Christine Schlonski [0:02]
Hey, Gorgeous. This is episode number 225.

Dr. Shannon Tran [0:06]
Hi, there! This is Dr. Shannon Tran. You are listening to Heart Sells! Podcast with Christine Schlonski. Enjoy.

Christine Schlonski [0:14]
Well, I am so excited to have Dr. Shannon Tran on the show today. If you’ve ever been in a place where you felt like you are burning out, you’re totally stressed, this episode is definitely for you. We are talking about internal creation with balance and harmony. Dr. Shannon Tran helps ambitious professionals become well balanced. Though, they can achieve whatever they want to achieve without the burnout. She helps them embody their values and remove subconscious beliefs and patterns that lead to burnout. I’m super excited to have the conversation with her and to really go deep on how to create that balance, that harmony in your life. That will reflect in your sales. Listen up and enjoy this episode. Well, I am so super excited to have you on the show today, Shannon, welcome.

Dr. Shannon Tran [1:10]
Thank you. I’m very excited to be here.

Christine Schlonski [1:12]
Yeah. And I love your work. It’s so amazing when we look at ourselves, or the businesses we want to create or the life we want to create. We do see like, all the hurdles that kind of come up when you are not embodying beliefs that support you. Tell us a little bit just about your story. Why did you choose to help ambitious professionals to become well balanced? What’s important in that piece and how can we create like a better life when we actually really pay attention to balance and harmony?

Dr. Shannon Tran [1:54]
That’s a great question. We often like to help who we are. About five years ago, I just found myself burned out. I mean, I was in corporate America, climbing the success ladder, had opportunities for promotion. But just feeling unfulfilled and I started to see women leaders in our Corporation will be killing themselves over their career. Their health was falling apart. They were working 70 hours a week. They were proud that they weren’t taking time off to rejuvenate like it was sort of, like some kind of like, award if you don’t take a vacation. I just started to, I don’t know if you ever had this experience, and maybe other people in our audience have where you just kind of like have a moment where you think, “This is my life? This is what I’m headed towards?” It really drove me to take some time to do really stepped back and think about what I wanted to create for myself and be really intentional. It led me, really on this journey of self-discovery as we often go on. I wasn’t sure where the unfulfillment was. Do I just leave my job? Do I leave my marriage? What’s that itch I can’t scratch? For me, I just felt like, “Man, I want to make sure that if I look back on my life, I don’t have a bunch of regrets, and I don’t just get impulsive and not blow my life up without realizing what I’m really headed towards.” That was the impetus for me, I was just not feeling fulfilled wanting that clarity. When I made those changes, and got clarity, and started really working on myself, my leadership, that’s when I was in a position to really want to help other people who want to have that. I mean, some people call it work-life balance. I don’t really think of it that way. I really think of it more like clarity and who you are and what you want to be in the world.

Christine Schlonski [3:57]
Yeah, I agree. I don’t really see there is a work-life balance, I believe more, especially when we are entrepreneurs, and we are our own bosses. It’s just one, you have this one life. I used to put it in compartments. This is my work. These are my friends. This is my family. This is my time. Then all of a sudden, you have all these different compartments to take care of. Well, now I just it’s my life. If I feel like I want to write a blog post, and it’s already 10 o’clock at night, I can choose to do that. But I don’t have to and I can choose to get up at five or I can choose to get up at 10 it’s just, it’s my life. It’s one thing. I just love that because it gives you so much more freedom. But as you mentioned, I also was kind of burnout, tired, and I asked myself like, “Is that all there is?” I mean, there must be more to life. You see other successful people and you wonder, “What are they doing that you are not doing? What do they know that you don’t know?” You also have two PhDs. So you really, like, you know

Dr. Shannon Tran [5:17]
I’ll have some clarity on that. One is an actual like Ph.D. from my university that I have a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. The other is, I call life a Ph.D. That’s like, our leadership where, because I think what’s coming to my mind, Christine, let me know if this resonates with you and with our audience. I think the shift that maybe you and I made and that other people want to make. That’s the difference that avoids burnout like life in different compartments is, like when you start to have a very intentional life. That’s what my life Ph.D. like, I call my second degree because my book goes like how do you do that. This allows you to just be who you are, everywhere is just the same person. If I’m working, it’s just an extension of who I already am. Vacation is an extension. This is why writing a blog post at 10 pm, that doesn’t feel like work to me. It’s just an extension of who I am and what I want to share. For me, that life Ph.D. was so critical because here’s what I see a lot of smart people were intellectually they know certain things, or maybe they have higher degrees or certifications, but they can’t implement it practically in their life. Like they can’t embody it. They don’t have that presence. For me, the life Ph.D. was all the like, inner leadership I had to do for those to both be there. To really show up in a way where I wanted to show up and play at the level I want to play live.

Christine Schlonski [6:49]
Yeah, I totally get that and I love the title life Ph.D. Because getting a Ph.D. if you’re not cheating is not a simple thing. You have to put in some work. That’s really, really interesting. I just feel it’s the life Ph.D. is so much more important than any other certification because you’re really going on that path of discovery, of who you are. The pieces you like about you. The pieces you wish to change or grow into a better version of yourself. This is basically a little, that’s like an ongoing journey. What you think there is a point where that kind of stops or is this just going on forever.

Dr. Shannon Tran [7:42]
One of my top values is growth. I’m definitely a growth-oriented person because, and this is what I love so much about your podcast, because if you would have asked me, even three years ago about selling. I have a lot of resistance to it. I’m a clinical psychologist, so we didn’t do selling and just how we retrained was very different. It took a while, literally 18 months for me to work through my resistance. Have an identity shift to be in a place where you can sell with integrity and honesty and enjoy it. Now I’m like, so passionate about sales because, I love that you call it heart sells, because the reality is, we’re selling all the time. I mean, just when you’re sharing with someone something you value or how you want to live your life or just setting the limit or whatever it is with people that’s heart selling. Sometimes people think selling is just about selling like a product or service. But the truth is that we’re selling from our hearts all the time when we’re sharing who we are and what’s important to us. I’m really a big believer in growth and looking at where we want to develop because it’s not like we will ever arrive anywhere. It’s not like we’ll ever be done so to speak or like baked. Its life is unfoldment and there’s always going to be something that we could be working on because you’ll see your next blind spot.

Christine Schlonski [9:06]
Yeah, I totally agree. For me, life is lifelong learning as well, because I believe that if I stop growing, I kind of stop living. When you look around like everything is growing, all plants are growing, all animals are growing. That growth piece to embrace that and to have that curiosity and the drive to figure out new things and to see how much higher you can go, and how much more impact you can have. Not really coming from that where you feel like how much more money does my bank account need. But really like, what are the experiences that I want to have while I’m here?

Dr. Shannon Tran [9:56]
It’s so interesting you say that. I’m in entrepreneur right now, meaning I still have worked part-time, my corporate career, and I have my business. Recently I got a $20,000 bonus that I didn’t expect. I thought, “Wow, this is so interesting”, because, well, a couple of reasons. One is, it’s not like I got a promotion. So I just got this bonus. It’s not like I had to work any harder or struggle. What was the difference? What I realized was a couple of things, it was growth. I had really worked on myself, saying yes to something, not some things. But to speak to your point, when I got the bonus, it was great because it was just a manifestation of how I had grown as a person. But when I got the money, I was like, “What do I do with this? I’m pretty fulfilled right now.” I ended up putting quite a bit of my savings. I bought a trip for my family, spent some, sent some money to my mom, little things, but the spending was so meaningful because it wasn’t just about the money. It was about the contribution and who I was being that led to that result of the unexpected bonus. That I really feel like, money is such a magnifier and what’s interesting too, like now, when money comes, it’s just so nice, but it’s not the same energy that it used to be if that makes sense. Where it’s just, “Yeah, money loves value, of course, it’s gonna come”, of course, that makes total sense.

Christine Schlonski [11:19]
Thank you so much for sharing that story. I think that’s so important to understand that money follows success. That’s something that I learned from one of my previous bosses when I was still in corporate Germany. In my job is he always said, “Well, don’t worry, money follows success. Just make sure you are successful.” Obviously, everybody has a different or their own definition of success. But once you’re really really clear and you take those steps to grow yourself to become that better version. The money will show up.

Dr. Shannon Tran [11:58]
Absolutely. Money loves mastery. This is what I love about this podcast because as you’re inviting guest speakers to like to share their thinking, whether it’s a skill set or how to just tweak your mindset or skillset around selling, whether it’s selling yourself or other aspects of selling you become masterful by being present around other people who think that way who are working towards mastery and success because that’s where the value is and people pay for value.

Christine Schlonski [12:30]
Yeah, people pay for value. So true. That’s a cool quote.

Dr. Shannon Tran [12:39]
I just made it. I’m glad you like it. Only on Heart Sells!

Christine Schlonski [12:40]
Yeah, yeah. I love that. when you think back, do you remember the very first thing that you ever sold in your life?

Dr. Shannon Tran [12:55]
The very first thing. Okay, yes. This was when I was first becoming or like evolving into an entrepreneur. Because it took a while to like even think that way. I remember, we had the opportunity to create like a black Friday offer. I created this Black Friday offer for $47. Because it’s got to be super appealing. But it’s that irresistible offer. Just when, and maybe you can relate to this, but like when you get the email that says, “You have money in your account because someone bought this”, you’re like, “Oh my gosh”, it was insane. It’s not like it was a bunch of money I could retire off. But it was so significant. The feeling of, “Wow, this is possible. I created something that’s gonna totally improve this person’s life. They bought it, it was so easy.” It was just that feeling of just possibility and excitement. It’s an, “I’m all about financial confidence.” It was like, “Wow, for the rest of my life. I can rely on my skill set that I could make an offer that brings someone money. Then, when they compensate me for that, this is now going to go to my kids, my family, my cats.” It was just that moment of, “Wow, this is what true financial freedom really means”, is you create value and are compensated for it. It was, yeah, it was that moment a few years ago with the Black Friday.

Christine Schlonski [14:18]
Oh, I love that story. I have a similar one that I shared often. I’m not going to go deep into it. But mine was actually a $97 workshop offer I made online. I remember waking up. Then the PayPal app showed me, “You have $97”, and I was like, my first offer didn’t land so I created another one. Then somebody bought. That was the first time somebody bought what I had put together for my skills and knowledge. That just changed the world as you just said. You think of something that provides value and another person says, “Well, I want that”, and they give you their hard-earned money. It was just so, so amazing to have that experience, ” Well, you know what, I’m on the right track.” It doesn’t matter what the price point is, it just somebody gave, it could have been $1. It could have been 2,000. It doesn’t really matter. Just set somebody paid for being you was the most amazing thing ever.

Dr. Shannon Tran [15:24]
It really is. The great thing too, at least this is my experience, because when that happens then you want to get better and better at it. “Okay, well, next time, I’m going to refine it and make it even better for the next person.” That’s that growth. I think it has a ripple effect. It inspires other people to bring value, show up in a powerful way as we live to their potential. Just imagine like when everyone’s contributing that way in whatever way they can. That’s just a great world to live in when everyone has their value to the table.

Christine Schlonski [15:56]
Yeah, yeah, totally. So can we talk a little bit about money confidence?

Dr. Shannon Tran [16:02]
Love it. Sure.

Christine Schlonski [16:04]
Because of what I’ve seen, people create amazing products. They sell them at an okay price, but they do feel underpaid because the value they deliver is so much higher but they also are not able to ask for more due to internal blocks. There’s a sales mindset, which usually people don’t have a very good one. I teach them sales success mindset. But I also noticed that you need a money success mindset as well. Because once you start making money as an entrepreneur, or maybe in a job, you negotiated the package, then all of a sudden, something might be blocking you. Give us a little bit of an idea of where to look if I can’t really charge what I want to charge.

Dr. Shannon Tran [16:56]
Yeah, so this is what, so just to kind of give some backstory to your question. I’ve been a high six-figure earner for a long time because just I have a Ph.D., right? So, but it wasn’t until I really combined my education with learning to sell, that I could really step into financial competence. I really am. This is the first time I’m saying it. But I really feel that if you want to be able to charge like a high ticket or just be compensated for your value, you’ve got to learn sales and learn from someone that you resonate with, that you respect that they’re selling it away, because it just, you won’t really understand the value of $1 or the value of whatever your currency is until you understand the psychology of sells because the worst thing that I have seen is when women sell products and services that are undervalued because they haven’t worked on their self worth or they don’t understand sales or they try to sell the wrong kind of person who can’t afford it, it really messes with their mindset. What happens is, and maybe this has been your experience to Christine, which is, when it’s too low goes to minus, “Why is it so cheap? What’s wrong with this? What’s wrong with either this person or this offer?” The psychology is you start to doubt, you miss trust when something is not charged correctly. What I found is, for a lot of people, especially women, we tied money to our self-worth. It’s because we don’t know our value, we doubt ourselves, we don’t really know what we have to offer. We have a negative self-image in some way. You’ve got to work on that. You’ve got to start cleaning up your self-image. That’s where you can work on your leadership, on working with someone who can look at your mindset around sales and make sure that what you’re offering makes sense for the value that you’re delivering. I think sometimes because we’re so close to it, we may not see that.

Christine Schlonski [19:01]
Oh, yes, yeah, totally agree. That’s one thing I support my clients with. To see what they actually offering and what it’s worth. Because usually they completely undercharged, they’re not able to put it into the right package and to the right offer. Obviously, it’s not just about putting a high price, it’s giving even more value, but there’s usually a pretty big gap in the value delivery and the price. That gap doesn’t need to be that huge because what happens is, they don’t feel valued. They feel like they deliver and they are not compensated in the right way. Then interestingly, they don’t go and say, “Well, I created this. I invited those people to be my customers.” They kind of start getting frustrated. Maybe even holding a grudge because the customer said yes and now they have to deliver at a price point they don’t want to deliver which is not good for the energy.

Dr. Shannon Tran [20:01]
I even had some people where I’ve gotten my phone, and I’ve calculated with them. Because they’ll just come with a price point. A lot of times it’s random. I’ll show them like, “Okay, the way you have it right now, you’re gonna have to work these many hours for this money”, because I didn’t make that connection. They’re like, “Wow, I didn’t realize I was working that hard for money.” They didn’t see it. There’s the other extreme. I love that you mentioned that which is just charging a high price for the sake of high price because that’s what you need for your lifestyle. I don’t think that’s a good approach, either, because if the value is not there, the same effect, but for the opposite reason. That person is not going to trust if you’re going to overcharge them and gouge them. I mean, it was so funny. I’ll give an example. This is about four years ago when my son was nine. My son was nine. My daughter was, so he’s two years old, she was seven. I don’t know if you ever have seen those little fidgets. That people like to play with. He bought a fidget, those little fidgets. He bought it for five bucks. He was playing with for a while. By the way, the way he was playing with it, it would make you feel like, “Man, I want that, too.” One week later, I see my daughter playing with it. I’m like, “Oh, wow, Max, let you play with that? “No, I bought it.” I said, “Oh, can I ask you what you bought it for?” She said, “$10.” And I said, “Well, you know, he paid five for it.” And she said, “Oh,” I said, “You didn’t ask?” Then I said to him, “Max, why did you charge your sister $10. You paid $5 and now it’s you.” He said, “I needed the profit.”

Christine Schlonski [21:40]
Well, yeah, I mean, definitely he has a pretty strong money mindset.

Dr. Shannon Tran [21:46]
And I said, “Son, it’s okay to have a profit but let’s not like gauge your sister. Let’s give a respectable amount.” The great thing for my daughter, it was a learning opportunity because I said, “Honey, you got to be a smarter buyer. Did you ever ask him how much he paid for it? Did you ever negotiate with him? Did you ever go online? Just say, I wonder how much it costs for this kind of thing?” I think it goes both ways. You want to sell with integrity and you want to buy as an informed buyer. We were talking to quite a bit about that. I know before this episode, we were just, how that’s so important. This is why I feel like every person. I’m really convinced that every person should learn sales and the sooner the better.

Christine Schlonski [22:29]
Yeah, I totally. I’m totally convinced about that, too, because it gives you, it’s not just about the business. It’s like the whole life. Whenever you negotiate something and even if you negotiate with your children to go to bed at a certain time. It’s basically sales, but we don’t leave it as sales because there’s no money exchanged, hopefully. If you start paying your children to go to bed at eight o’clock, well, I don’t know.

Dr. Shannon Tran [22:58]
I pay for grades.

Christine Schlonski [22:59]
Well Yeah, but yeah, that’s an incentive. You gotta say. I think your son was pretty smart and charging your daughter so much because it was already there. She had instant access. She didn’t need to wait.

Dr. Shannon Tran [23:13]
Maybe he could have sold it that way like, you don’t have to wait. You get instant access. You know it works. He could have presented the value. But the point is in terms of the money mindset here.

Christine Schlonski [23:25]
It’s just the profits.

Dr. Shannon Tran [23:27]
But also, he had, there were no hangups. There was no like, “I can’t charge it. What is she going to?” He just put the offer out there and she bought it because it looks so good. I mean, come on, we’ve all done it. I know I bought things.

Christine Schlonski [23:40]
Unfortunately, that’s also partly why most of the time we do have the sales mindset that’s not serving us, because we have been in these situations and discovered afterward that the product didn’t deliver or the service didn’t work or whatever it is, and be overpaid and that leaves kind of this negative taste. When we want to sell something, we don’t want to be like this person who did that to us.

Dr. Shannon Tran [24:10]
And I get, my briefing to that would be like, “Hey, live and learn”, instead, how can I get better at selling? One, “I’m an informed smart buyer. I’m an informed great seller.” It’s a win-win relationship. My job as the seller, in my opinion, is two, when I’m making an offer, for me to be so clear or as best as I can be about the value of why I’m charging what I’m charging and it adds up. Then for the buyer for them to practice sells, where they can say, “Oh, I’m buying this because it’s going to do this, this and this for me.”

Christine Schlonski [24:45]
Yeah. Awesome.

Dr. Shannon Tran [24:46]
Knowing that in life, there’s no guarantee. Get married and have vows doesn’t guarantee you’re gonna live forever. What are you gonna say that, like, I’m gonna take you to court because you promised me this and you didn’t deliver?

Christine Schlonski [24:58]
Yeah, well, yeah. All right. Obviously, obviously not. But if you keep on selling and being becoming your best version, you know. You brought us a wonderful gift, the success rituals, tell us a little bit about it, the link is going to be in the show notes and the resource tab. What can people actually get when they come and sign up for that?

Dr. Shannon Tran [25:26]
So, yeah, so on that, think of it like things Shannon loves the most. So there’s some money stuff in there. There’s a great daily ritual in there. There’s a great visualization exercise in there. Because what I have found for success is we got to put ourselves in that space and really visualizing the outcome we want and doing it regularly because our mind can easily go sideways. So there are some great gifts in there that will help you build that success, right money, love success. We’ve talked about that. So in the success rituals, there are practices that you can be doing regularly to help build that success mindset.

Christine Schlonski [25:58]
Love it, love it. So make sure you hop on over to https://christineschlonski.com/ find the podcast tab this wonderful episode and get your success rituals because I think that’s a great offer like a visualization, then all your tips. I mean, that’s like a mini-course and better, better money mindset. Awesome. Thank you so, so much. I’m excited to have you back on Heart Sells! pretty soon. And yeah, thanks for the interview.

Dr. Shannon Tran [26:26]
Thank you.

Christine Schlonski [26:27]
Well, what a great conversation. I did take some notes because I think balance and harmony in your life are so important. And there are always times when hassle more and then where we have times where we relax more. But like the overall picture of being in the flow of following your heart I personally think it is so so important. Dr. Shannon Tran has brought across some really, really cool points. Hop on over to https://christineschlonski.com/ Find the podcast tab and Shannon’s episode. And yeah, connect with her. All her links to connect with her is just one click away. I also have all the resources for you, as well as the show notes, and the transcript. And once you over there, sign up for the empowerment notes. That’s empowerment right into your inbox, where you not only get all the updates on Heart Sells! Podcasts, and the amazing guests, but also where I share content that I usually do not share on social media. And that will help you to play a bigger game in your life in your sales to be more fulfilled and happy by really following your heart. Thank you so much for having been here. Have an amazing day, wherever you are. And I’m saying bye for now.