had opened my heart, and I felt exactly the same again when I listened again while editing it, I know you will feel it too.
Nikole:
NikoleMitchell.com
Instagram.com/mitchellnikole
https://www.facebook.com/nikole.s.mitchell
OnlyFans.com/NikoleMitchell
Join Michael for Free Live Sessions as he holds powerful space for sacred healing and self-discovery:
https://pages.michaeledwardslive.com/registerlive
Connect With Michael:
https://bio.michaeledwards.live/
Hello and welcome back to the Michael Edwards show. Today I am joined by a very special guest, nicole Mitchell. Nicole and I met almost a year ago in this incredible mastermind. In the second I met her I just had this feeling we're going to be friends, but not quite yet. And as time has gone on, who's that friendship has kind of started to begin. But Nicole is an incredible woman. She is an ex-pastor turned life coach. She is a magical mother, an incredible business woman. She has been on Dr Phil, jimmy Kimmel, so many media appearances and I have had the honor of getting to know this very special woman over the last little while and she is just such an incredible human being. Nicole, welcome, I'm so excited to have you here today.
Speaker 2:Michael, thank you for having me. I've been looking forward to our conversation for so long. It is going to be so magical.
Speaker 1:I am so excited. So, just to give everyone some context, can you give us the cliff notes history? I know you have this really incredible story, so can you share it with us?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know it's so fascinating is I became a headline, a headline that hit the world right, and so I became this viral sensation.
Speaker 2:I was known as the pastor trans stripper, when really at the core of it, michael, I just wanted to be a free woman.
Speaker 2:I had been raised in a religious environment, I had been controlled, I had been censored, I had been taught from a young age who I was supposed to be, who I was supposed to be attracted to, what I was supposed to do with my life and my body, and I reached a point in my mid 30s where the life I was told to live was a fraction of who I really was, and I wanted to know what it would look like if I threw off everyone's expectations, all the dogma, and I just really leaned into my body and my knowing what that would lead me to.
Speaker 2:And I had no idea it would lead me to a life of like modeling and massive self-expression. But it did, and it took the world by storm, because we don't know what to do with a free woman. We are so used to trying women to be good girls that when a woman throws off those shackles to be free, it does take the world by storm, and I love that my story became so well known, because my hope is that it helps others become freer too.
Speaker 1:I love that you said freedom and self-expression, because I think so many people see sexuality and it's like that's just bad or that's just this, but it really is a piece of self-expression. And even you know, if you look at energy centers, our sacral is literally creativity, sexuality and life force, energy. That's all one thing.
Speaker 2:It totally is, and I think we're so quick to dismiss someone if they have any sexual energy or they're open about it or they're public about it. When I view it as very much about healing, it's healed me to own my body and be self-express and it heals the people that I get to share that energy with and it is very much life force energy and so I love these conversations where people can go beneath the tagline and learn more about what this really is about.
Speaker 1:A million percent and I know one of the things that came through I don't know if you won't mind me sharing in the mastermind that we were in was this kind of realization that you have sexuality codes and I know I ended up reaching out to you and we had this incredible conversation and I think it was this beautiful unlocking, because I had so much and I didn't even realize it, just like repression in my self-expression, in my sexuality and all of these things, and I feel like just talking to you and being around who you are as a person was like the medicine that unlocked my soul.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that makes me so happy. It's so interesting. I've literally had people come to my home and experience what we'd call these sexuality codes. I remember I had this girlfriend of mine visit me for the first time in years and she's newly single and she was meeting up with different men and staying out late. I was so happy for her. I'm like you are a sweet, sweet woman. You can do whatever the F you want with your time, your body, your pleasure. Like I, am in full support of you.
Speaker 2:But she was so afraid of being rejected and judged just in general that she projected on to me. And one night she came back from a late night with the man. She slept in our car up front because she was too afraid of how you respond to a woman coming home late at night after being with a man. And when I found that out I was horrified and I hugged her. I told her I would never judge you for owning your pleasure and doing what you want with your body and your terms. If there's anyone who's going to support you in that, it's me. If there's anyone who's going to tell you to go be a slut, it's me. You never have to hide your body and your sexuality, and it was so healing for her. I was one of the very first friends in our life who cheered her on in her freedom and in her self-expression and in her pleasure, and she didn't have to maintain any kind of appearance with me.
Speaker 1:Be all of you, that's what I ultimately want from my people, and you touched on something really important here, because it's really shame that gets connected Right and I feel like shame. I would say shame is such a repressive emotion, like we attach shame to things and then we repress them, and so was the untangling of shame a big part of your journey.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and as part of what motivated me to come up publicly about my adult content, adult work, because I was going to try and do it secretly, because I'm like, okay, I'll keep my professional life over here, I'll keep my sexual life over there, and I'm like that's how they win, though, this is how the patriarchy wins. Let's divide and conquer, let's make them all live fragmented lives, let's let them not experience the wholeness and the oneness they were always meant to have. And so, by me coming up publicly about this is who I am, this is what I do. I'm so excited, I love it.
Speaker 2:If you want to follow along through the journey, you're welcome. If I offend you or annoy you, please unfollow me now. Like just giving people permissions, like either hop on board or get off, because I'm not doing the either, or Like I'm all in on this life, I'm all in on my freedom and self expression. I think it's massively healing and liberating. If it's meant for you and if it's not, please get off my train because I've got places to go. And by owning that publicly. It was absolutely terrifying, but that helped eliminate so much shame, because I refuse to hide any longer.
Speaker 1:And I think that's I love what you're saying, because I think it's that all in energy that impacts other people right. It's like there's no crack or no wobble in our energy. It's people can feel that and when it's that fully integrated all in this, I think that's why just your presence is so activating for people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I've noticed ever since I've owned it, I get way less spam, trolls, hate comments, naysayers. When I was still wobbly I wasn't fully in but I was out I attracted so much more of that because they can, like you said, they can feel it. They can feel someone vulnerable, somebody who's not fully in, like let's challenge, let's like take out the game. And so I have a lot of women, especially in some men who reach out to me and they want their version of me. How can I be fully confident in who I am, how can I own the fact that this is what I do and withstand the storm that comes? And I always encourage them that that storm that comes is so temporary because if you can lock it, then they will get bored with you and they will move on.
Speaker 1:I love this conversation about owning it too, because I know I had seen, obviously, a number of times in your media kits on Dr Phil, dr Phil, and so I didn't really think about the fact that it was Dr Phil. In my head it was like, oh, she was on TV and it was a really positive, inspirational conversation. But I actually went and watched the clip and it's Dr Phil, so he's trying to push this narrative, making these and you have the children in there around all of this. But you were like I fell in love with you even more, watching you, because everything you you were just a class act like beyond, beyond, beyond. You said, yeah, we talk about everything, and can you talk about, like, what that experience was like being on there? And did you know? Did you prep for that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've had a ton of media exposure before even Dr Phil. I've been on Jimmy Kimmel several times. I've been on every major network like ABC, cbs, all the news, I Heart Radio, serious XM. I've had tons of exposure. I'm pretty solid. But when it came to Dr Phil, I was watching his old clips. I never watched his show, but we've all seen clips.
Speaker 2:And he can get angry and he can test you out. And I was actually the first time. I got pretty nervous because I had no idea what I was going to expect with him. So I did prepare and I was like my friend was coaching me, my coach was coaching me and like how do I stay in my power if he tries trying to surround on me? Because it's a common practice media, you act like someone's ally and then you turn on them live on camera and you catch them off guard and it becomes exactly what they want All the ratings, all the drama, all the clicks.
Speaker 2:Thankfully, dr Phil really chilled out as he got older and I got the best of the best of him. He was legit, wanting a conversation and at one point another person they were interviewing like oh, dr Phil, that's a gotcha question. And he said I'm not trying to get anyone. If you don't, if you don't want to answer any question, I ask don't answer it. And I was like wow, this is not the Dr Phil you will find on the internet through Google clips of him. But the marketing department was great If you saw the ads before, and they were definitely angling like there's this hypocrite that I can do this work, but oh, not my children. Like they were so genius at getting the people pulled in. But then, when you listened to the conversation, it was a very safe and very open and very honest conversation and it was a really positive experience.
Speaker 1:Oh my, I love that. That's amazing. I'm so happy that that was felt in both directions and I feel like does that almost make you feel better about humanity, or something?
Speaker 2:Yes, it shows that there's hope for all of us. It's a total, total app hat in one part of your life and then like a really mature, evolved version of yourself at some point. My hope is just look at their sooner people. It's not been our entire career being a jerk and then soft and like we can start being soft now.
Speaker 1:You guys have Dr Phil can mellow out their self for everybody, that's amazing. So, speaking about that. This is such a huge part of your life is being a mom.
Speaker 2:Yes, I have five kids. It is insane, michael, and it's one of the most beautiful things about my life.
Speaker 1:Tell us about that. I can't even think of specifics right now, but I just know listening to your stories of being a mom it makes me, it melts my heart.
Speaker 2:You know what I love about being a mom and about being in this line of work, where I get compensated for self expression, I get paid to be me, I get paid to feel pleasure, like it's such a sweet job. I love that my kids get to watch their mom feel so alive, love her work, make lots of money and model for them what I ultimately want for them. I want them to do the work of their soul. That lights them up. I want them know how to monetize it and make a lot of money and live a really beautiful, meaningful, generous life. And I don't know if I hadn't pursued the calling of my truth and freedom and self expression, if my motherhood would have been as effective, I still would have been a good mom, I still would have been a loving mom. But now they are watching and experiencing me in real time, a woman living in her freedom, in her power, on her terms. And I said that's one of the best gifts I could give them.
Speaker 1:What are some of your? I know you have stories about you know amazing things that they do that are a reflection of kind of how you raised them. What are some of your favorite crowd mama moments?
Speaker 2:Okay, I have this. This is a little funny moment and it could possibly be offensive, but that's kind of my line. I find like the offensive is like your leading X expand. I heard my daughter say like a month ago she was a witch and then a bitch, and then she became a stripper. And she kept repeating this one liner and I don't know where it came from, I just and I remember seeing her one time and you can be any of those things, it's all okay, and I don't know sometimes you never know when something lands with your kid or not and it was probably a month later she had a girlfriend over at our house and she said that one line she was a witch and then she was a bitch and then she became a stripper. And my mom said it's okay to be any of those things. And I was like, oh my God, she's passing on this wisdom to her girlfriend.
Speaker 2:Because what's a witch? It's just a woman who owns and knows her medicine and speaks the truth to power. What's a bitch? It's a woman who knows, she's powerful and she's a boss, right. What's a stripper? Or woman? Who knows what she wants and gets paid for it? Those are all powerful, beautiful things and if you want to be any of those, be any of those. But the patriarchy tries to slap it with a label to shame and judge and blame a woman to try to keep her small. And I want my girl, all my kids know no label can stop you and if we can reclaim it and know that really why you're doing what you're doing, you'll be unstoppable.
Speaker 1:And that's really that claiming it energy, like you're saying, right, the words, the things. They only have power if we let them have the power. I think about growing up gay and if someone called you gay and you were like, oh, no, like that. But you're like, yeah, that's literally a fact. Like end, it just loses all its power. You're so beautifully demonstrating that energy of just just claiming the thing and taking away the power, away from the negative.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's some of the most sacred work you can do. It's hard because, especially if you're sensitive and tender and I'm very sensitive but learning to take it back and not letting someone weaponize it against you is so radical and so powerful. Even today, just before I hopped off this call, my goal is checking my email and I sent out an email offer to my email list and I had people raving immediately saying I went in and I also got people you're delusional, you're full of gas, no one will ever pay you for this, and it's interesting looking at dichotomy responses of how these people think I'm a total fool and these people are like, please tell me more. I want in. I'm like is that not life right there? And so, the end of the day, you just have to do you'll be you. People are going to love you and hate you either way. You might as well as live your life being true to you Period.
Speaker 1:And I mean that's really polarization that you're talking about. So you must experience a lot of polarization in different ways. So what is your relationship with polarization?
Speaker 2:My best friend. I had to learn to get very comfortable with it. I used to be terrified of it. I was a people pleaser. I call myself a recovering people pleaser. You know, I lived to receive my entire validation from people's approval of me and I would do anything, including overextend, bend over backwards, compromise my own values and feelings if it meant that they might still like me, which is what I needed. At the end of the day. That is a terrible and miserable way to live life. That's how I live most of it. And then I learned that if I'm going to be my true self, it's a double-edged sword, right. It makes it really easy for your dream friends, lovers, clients to find you, because it's like you're you and all your glory, it's like you want that, and it means you're going to have people who can't stand you. Both of those are good, normal and appropriate. We want the people that are meant for us. We want it to make it easy for them to find us and we want people to know that we're not the one for them.
Speaker 1:That way they can go bless and remove you.
Speaker 2:Let them go find the right person. We don't need to waste any more of each other's time Like that. Polarization is really a gift, but it can feel really intense and scary at the beginning stages of it.
Speaker 1:I could not agree more. And not only that, but I've also seen it's like my sales have gone up as my criticisms have gone up. It's like. It's like seeing that is a good thing right.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, the weekend I you know this right Because you're so sweet you called me to celebrate me at it. It's huge launch. Just a couple weeks ago, and in the weekend of that huge launch, or I made the most money I've made in any launch I got so many messages of how I'm a fake and how I'm a fraud. I'm like well, this fraud just made forty five thousand dollars. So in a weekend, in a weekend in a weekend like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:So it's like, well, you're criticizing and attacking me. I'm living my best life and so, even though it still thinks, stings me because I'm still I'm very sensitive, I have to remember I'm a person of integrity, I know what I'm doing. I'm making a difference in the world. Not everyone has to get that for me to fulfill my mission.
Speaker 1:But I think that that's one of the things that I really admire about you is that you you hold all of it. And I remember we were talking about something the other day and you were saying I please hope that my friends know that we're not in the kind of relationships where we just own people for like one bad behavior or for bad behavior and I don't know why, but that just really, it just like really went in and it sat with me and it's making me think of. There's this guy that I follow on TikTok who's a Canadian business owner and he built this like huge multimillion dollar business and I don't know why, but I searched him and there were all of these criticisms and people like hating on him, and it was I would go and look at people and that you know they'd be hating on all this stuff and all these things that he's built. And then there was this one guy, I don't know.
Speaker 1:He was at the beach and he was just just like not fit in, saying basically the story about all bodies are beautiful and my body's beautiful and like whatever, and I don't disagree with that in any way, but I'm just saying like that's fine, but you're basically telling a story of why it's OK to not not push or like have the thing, while also criticizing this guy who's done things that most people will never do, and I feel like that's the hypocrisy of most people. So when I see someone like you that holds this beautiful loving heart and sensitivity and this I'm a woman of standards together, it's just I don't know. You're just like a sparkling diamond. I know I'm not. Where have you been?
Speaker 2:I love you. I feel like there's something even I've both been learning on this journey where I need to level up and become all the women to be. We have to learn how to hold it all. We have to learn how to hold the good and we have to learn how to hold the hard and not let the hard cancel the good and not bypass the hard for the good. Like I feel like my capacity to hold the two extremes blows me away.
Speaker 2:Like I told you yesterday on the phone, I said, this past week has been one of the most intense weeks of duality. I've had some of my highest highs and some incredibly big lows in the same week. I've cried so many tears and yet still I stand and I love that even when I grieve and had these hard times, it doesn't sweep me off my feet and drown me or get used to. And I love when things are beautiful and amazing, that when something hard happens, I don't throw out the good. I still remember and I still celebrate and I still embody it. Like the ability to hold it all is a key to a deep, rich, meaningful life.
Speaker 1:I love that we're talking about this because I feel like I heard this as a conversation holding the flip side, but I also have just experienced the deepening of it and how important it is and I think that it takes, you know, it's a lot of this inner work that we've done and maturity that goes into this.
Speaker 1:And you're speaking about it in external things, but I also find that in internal things where it's like, okay, let me grow into this best version of myself.
Speaker 1:And then sometimes you push up against some edges and there's some self-reflection and, oh, this, maybe this one part of me isn't the best part of me, but not, like you said, just throwing it all out or making it all bad, but going okay, I'm actually going to self-reflect and refine this and not just make all of me bad because I have this one bad character trait that came up, where I did this one bad thing or this one thing that's not in alignment with who I really am.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to just shame my entire self. I'm going to look at this one thing and I'm going to work on it, because it's not who I am and this is like this is. I feel like all of our emotions actually have a place. They just get hijacked. And so shame isn't about emotion, because when it's our shame, it shows us who we're not. When I feel shame that comes from me, it shows me who I'm not. Wow, the problem is all of the coding that makes me feel shame for things that are just like not in alignment for who I am as a being.
Speaker 2:I love this so much, where this is. Oh my God, everything's connected, right, michael? And this is just another evidence of how everything's connected. Because when you don't let shame wipe out all that you are, when you don't let one mistake eliminate all the good that you are, we are less likely to project that same reaction to other people when they disappoint us, when they let us down, when they directly hurt us, when they old version of us are. Like you're out of my life, you can't always have my name back, no matter what, like you don't deserve a place in my circle.
Speaker 2:Now we're at a place okay, I've been there. I've been there where I've reacted poorly and it's not actually who I really am, and I'm going to hold the intention that this isn't actually who you are. This was a wounded reaction and because I have the ability to hold it all, I can hold your reaction while you figure out who you really are underneath that, and I feel like that has deepened my relationships. I don't need you to behave just right for you to be my friend, because I hope to God I don't have to behave just right to be your friend. We all have bad days, we all have off days, we all have heartbreak. There's going to be times it's going to come out sideways, but I do believe at the end of the day we're all really good people, we're doing the best that we can and if we can hold that for someone, especially when they're feeling a little lost and disconnected, so much healing would happen in our relationships within ourselves and in the world.
Speaker 1:The emotional maturity in that. I just want to snaps for that. It's so funny that this is coming up now too, because I just had this conversation with one of my best friends the other night and we were talking about expectations and how, as we level up and as we're around more extraordinary people, it can be very easy to project this unrealistic expectation of perfection onto people and then to be like we're almost unfair in the way that we want to hold them accountable because we and she said that to me she's like I think so highly of you that when you make a mistake I'm almost unreasonable because I feel like you're not allowed to be human.
Speaker 1:And it was like well, I'm getting emotional, but it was like it was the best talk. It was literally, it was so good, but it's on the exact same frequency of this what we're talking about now. And it's like can I see you as the exquisite, exemplary human being that you are, and that you are human and that we make mistakes and that I can hold love for that? That is, that's definitely something that I'm working on anchoring in more and more. I mean, I'm so grateful to even just be at a level of awareness where I can see that.
Speaker 2:That is definitely the next iteration of relationships. I think that's the next stage of evolution because I can admit, holy, a few years ago I was going through my divorce. The second someone wasn't in my corner. I cut them out. I was so raw, I was so shattered. I didn't have any bandwidth left to extend compassion because I was drowning in so much pain.
Speaker 2:And, looking back, I feel sad that I was so quick to cut people off and people are so quick to cut me off, like lifelong friendships just gone, family relationships just gone.
Speaker 2:And I look back and I know I could have done differently, but it's just where I was at, not who I really was, and I wish we would understand that about each other, especially when we're going through hard seasons, that we are going to react in ways that aren't actually authentic to who we are. It's just the season we're in or the context we're in, and have so much compassion and my hope is that the people I reacted poorly to, that they would welcome me back if that ever came up, and my hope is I would do the same thing for them. Or they did and said something to me and I was so quick to cut them off before. But if they came back and we had a conversation, my hope is that I'd be like welcome back. I'm so sorry for the mess that that was, but I know that's not who you are, that's not who I am. That's just where we were and we are in a completely different state, different place, and we're still the good people that we are. Should we have another shot at this?
Speaker 1:What do you think goes into that part of you Because I've definitely experienced this as well and I've actually been reflecting recently on some of these things too what do you think goes into that version of you that cuts people out?
Speaker 2:Survival Restri. When I think of my specific context, I don't know if I've ever experienced that intense of pain for that long of period, and when I've not, I didn't have anything to compare it to. That was, it's the biggest and the worst pain I've ever been through, and all you can do in that that moment is survive, and you will push away anything that feels threatening, because right now you're trying to. Existence is threatened, is what it feels like, and you are grabbing for any kind of lifeboat. That's all you have the strength for, and so I get it now, which is what, as you know, is what began to help me begin to reconcile my relationship with my parents, because we became estranged and they the way they treated me was so heartbreaking, was so cruel.
Speaker 2:I could not understand it for the longest time. But now I see their whole world was shattering. They were absolutely terrified and they pushed away anything or anyone that felt threatening to them and they were only trying to cling on to lifeboats at that moment and at that point I was a threat. I can see that now, but it took four years, and so I think when we can mature and have that emotional maturity, we're able to go back in these past experiences and see it from a completely different lens, take the gold from it and make us that much wiser and more intentional in our relationships moving forward.
Speaker 1:This is really interesting because on episode three, with Jess Venton, I had this conversation about inverse realities. So do you think and this is something I've really reflected on when I look at these patterns in my life too is places where I either felt like I was going to be rejected and so I unconsciously pre-rejected people where I actually didn't like the person, that I was in that situation, so I'm rejecting them, but I'm actually rejecting who I was in that moment. Do you feel like elements of that are all mixed in with these moments? Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Totally. Sometimes I talk of my story and when I finally find myself and my truth, my freedom, I always like to describe it as when my life turned right side up. Right Because it was all upside down. Like upside down, yes, when I wasn't living in alignment and integrity, as where I was. Finally, everything righted themselves, everything ordered themselves accordingly. And it's the same thing with our relationships.
Speaker 2:It makes sense that some of my relationships are fractured because I wasn't actually who I was in all those relationships. I was who I was told to be and when I finally broke out of that context to be who I really am, the world that was set up for me did not have space for that. My world broke, it shattered as I emerged into a whole new reality, a complete right side. Like the upside down. It's like I left one reality for the other because and they're two separate realities they were not meant to be, they weren't designed to come together. And, of course, all those relationships are fractured. That's how they were designed to support this version of me, not that version. And now, over the years, as I've worked on my healing and they've worked on my healing, we're finding can we forge a relationship in this new reality, even though it's drastically different from the one we used to be in together.
Speaker 1:You just said all of that so beautifully and I think that that's like the energetic match in so many ways, isn't it? I was a match for that because of who I was, but it wasn't the real, it's not the authentic match. And seeing this is where I wonder if there does have to be a season of separation, because I think it's hard to grow into who you really are when you're surrounded by people or in experiences and situations and environment. That's a match for who you were. People that don't even have the awareness or use the language that we use we'll talk about this right. Like the, I don't I. Just I have to talk with them in a less critical way because I actually do love them, but they're really masculine.
Speaker 1:Business bros will talk about the season of no or the feeling alone for a while, but until you become a match for your new people. So it does seem to be a really interesting season that a lot of us navigate, but it's such a different energy and I was thinking about this the other day about how so many of us, for such a long time, we want to be liked without considering. I remember it's wanted people to like me, but why those people? Do you even like those people? Are those even your people? And I think it comes into the polarization conversation that you're talking about, where it's like good. Some people now is like I am so glad that you don't like me, because I also don't like you. And if you liked me and you were my biggest fan, I would be self-reflecting because you're not my person. So thank you for knowing that Right, but why does it take so long?
Speaker 2:to get there. It is so true and I honestly feel like it is just the right passage of being human and I totally agree with you about there's a season of I call it incubation and I always tell my clients it's important when you go into a season of incubation that if you are in contact in any way with certain friends or family that might be a little tense or estranged, that you communicate. I'm not incubating to reject, I'm incubating to heal. So two very two different things that they can look the same.
Speaker 2:When you hunker down and you fall away from all these different environments and relationships and dynamics, it looks like you're rejecting them. When you're not rejecting, you're going into heal and who emerges, and what emerges is going to be so transformative and so powerful and have the ability to mend relationships, but not until I heal. And so we have the present awareness to know that first of all and then to somehow graciously communicate that to people in our life. I'm entering a season of deep healing. This is not a rejection of you in any way I think could salvage way more relationships but instead we kind of incubate, kind of reject, kind of heal, and it's all a mess and we're all allowed to be a mess, but I think we're reaching out a level of awareness. Can we do it a little bit cleaner? Can we do it with a little more intention, can we do it with a little bit more communication and how preventative that could be in such a good way in relationships.
Speaker 1:Amazing. And what do you? Because I really feel from you, I feel it is almost like a practice. I don't know what the word you'd use is, but like coming at a situation like this or coming at a person like this. Now, what is that? What is that intentionality? What do you say to yourself, or what is the energy that you're trying to open to someone?
Speaker 2:It's hard, it's just straight up hard. I had a recent situation where I said something kind of negative which I'm a very positive person as a whole it's pretty rare for me to be negative but I said a negative comment and it threw these people off so much that they're like we're ending our relationship with you. And I was so taken back because it's that concept of what you and I have been talking about. I hope to God we don't have the kind of relationship where I'm never allowed to be human and that you cut me off. The second I'm human or you're never allowed to be human, I cut you off because, like, that is not the kind of relationship, the standard that I have relationships in my life.
Speaker 2:So I bawled when I got that email from them and then I grieved and I was angry and I threw a pity party and how everyone's bad and I'm the only good, blah, blah, blah. Like we all go through that moment and the name moves through that and I arrive at okay, I know at the end of the day, I care more about being loved than about being right. So how can I be loved in a situation? That is my driving motivator Because, no matter what happens at the end, if they choose to cut me off or they choose to stay connected. I want to look back and be proud that I was loved through it all, I care more about being loved than I care about being right Ooh.
Speaker 2:Every year is. I know it's still ugh. That landed for me this year and it's like golden nugget I am taking with me for a long time.
Speaker 1:That is so much awareness. And the piece you said too this is actually something I just wrote down the other night was the self-reflecting on like where am I judging others and justifying myself and then also judging myself? Like there's this thing, yeah, it just gets so sticky, so easily.
Speaker 2:I love being right, michael, I will strive. Everything is a competition for me.
Speaker 1:I love crushing people.
Speaker 2:I love whooping people and I'm very competitive, so I like being right. I get a lot of energy after being right, but it's awesome.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, it can be a toxic trait when it comes to relationships, and I've spent my life trying to prove to people I'm right and they're wrong, because I thought someone had to be wrong for me to be loved, for me to be safe, for me to be included, and I learned no one has to be wrong, right, and can I let them be right in their truth and I be right in my truth? We don't have to cancel each other out, and can we let love fill the gaps? Can I trust that you are trying to be kind to me though I feel hurt, and can I trust that I'm trying to be kind to you even though you feel hurt, and can we let love fill the gaps as we work towards coming back together again?
Speaker 1:Can we let love fill the gaps?
Speaker 2:That's epic.
Speaker 1:Okay, and so this is all really interesting to me as well, because there's something about you and I felt this from the beginning where we sort of met in a very particular segment of the coaching industry, but you really hold life coach. I feel in a different way, and to me all this stuff that you're talking about is like the meat of what you do, would you say. That's true.
Speaker 2:I always tell people, when it comes to you know I work with a lot of leaders and healers and life coaches. I always tell them be your greatest example, be your greatest testimony. There's so many people who just spout what everyone is saying and I guess that there's a season of that. We're training on, we're learning, we're new, but my hope is you reach a season where it is so deeply integrated, is what it is, a way of being, than it is just a way of talking and people can feel I at least can.
Speaker 1:I can feel a difference when it's landed in someone's body and it isn't just information in their head 100% and do you feel like there was anything for you in that integration period that was special or important?
Speaker 2:One of the hardest, best questions I've ever asked myself through the hardest moments of my life, is what if this isn't the worst thing to happen to me? What if this was the best thing to happen to me? And it completely reframed the way I see a situation and it goes from very victim mode to holy crap. I've never considered that. What would it mean for it to be the best thing to happen to me? And I start looking for evidence of good and healing and growth and power, when most of us want to stay in victim mode and blame and shame and shut down. This forces us to look to heal, to grow and to turn it to something good, and it's so easy to not do that. But I'm so deeply committed that in my lifetime can I become the most loving version of myself, the most wise version, the most evolved version of myself, and I have found personally that a lot of that comes through the hard stuff more than the good, easy stuff.
Speaker 1:It's that feedback right, You've got to take the feedback from the hard stuff. I love that self-reflective question. I've been playing with some. I've been doing a lot of self-reflection lately, so I've been playing with some too and one I mean this is a very heavy question, but is to look at what are the people from my past who had the worst experience, what would they all say about me, and how much of that is actually true.
Speaker 2:That's heavy and that's a good one.
Speaker 1:I feel it in my heart, but it also it's made me think a lot, you know, and I think it's like I wouldn't recommend that anyone do that, not at a place where you can really hold, like we said, the good in me. It's not like I'm going to tear myself apart and destroy my self-esteem over it, but it's really looking at, because it's the shadow stuff, really right, there's always that part of ourselves that we can't see and I think the better we get at observing ourselves and seeing the invisible parts of ourselves, you can deal with it. Once you understand it and you see it, you're like, oh this, I didn't notice that this part lived within me all this time. We need to do some weaning in this part of the garden.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, it's so true and I loved your wisdom that you added this is for a certain moment in time in life when you're ready for it not because you think you should, because it is such deep, it's sometimes painful work and you have to be prepared for that, and so I think having the capacity to hold it all is really important, so you can then go do it all, do the work, for it matters most.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because if I had asked myself that question like 10 years ago, I would have just torn myself apart.
Speaker 2:I would have died, I would have never resurrected. I quit, I quit.
Speaker 1:My goodness. So in the I know you mentioned some very exciting celebration with the 45k weekend. Which congratulations. But as I was going through your social media before this podcast, I also found another number celebration, which was the big one million. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Congratulations, first of all.
Speaker 2:This is a huge I mean. It still blows my mind. I don't think I ever thought I'd make a million dollars in my lifetime, much less within a couple of years. For those who don't know me, I was in food stamps for nine years, me and my kids. We really struggled. I had no idea what I was doing with money. I was always in lack, always running out. We had family friends giving us money to pay our bills at the end of each month, like it was just a very humbling and humiliating place to be Cause I'm like, I'm smart, I'm intelligent, I'm capable. And then why the F? Can I not add two dollars together? This cannot be that complex.
Speaker 2:And I kept trying to do it the way everyone recommended Get a financial advisor, do it Dave Ramsey style, only buying cash and have envelopes separate for each category. I did everything that of all the traditional advice. None of it worked. And then I learned about wealth energetics and it was like the language of my ancient soul that it never knew Like it knew it but it didn't. It was like it was. It was its native tongue that it had never been exposed to in this lifetime.
Speaker 2:And I was. I was starving, I was like a sponge in a in a waste If I just soaked it all up and my mind was blown at the possibilities and the placefulness of money and I became committed. One of my incubation periods was I want to become a wealthy woman and I wanted to shout it from the rooftops, but I was quite wobbly. If I got any pushback I would have knocked over. So about a year I hunkered down and did all the journaling and didn't, healing my money wounds and writing a new story and believing in the impossible and hiring mentors and taking courses. I just saturated myself in this way of thinking and being and lo and behold, within a few years I'd make a million dollars. It is absolutely ridiculous, it should not be possible, but it just shows we live in a world where all things are possible. It is available to us and if you want it, you can freaking have it, and I am so, so, so grateful.
Speaker 1:I feel that lighting up my whole body, feel that tapping into the frequency of possibilities. That is it Like that is it, that is it. I know. For me too, it's such such an expander and it's so, like you said, it's so fun, that's the best part. It's like life is fun no-transcript that many people struggle with right, being fully self-expressed and this beautiful human being being a mom and being a fricking million dollar business owner. The entire energy of you as a being is play and fun and authenticity to me. And I feel like, in a way, I was almost surprised when I got to know how much you do and how much you stand for and that you hold it all because you just seem so fun. Like, yeah, jeff, you know, and I was just floating on the pool, maybe my greenhouse, I don't know but I think on the surface it's easy to see that I mean like, oh, life's so easy for them, without realizing that that's where the work gets you. You cultivate that.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I learned how to make money doing what I love. From the moment I was exposed to wealth and eugenics, I'm like, ok, if money is possible in any shape, way or form, can you come to me down any pathway I choose? Then why the F would I not choose a pathway that feels the most fun and playful to me? Why would I not need a career that feels flowy and flexible? This is what I desired and you know, this morning I went to my kids' school event at 9 am. Their other parent couldn't go, but I could go because I built a business where I have so much freedom and flexibility and it just made me so happy that from the get-go I decided I get to make money on my terms and be really unapologetic about that.
Speaker 2:And then holding that in the void Because we all know the void feels like where you know what you want but you are so far from it and you feel like it's never going to happen. But if you believe the energetics, it's already a done deal. But that void is so intense and there have been moments and seasons where I feel like I am crazy to think this, I am crazy to want this. Maybe I went too far this time, maybe I'm asking for too much this time, maybe I screwed it up one too many times. And then it always happens, and it always comes through, and it always manifests and it always works out. And every time I think, oh my God, I'm so glad I saved the course, I'm so glad I minded the gap, I'm so glad I knew how to hold the void, because the other side is so freaking worth it.
Speaker 1:What would you say to someone that's in the void right now?
Speaker 2:Oh my God A it sucks and I am sorry. At this point you think we would know how to eliminate it or we were so patient with it because we've been through the void so many times. But I actually stick at. The more I do it, the more intense the void becomes, because I know that I get to have what I want. I know beyond all knowing, so for me it makes the void more intense.
Speaker 2:But I always tell my clients stay the freaking course. You will see this in all kinds of talks by super successful people. They'll say typically the number one difference between those who make it and those who don't, between the successful and those who aren't, is they freaking, stuck it out, they had tenacity, they had grit. Like it's so easy to keep going when things feel good, but when things feel hard, when things get wonky, when people reject you and the emotions are high, when the gap is taking is longer than you want it to be, this is when majority of people quit. And if you would simply stay the course and not quit, your odds of making it are so freaking high. Stay the course, you'll make it. You'll make it, you'll make it, you'll make it.
Speaker 1:It's so true.
Speaker 1:I actually noticed this really early in life because I was a dance teacher, obviously, when I was younger, and I obviously taught hundreds, probably thousands, honestly, of dancers and there was one thing, there was just one thing that everyone who went on to have a career had in common.
Speaker 1:I think it's interesting because it's dance, because you think of dance as so particular, about the body type and the talent, and it's a really hard industry and you've got to be able to network and there's so many limiting factors. But none of that seemed to matter because the one thing that everyone had that still did was doing it and made a career out of it was just that they never gave up. That was it. Literally didn't matter how good they are, how good, perfect their body was, how talented, none of that. And it's interesting because in a lot of cases it wasn't the best most talented kids. Those ones actually were more likely to give up and go do something else, but it was the ones that were just like this is in my soul and just never came up and they all had careers. They all had careers. I always just think that's so interesting, even in dance.
Speaker 2:Even in dance and you know what else. We have so much evidence that all things are possible. It's crazy that we wobble in our faith at all about what we're human. But even nowadays, in the day and age we live in, where people crave authenticity, people crave representation, people crave diversity, it's no longer the same mindset of every same body type, every same skin color, every same background, every same language. There is such a hunger for diversity and representation that you are wanted. You are wanted now more than ever before, using that to our advantage, not to feel crazy, but to know you are spot on. You are wanted, there is room for you. You desire it, you get to have it. Stay the course.
Speaker 1:Yes, I want to talk a little bit about just like owning yourself, expression and sexuality, and I actually I don't know why I just came through when you're talking about that, but I actually want to share with you something and kind of get your Nicole input on it. But something's been really funny for me. As you know, I've really stepped into this like new level of my brand and expression, with being shirtless and gubernanati and all the things. But it's so interesting to me because I was in therapy world for a long time which was so much about like self love and building your self esteem and confidence and stuff.
Speaker 1:And, like you don't understand, a few years ago I hate when I was actually learning photography, I could not have a picture of me taken, like I just hated myself, I hated looking at myself, all the things. And so to have done all of this inner work and actually enjoy setting up the camera, feeling myself and being sassy and taking creative vision and making it real, it's so fun, like it's so fun, it's the best thing ever. But then I've one of the biggest pieces of criticism has come from the therapy community, which it's so funny because they're preaching self love and confidence and all the things that they don't like it when I see it. But I was like you guys, I'm not just talking about it Like this, this is it. This is me confident. This is me loving myself. This is me self expressed. What do you think, what do you make of that?
Speaker 2:Oh, it's so true because I immediately go to my adult content, like if you're a feminist, if I'm just like, equal way, two women can do whatever they want. And then a woman goes on to make adult content. Except for that, she's horrible, she's the worst, take her down. It's like wait, wait what? You cannot espouse these values and these principles, and the second someone embodies it different than what you expected. You try to take them down. That's the antithesis of everything you stand for and this is why I love people like you and me. I do it for outliers in a good way. We are stretching people to understanding and context of what they think is OK or loud, or appropriate or not. And I'm Michael, this is me. I'm Nicole, this is me, and we are lighting up the world with our magic. And it's only a matter of time where it is undeniable undeniable that your version of you, michael, and my version of me, nicole, is exactly what the world needs, wants, craves and desires, and we started fulfilling it long before other people got it.
Speaker 1:Well, because it really is that it's like the reminder right, you don't have to be like me because I feel like for other, and I think that's what people miss too. Maybe it's projection for them to do a photo shoot like that they would have. I don't know, they would have to be so out of alignment. But that's the thing is me in alignment, and so it's not about looking at you and going well, I have to be, you know, an adult content creator. I have to be at this. It's like look at how in self-expression someone is, and then it's the finding that, like, what is my truest self-expression, because being in it is the best thing in the world is so funny. But this is where my mind is going. I love what. I just love glitter. I love watching all the like makeup things on Tiktok.
Speaker 1:I always was like, oh, it'd be so cool, but it's like no, I'm too old, I'm too serious. I was like, just okay, there's, there's so many things that I've gotten, I'm gonna do a photo shoot with this. Gonna do one to see. I got these little diamonds and we do gold lips and put diamonds in the lips. It's gonna be so hot kind of Vogue. But just imagine if I had lived my whole life and died and all of that had been it inside me and never been Expressed because I was too afraid or had to be too professional or it wasn't. People wouldn't get it. It actually makes my heart hurt and it almost happened. I feel like we came this close To that being my life instead of just really just letting out of the bag who I really am.
Speaker 2:And I have felt it across the freaking screens. Michael, we live in different countries and we're into like it, work like, and yet when I've seen you fully own this side of you, I'm like where the fuck have you been all all along? This is the real Michael. It's about freaking time. He's come out of the bag. I can feel that, and in same with me.
Speaker 2:I get DMs every week from people in my world. I wish I found you sooner. I wish I found you sooner. Oh my gosh, you're changing my life, and yet that's only because I came out as a truest version of me. I'd still been that fraction me, I wouldn't be getting these messages from people. And so I'm so glad that you and I found our freedom. I'm so glad you and I found our self expression, and I know that we're inspiring so many other people to step into their freedom and self expression because, exactly like you said, it is not meant to look like anyone else. It is meant to look exactly the way you see it and desire it and want it, and it is your right, it is your inherent birthright to go and be the fullest expression of yourself, and the right people will get it. The right people will support you and it will get easier and better and more magical.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness, I love love and it's. It's funny I just connected while you were speaking actually that we're both having a similar experience in a way, because I get so many Really professional people like I can't tell you how many PhD clients I have or today I had a guy that came for a call. He's a business business guy and he yeah, he's signed up to be a client and he said he's, I'll just freakin loved your website and I love that you just own the magic and the mystery and you were like magic is real and I was like I have to work with this guy. I'm not like I just love that. But I think it's been kind of similar for you because I know that you sort of like to have this duality with only fans and and Coaching and it's kind of the same thing. It's like you being just so who you are and I love what is it that people say to you that they're like in your only fans and then they end up in coaching talking about that?
Speaker 2:they can do still like wait a second. I thought I was coming here for hot girl shit. I didn't know my life was gonna be changed in the process and I'm like that is the best compliment you could ever get me. Have you ever the hot stuff stick around for your life to be changed? I've got you boo all the way through the best ever.
Speaker 2:Love. I love being the total package for people and, like you and our time on today, I have different portals into my work. So if you want the portal to the hot girl way, there's a portal for you. If you want the portal to personal development, there's a portal for you. If you want the portal through creating that civil wealth, there's a portal for you. If there's a, if you want to step into a self-expression, there's a portal there for you. And I love that. The by us owning the fullness of all that we are, people get to step into our worlds from so many different portals and it just makes it way more accessible, way more exciting to know oh, I can start here, I can be over here, I can be this kind of person or have this kind of background. We start having a bigger impact because we've not limited ourselves and so our people are no longer limited.
Speaker 1:Yes, stepping into the full expression of who you are. Put that on a meme, on a quote. Put that on the internet Instagram. Here we go, here we go, any final thoughts that you want to share. I'll ask you where people can find you in a moment.
Speaker 2:I think something I've been leaning into and so I've been teaching aside my like could you work right now is what brings you the most. The greatest pleasure will bring you the most profit, and If that's a new concept with you, I want you to play with that. If you've been on to that for a while, I just give you, like, the freedom to own it more. If it brings you pleasure, it's gonna bring you the most profit and it's starting to sync those up instead of keeping them separately, which is what most of us have done. Well, kills good I do over here. What makes me money over here? I hate this job, but it makes me money. I love this art, but it doesn't pay. And what would it look like, for the thing that brings you the most joy, lights you up, fulfills you the most, couldn't make you the most money. I want you to play in that realm. I deeply care about people being massively compensated for the greatest self-expression, and this is one way to do it.
Speaker 1:Okay, this is really interesting, because when you're talking about this, I feel a very different frequency from the common thing that people say, which is do what you love and you'll never work a Day in your life. What is that difference? There? There's something about pleasure and profit that's on a whole other level. What is that?
Speaker 2:It's a whole other level, because I'm like honey, you're gonna work but you're gonna love working and you're gonna get paid a whole lot of money. I am not afraid of hard work. Like you said, I have a very playful look life on the surface, but I work really hard but I love it and love, love, love my work. It brings me so much pleasure. I don't ever have to turn it off Because it lights me up, and so I'm not afraid of hard work and it also feels really good to me because I picked work, I've chosen and I've learned how to be massively compensated for it. So does a win-win all the way through. So I feel like there's just a little bit more Substance to that quote. That is easily thrown around the truth to it, but I think there's the depth that's missing to it.
Speaker 1:Same, and this is actually one of the things that I learned this year Was just like that. I love. I love to work sometimes, like sometimes I wake up in the morning and I work until I'm still on my laptop at bedtime and it's. I don't glorify that or make that an everyday thing, but there's the day that I want to do it and just letting myself do it, and I think sometimes we I don't know In the sake of balance or in the conversation about feminine energy we demonize the masculine and we demonize demonize like work and hustling, but I feel like they both energies have a place and I love that too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we glorify the, the ease and the flow, but before I ever experienced ease and flow, I had to work really hard. It was new, everything new to me. And then it's interesting because now you're the same way. I'm the same way as you, michael. I work all day and all night and I love it.
Speaker 2:And because of how I've structured my life Yesterday I spent two hours at the beach and three hours in my pool and I wasn't working. This was just just for my soul, it was just for my spirit. I needed like water is really healing for me and I loved that. Instead of working, working, working, I can just rest and be and can. This is important. And then today I've been working all day and it's that flow and it's that rhythm. I like rid them better than balance, because balance almost doesn't shuscle to find In rhythm. I find a rhythm and there's there's moments my rhythm says rust and float in the pool for three hours. And then there's a rhythm like fucking, get it done, honey. We are, we are getting shit done today and like those both feel amazing and I follow the rhythm, I follow the flow and it's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness, I have been playing with this so much too, and the realization that the idea of balance actually throws me off. Yeah, same. And what I realized is it's like we glorify ease, but actually what we want is to be able to utilize ease when ease can be, so that we can utilize effort where effort goes. It's if I can have ease here, here and here, then I can be even more focused on the effort here, here and here, and it actually feels better to have ease here and effort here. It then to just try to have ease everywhere or effort everywhere, and that's the, that's the fun part. Selling, for example, has become a lot of ease because I'm using a lot of energetic. So it's fun, it's a magic money.
Speaker 1:But then when I work out, I don't like the ease in the workout. I like to work out like a freaking warrior. I want to be fit and hot and feel like I can run, jump and climb over a mountain. I want that effort into the workout and then sometimes back into season ease. And then there's other things in my business that it's like. The effort makes me happy. I built my brand, I did it all myself and it was a lot of fucking work. But now look at it and I'm so proud of it, I'm so proud of the effort and I kind of feel like it would be almost less valuable in some ways if it was just like. I don't know, I just like it's just. There's this beautiful, it's like they both are part of us and so let's play with them both. Let's play with all the toys in the sandbox and I love that phrase.
Speaker 2:You said Pick where you actually want the ease and pick where you want the effort. Because I think you right, we've over glamorized, we just want ease everywhere. If that doesn't work, you have to have structure somewhere, you have to get shit done somewhere. So pick where you want the effort, pick where you want the ease, and then you can build a life, you can build the business. It's way harder when you don't know where you want the ease and where you want the effort. So that was a massive piece of wisdom, michael, thank you.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's my pleasure. Well, thank you. Thank you so much for joining me today. It's been a pleasure, as always, just as I knew it would be, and I know you're always up to amazing things. So where can people find you?
Speaker 2:Yes, I even find me everywhere, probably the best places. Just go to my website, nicolemichaelcom. Nicole is spelled with the K and I K O L? E. You can find me on all the socials. I am the most active on Instagram, facebook, and only fans come say hi.
Speaker 1:And we will definitely put all those links in the show notes. You guys can check the show notes below to find Nicole. So thank you so much for joining me today. It has been my absolute pleasure Sending you all so much love.