Speaker 1: Welcome to the Flourish Frequency the show where we activate
Speaker 1: and amplify the frequencies of success, joy, and abundance. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Beth Larson, a high performance and quantum success coach.
Speaker 1: If you're ready to ditch the herd, hustle and embrace
Speaker 1: a more effortless flow, then this is the show for you. Together,
Speaker 1: we'll tap into quantum thinking, harness the laws of the universe,
Speaker 1: and unlock the secrets to living a life of more,
Speaker 1: more joy, more energy, more passion, more money, and more meaning.
Speaker 1: No more simply surviving. We're going beyond thriving. It's time
Speaker 1: to flourish. The Flourish Frequency Show starts now. Hello and welcome,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Flourish Frequency Show. And I love that
Speaker 1: we were just talking there at the end of the
Speaker 1: introduction about going beyond thriving and coming into that space
Speaker 1: of flourishing, because that's exactly what today's episode is about.
Speaker 1: I want to dive deeper into the distinction between thriving
Speaker 1: and flourishing. If you are new to my work, one
Speaker 1: of the fine foundational concepts that I teach is what
Speaker 1: I call the four power paradigms. These are surviving striving, thriving,
Speaker 1: and flourishing, and each one of these represents a different
Speaker 1: way of relating to our own power. And while relating
Speaker 1: to the topic of power itself, I should say and
Speaker 1: how we participate in life. In surviving, most of your
Speaker 1: energy is focused on just getting through. You respond to circumstances.
Speaker 1: Usually you're managing your immediate needs and trying to create
Speaker 1: safety and stability in your life. In the striving mode,
Speaker 1: you create change through effort, working harder, pushing, achieving, proving
Speaker 1: what you're capable of. Striving is It's one of those
Speaker 1: places I always say, it's where a lot of high
Speaker 1: achievers can often start and sometimes end up if they
Speaker 1: can't expand past it, because driving can create extraordinary results,
Speaker 1: especially initially, but it often requires you to keep supplying
Speaker 1: more energy in order to sustain those results. And thriving
Speaker 1: you reconnect with personal power. You become more intentional about
Speaker 1: your energy and about your choices and about your own
Speaker 1: personal well being. You begin to feel alive and more expressed,
Speaker 1: more purposeful, and honestly more resourced, and you begin creating
Speaker 1: success that actually feels good. I've always known personally that thriving, though,
Speaker 1: was not the stopping point. Even sometimes though I'll use
Speaker 1: the words thriving and flourishing kind of interchangeably, but I've
Speaker 1: always pictured them very differently. Whenever I imagine thriving, you know,
Speaker 1: I get this image in my head out of a
Speaker 1: single plant that is strong and healthy and vibrant, and
Speaker 1: it's growing beautifully because it has it's got the light,
Speaker 1: it's got the water, it's got the nourishment, all the
Speaker 1: conditions that it needs in order to grow and to thrive.
Speaker 1: But when I imagine flourishing, I always see a field
Speaker 1: of flowers, not one plant that's growing beautifully all on
Speaker 1: its own, but this entire living ecosystem. Flowers blooming everywhere,
Speaker 1: butterflies and bumblebees moving from one flower to the next,
Speaker 1: pollen traveling across the field. Each individual life is contributing
Speaker 1: to the health of the whole, and the whole is
Speaker 1: in return supporting each individual life. Only recently have I
Speaker 1: understood more fully what this image was always trying to
Speaker 1: show me. That thriving is something that's personal, but flourishing
Speaker 1: is something that is participatory. Thriving is where you become
Speaker 1: fully alive within yourself, and flourishing begins when you're a
Speaker 1: liveness starts to enter into a larger circulation of life.
Speaker 1: You know, the word flourish itself, it carries a few
Speaker 1: different meanings. It can mean to grow luxuriously. I always
Speaker 1: love that definition. That was one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: I really like the word flourish, like, ooh, I want
Speaker 1: to grow luxuriously. But it can also mean to be
Speaker 1: prosperous and to become successful businesses that flourish. It can
Speaker 1: also describe a bold expression, like when you sign your
Speaker 1: name with a flourish, or you know there's a grand gesture,
Speaker 1: they do it with a flourish. So think about that growth,
Speaker 1: success and expression. Something grows within you, it becomes expressed
Speaker 1: through you, and that expression creates movement beyond you. Think
Speaker 1: about it this way. Your wisdom changes a conversation. Your
Speaker 1: courage gives somebody else courage gives them the permission to
Speaker 1: be bold. Your healing alters a family pattern. Your business
Speaker 1: creates opportunity. Right. Your thriving as an individual begins to
Speaker 1: feed the field, and as that increase circulates, the field
Speaker 1: itself will begin to feed you in return. I was
Speaker 1: looking for a couple of examples really to bring this
Speaker 1: kind of full circle here and help really show what
Speaker 1: this looks like. And I came across two incredible women
Speaker 1: that I want to talk about here today. One is
Speaker 1: Madam C. J. Walker and the other is Tory Birch.
Speaker 1: Both of these women built businesses in very different areas
Speaker 1: and under very different circumstances, but both of them show
Speaker 1: us what can happen when success doesn't stop just with
Speaker 1: the individual. So let's talk about Madam C. J. Walker.
Speaker 1: She was an incredible woman. She was born Sarah Breedlove
Speaker 1: in Louisiana. Hang on, I'm just gonna look at my
Speaker 1: notes real quick. Yeah, Louisiana in eighteen sixty seven to
Speaker 1: parents who had been slaves. They had recently been freed,
Speaker 1: but they had been slaves and she was born. I
Speaker 1: believe while they were still slaves. She was orphaned as
Speaker 1: a child. They died at a very young age. She
Speaker 1: ended up working as a lawn dress and she knew
Speaker 1: the reality is very well of poverty and discrimination, limited opportunity.
Speaker 1: After she experienced some hair and scalp issues, I believe
Speaker 1: she was actually losing a lot of her hair, she
Speaker 1: started kind of playing around with products and trying different treatments,
Speaker 1: and she ended up creating some products heard the beauty industry.
Speaker 1: She eventually developed and sold these products created specifically for
Speaker 1: black women, and her company grew into an extraordinary success.
Speaker 1: She became a millionaire. She's actually in the Guinness Book
Speaker 1: of World Records. She's the first self made millionaire in America.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's amazing. She built a national brand, She
Speaker 1: created a life of financial independence. She had influence, and
Speaker 1: she had choice. Now, that is an extraordinary story of
Speaker 1: a woman who is thriving. But the part of her
Speaker 1: story that matters most for this conversation is really what
Speaker 1: she built around all of that success. She established beauty schools.
Speaker 1: She trained women to become professional hair culturists and sales agents.
Speaker 1: Her network created employment and entrepreneurial opportunities for thousands of
Speaker 1: black women at the time when Jim Crow laws and
Speaker 1: customs excluded them from labor markets and forget about them
Speaker 1: trying to get any sources of financing. She created that
Speaker 1: women gained skills because of her, They earned incomes. Some
Speaker 1: of them became salonovers and franchisees, and they supported their families,
Speaker 1: and they developed professional identities and leadership. She also organized
Speaker 1: clubs that participated in charitable work and civic engagement and activism.
Speaker 1: The value didn't stop with her product or even with
Speaker 1: her own personal wealth. It moved through an entire ecosystem.
Speaker 1: One woman's business created a pathway through which many other
Speaker 1: women became more economically capable, and those women expanded the
Speaker 1: reach and the reputation and the impact of the company
Speaker 1: In return. Her success fed the ecosystem, but then the
Speaker 1: ecosystem then expanded her success. That is flourishing. This is
Speaker 1: where the distinction gets deeper than just personal success versus
Speaker 1: just helping other people right. Thriving describes the vitality of
Speaker 1: an individual. Flourishing describes the relationship between the individual and
Speaker 1: the living systems around her. So a person can be
Speaker 1: financially thriving but still create depletion in their team. A
Speaker 1: person can be thriving professionally while their family is held
Speaker 1: together by their constant overfunctioning. You can influence thousands of
Speaker 1: people while privately abandoning your body and your relationships and
Speaker 1: your joy, your own personal joy. See. External impact alone
Speaker 1: is not what flourishing is, and flourishing is not measured
Speaker 1: by how many people depend on you. It's not giving
Speaker 1: until you're empty. It's not becoming the sun, the rain,
Speaker 1: the soil, and the pollinator for the entire field. A
Speaker 1: healthy ecosystem cannot be built around the depletion of one
Speaker 1: of its members. Flourishing requires reciprocity. You contribute what is
Speaker 1: yours to contribute, and you receive back the very things
Speaker 1: that allow you to remain alive, to remain resource, to
Speaker 1: remain capable of continuing to contribute. This is why thriving
Speaker 1: remains essential. A woman who has spent years surviving you
Speaker 1: may need to focus on your safety and stability first,
Speaker 1: and a woman who spent years overgiving may need a
Speaker 1: season to just work on your own energy and your
Speaker 1: health and your desires first. Thriving is where you do that,
Speaker 1: and thriving is what restores you as an individual. It
Speaker 1: strengthens your roots, and then flourishing widens the frame beyond you.
Speaker 1: So what does thriving make possible within the systems that
Speaker 1: you touch? Think about that. Your improved health may change
Speaker 1: the emotional climate of your family. Your leadership may develop
Speaker 1: someone else who later becomes an extraordinary leader themselves and
Speaker 1: then has impact on other people. Your profitable business may
Speaker 1: create meaningful work or client transformation or partnerships. Healing your success.
Speaker 1: Your wisdom begins creating capacity beyond just you, and the
Speaker 1: healthier ecosystem will strengthen you in return. Then you have
Speaker 1: to be open to receiving it, to letting yourself receive
Speaker 1: it back. That's the pattern. Madam C. J. Walker didn't
Speaker 1: merely tell women that they were capable of more. Right,
Speaker 1: She didn't go out just being a motivator. She helped
Speaker 1: create structures through which more became possible. She had training,
Speaker 1: and she had products, and she had business opportunities. She
Speaker 1: had community. She didn't only create the impression of possibility.
Speaker 1: She increased capacity. So maybe you're a woman who begins
Speaker 1: caring for your health after years of exhaustion. Let's think
Speaker 1: about this a little deeper. You start getting more sleep,
Speaker 1: you start improving your nutrition, you start working out, moving
Speaker 1: your body. You create healthy boundaries in your life. You
Speaker 1: reconnect with your interests, your passions, your desires. You feel
Speaker 1: alive again. That's thriving. And because you are more regulated
Speaker 1: and more present, the emotional climate of your home also changes. Right,
Speaker 1: Your children see that a woman's well being matters, and
Speaker 1: they experience a mom who is responding to them, not
Speaker 1: reacting to them every day. Your partner maybe participates more
Speaker 1: fully because you're no longer automatically carrying everything. Your health
Speaker 1: and your priority on your own health could be what
Speaker 1: changes and becomes normal within the family. That's an example
Speaker 1: of flourishing. Maybe you're a woman in a leadership role
Speaker 1: and you have authority and influence, and you've got the
Speaker 1: big income and you're thriving professionally, but you also know
Speaker 1: and share the knowledge that you have. Instead of gatekeeping it,
Speaker 1: instead of protecting it, you advocate for someone whose potential
Speaker 1: maybe is getting overlooked, and the people that you lead
Speaker 1: become more capable, not because you fish for them or
Speaker 1: give them fish, but because you teach them how to
Speaker 1: fish right. Your team becomes stronger, and their increased capacity
Speaker 1: support your leadership and return when they become stronger. That's flourishing.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're an entrepreneur whose business becomes profitable. You pay
Speaker 1: yourself well, you work healthy hours. You set up your
Speaker 1: business to be leveraged so that you can get more
Speaker 1: done in less hours. You can serve more people without
Speaker 1: it taking less more excuse me, without it taking more
Speaker 1: from you. You help your clients get meaningful results, that
Speaker 1: is thriving. And then watch what happens clients refer your
Speaker 1: work a collaborator grows through partnership. Your client's transformation then
Speaker 1: changes the way that client leads and parents and serves others.
Speaker 1: Your business against producing opportunity beyond just you, and the
Speaker 1: relationships within the ecosystem then strengthened the business back. That's flourishing.
Speaker 1: These are all incredible examples of what flourishing looks like.
Speaker 1: So I mentioned I had another example I wanted to
Speaker 1: look at, and that's the example of Tory Birch. Tory
Speaker 1: launched her company in two thousand and four, and when
Speaker 1: she did it, she had two connected ambitions. She wanted
Speaker 1: to build a global luxury brand, and she wanted to
Speaker 1: establish a foundation that would advance women's economic power. The
Speaker 1: interesting thing is that the second intention, it wasn't something
Speaker 1: that was developed later after the company had already succeeded.
Speaker 1: According to the Tory Birch Foundation, it was actually part
Speaker 1: of the purpose behind the company from the very beginning.
Speaker 1: The foundation's mission is to increase women's economic power by
Speaker 1: supporting entrepreneurs as they build businesses that last. It offers resources,
Speaker 1: access to capital, education, and a community invested in founder
Speaker 1: and business growth. The fellows network of the foundation it
Speaker 1: has over I believe it's over five hundred women entrepreneurs
Speaker 1: across like forty five to fifty cities and over twenty
Speaker 1: different industries. We just consider what that means in practice.
Speaker 1: You've got a woman who gains access to capital, to guidance,
Speaker 1: into a strong peer network with mentors. She uses that
Speaker 1: all to strengthen her own business. Her revenues grow, She
Speaker 1: hires employees, she works with suppliers and service providers, She
Speaker 1: builds relationships with other founders who share knowledge, who make introductions,
Speaker 1: who create collaborations, and one woman's increased capacity begins moving
Speaker 1: through the employees, through the families, through the vendors, through
Speaker 1: the clients, through the communities. Once again, the increase does
Speaker 1: not stop with the individual. I think this example should
Speaker 1: challenge the way that we sometimes think about purpose and contribution.
Speaker 1: Oftentimes we may think that contribution is something that we
Speaker 1: will get to you later. First I will become successful
Speaker 1: and then I'll have the time and the resources to
Speaker 1: help others. Or first I'll achieve my goals and then
Speaker 1: I'll think about my impact But what of flourishing is
Speaker 1: not if it's not some philanthropic project that's added after thriving.
Speaker 1: What if it changes the way you build success from
Speaker 1: the very beginning the business itself, it still has to thrive,
Speaker 1: the products still have to be valuable, and the finances
Speaker 1: that the companies still have to work. All of that's
Speaker 1: really important because a depleted or a collapsing business it
Speaker 1: has very little capacity to increase anyone. So that has
Speaker 1: to happen, but its success can exist inside of a
Speaker 1: larger vision. So I want to invite you out there.
Speaker 1: If you're an entrepreneur in particular, do you have something
Speaker 1: bigger than you that's part of your why for your business?
Speaker 1: Do you have your own personal why, the meaningful why
Speaker 1: for yourself? But do you also have something bigger than
Speaker 1: you that's actually more of an ecosystem driven idea. Have
Speaker 1: you thought about your business beyond just your own personal impact,
Speaker 1: and have you thought bigger and broader to the longer
Speaker 1: term impact that you want to make, that you want
Speaker 1: to have the legacy, that you want to live or leave.
Speaker 1: I should say live and leave now. I want to
Speaker 1: make a distinction here too, between helping someone and increasing someone,
Speaker 1: and I said before, we want to teach people how
Speaker 1: to fish, not just give them the fish, right, But
Speaker 1: you want to be a person of increase. Helping has
Speaker 1: an important place. There are times when we all need
Speaker 1: direct support, but helping can also leave the helper as
Speaker 1: the permanent source. So think about it. If I have
Speaker 1: knowledge and you're in need of that knowledge, and I
Speaker 1: provide you with that knowledge and you receive that knowledge.
Speaker 1: In that scenario, I'm actually the source of the knowledge.
Speaker 1: But increases different. If you're thinking from increase, the primary
Speaker 1: thought in your mind is can this person that I'm
Speaker 1: interacting with become a greater source of wisdom, of value,
Speaker 1: of creativity, of possibility in their own right. There's a
Speaker 1: difference between solving every problem for someone else and expanding
Speaker 1: their ability to solve problems on their own. And there's
Speaker 1: a difference between giving advice and strengthening somebody else's discernment
Speaker 1: so that they can make their own decisions. There's a
Speaker 1: difference between creating followers and developing leaders, between building an
Speaker 1: audience that relies on you and cultivating a community whose
Speaker 1: members generate value for one another. This all is very
Speaker 1: much tied into the impression of increase. That's from Wallace Waddles,
Speaker 1: who wrote the book The Song Is of Getting Rich.
Speaker 1: In the book, he wrote that there's a guiding thought
Speaker 1: in all of our dealings with other people that should
Speaker 1: convey increase, because all life is looking and seeking greater
Speaker 1: life and fuller expression, and the individual as a creative
Speaker 1: center from which increase can move to others. Now, when
Speaker 1: I read that, I didn't read it like positive, relentless positivity.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean I become a walking affirmation or inspiring
Speaker 1: every person I meet. It means that something about the
Speaker 1: way I engage with people can make more life available,
Speaker 1: And the same thing for you. Do people feel more
Speaker 1: capable after speaking with you? Do they leave with greater clarity?
Speaker 1: Does your leadership does it call forward their intelligence or
Speaker 1: does it train them to depend on yours? Does your
Speaker 1: relationship allow someone to evolve or does it just require
Speaker 1: them to stay familiar? Does your work create real capability
Speaker 1: or does it just keep people consuming? Does your success
Speaker 1: make the pathway wider for others? That's what increases all about.
Speaker 1: And this is also where frequency becomes part of the
Speaker 1: conversation here. Right, Frequency is not about maintaining the perfect
Speaker 1: emotional state at all times. Right, You're allowed to feel
Speaker 1: all of the emotions out there. In fact, you want
Speaker 1: to feel all of the emotions, including emotions like fear
Speaker 1: and grief and anger and disappointment and uncertainty and all
Speaker 1: those lower level emotions because they're part of life and
Speaker 1: they create contrast in life, which gives you this beautiful experience. Right,
Speaker 1: That contrast actually creates energy that, when used properly, can
Speaker 1: create momentum in your life. If you didn't experience contrast,
Speaker 1: life would be very flat, it would be very dull.
Speaker 1: There would not be an expression coming through. But frequency
Speaker 1: is really about, especially the flourish frequency. It's about the
Speaker 1: deeper orientation from which you meet life. So what do
Speaker 1: I mean by that? Are you oriented towards scarcity or increase,
Speaker 1: towards control or participation words taking or giving, towards proving
Speaker 1: your value or just expressing it, towards protecting your position
Speaker 1: or expanding possibility? Like are you fighting just for your
Speaker 1: point of view to get across or are you open
Speaker 1: to expanding possibility? Your frequency feeds the field through the
Speaker 1: standards that you normalize, through the questions you ask and
Speaker 1: the introductions you make and the ways that you respond
Speaker 1: to to another woman's success. When you feed the field
Speaker 1: the field, that's hard to say. The field feeds you back.
Speaker 1: When you feed the field, a client will share her
Speaker 1: experience about their work with you. A colleague will say
Speaker 1: your name in a conversation that you're not even a
Speaker 1: part of. Right. Someone will forward your podcast to somebody
Speaker 1: else and say, hey, you got to you gotta check
Speaker 1: this out. You got to listen to this. A relationship
Speaker 1: suddenly becomes a collaboration, an introduction becomes a door. Right,
Speaker 1: your ideas and your impact move beyond your individual reach.
Speaker 1: That is the pollination effect. So think about it. A
Speaker 1: flower doesn't go around chasing the butterfly and the bumblebee.
Speaker 1: What does it do? It grows, It blooms, and it
Speaker 1: offers what it is authentically, it's to offer its own
Speaker 1: to offer its own nectar. The pollinator receives nourishment and
Speaker 1: it carries something valuable into another part of the field.
Speaker 1: This is how the ecosystem works. Right, you feed the field,
Speaker 1: the field will feed you back, and you if you're
Speaker 1: open to receiving it and you allow the ecosystem to work,
Speaker 1: it will carry value farther than you can all on
Speaker 1: your own. It will feel like magic when you're in
Speaker 1: the ecosystem. It's not magic, it just gets to feel magical. Right.
Speaker 1: So I hope this conversation has expanded some of your
Speaker 1: thinking today on what's possible for you when you allow
Speaker 1: yourself to thrive, when you make yourself a priority, when
Speaker 1: you pour into yourself first. It's like putting on your
Speaker 1: own oxygen mask. Right. You can't feed the field if
Speaker 1: you're automatically depleted, But you can't also wait for the
Speaker 1: field to feed you. You have to feed yourself, fill
Speaker 1: yourself up, and serve from your overflow. As we would
Speaker 1: close here today, want to return to the four power paradigms.
Speaker 1: Remember that surviving is doing what is necessary to just
Speaker 1: get through in life, and striving is creating through effort,
Speaker 1: through force, and through personal will. But thriving is where
Speaker 1: you connect reconnect, I should say, with your personal power,
Speaker 1: where you become fully alive and where you expand your
Speaker 1: capacity to both give and receive more. And flourishing is
Speaker 1: where your aliveness enters that larger circulation of life. Madam C. J.
Speaker 1: Walker built an extraordinary personal success in a world that
Speaker 1: offered black women very few pathways to economic independence. But
Speaker 1: her success became education and employment and entrepreneurship and all
Speaker 1: these opportunities. And more than a century later, Tory Burch
Speaker 1: built a global brand while creating a foundation focused on
Speaker 1: expanding women's economic power. Else became access for others to
Speaker 1: education and resources and relationships and community. Different women, different eras,
Speaker 1: different circumstances, but they shared a principle. They're thriving entered
Speaker 1: the field, and once it entered the field, it created
Speaker 1: increase beyond anything either woman could have accomplished all on
Speaker 1: their own. So this is also why I've created the
Speaker 1: field in my own world, the flourish field. If this
Speaker 1: is something that you're interested in. My vision for the
Speaker 1: flourished field is it is a place where you can
Speaker 1: come and you can plant yourself and give yourself room
Speaker 1: to grow when you're ready to grow, when you're ready
Speaker 1: to evolve. But my bigger vision for it and what
Speaker 1: I see it becoming in the future is actually a
Speaker 1: very self fulfilling organism and ecosystem. The feeds and is
Speaker 1: being fed. So if you're interested in that, check the
Speaker 1: show notes. There's a link there. I'll tell you a
Speaker 1: little bit more about that it's my monthly member. It's
Speaker 1: called the flourish Field for a reason. Until next time,
Speaker 1: I invite you to just consider your own blooming, take
Speaker 1: care of yourself, and keep flourishing. Thank you for tuning
Speaker 1: in to the Flourish Frequency Show with me Beth Larsen.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed this episode and are leaving with
Speaker 1: a heart full of inspiration and a mind buzzing with
Speaker 1: the possibilities of more. Tune in every third Thursday at
Speaker 1: eleven am Pacific on Transformation Talk Radio for more frequency
Speaker 1: boosting conversations and if you want more help getting into
Speaker 1: your flourish flow and stepping into the possibilities of more,
Speaker 1: you can find me at Bethlarsencoaching dot com. That's Bethlarsencoaching
Speaker 1: dot com. Larsen with an E speak the best Stay