It’s Not the Partner, It’s the Pattern with George and Tracey Kansas

0:00Hey Mark. Hey Katie. Hey you want to do a podcast? Yeah. Sweet okay. Welcome to the Unforget Yourself Show where we use the power of blue and the proof of science to help you identify your blind spots and get over your own bullshit so that you can do the fucking thing you actually want to do. Absolutely. I'm Mark. And I'm Katie. And we're the founders of Unforget Yourself and the creators of the Unforget Yourself system. Look, being a business owner is tough with vulnerability and with humour, we'll be sharing with you the real stories behind the success of those brave and crazy enough to start their own business. And to show you that you're not alone. Not from the accidental entrepreneur to the laser focus CEO. We have honest conversations about how they get to where they are today. We talk about the challenges that they faced and what they're currently dealing with in real time on the roller coaster. Long the way we want to show you that it's you. You are the most important asset in your business. Yeah you are. So let's cut the bullshit and start the show. Enjoy.

1:04Okay. Hello everyone and welcome to the show. Now, just a quick interruptions you're normally scheduled episode. If you wish more people knew you, trusted you, and actually reached out wanting to work with you, this is for you. Most experts try to post more shout louder or chase attention. But the truth is clients don't come from content, clients come from real connections. And that's why we built the profitable podcast system. We'll help you create your own simple relationship driven podcast that brings the right people into your world, builds trust fast and turns amazing conversations into clients, content and opportunities and all without you becoming a marketer or an influencer. So you don't need a big audience. You just need the right people hearing your voice, feeling your energy and thinking, okay, I get you. I trust you. I need to work with you. So if you want a proven way that actually grows your business, not just your to-do list, head over to profitablepodcasts.com

2:06and we'll show you how this will work for you. And now onto your scheduled podcast episode. So today we have this George and Tracy Kansas, the founders of amazing international, a coaching and transformation business that helps passionate women entrepreneurs in transition, purpose driven men, navigating major life shifts and spiritually inspired couples ready to expand their impact. Through their private and group coaching experiences, George and Tracy guide clients to recognize and master the patterns that keep me servicing using deep inner work and conscious leadership as the foundation for lasting transformation. Now their shared journey through cancer, relationship evolution and many entrepreneurial highs and lows demonstrates how personal trials can become powerful gateways to purpose, resilience and service. And while helping leaders, couples and change makers move beyond old stories and into a new chapter of alignment,

3:07they continue to embody the very teachings they offer using their own relationship as a crucible for deeper growth. Tracy, George, welcome to the show. Thank you. Mark, it's great to be here. So happy to be here. Well, thank you so much for joining us. So guys, if you can just to start off, just tell us a bit more about where you are today with your business and who is it that you love to work with. So Alta bin, okay, so well, we really are sort of three in one. The work that I do with women, I love working with women who are leaders seasoned and emerging leaders and who are in a transition what we call the sacred in between. So not who they used to be and still becoming the version of themselves that they know they're here to be. And I've been working with women. I'm grateful and honored for about 30 years and really like integrated feminine leadership and conscious communication

4:12and really embodying the authentic version of themselves. So that's the work I do with women. Yeah, then the work with I do with men. I'm working with men who have proven themselves out in the world and and usually in a transition either they've just sold their company or they're transitioning into a higher level of service of some kind or launching a new enterprise and really want to bring the very most of themselves everything that they've learned so far and really pulling the gold out of that and having that be embodied in their next chapter. And sometimes that's post exit. They've got time and money and resources and opportunity to follow a whole new path and sometimes it's a next level of what they're already doing. And then together we're working with amazing couples who want their relationship to to mean something to the world, to be something

5:15and create something from their the inside space of their relationship that is influential and has an impact in the in the world. So their purpose driven their impact driven their heart centered and they're each motivated to many of them are entrepreneurs not exclusively but like they're motivated to to make a positive impact. And then together they're often power couples wait like we might say they're power couples that have power struggles and have a powerful purpose. And so we help shift the patterns that keep coming up the ones where you're like oh my god I can't believe we're doing this again. And literally turn that into next level connection communication intimacy leadership and their evolution. I love I love these said that power couples but as power struggles because we hear that term and all for a lot and some people can make it a bit eye rolling but you're right there is two ends of the spectrum here and those power struggles

6:20we all go through it. I mean everything you just said there was all about we're all in we're always in a transition. We're always going through something. Sometimes they feel bigger than others. Actually you're going to come off of the back of an episode where we spoke about energy. Everything is just energy. And so this that maybe this is the first rabbit hole for us. Those power struggles that we all go through whereas a couple or individually there's so much energy that maybe we don't know what to do with things are changing so can you just unpack that for me in terms of that in those transitions in those times what's if there's a unique thing that this combined with those three types of people you work with. What's what's underlying it all? Is there anything that's that's that's there for everyone? That's such a great question and you teed up perfectly. The energy piece it's so true and we like to say that that the results were experiencing. Any of us individually or in a partnership are the some total of all the

7:20conversations we've ever held led been a part of or overheard from before we were born. You know literally the conversations we overheard in our mother's womb and on since then. In short the energetics of all of those conversations add up to impact our nervous system fundamentally expressed as our beliefs the conditions the way we see the world etc. And so with that as the the background the energetics of all that we call it the energetics of speaking is how do we master or take control of that language we call it the language of leadership. How do we take control of the language we use to describe our experience so that it's shaping our experience in the way that we want to as opposed to that experience unconsciously because it's going to our words are going to shape the experience one way or the other. With this sometimes we need to find that language.

8:21Sometimes we don't know what it is and you said some about these conversations the language happens before we even know it so within the womb there's a lot that happens and I just recently realized for me personally there was some the language of learned helplessness because my brother was born with a very serious heart condition had a massive operation at the age of seven it was life changing and I always thought no I'm fine with that that's not a problem recently heard that learned helplessness and whereas my my parents must have felt so helpless with this that I must have absorbed this from them and I can see how this kind of plays out where I I'm not in control what's the point doing that because so it's interesting how you see these things play out and so George you're right you are the sum total of all these experiences and all of these the experiences the lessons the the beliefs even false from other people can you unpack that a bit

9:24yeah I'd love to jump in so I really appreciate what you shared and and the tenderness of that like the learned helplessness and then the skills and the coping and the strategies to survive and what what we really like geek out over and are all about is that at the at the fundamental level is because most people don't know how to talk about things so your parents like you mentioned your parents or when you are young most people now even more so perhaps given everything going on with technology and so on actually don't know how to talk and for us like our passion is about talking how we talk so there are three conversations that are happening all the time there's a conversation that's going on inside and often that voice is a harsher more critical you know what's the maniac in our heads right the maniac in our head absolutely so there's that's

10:26one conversation the second conversation is the one coming out of our mouth and the third conversation is the conversation around us so if if as kids for example you were growing up in an environment where people didn't really know how to talk about it then as a kid how would that what would you do with that I grew up in a house where where we got the silent treatment when something went sideways and you know not everybody has that experience but I know a lot of people who have and so so it became like how do we talk about this or how do I interpret why I'm not being talked to right now and and so you know there's a lot that happens that shapes are inner dialogue and then what we say externally but at the core I would say that like it's so much about most people really don't feel safe to talk they don't know how to handle big emotions they don't know how to to go to the places that are messy and it requires conversations

11:29and the tools aren't the tools aren't made readily available to us as children or they're not taught we don't teach conscious communication and to children in grade school and you know we're starting to more and more which is wonderful thing and but so the tools aren't readily available and so when as we that's part of our mission is to make them more readily available these easily consumable tools and applicable strategies so that we can express ourselves in safe ways and I love how sometimes you'll say like and as a four-year-old or a five-year-old or a ten-year-old we don't really have the capacity to say like hey mom and dad that belief that way you're handling that I'm not going to go for that this you know that doesn't work for me like we can't do that when we're young so we take it all in and then we and sort it out later yeah yeah well they at one point you alluded to there it's like you this should be taught in schools because we we have this vehicle this body that we do the how to use it how to regulate our nervous system how to manage our emotions

12:32how to share this so typically with all these things that you mentioned there we we avoid yes we try to avoid it stuff it down because that'll solve it right absolutely not so with with the clients that you work with especially journeys transitions there's a lot of different transitions you mentioned we can't avoid things we need to speak we need to communicate but we've been taught to avoid it because if we avoid it it may not hurt us but it always bites us in the bum afterwards so can you talk a bit more about the communication rather than avoidance and what your what your clients have seen as a benefit for doing this even that might feel hard to start with sure I'll say that part of what is so what we're so passionate about in the communication is the container or the spaces in which communication can happen so what often happens and and honestly we see this so much and we work with a lot of leaders

13:39seasoned leaders and new leaders as well but a lot of leaders think that they know how to hold space for the kinds of conversations we're talking about and it's our experience and it's actually we're like forensic you know we're like we're like a forensic team that could come in within minutes see where a leader a group leader a coach a spaceholder actually can't hold the conversation that really wants to happen we call it like those are the edges so you can even example of that to make it tangible like you just said how it's people avoid conversations so many many people many coaches many with best intentions by the way like such good heart so well meaning so wanting to support transformation all good all good all good and if something feels too emotional if something feels too edgy if something feels like this could get bigger than what I can hold in this conversation or in this group or in this space then often unconsciously and sometimes consciously but unconsciously

14:47there is an avoidance to come back to what you said so like they steer the conversation in a different direction or they give advice very quickly rather than really staying curious or they keep it at a certain level of depth that they're comfortable with rather than push themselves out of the zone of familiarity and be forced to hold more you know or imagine you're in a much of a jump in you imagine where like if this has happened happens with children and parents too where you wonder why a child is is sort of a morose or constantly feeling like on edge waiting to set their parents off or something like that and then you hear the parents say you know bumping into something and just just blurting out oh I'm so clumsy no wonder I break things all the time or you know where they just completely reveal a total mindset and not even be aware that that's that's the the conversation they're creating and therefore teaching their children and so just

15:51by becoming aware of some of that language we can make big shifts in in somebody's experience so to end to like come back to the question so by becoming aware requires safety requires a conditions and a container for people to be more safe and to be able to express the things so that we can get really into what's underlying and what's underneath so for us the communication is so much about the the space and making it safe and we have very specific frameworks and ways that we teach and that we we work with our clients to have that embodied experience and then they can practice it and use it in their life or in their work and and then just by that the communication and the conversations go deeper they're more raw they're more real and more gets revealed so more can be transformed and everything is held with love and with um you know there's no bad feeling

16:54there's no bad part there's nothing of that so then that with the safety like no judgment safe and space actually creates real transformation so oh go ahead I can I can sense that sort of that ruin that container that you create I mean with our work there's no good there's no bad it just just is it's just information to the whole that space but I wasn't there one level deeper with you because for those people that know they need that safety and security which I think is most people um this is a great place to have that what about for those people that didn't realize they needed that safe space that maybe this came as a shock to them have you had people that you would with who who didn't realize but once they they experienced it's probably the floodgates open absolutely absolutely that happens a lot with people um because when you come into our space a lot of it is about communicate communicate like speak find your voice and so they want to they want to

18:00there they like want to just say what they want to say which is fine or they want to be told certain things like they come in with this expectation and what what happens is is that we're opening up the space to make space for like what are you not saying right now and what if you said this would you be most concerned could come back at you or you know whatever individuals or even with couples and so it's like teasing it out and then suddenly they'll say something they'll say oh my god I didn't even realize that was in there and that was going on and there's a sense of freedom and relief like okay now I actually know what I'm dealing with or what's what's going on rather than trying to force something on top like it's from the inside out rather than outside in and it'll usually be revealed with something like like you just said I'm trying to think of an example that something like wow I was never even allowed I didn't even know I needed to say

19:02that because that conversation was never even allowed either in at the household or in the company ethos and ecosystem you know the this everything's got to be optimistic and question authority or that yeah right either everything's got to be rosy all the time don't don't bring the doom and gloom or just don't talk about it leaders can't be vulnerable and this we will have a lot of corporate culture coaches and helping those CEOs those leaders to realize it filters down you don't have to be perfect in fact if you are perfect there's a problem somewhere you are not perfect so to be able to ask for help to show that it is more inclusive yeah people are more you hear all the time in the conversation out there now that people are more and more responding to authentic leadership something that they can tap into and feel is true not because because we're so used to

20:10now it with the prevalence of social media and the and the immediacy of the news cycle we're so used to seeing someone up on a pedestal in one moment and then the truth being revealed about them in another moment and that happens so quickly that the the whole leader as hero is has lost its it's it's mythic because it's never it was never really true oh yeah spoiler the real flawed hand it down yeah yeah so okay you said you said alignment now a number of times and authentic so tell me about your journey as you've got to this point I mean there's there's a lot of history there's a lot we can go down but in terms of what was it like for you guys as entrepreneurs to to come together and realize you know what yes this is this is how we're going to change the world this is what we're going to do together what was that like for you guys okay there's so many layers in the question they were so good well how we came together was

21:13I I do want to say one quick thing about alignment and authenticity I think I feel like that conversation a lot of what people say I think that there's just so much opportunity to really look at what is authentic and what is still conditioned and like there's so many others to peel away and certainly that's a big part of how we and what we like how we came together what we came together to do and what we do and also what we keep discovering about ourselves and each other to tie it back to that but George and I were each doing similar work before we met for decades leadership training communication training team building working with entrepreneurs working with executives in corporate and we had some folks that we knew who introduced us and the shortest version

22:14the shortest version is it took a few years for us to actually meet and then when we met we texted first and then got on the phone developed a friendship for like two months on the phone met in person spent five days together and then we're engaged two weeks later married two weeks later and moved in cross country two weeks later and then run our business oh wait when we got married we decided not to talk about business for like two weeks so we had a little honeymoon as a couple five weeks later produced our first event right and then just brought all our work together so yeah the the the piece you know my first text to Tracy was I hear we're destined to rock the stage together should I go ahead and book Madison Square Garden now or should we meet first which was amazing smooth I like it well played hot it was hot it was really hot I don't remember

23:14what I responded but immediately we were on the phone we made fast friends we never actually we had seen each other's websites but we never actually really we didn't face time or Skype at the time and then but when we met in person 36 days later we were married we just knew that that that we were in alignment well and I have to say this is that we also did a communication test and scored just like a communication combat compatibility test and scored two communications experts so poorly together that the advice was you guys probably shouldn't be in relationship together and we were like already married or engaged or something and so coming back to the question about authenticity and alignment in our work and in our relationship that continues to be something that we absolutely work on because we express it differently we hear it differently you know so it's very much alive here well make make this real for me because you guys you

24:16know the science you know the the techniques you teach and guide multiple different people through this the communication the authenticity the life and of course you're living and breathing doing this yourself you're going through your own transitions you're having experiences and situations so what's it like for you guys to teach and guide this and also on the other side you're doing yourself what's it like to for those both to be true well I'll say that early on we noticed for instance that when we were about to to to lead a one of our events and we leave lead relatively intimate events at the time 50 75 people and live experiences over three days and as we were building up to the event we noticed that the theme of the event would be working us hard like if it was about speaking with authenticity we would notice that we were being challenged to really share

25:17with each other the raw data you know like this is real this is really what's going on and if we were talking about full expression we would notice how we were feeling stifled and and and holding ourselves back and that would work us the few weeks before the event and we realized like wow there's a theme here like the work that we're meant to teach in the world isn't just oh these are my journal entries from 10 years ago this is real in real time we're working this every day of our relationship which is also what became a really important theme for our couples work is that our relationship is a crucible where our next level version of each of us is being forged and we're pretty transparent about like oh yeah we just had a big fight about this or you know we were just some of a some good content comes from our arguments some good frameworks after we get to the

26:18other side like there's a teaching framework in that or in real time we were saying wait we have a tool for this what is it let's use it right now like right now we need it we need our tool right now right now you know what's what's the life for you guys went once you because obviously you're you're not higher than now you catch stuff in the moments hopefully you catch self earlier than you would have done years and years and years and years ago but you're still in that moment was like oh you don't mean I've done this again there's a tool for that all what am I doing I know I know I know how to guide through this so to to have that experience um does does this make you mean being the power couple but also having the power struggles as you mentioned earlier does this help you become even better coaches and guides um and mentors yes and and we say that with a lot of humility and like what we would say without ego and without apology 100 percent because we can hold whatever and we've we've we hold a lot we work with people with big energy and

27:23big purpose and big stuff and we call it our framework is at the shift method so people have their shit and they have their stick and we help them have a shift and it's often the recurring patterns where you're like what what you just said like oh I can't believe I did that again what we continue to see is that that's where there is gold we're alchemists and so we're always finding the gold and that gold is deep in the pattern like you said earlier about uh uh learned helplessness showing up as two in a couple where it looks like we should be you know rocking this out with there's something else in that and the the the reason it keeps coming up is because it hasn't fully you haven't gotten all the gold and so if we look at it with love and we look at it one of our terms and is looking at it as heroic like it's heroic to work through stuff that's hard or it's heroic

28:27to lean in when it would be easier to leave or to you know like let's let's go deeper when it be easier to just avoid and so yeah we live it and so we're constantly expanding our capacity and grateful to serve in that way at that well that's a great way of putting it heroic it sounds beautiful and it's so right I've not had it used in that way before because these are all you keep having lessons you haven't learned yet they keep on they keep coming up again again again but to lean into them I'm like cool you know what what have I learned why is this still happening what is in there okay so okay tell you a story about where that came from so again short version it was a date night years ago and we set up like when we have a date night we set up a cozy space and we got all you know yummy and and so we're having a date night and we were talking and we were really an intimately talking and then George said something that totally triggered me and I just

29:31got I was I don't remember what it was I was like oh no and then internally I was battling I was like oh my god Tracy don't blow up date night don't react don't do the thing you always do like hold on that's what was going on inside meanwhile George is talking and I allay here's like well well I can't even tell what he's saying because inside I'm like oh my god Tracy don't do it don't do it don't do it and so then he's like what's going on with you and I said I said oh I wish you would hold me right now so then you would come and hold me and then I would say I need space right now like can you back off and then you pull back and that went back and forth a few times time not just for a second Mark can you relate like this I'm coming in you need me to hold me you need space what do I do I can't read your mind that's the kind of moment I was not and so and and meanwhile I'm just like oh my god but I'm trying but don't blow it up but what and so and then I was crying and that like a messy cry I mean it was a hot mess and I looked at George and somehow

30:33the words came out of my mouth I said my greatest prayer is that you would see me as heroic right now and it was a complete mismatch for what was on happening and for us like at the tiniest split second George kind of cocked his head and was like I don't know if you know what you look like right now I didn't I didn't say you didn't say that but the look was like I don't know but that's what was going through my mind but then immediately he got it and I could see we talked about energy we can talk about energy like I could energetically feel the shift that he saw me differently and something profound shifted in me because I knew he was holding what I was wanting to be seen as the perspective in our shift method that's one of the first things is about really shifting the perspective and so that was heroic and that was the alchemy so I love that you picked up on that

31:34that's where the it comes from it was like you know from hot mess to just could you just see me as trying like just see me as a real great now and it changed everything that's a great story of the two of you holding space I mean this should be a lesson to all of us who we don't know what's going on you we so to hug me get away from me hug me okay okay some things going on I'm here so again without reacting because a trigger reacts a trigger with someone else and that trigger someone else and you go forward backwards forwards backwards forwards but to be able to hold that space I think is a that's a great example and something amazing came from it beautiful and and really the the it comes out in my work with the men often is that big energy men often in relationship with other big energy people and and that the the the need to hold in those moments when your partner is having a big energy moment without taking it personally without taking it on without

32:37needing to fix it and just hey sometimes the most powerful thing you could say is hey I see you going through something big and you can call it heroic you can call it you know you're doing big work whatever you refer to it as just sometimes being having the experience of being witnessed in the big thing you're dealing with is a gift and witnessed with with eyes of love is love and compassion and this is true for even for who are talking about partners but for parents for relationships for leaders for clients for business like individually even to see yourself going through it and see this part and say like I see I see that I'm trying with them there's for something a willingness here there's that that is for really there's one thing you said there George when I feel super called out and it's a great reminder as well that fixing it I want to I want to fix things so if case come in there so it's wrong I'll

33:41I'll get straight in there like I can solve this here's how which isn't helpful at times I'm I'm a problem solver I'm a strategist so I've got my big 10 foot flaming sword of problem solving it's clumsy as fuck at the dinner table it's not good around the kids it has a time and a place so we have this this phrase personal problem so it's like case like person you've got to deal with the person they're problem solving or problem so personal problem it gives us that the language to be like here's what I need right now and it's so simple that's awesome we say are we discussing are we deciding sometimes in the same sort of context I think we're we're just going to jam on it or is this something that we're going to come to a resolution and sometimes I'll even say to take myself off the hook do I need to come up with a solution here and sometimes it's like you know no I just sometimes Tracy comes to these brilliant solutions on her own when I just hold this space and allow her to because she's brilliant big surprise right and and it's like but I

34:47think that there's something about that like just holding the space yeah letting it yeah letting you letting you work your way through it sometimes just like we say we call it narrating I'm just going to narrate this I'm going to narrate my process because I might have six minds about it and then this and I'm so angry about her this way blah blah blah blah blah or I'm definitely going to do this but I'm thinking about maybe that'll make me look this way and and then by the end of it you've narrowed it down to one solution all by yourself and I just held the space for and it's pretty great and we do that for the other yeah we also have an expression here that it's the pattern not the person so love that and problem it's a pattern that goes a pattern here it's not the person so and you don't have to love the pattern but you love the person so hold space for the pattern and you know create distance it's not you it's that so that space that distance that helps so much so let's just wrap up here I want to guys where's all

35:53this going for you what are you what are you like super excited about this coming up in whether it's six months time or six years what's do you have a full plan you know where it's going is it still evolving as good because it's different for everyone what's it like for you yeah it's a great question so we we have somewhat of a plan and we have I mean we have some specific things we're really excited about and we're also very much in service so for us even like when we read our work or we read groups we we might have a plan but we're really what's in the present moment what's being called what's what's legal so we're constantly juggling that we're launching we have a certification program that's coming out teaching people how to hold space and how to do the shift method and how to really be transformational communicators blending what we call the art the craft and the science of creating space where transformation is safe to take

36:54place so we've got that cooking and we've got a podcast coming out and you know we wanted to offer the there's a there's a sort of embodiment of our work the conversations guide which we can we can hear listeners can check out conversations guide.com and download that that's a gift for free and then there's also really exciting things that you're doing with men and then I'm doing with women like really supporting people who are here to lead the transition for themselves personally and it feels like a really important time for those among us who know that there's something cooking inside that is meant to serve more and more people who are waking up and that the world is hungry for this shift to take place and it feels like the more people we can give the tools of holding to the more the faster that transition can take place that awakening can

37:56take place if that makes sense. And I think that what's really important also like before you were talking about not fixing and holding space and you were talking about like you know my coming to my own clarity and wisdom and feels true for kids like really creating space for kids it feels true for as a parent as a you know professional as a leader in life and in business and in the world to make it safe for people to hear their own wisdom to find their own truth and that's where real authenticity is when you come from and so that's at the foundation of so much of you literally put well look guys Tracy George thank you so so much for not only sharing the amazing works that you do but behind the scenes and what it's like for you guys as you go through this as an entrepreneur it's it's always fascinating so for those people that are curious or they're like hell yes it sounds fantastic what was that website again? Conversations floral guide.com

39:03fantastic and there's specific tools in there that like really work through having the conversations that are important nice everyone go check it out grab that and then start the conversation say mark send you and enjoy the space but again George Tracy thank you so so much this has been an awful lot of fun thank you so much and for us too and for the amazing work that you and Katie are doing we're excited to be connected thank you thank you very much hey Katie yeah mark want to do an outro sweet hey thank you so so much for listening and making it to the end yay you so what happens next we asked them the things that podcast was supposed to ask at the end of an episode but can you please rate review download subscribe yeah but why is it important because that's how our podcast gets noticed how people find us it is and we want all their earballs

40:04all the earballs all over place we do nice yeah so please do all those things we'll be ever so grateful and then more people here your beautiful voice oh yeah see you next time bye