In this episode, we have Alicia Cramer, a mindset expert, author, coach, consultant, and serial entrepreneur.
Alicia shares her transformative journey from enduring a challenging childhood, addiction, and traumatic experiences to discovering the power of mindset work and spiritual growth.
This led her to become passionate about helping entrepreneurs overcome their mindset pitfalls to achieve their personal and professional goals.
The conversation covers Alicia's approach to helping clients break free from limiting beliefs, the importance of challenging irrational thoughts, and the transformative power of emotional freedom techniques.
Alicia shares the critical role of mentorship, maintaining a positive mindset through challenging growth periods.
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Full Interview:
Transcription:
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Alicia Cramer Teaser 00:00
So we go through a process of releasing that emotional charge and that puts us back in the driver's seat of our life.
Get some really positive momentum forward in our life and towards the achievement of those goals that really are those sincere hearts, desires, that inner fire that is calling us towards greatness in our lives.
Intro 00:20
Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview?
If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I Am CEO podcast.
Gresham Harkless 00:48
Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I Am CEO podcast. And I have a fantastic guest on the show today. I have Alicia Cramer. Alicia, excited to have you on the show.
Alicia Cramer 00:57
I'm excited to be here. You know, I love you, Gresh. So thank you so much for having me on.
Gresham Harkless 01:00
Yes, absolutely. I love you too.
I love all the awesome things that you're doing. And of course, we're going to talk a little bit more about what Alicia does. And before we do that, I want to read a little bit more so you can hear about some of those awesome things.
Alicia is a renowned mindset expert, an author, coach, consultant, and a serial entrepreneur. Having worked with hundreds of private clients for well over a decade from startups to owners of multimillion-dollar companies, Alicia has an intimate understanding of the mindset pitfalls that affect entrepreneurs.
Her clients include successful business professionals, executives, and entrepreneurs who are driven to take their personal and professional success to the next level.
And I've been and had the honor of being a guest on Alicia's show. She does so many awesome things. So you have to check out her YouTube channel, her podcast, all the awesome things that she's doing.
And I was listening to one of her interviews. I want to call her podcast OG cause I think she might've published her first podcast over 10 years or so ago, which is super awesome.
But I really love the topic that she talks about around that mindset piece, especially because even starting the business, sometimes you don't think about the mindset you think about all the other things, but I love how foundational that is, and I'm sure we'll die a little bit more into that. But she also has a really powerful and transformational story that I'm sure has led her to the impactful work that she's doing.
So Alicia excited to have you on the show. Turn the tables a little bit. Are you ready to speak to the I Am CEO community?
Alicia Cramer 02:20
I'm ready. Let's do this.
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Gresham Harkless 02:21
Let's get it started then. So to kind of kick everything off. I know I alluded to it a little bit. Can you take us back in that time machine? Go to what I like to call your CEO story. We'll let you get started with all the awesome work you're doing.
Alicia Cramer 02:32
The short version is I grew up in your conventional dysfunctional household. It was not an easy childhood and it led to a lot of self-confidence issues, a lot of self-esteem issues. It led to alcohol addiction and some very self-destructive patterns.
We could say when I was 18, I got the entrepreneurial bug and I just decided that's it. I'm gonna be a successful business owner we have this naive expectation about oh, I finally stumbled upon this great idea and now i'm gonna finally live happily ever after well, that's not what happened.
Dabbled in Off and on in some network marketing and different things. When I was 21, I moved from Wisconsin out to California and I'm gonna start this ecommerce business, and it was a flop and I ended up filing bankruptcy.
In 2005, I was out with some girlfriends, I was given a day rape drug when I had been physically and sexually assaulted. It was one of those turning point life experiences. It was extremely painful. I had essentially post-traumatic stress disorder, was really dealing with a level of internal chaos beyond anything that I previously experienced.
And that's coming from someone who struggled with depression and feeling suicidal as a teenager and all of that stuff. So we're talking pretty next-level emotional dysfunction, but that also was a blessing in disguise because I really had two options. Either that was going to completely take me out of the game called life, or I had to find a solution.
And I chose to find a solution and that led me down a very, very deep rabbit hole of spiritual growth, healing, mindset work and that was so transformational for me that it really was the catalyst for me to say, if I can heal, wholly, anyone can heal. And I became very, very passionate about helping other people.
So in 2006, I opened a small little EFT practice. EFT is short for Emotional Freedom Techniques. It's pretty popular nowadays. Most people have heard of tapping. That's where I started. And it was pretty much a flop as well. So what ended up happening is I did that a little bit on the side, but I needed a nine to five or more like nine to six. Right.
And I got a job. I was working as a manager at a cell phone store and then I got pregnant, which was a huge shock. Because I was the one who said, I'm never going to have kids. Life is horrible. It's awful. It's evil. It's ugly. It's bad. It's, it's hard out there. I'm never putting another human being through this.
Well, the universe had a different plan. I got pregnant and I immediately knew I was going to be the best mom that I could possibly be. That was another one of those life-changing moments. I knew I could not work at that job anymore. I had to get business, right? So I could raise my son the way that I wanted to.
And that's when I went back to school. I went back to school for psychology. I went back to school. I got my certification as a hypnotherapist from a nationally accredited college of hypnotherapy. I went back to school. I got my master's degree in metaphysical science, or while I'm still managing the cell phone store and pregnant and in the process of all of this stuff.
So I put on my superwoman cape and I decided I'm going to get business right. And from that moment forward, it really became about being the best version of me that I possibly could be for myself, for my son, for my clients, and that was when I finally was able to start to get business right now. That doesn't mean that it was all rainbows and butterflies.
That was where it got really real. And now I'm growing a real business and I have to take this business and myself more seriously than ever before. And I became very passionate about helping other entrepreneurs because I recognize that drive. I know that feeling, and I know that it's our own mental stuff, our own mindset stuff that is holding incredible people back. And so now my passion really is about putting out as many resources, helping as many people to get out of their own way so they can fulfill their dreams, their hearts, desires, and make a positive impact on other people's lives.
Gresham Harkless 07:18
I appreciate you so much and sharing that. And Alicia, obviously I'm so sorry you had to go through those experiences.
So I wanted to drill down a little bit more. Could you take us through exactly what that looks like as far as like how you work with your clients and serve them and make that impact for them.
Alicia Cramer 07:31
So first I help my clients to identify, What's your story? What's going on here? That story is so insidious. It is there wreaking havoc constantly and it is hiding in plain sight, meaning we are so used to telling ourself that story that we don't even recognize that we're doing it.
And now we have to start to look at it more objectively. And we have to start to challenge what those beliefs are, because our mind can be very irrational. Oh, other people can have the success, but for some reason, the universe just will not line things up for me.
God doesn't think I'm worthy or whatever the story is, we are very irrational about our beliefs when we look at them objectively. Now, we start to challenge them and we're giving the mind another option. We're saying, wait a 2nd here. But if that's not true, what if it can be different? I mean, after all, there is no law of the universe that says everyone else can achieve this level of success, but I am somehow exempt.
Right? So now we are showing the mind. Wait a second. Maybe this isn't actually serving us like we thought that it was or in the case of a fear-based belief, we look at it objectively. So we can see the fear is not actually helping me the way that I thought it was.
So we go through a process of releasing that emotional charge and that puts us back in the driver's seat of our life.
Being the person who does see the opportunities and says yes to them and actually begins to get some really positive momentum forward in our life and towards the achievement of those goals that really are those sincere hearts, desires, that inner fire that is calling us towards greatness in our lives.
Gresham Harkless 09:24
Absolutely. Well, I appreciate you sharing that and breaking that down. And I love how it starts with that story. Do you feel like that is part of your secret sauce, the ability to be able to not just understand these things, but be able to translate that so that your clients and the people you work with and the humans that are within us are able to kind of see that success.
Do you feel like that's part of what sets you apart and makes you unique?
Alicia Cramer 09:46
So when I'm working with someone I can identify based on a number of different factors, but oftentimes you can feel it. You can feel when somebody starts to get into their limiting belief.
There's a drop in their energy. They go into disempowerment and I am there to be that objective person to say, there it is. When we identify a limiting belief, I'm not letting you off the hook. Your mind is going to try so hard because it's a part of our identity. It's like, no, you don't understand Alicia. I need you to understand me, I'm different. No, this really is the way my family is or the way that person is or whatever.
I'm going to hold you to a higher standard. You can break free from that.
When we finally break free from those ridiculous ideas that we have, magic and miracles seem to happen. It's not magic and miracles it's the laws of the universe. It's the way that things happen for real in life. We've got to be able to grab a hold of that stuff and really just pull it out in its roots because otherwise we're just going to keep reliving the same thing over and over again.
Gresham Harkless 11:11
Yeah, absolutely. And that was funny enough. I was going to ask you for what I call CEO hack, which is kind of like that app book or habit that makes people more effective and efficient.
Alicia Cramer 11:19
A mentor is going to help you to sprint. As opposed to walking, you know, a little bit more slowly for some people, that's all they're comfortable with.
And that's okay. But if you get the desire within you to put your foot on the accelerator, find someone who's got the energy, they can hold the energy because that's what we absorb. We're absorbing the energy, those people that we look to for guidance, for support, for mentoring, those people are holding a higher vibration, a higher level of knowledge, wisdom, skill, and they're showing us not just with our vision, but subconsciously how to do it, how to be there, how to think, how to feel, how to act, and that is what allows us to evolve and grow into those new states of being.
Gresham Harkless 12:11
I absolutely love that. So I wanted to ask you now, you might have already touched on this for what I call a CEO nugget, a little bit more word of wisdom or piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would tell it to your favorite client. Or if you happen to a time machine, you might tell your business self.
Alicia Cramer 12:26
So, I think that falls perfectly in line with what we were just talking about. You have. Everything within you, everything within you, it's really just a matter of unlocking it. And that unlocking process is not impossible. It is absolutely 100 percent possible. The key really is, are you doing it for you?
Are you committed to you? Because you've got to find enough of that inner drive to weather the storms because there will be storms.
And when we are reaching for that next level, all of our old beliefs. Our old self-image stuff that has been keeping us where we were it's gotta go. We're gonna come head to head with that stuff. It doesn't always feel so easy.
And that's where we're going to encounter more resistance, but when you get on the other side of that, it is so worth it because you're more empowered than you were before. You're more confident than you were before. You're more self-assured than you were before. You know your worthiness more than you were before the physical manifestations of the money and the success and all of the stuff that you're aspiring for is now. In that new energy, it's in that new mindset. It's that part of that new self-image.
You got to go through the fire in order to get to it, but it's not the failure that so many people think that it is. They mistake the growth process for failure. It's not
Gresham Harkless 13:55
Perfect. Perfect. So now I'm going to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO.
And our goal is to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Alicia, what does being a CEO mean to you?
Alicia Cramer 14:05
It is ultimately you are the creator. You are the creator of your business. We don't get into business because we like the nine to five let's be real. Okay, there is scientific evidence that we are wired differently and a lot of business owners are just employees of their business. When you step up into CEO status, you now are in a very, very different mindset, very different energy and a very, very different position.
You are no longer the doer of all things. You're no longer the employee. You are still technically an employee of yourself and of your business, but you're operating at a different level.
You literally are the chief executive officer of your life. And so stepping up into that mindset is really the aspiration of the majority, not all, but the majority of entrepreneurs.
You become a leader. You become the one who is holding that vision and that energy and other people can rally around that and feel that sense of meaning and purpose in their own lives by helping the greater vision of what you have sort of seen, birthed and created as a business owner.
Gresham Harkless 15:29
Nice. Alicia, truly appreciate that definition.
And of course I appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best people get a view, listen to your podcast about all the awesome things you are working on.
Alicia Cramer 15:46
If anyone wants to connect with me, my website is the perfect place to go aliciacramer.com. Got links to all my social media. Follow me on social media.
Well, lots of inspirational, motivational content you mentioned YouTube, our YouTube channel is we've got hypnosis audios and EFT and affirmations and the podcast is on there.
Gresham Harkless 16:09
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much again, Alicia, to make it even easier. We'll have the links and information again in the show notes as well, too, so that everybody can follow up with you. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.
Alicia Cramer 16:18
Thank you.
Outro 16:19
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO podcast. Powered by CB nation and Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I Am CEO is not just a phrase.
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This has been the I am CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless, Jr. Thank you for listening.
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