Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: Hey dream listeners, if you like this podcast, you're gonna
Speaker 2: love the book. Yeah. I wrote a book. It's called
Speaker 2: Selling the Dream and it's coming out March twelfth, twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four, on Atria. It's about all of your favorite
Speaker 2: characters from MLMs and some that you've never even heard of.
Speaker 2: I hope check it out, Hey, dream listeners. Jane here
Speaker 2: with one of two bonus episodes this season. On The Dream,
Speaker 2: we looked into the world of life coaching, and on
Speaker 2: today's show, we're going to hear from now world famous
Speaker 2: former life coach Sarah Edmondson.
Speaker 1: Have you heard of her?
Speaker 2: She and her partner Nippy were featured prominently in the
Speaker 2: documentary The Vow on HBO. It's all about the Nexium
Speaker 2: Life Coaching MLM turned creepy criminal cult. Sarah was once
Speaker 2: a devotee of its leader, Keith Ranieri, but after some
Speaker 2: her events, including Sarah being branded, they became whistleblowers. Obviously,
Speaker 2: Sarah's experience with the group didn't start out that terribly,
Speaker 2: and I was curious, like, how do you go from
Speaker 2: having really great intentions wanting to help others, wanting to
Speaker 2: improve your own life, to you know, being in a
Speaker 2: terribly scary, awful cult. If you could just start by
Speaker 2: telling me your name and a little about yourself.
Speaker 1: Sure, But first, can I say it's a dream come true.
Speaker 2: To be on the show, for me to be talking
Speaker 2: to you. I'm like, I was obsessed with the documentary. Well, anyway,
Speaker 2: why don't you tell us your name? Sure you are,
Speaker 2: and where you're from and all of that stuff.
Speaker 1: Sure, my name is Sarah Edmondson.
Speaker 3: I'm from Vancouver, Canada originally I now live in Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 1: I was in a cult for twelve years. Didn't know
Speaker 1: it as a cult.
Speaker 3: Thought it was a personal and professional development program that
Speaker 3: taught goal setting and coaching and living your best life
Speaker 3: type seminars. And when I figured out it was not that,
Speaker 3: we went to the authorities, then the press, and then
Speaker 3: the leaders in jail for one hundred and twenty years.
Speaker 1: How's that for good summary?
Speaker 2: Great? What's the name of the color?
Speaker 3: Sorry, I'm so good at doing the cliff notes.
Speaker 1: I dropped the call.
Speaker 3: Well, I knew it as Executive Success Programs, and later,
Speaker 3: if for the sake of ease and all the different
Speaker 3: rebranding that the company tried to do, we call it
Speaker 3: an xim. It's known in the press as anxim n XIVM,
Speaker 3: not an e xium, which is the heartburn medication.
Speaker 2: Can you just talk about where you were in your
Speaker 2: life when when you first were introduced to executive success programs?
Speaker 2: Is that what it's called.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Executive Success programs are ESP.
Speaker 2: We called it, which is a weird acronym. NSP means
Speaker 2: extra sensory perception, right, yes, well it's like a witchy thing,
Speaker 2: which we actually.
Speaker 3: Realized later that Keith loved to name his things, you know,
Speaker 3: different lots of double entendres. So nexium, we found out
Speaker 3: later comes from the root word.
Speaker 1: I think it's nexus, which is.
Speaker 3: I want to say, like Greek or Roman for indentured
Speaker 3: servitude and like debt bondage. And yeah, so like there's
Speaker 3: things that you wouldn't when you do the research, you're like, well,
Speaker 3: that makes sense that he had that in the back
Speaker 3: of his mind, but we didn't know at the time.
Speaker 3: And dos dominus sqm.
Speaker 1: Cerroriium or something like that.
Speaker 3: But dos is also like he was an eighties computer nerd,
Speaker 3: and we just also know what doss means, so like
Speaker 3: it has double everything had double meanings for him, Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yes, esp.
Speaker 3: So what was going on in my time In that
Speaker 3: time of my life is I was a aspiring actress.
Speaker 1: I was also, of course a waitress.
Speaker 3: I had big dreams and for myself in terms of
Speaker 3: like finding my purpose and eventually getting so famous that
Speaker 3: I could have a stage and have a voice for
Speaker 3: various causes that I was passionate about, including you know,
Speaker 3: having an impact on the world, in the world a
Speaker 3: lot of idealistic sort of values that my social activists,
Speaker 3: left leaning hippie parents taught to me. And so yeah,
Speaker 3: the day that entered my life, I was in a
Speaker 3: place where I was very much into manifesting and setting intentions.
Speaker 3: And this would have been like two thousand and five,
Speaker 3: right What the Bleep had just come out.
Speaker 2: For our listeners, can you just, oh sure, yeah, describe
Speaker 2: it briefly.
Speaker 3: What the Bleep Do We Know was a hugely successful
Speaker 3: documentary and I think it came out in two thousand
Speaker 3: and three or four, and it was looked at how
Speaker 3: you create your own reality in terms of like your
Speaker 3: beliefs and your thoughts, and it was like spirituality meets
Speaker 3: quantum physics, Like what's the physics of the spirituality, so like,
Speaker 3: how do you actually think about things will affect the
Speaker 3: things around you? And it talked like it looked at
Speaker 3: water when you were projected love onto it versus hate
Speaker 3: and things like that, and it got into like the
Speaker 3: science of spirituality and it was quite groundbreaking at the time.
Speaker 3: And my boyfriend that I was with at that time
Speaker 3: was a filmmaker and he got into this film festival
Speaker 3: called the Spiritual Cinema Circle Festival at Sea. This is
Speaker 3: a group that is no longer in existence as far
Speaker 3: as I know, or at least the crew. This was
Speaker 3: a cruise of spiritual filmmakers and my boyfriend got accepted
Speaker 3: and I was like, well, I'm coming with you because
Speaker 3: I'm going to meet all these spiritual filmmakers and do
Speaker 3: real cruise and beyond a cruise to go to the Bahamas,
Speaker 3: I mean, like what better place to be? And I
Speaker 3: set the intention of of.
Speaker 1: Of finding my purpose.
Speaker 3: And on the very first day, and before I met
Speaker 3: the director of What the Bleep, I met another man
Speaker 3: named Richard who's still a friend of mine, on the
Speaker 3: first day who gave me a copy of his book
Speaker 3: which was called What's Your Purpose? And I thought, wow,
Speaker 3: I am in the right place, and I was just
Speaker 3: so open to the universe just showing me what I'm like.
Speaker 2: I nailed it. I nailed this right away, right away.
Speaker 1: And then that I've.
Speaker 2: Only been on one cruise and it was a Coachella cruise,
Speaker 2: so there was none of.
Speaker 3: That different vibe, although maybe some overlap with people.
Speaker 1: It was a very niche audience, and.
Speaker 3: I felt I was just so excited because I've been
Speaker 3: doing like beer commercials and vampire TV shows and like
Speaker 3: just stupid sci fi television that like didn't fill my cup,
Speaker 3: you know, and like, there's more for me here. So
Speaker 3: I met Richard, I got his book, and then that night,
Speaker 3: like the very first night, it was a science seating
Speaker 3: and my boyfriend and I were assigned to sit across
Speaker 3: from a very distinguished man and his girlfriend, which I
Speaker 3: later came to understand was the director of What the
Speaker 3: Bleep Again?
Speaker 1: Divine timing.
Speaker 3: Here I am being sat across from Mark Vicente. We're
Speaker 3: talking about spirituality, we're talking about shifting consciousness, we're talking
Speaker 3: about filmmaking, We're talking about all the things. I'm like,
Speaker 3: it couldn't have felt more vine in all the ways, and.
Speaker 1: We became friends.
Speaker 3: Mark and his girlfri his girlfriend at the time, me
Speaker 3: and my boyfriend, and we.
Speaker 1: Spent the seven days together.
Speaker 3: We were fast friends, and Mark was the judge of
Speaker 3: the films, and I think my boyfriend won an award
Speaker 3: and was all very exciting. Meanwhile, Mark's telling us about
Speaker 3: a program that he just came out of that was incredible,
Speaker 3: and he basically said, well, if you liked my film,
Speaker 3: then you would love this curriculum.
Speaker 2: Mark was pitching Nexium, which at the time was simply
Speaker 2: selling coaching courses, stuff involving that neuro linguistic programming we've
Speaker 2: talked about and getting out of your own way, that
Speaker 2: sort of stuff. But it was also an MLM, and
Speaker 2: recruits were told that if they recruited others they would
Speaker 2: be rewarded. But we all know that's not true, right guys.
Speaker 3: I mean, looking back, there was a lot of red
Speaker 3: flags that I missed. He spoke about Keith R. Nieri
Speaker 3: as being one of the smart smartest men in the world,
Speaker 3: and he was decided to use his genius to create
Speaker 3: a curriculum that would help people, you know, evolve their
Speaker 3: I think he even used the word disintegrations, which is
Speaker 3: the next word for you know what's what's an English
Speaker 3: what's a real word for that? The flaws in our
Speaker 3: in our programming, they used a lot of computer analogies.
Speaker 3: Like what you said in season three with the guy
Speaker 3: who was doing an LP was exactly that. And I
Speaker 3: said the exact same thing when I later learned to
Speaker 3: pitch it. We have hardware and we got software, and
Speaker 3: our software has got glitches, and we got to upgrade
Speaker 3: that software, and we have the tools to do it
Speaker 3: in a very short time, and let's do it the
Speaker 3: most efficient way.
Speaker 1: Go Vanguard.
Speaker 2: Hmm.
Speaker 3: So that was that was it, and I jumped in.
Speaker 3: It just happened again the universe had lined it all
Speaker 3: up so nicely for me. The very first Canadian five
Speaker 3: day training was going to be happening like less than
Speaker 3: a month later in Vancouver. So and I heard about
Speaker 3: it where I lived at the time. Yeah, even though
Speaker 3: I was hearing about this in the Caribbean, he and
Speaker 3: I were both just like, let's do it. But it
Speaker 3: just happened that there was another woman on the cruise
Speaker 3: who was also there was then started chasing us around
Speaker 3: the cruise ship with this paperwork to sign to get
Speaker 3: the forty eight hour discount. And oh yeah, this was
Speaker 3: very multi level market super multi level marketing. And I
Speaker 3: was if I knowing what I know now, I probably
Speaker 3: wouldn't have even signed up because I would have been like,
Speaker 3: you're trying to pressure me. You're using scarcity mentality and
Speaker 3: like there's only a few spots left and like trying
Speaker 3: to you know, all the things that I now know
Speaker 3: are tactics. But at the same time, I wanted I
Speaker 3: wanted the twenty percent off because I was like, well,
Speaker 3: I'm going to do it, so I might as well
Speaker 3: just do it. And I signed us both up. And
Speaker 3: they also said they also this thing that was called
Speaker 3: three and it's free, so you could sign up three
Speaker 3: people and get your money back. So so they were like, well,
Speaker 3: if you sign up your boyfriend, that will count as
Speaker 3: one of your three. So and I only needed to
Speaker 3: find two more after that, and I'm like, well I
Speaker 3: can do that, like assume me.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get it. It was two one hundred and.
Speaker 3: Sixty dollars, yeah, twenty dollars, yeah, twenty one sixty you yeah.
Speaker 2: How much was the cruise?
Speaker 1: Oh god, I don't even know.
Speaker 3: Less than that because we were guests. We just had
Speaker 3: to get there.
Speaker 2: It's so cheap, but you know, chasing you around a
Speaker 2: place like like a cruise ship for two thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: Wow, yes, yeah, and you went for it and I
Speaker 3: went for it, and that's it. I mean, keep in mind,
Speaker 3: like my rent at that time was four hundred dollars
Speaker 3: a month so and hard to make and hard to make,
Speaker 3: so that was a big jump. So actually when I
Speaker 3: got home, I think I talked about this in my
Speaker 3: book too, Like I freaked out and I came to
Speaker 3: my senses and was out out of the sort of
Speaker 3: reverie of the of the dreamlike you know, aspect of
Speaker 3: being on this cruise.
Speaker 1: At allways, and it wasn't incredible, Like it.
Speaker 3: Was a.
Speaker 1: Wonderful seven days.
Speaker 3: I met Neil Simon who wrote What Dreams May Come
Speaker 3: with Robin Williams like or directed and produced. I mean,
Speaker 3: like I met some incredible people in the film industry
Speaker 3: who were all so spiritual.
Speaker 1: And so when I.
Speaker 3: Came back from all that, I landed back in reality
Speaker 3: and I ended up calling like the ESP headquarters and
Speaker 3: being like, I put this deposit down, I is there
Speaker 3: anyway and can get my money back because I put
Speaker 3: five hundred dollars down of the twenty one sixty to
Speaker 3: secure the discount. So I put five hundred dollars down
Speaker 3: and I was like, freaked out, I don't even have that,
Speaker 3: and they it was actually a woman who I'm not
Speaker 3: friends with so we can laugh about it.
Speaker 1: But her name is Barbara Bouchet, and she was like
Speaker 1: the top salesperson. And she said.
Speaker 3: To me, wait, you're twenty eight years old and you
Speaker 3: don't have five hundred dollars out. What are you going
Speaker 3: to do differently in your life if you're not going
Speaker 3: to address your money issues right?
Speaker 2: And like sickburn, but sickburn, I'm in.
Speaker 3: Well, I was totally in until she said because of
Speaker 3: my other excuse was you know, I'm an actor and
Speaker 3: I don't know if I can take five days away,
Speaker 3: like I really need to be available for auditions and
Speaker 3: stuff like that. And she said, so you're waiting for
Speaker 3: your agent to call. Is your agent going to be
Speaker 3: the director of your life? Or would you like to
Speaker 3: be the master of your own ship?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So between those two things, I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: she has a point, and so I think Yeah.
Speaker 3: It was a week or two later and I end
Speaker 3: up going to this pretty Rundown Holiday Inn in Burnaby,
Speaker 3: which is a suburb of Vancouver.
Speaker 1: And needless to say, I was.
Speaker 2: This sounds totally legit and think you're about to make
Speaker 2: so much money and be so successful.
Speaker 1: Yes, I was sorry. It was really run down. It
Speaker 1: was not executive success.
Speaker 3: And I remember thinking like for the amount of money
Speaker 3: we paid, we should have more than a bread garden,
Speaker 3: which is sort of like Canada's Panera, Like.
Speaker 1: A okay, yeah, it's like a very simple.
Speaker 3: Like sandwiches and maybe some boiled eggs and croissants for breakfast.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I'm gluten free.
Speaker 3: This sucks, but but I was like I kept facillating
Speaker 3: between being like, all right, I pay this money, let's
Speaker 3: do this, and then also being very skeptical, very judgy
Speaker 3: of all of the coaches cheesy power suits, and there
Speaker 3: was like, I want to say, twelve coaches and nine students.
Speaker 3: There was a big coach to student ratio in that
Speaker 3: particular training because it was the first one they'd done
Speaker 3: in Canada.
Speaker 1: There's only nine of us.
Speaker 3: I was really turned off from the beginning. I was
Speaker 3: super like just the whole presentation was cheesy, it was dated,
Speaker 3: it was this is two thousand and five, and I
Speaker 3: want to feel like it was ninety it was nineties, like.
Speaker 1: It was just just it was dated. And the video
Speaker 1: there's a video component.
Speaker 3: The first time you're introduced to Nancy Salzman, who's the
Speaker 3: president of the company, it's on a video and it's
Speaker 3: got like the fluorescent pink block letters. And this is
Speaker 3: not necessarily like not much of that was seen in
Speaker 3: the vow because they readd the videos at a certain point.
Speaker 3: But the old videos were like next level cheesy, and
Speaker 3: I just remember feeling like, what have I signed up for?
Speaker 3: And you know, my parents are therapists, and this is
Speaker 3: like fast track to to therapy essentially, is what they're saying,
Speaker 3: Like therapy is just talking about your issues.
Speaker 1: This is going to get to the root cause of it.
Speaker 3: And they also at the very beginning were very smart
Speaker 3: about what I've since learned because I learned to do
Speaker 3: the same thing called preempting UH and using remote setups
Speaker 3: with your techniques to basically have people dismiss their concerns
Speaker 3: as they come up. And then they got they got
Speaker 3: ahead of it, you know what I mean, they have
Speaker 3: to do that.
Speaker 1: So they got ahead of it by saying like.
Speaker 3: Wouldn't you agree that all successful people know their limitations?
Speaker 3: And we're like, yeah, yeah, sure, all successful people know
Speaker 3: their limitations. So at that point, if you don't admit
Speaker 3: you have limitations, you're not successful.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we're they're double binds in the room.
Speaker 3: Remote setups are getting people in the audience to go
Speaker 3: okay through her questions, remote setups and these this technique
Speaker 3: from the front of the room. Okay, I have limitations.
Speaker 3: I'm here to be successful. Oh no, I am successful.
Speaker 1: You don't. No one's saying I'm not.
Speaker 3: Successful, right, And wouldn't you agree that to work through
Speaker 3: anything new, you're gonna hit discomfort, no paid, no gain. Right.
Speaker 3: So when you're uncomfortable and you have the urge to leave,
Speaker 3: the urge to bolt, which is very normal, You're gonna
Speaker 3: want to go to the bathroom, You're gonna want to eat,
Speaker 3: you're gonna want to smoke, you want to flirt, all
Speaker 3: the things that happened, which is also true. Like if
Speaker 3: you ever done therapy, and I know you've done your
Speaker 3: coaching path with Jesse, like it's uncomfortable right to look
Speaker 3: at your shit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's true.
Speaker 3: So what it also does, though, is it helps you
Speaker 3: sit on your instinct to get the.
Speaker 1: Fuck out when it doesn't feel right right. So that's
Speaker 1: the kind of confusing thing.
Speaker 3: And a lot of these groups do this and I've
Speaker 3: since learned that this is that's like the main tactic
Speaker 3: is to is to override your intuition, and say, your
Speaker 3: intuition in this case is riddled with limiting beliefs. So
Speaker 3: for example, if you're uncomfortable when we present something, hey,
Speaker 3: we're gonna present It's just a piece of fabric. We're
Speaker 3: gonna put it around your neck. It represents your level
Speaker 3: of growth in this karate like system. So the very
Speaker 3: first class was called rules and Rituals. We're gonna go
Speaker 3: through all the things we do. You're gonna feel uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: We ask you to think about why this thing is
Speaker 3: making you uncomfortable, talk about it with a coach, don't leave,
Speaker 3: don't go smoke. Let's look at it while you're here.
Speaker 3: It's just a piece of fabric, okay.
Speaker 2: And what are the remote setups?
Speaker 3: So remote setups are when you say something from the
Speaker 3: front of the room that somebody would hear. It's like
Speaker 3: when you're addressing someone's issue who's sitting in the room
Speaker 3: instead of calling them out and being like Jane, you're
Speaker 3: just being defiant right now, or like Jane, you're so
Speaker 3: close minded because whatever, I'm trying to think of some
Speaker 3: of the things you talked about, like you just want
Speaker 3: to eat your junk food and you know, and so
Speaker 3: instead of calling you out, I could say from the front,
Speaker 3: and this is I did all the time. Later, if
Speaker 3: I knew what somebody was working through, Like if I
Speaker 3: knew that Jane Marie was coming to my training and
Speaker 3: she was trying to like naugh eat junk food, I
Speaker 3: might say something like, you know, I'm so glad y'all
Speaker 3: are here. This has been such an incredible training for me.
Speaker 3: I've worked through so many issues. That's helped me with
Speaker 3: my acting. It's helped me in my relationships. I've had
Speaker 3: things that I've tried to cut out of my life,
Speaker 3: like unhealthy eating or like certain habits that didn't serve
Speaker 3: me anymore. And I will tell you these tools are
Speaker 3: going to help you. Blah blah blah blah blah. So
Speaker 3: like that's a remote setup. So you're in the audience
Speaker 3: going wow, Like this is a good place for me
Speaker 3: because I can overcome my junk food addiction because Sarah
Speaker 3: is up there.
Speaker 1: So I'm not.
Speaker 3: It just sort of seems people used to say all
Speaker 3: the time, like I think they might be siting you
Speaker 3: might feel psychic. And part of it was because we
Speaker 3: were reading the intake sheets and sharing the information with
Speaker 3: the other coaches so that we could weave it in
Speaker 3: with these remote setups. And after twelve years of talking
Speaker 3: to people and hearing their goals and understanding their backgrounds,
Speaker 3: there was only so many kind of patterns tendencies, so
Speaker 3: that like I might meet somebody that I was coaching
Speaker 3: a new person and they'd say a couple of things
Speaker 3: and I'd say, oh, okay, your parents are divorced, and I.
Speaker 1: Hadn't read that in it didn take sheet.
Speaker 3: I just made that assumption because of a couple of
Speaker 3: things they said, And I just assumed, and it often
Speaker 3: was right, because well.
Speaker 2: You're right half the time, yes, at least, because you
Speaker 2: know half of people are divorced.
Speaker 3: Right, that's true too half the time fifty percent chance
Speaker 3: of being right.
Speaker 1: And maybe also some other things I picked up on.
Speaker 3: And then plus you throw the intake sheet in and
Speaker 3: I look like a wizard, you know.
Speaker 1: I felt so helped.
Speaker 3: I really wanted to be able to do that for
Speaker 3: other people. That was the main thing and I and
Speaker 3: then I thought, wow, this is great because when I
Speaker 3: was deciding between acting and psychology back in the day,
Speaker 3: when I was choosing my degree, I was like, well,
Speaker 3: I can still pursue acting and I can still be
Speaker 3: a coach, which with my mind was the same as
Speaker 3: being a therapist but better.
Speaker 2: So you get out of this terrible cult situation that
Speaker 2: becomes physically abusive, that becomes just incredibly unhealthy, and does
Speaker 2: it change your thinking about the coaching world.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: I mean there's just certain words like coach or goals
Speaker 3: or success or limiting beliefs that are just like so
Speaker 3: cringey for me to even hear, Like I don't when
Speaker 3: people tell me that they're a coach, I'm like, oh really,
Speaker 3: I'm so skeptical. I'm like based on what and I
Speaker 3: loved actually what you said in your series about like
Speaker 3: when you want to become a better soccer player, you
Speaker 3: go find someone who teaches soccer better, it plays better
Speaker 3: than you. And so many of these people are not
Speaker 3: succeeding in their life in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 3: Why would you trust them? To guide you, and I guess.
Speaker 2: And that's the thing with my therapist. I don't have
Speaker 2: that at all. But that's because I know for certain
Speaker 2: she was had rigorous training and it doesn't really matter
Speaker 2: if her life is perfect and right, it seems perfect
Speaker 2: from the outside, but it doesn't really matter because she's
Speaker 2: following rules. Yes, that are state sanctioned, I guess, And yeah,
Speaker 2: and there's a regulatory body and if she wasn't, if
Speaker 2: she was breaking rules, she would be you know, in
Speaker 2: trouble and perhaps face charges and all of that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like there's a regulatory there's a system around her that
Speaker 2: if she was doing bad things to me that is
Speaker 2: you know, she's she would get in trouble and los
Speaker 2: her license and all of that stuff. So it doesn't
Speaker 2: you know, it's different.
Speaker 3: It is also different because they're following a modality that
Speaker 3: they've trained under, and if their life's like not perfect
Speaker 3: or like they have their own issues, that's not really
Speaker 3: relevant to because they're using the modality, whereas the coaching
Speaker 3: doesn't have a modality.
Speaker 1: It's just like, you know, let me give you advice.
Speaker 2: Right, what are the warning signs people should look for?
Speaker 2: I had a really good experience with my life coach, right,
Speaker 2: And when I talk about how to shop for a
Speaker 2: life coach, where I start as like taking a really
Speaker 2: good inventory of what I needed, you know, being really
Speaker 2: really honest with myself about what I could possibly get
Speaker 2: from a coach, what I thought I would be able
Speaker 2: to listen to and follow, and having you know, kind
Speaker 2: of convictions around that before even choosing a person, because
Speaker 2: you can be enticed by just about anybody, you know.
Speaker 3: I thought that was actually very smart that you had
Speaker 3: your list first going in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, before I met this person at all, I thought, well,
Speaker 2: I know that what really is bumming me out is
Speaker 2: that I don't want to get up in the morning,
Speaker 2: and I don't want to move my body, and I
Speaker 2: don't want to eat good food. And I know those
Speaker 2: things would make a huge difference because sadly, you do
Speaker 2: get happier when you work out more, and all of
Speaker 2: that stuff is true, and it would be really nice
Speaker 2: if I could just like take a nap all day
Speaker 2: and be happy. But yeah, I knew that those things
Speaker 2: would make the biggest impact on me in a short
Speaker 2: amount of time, and it totally worked. And so I
Speaker 2: tell people to kind of like figure out is it
Speaker 2: spirituality that you're searching for? Is it you know, what's
Speaker 2: the what's the thing that's gonna work for you? And
Speaker 2: don't just sign up for any anybody anybody's curriculum. So
Speaker 2: what what should people look out for so they if
Speaker 2: they are going to get a coach, they don't end
Speaker 2: up in the scenario you found yourself in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 3: I'd say, like figure out where they got there first
Speaker 3: of like where do they get their training?
Speaker 1: Like what's their background?
Speaker 3: Do they just get a certificate online or put on
Speaker 3: their business cards? Like where where do they learn to
Speaker 3: coach from? I'm I honestly, like am pretty skeptical about
Speaker 3: the coaching industry. Look, I rather say get a therapist.
Speaker 3: But if if somebody wants a coach to help them
Speaker 3: in their lives, I'm more apt to say, Like if
Speaker 3: it's if they're actors, like get an acting coach. But
Speaker 3: that being said, there's a ton of culti acting teachers
Speaker 3: out there. That's a a whole separate thing. But like
Speaker 3: you know, if it's a bit if they're in business,
Speaker 3: specifically getting a business coach, which is different than like
Speaker 3: the business coaches in an MLM circle, because that's like
Speaker 3: you'd expose there's people who have zero credentials walking around
Speaker 3: trying to tell people what to do. But I would say, like,
Speaker 3: let's just say you're going to find a coach and
Speaker 3: you want them to help help you in your life.
Speaker 1: Look for love bombing.
Speaker 3: Look look for somebody who's just like making you feel
Speaker 3: really good at first and buttering you up and with that,
Speaker 3: like deep eye gazing is something that I think is
Speaker 3: definitely a red flag. Any encouragement to distance or cut
Speaker 3: off from friends who like aren't doing the work.
Speaker 1: Right is key.
Speaker 2: Jennifer had that with Yes and Arbond and with you
Speaker 2: know Ray Higden where he said don't be around sick
Speaker 2: people or poor people.
Speaker 3: Yes, you know, I mean there is a there is
Speaker 3: a reality to like, if you've got people in your
Speaker 3: life who are super toxic and abusive, like that's that's different.
Speaker 1: But if they don't, if.
Speaker 3: The people don't get it and they're at supportive of you,
Speaker 3: that's different. That's not being toxic and abusive. Right, loaded
Speaker 3: language like having your own little language that's separate from
Speaker 3: everybody else.
Speaker 1: Thought terminating cliches.
Speaker 3: If you're like asking questions and you feel shut down
Speaker 3: by by Like if somebody says, well, that's just your
Speaker 3: like the next thing we used to always say, well,
Speaker 3: that's just your life issue.
Speaker 2: Which is not illegitimate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm like, oh, it's just my life issue, obvious.
Speaker 3: And then and then what do I do with that?
Speaker 3: I'm like, we'll go journal on it, like just or
Speaker 3: go sit with that.
Speaker 2: So that's my life issue? Is like, okay, that's everything.
Speaker 1: What Oh that's not terrible? I know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So you feel differently about coaching? Is there some
Speaker 2: think about it? Did you have any good like positive takeaways? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean I got I got a lot of positive takeaways.
Speaker 3: What's been part of my you know, healing journey is
Speaker 3: deciding whether to throw the baby out with the bath water.
Speaker 3: And there actually isn't you know, amongst us ex Naxium members,
Speaker 3: and there's a whole other you know, that's another hour
Speaker 3: of how I got out and how I figured.
Speaker 1: That, figured it out and all that stuff. But even
Speaker 1: within our little community.
Speaker 3: Of xi xpions or ex nacci nexioms people, whatever you
Speaker 3: want to call us, is that some people are like, no,
Speaker 3: I throw it all out, Like if you have water
Speaker 3: with a bit of shit in it, like it's tainted, right, like,
Speaker 3: just check it out.
Speaker 1: But what I've I'm personally not willing to do that
Speaker 1: because I put so much time and effort into it.
Speaker 1: I feel like.
Speaker 3: I needed, I needed for me, needed to separate what
Speaker 3: was his, what was Keith's, Nancy's, and what was just
Speaker 3: things from other places?
Speaker 1: What's neural linguistic?
Speaker 3: A lot of it was a lot of it was
Speaker 3: neural linguistic programming, A lot of it was Buddhism. A
Speaker 3: lot of it was just like tenants from any goals
Speaker 3: program in terms of.
Speaker 1: How to like push through and create the things you
Speaker 1: want in your life. So for me to check that
Speaker 1: all out would be a waste of time. And I'm
Speaker 1: all about efficiency.
Speaker 3: So I spent the time trying to fit and Nippy
Speaker 3: and I are still doing that. We're still being like, wait,
Speaker 3: I have this thing, like is that like do we
Speaker 3: think that?
Speaker 1: Or did you think that? Or where did it come
Speaker 1: from originally?
Speaker 3: And then then we you know, then we and then
Speaker 3: we can think about if we want to keep it
Speaker 3: because all of these things are just stolen from our art.
Speaker 2: I have someone to parse that out.
Speaker 1: I'm so lucky.
Speaker 3: So many people left alone and you know, or went
Speaker 3: back to their families who were, like I told you,
Speaker 3: were in a cult.
Speaker 1: Like so they're, you know, just stuck with their own process.
Speaker 3: And I feel very lucky to have Nippy and I
Speaker 3: we talk about all the time, and yeah, it's ongoing
Speaker 3: for sure.
Speaker 1: Though.
Speaker 2: The Dream is written, hosted, and executive produced by me
Speaker 2: Jane Marie. Our producer is Mike Richter, with help from
Speaker 2: Nancy Golumbiski and Joy Sandford. Our editor is Peter Clowney.
Speaker 1: The Dream is a.
Speaker 2: Co production of Little Everywhere in Pushkin Industries. He came
Speaker 2: behind