Unstoppable with Amira Alvarez

Amira Alvarez is the founder and CEO of The Unstoppable Woman, a global coaching company helping entrepreneurs, empire builders, athletes, creatives, and rising stars in all fields achieve their dreams and goals in record time. Learn about what tactical strategies and mindset shifts are required to get out of your own way, live life on your own terms, and master the art of achieving any goal you set your mind to. In this show: How to create the framework for unstoppable success. How your inner talk and mindset can help you or hold you back. The importance of only getting feedback from people who matter. If it’s not working, blame the system and not the person. Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services Find out more about Amira below: Amira on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amiraalvarez/ The Unstoppable Woman Website: https://theunstoppablewoman.com Amira on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theunstoppablewoman/ Amira on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmiraAlvarez Full Transcript Below ----more---- Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.   Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you   Amira Alvarez is the special guest on today's show. She is the founder and CEO of The Unstoppable Woman. She's also the host of The Unstoppable Woman Podcast. But before we get a chance to speak with Amira, here is The Leadership Hacker News.   The Leadership Hacker News   Steve Rush: In the news today. We explore the notion, what is unstoppable? Unstoppable people are like warriors. They're always ready to take on the world. They're guided from something within. Full of boundless energy and unwavering in their goals. So how do they do this? Where do they find that strength, that stamina to keep going? Unstoppable people keep their inner fires burning and developing characteristics necessary to become successful. So as today's show is focusing on being unstoppable, it sent me down a rabbit hole of research to find out what are the key characteristics and traits that make people become unstoppable. And here's my top eight from the research.   Number one is Belief. Use whatever term you like to describe these people. But the bottom line is that confidence is key if you want to be unstoppable. You have to have the courage to put yourself out there in the first place. You have to believe what it takes. Mental challenges will be among the biggest obstacles you face as an entrepreneur, as a leader, and without a healthy dose of confidence, you'll be tempted to accept defeat when you should be actually finding a way to bounce back from failure. Two is Vision. All unstoppable people have a really clear vision and every path to success starts with the vision. It gives you a sense of direction, and it's the reason for working as hard as we do. Once you have a vision for what you want your future to look and feel like you need to set a series of goals to achieve that dream. This is your plan for getting there. Your vision and mission should be something that you've really clearly defined. It's written down and regurgitated by everybody that can speak to you.   Three is Persistence. You can be the most talented, intelligent, and creative person out there, but without persistence, you're going to be doomed to mediocrity at best. Successful and unstoppable people know they must dig deep to find their real true grit and determination to reach their goal. And they don't let hurdles hold them back. They find a way round obstacles and keep moving forward. And persistence is a habit, you must develop that through practice and not from procrastination.   Four is Self-Awareness. Becoming self-aware allows us to understand ourselves as unique individuals, beyond the roles we play with our work colleagues and our friends and family, but being self-aware is understanding who we are underneath our patterns of behavior, strengths and weaknesses. Unstoppable people take time to understand themselves on a much deeper level. And self-awareness is the key to goal setting, of course, which is also paramount to being unstoppable.   Number five, they are Change Resisters. Unstoppable people don't panic in the face of change. They understand the importance of being flexible and embracing new developments and innovation and being adaptable means having the elastic mindset that allows you to adjust to environment. They understand they must be resilient and versatile or resist becoming ineffective and irrelevant. They learn the importance of being able to bend and flex, or the alternative means being broken and discarded.   Number six is Responsibility. Taking responsibility has two parts. They answer for them, mistakes and failures, but they also take credit for their successes. Relentless people own their failures as much as they revel in their accomplishments. They acknowledge and learn from both in order to gain wisdom and knowledge necessary to pursue even bigger dreams and goals. And taking responsibility is about acknowledging that you and you alone are in charge of your life. You're the driver in the driver's seat. No one else can take that role and no one else can dictate your future. Unstoppable people recognize they are in control. Number seven is they're lifelong Learners. Our ability to learn and grow is key in our ability to improve and innovate and to be unstoppable we must embrace learning. We should be an avid consumer of knowledge, information, skills, and be constantly seeking to educate ourselves. Unstoppable people recognize becoming a voracious learner will feed their mind, allowing new connections and ideas to flourish. And those who relentlessly pursue their goals, never stop seeking to expand their understanding and increase their knowledge of the world around them.   And finally, number eight, no Ego and no Jealousy. There's a huge difference between self-confidence and ego. Self-competence is when you understand your worth and you believe in yourself, an ego is when your sense of self becomes overinflated. You become focused on your self-interest. Ego and arrogance are often closely related to jealousy and resentment. And unstoppable leaders understand ego and jealousy operate out of fear. They recognize if left unchecked, these emotions will get in the way of their own success. Conversely, humility will bring out the best in those around you. Someone else's success is not a threat to your own advancement, their achievements don't span out your future. They recognize that ditching defensiveness and stopping making it all about themselves helps them be unstoppable.   So, the leadership lessons here is if we want to be unstoppable leaders, we need to focus on results. Keep your mind open to new possibilities, constantly learn and recognize our self-worth. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. If you have any news, insights or stories you'd like us to hear, please get in touch. Start of Podcast   Steve Rush: Joining me on the show today is Amira Alverez. She's the CEO of theunstoppablewoman.com, she's a coach and podcast host of The Unstoppable Woman Podcast. Amira, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.   Amira Alvarez: So excited to be here Steve, thank you for having me.   Steve Rush: It was another year since we spoke, I was looking at my notes. We last met in December, believe it or not. And we all thought then that we'd be out of the pandemic and into a world of milk and honey, but we're still kind of in somewhat of a lockdown. How have things been for you?   Amira Alvarez: You know, I always look for the opportunities. I always look for the positive stuff, so I'm sticking with that. I do realize that it has been one heck of an experience for all of us. And I have a lot of compassion for those of, you know, in our community who are really struck in and hurt by what's happening. For me, I'm just enjoying life at its fullest, you know, given the new parameters.   Steve Rush: Yeah, and I think that's the right way to adopt to it. I mean, we all are faced with adversity and we all are faced with challenge, but there is a lot to be said about having the right mindset and facing into it in the right way too, isn't there?   Amira Alvarez: Hundred precent, helps so much, helps keep you going, helps you know, helps you grow your business too.   Steve Rush: And that's why you are the unstoppable woman.   Amira Alvarez: Well, I'm one of many unstoppable women, okay. The brand is called that to call people forward into understanding. What's what is in fact, stopping them from executing on their potential, executing on their greatness, executing on their goals? We all have this potential for greatness, if you will, but not all of us on it. That was me for many, many years. I stopped myself. Nothing outside of me was stopping me. It was me, that was stopping me.   Steve Rush: Good.   Amira Alvarez: And that's where the brand really came from it.   Steve Rush: Yeah, well, before we get into that and find out a little bit about the work that you do now, just maybe for those that are listening in, who haven't met with you before, just give us a little bit of a backstory as to kind of how you've arrived through your career to do what you do today?   Amira Alvarez: Sure. So, I would say that I had the classic middle-class upbringing. I was brought up by two parents who were very pro education, pro you know, getting good grades, going to college, getting a good job and being successful in life. And that was my modus operandi for most of my life was do a good job at whatever you're doing and you will be successful. And I played that out, I did that, and that worked really well in sort of my management career, my corporate career, because there was a structure to the organization that was like how you study for a test and get a good grade on a test. You knew what you needed to be successful more or less when you're moving up that corporate ladder, their quarterly goals, things like that, initiatives. And yet when I went out on my own, there was no test to work towards. All I had was what I desired, what I wanted to create, but I had no framework for how to create that. And I struggled and I struggled like lots of really smart go getters who have passion, who want to be great in this world.   Steve Rush: Right.   Amira Alvarez: Want to make an input. My one tool Steve was work harder, right? Like just put everything at it. If you're not getting what you want, just work harder. And ultimately, I got to the place where I was, you know, classic entrepreneurship working 14-hour days, 16-hour days, 12-hour days, whatever it was. And I wasn't getting ahead.   Steve Rush: Right, so step back a bit. What was it that took you from that corporate career to becoming an entrepreneur? What was the pivotal moment for you?   Amira Alvarez: Oh, very, very clear. So, I loved my corporate world and I had every tension too, you know, rise to the top, be the CFO, CEO of a company. And I was working in Silicon Valley and this was during the tech boom. And then we had the tech bust, right. It all fell apart, and all the companies were really impacted. And the company that I worked for went through round after round, after round of layoffs. And when the CEO got laid off, I raised my hand and I said, I'm ready. I'm ready to try something new. Now at that point, I had a huge amount of physical pain that I was working through because I was so committed, right. Just work harder was my adage that I had lost feeling in my fingertips. I had neck and back pain. It was pretty horrendous. And I was quite lucky at that point, the company was giving six months’ severance and I got to step back and decide, what did I want to be when I grew up? And it was from that point on, that I decided I wanted to start my own business. And I went about doing that and I had to really learn how to do that. I had some natural innate skills, but a lot of it, I had to really study and learn.   Steve Rush: So, from there you managed to grow a really successful coaching business and helping dozens and dozens of women really grow their business exponentially. Just tell us a little bit about the work that you're doing now?   Amira Alvarez: A hundred percent. So first I had to do the work myself, right. There was some natural ability, I'm going to give myself some credit. First year in business, not a ton of money, but I made 30K. Second year in business, I tripled that. Didn't cross that Six-Figure mark, but I had done something significant, tripling my income. Third year in business, got to 138, and that's when I was like, I can't work any harder, right?   Steve Rush: Yeah.   Amira Alvarez: I remember Steve. I don't know if you've ever had this experience, but I was sitting, it wasn't a client day. So, I was sitting on the floor of my office and got my laptop on my lap. I was just trying to get one more thing done. My husband called up from downstairs and said, hey, dinner's ready. And I was like, I just need to get one thing done. 45 minutes later, he's like, I'm starting. To his credit, he was just good to go, right. But me, I was like, oh, this is not okay with me. I can't continue this, and the truth of its Steve was that I was still in the clothes that I'd slept in. And they weren't like sexy, pretty clothes. They were, you know, sweats with a ripped t-shirt and dog hair all over them, right?   Steve Rush: Yeah.   Amira Alvarez: I hadn't showered. I hadn't brushed my teeth, right. And this wasn't pathetic, okay. I was like, I cannot run a business like this, but I was so driven. I can't let anyone down. I'm less important than other people. I want to be clear. I'm not against hard work. And I had to figure out a different way. And that's when I studied success, I studied what actually create success. And I went from $138k to $708K in one year as a solo entrepreneur.   Steve Rush: That's a massive shift. What was the one thing within that time you thought? Yeah, that's definitely the thing that's made the difference.   Amira Alvarez: Okay. Well, I can't give you one, okay. I will call out two things. One is an inner game thing. One is an outer game thing, that's connected to the inner game.   Steve Rush: Okay.   Amira Alvarez: Okay. The inner game thing was what I really needed to get help. And I needed to see myself, both with my skillset, right. With how I was powerful and showing up in this world. But I had to realize that I didn't weigh on my own and I had to get, okay. So, I hired a really kick mentor who helped me see myself. That's super critical, your own identity, your image differently. So, you have to do the identity, self-image, work, who you are? And if you're interested, I can speak to that more, an outer game level. I raised my prices, okay. And I learned how to do sales and not sales in an arm-twisting manipulative way, but sales in a way that serves the client first and the business and myself second.   Steve Rush: Right.   Amira Alvarez: Okay.   Steve Rush: Yeah.   Amira Alvarez: And there's no way to raise your prices at the level that I raised it. Not just 10%, let me tell you, okay. There's no way to do that without changing yourself, image in your identity, how you perceive you own worth.   Steve Rush: So that's where it starts, isn't it? Because you can't do the latter without the first, right?   Amira Alvarez: A hundred percent.   Steve Rush: So where do you start with that?   Amira Alvarez: The first bit is you have to understand that you do have a self-image and it lives in your subconscious mind, which means its autopilot. Your subconscious cannot decide not to do something. It can only execute on the program if you will. Your conscious mind can choose yes or no, except, reject, left, right, up, down, right. We'll go in this direction; we're not doing that. We can eat the cake; we don't eat the cake. Your subconscious, eat the cake, eat the cake. You're someone who eats cake, okay. You're someone who has no control over your eating. You're someone who needs paper. I’m using that as an example, that's outside for people because there are things that's a common one that drive us, even though we know. They're still driving us, have to recognize that you have this mechanism inside of you. It's a cybernetic mechanism. It's like the autopilot on a plane. You set it to where you want it to go. And it's going to go there regardless if you go off track, a little bit left, right, left, right. It's going to not target. So, if your target is someone who always struggles to make money, I am someone who never gets ahead. I am someone who doesn't achieve their goals. I'm someone who is fundamentally wrong, right. Everything I do, can't be enough. You're going to keep creating that outcome, and its very sneaky Steve, tell me how deep you want me to go? I can keep going here.   Steve Rush: Go deep.   Amira Alvarez: Okay.   Steve Rush: Yeah, because what you're talking about really is, our inner self-talk, our mindset.   Amira Alvarez: A hundred percent and it's on autopilot. That's the thing that people need to know.   Steve Rush: Right.   Amira Alvarez: That you're not saying those things to yourself again and again and again, because you consciously think they're true. No, you're saying them because they got as who you are at a very young age when you did not have the conscious intelligence to choose otherwise. And they've been on autopilot, driving all your behavior since then.   Steve Rush: Yeah.   Amira Alvarez: And what happens is, we think that we can make conscious choice, right? Something comes into our world from the outside. There's a pandemic. There's an opportunity, okay. There's a client that calls and leaves a message. Here's a good one from my own personal life, okay. My own personal business, this was four years ago, but I just watched it, watch the car crash as it was happening. I had to change it afterwards, but I thought, okay.   So, I wanted to start speaking on bigger stages. And we did a whole initiative in the business to do outreach and get me in front of bigger stages. And I got a call almost immediately, not an email, but a personal call from a person in this extraordinarily large organization. And I listened to it and I didn't call the person pack. I got too busy, right. I got too wrapped up in something else. And I saw that happening. Now, people oftentimes don't return, right. That's you avoiding an opportunity and it's your subconscious distracting you from what you consciously want, because you're going above the level that you see yourself at.   Steve Rush: Yeah.   Amira Alvarez: And so, it looks like I got too busy. It looks like I needed to do this other stuff. It looks like there were fire drills in the business that I needed to attend to early, but really?   Steve Rush: It's the unconscious stories we tell ourselves to give us those unconscious permissions to do something or not do something, right?   Amira Alvarez: Correct. And you have to recognize what's happening and be unstoppable around, and that's where accountability comes in.   Steve Rush: Yeah, and I've heard you talk about this as self-ownership somewhat. Is that kind of the same thing or is that different?   Amira Alvarez: It's related, so you have to own your self-image. You have to own who you're being, your identity. And you do that, not in a vacuum. There is some deep work that you could do with a mentor. You can even journal it out to some degree, there is some thought work that needs to happen for you to get super, super clear. You have to see the thing that you're not seeing. We call that a blind spot.   Steve Rush: Right.   Amira Alvarez: By definition, you can't see it. You need to see what you can't see. Then you need to take action on that in a way that feels quite frankly, terrifying to you, okay. You need to do the thing anyway, in that lane where you developed the truth of who you are, true self ownership. So, using my personal example from four or five years ago, at that moment, if I had had the recognition more fully, I would have called that person back, being afraid and terrified and not knowing what to say.   Steve Rush: Yeah.   Amira Alvarez: Okay, and when you actually do that thing, you become the person who's not afraid, not terrified and knows what to say.   Steve Rush: Yeah.   Amira Alvarez: That's how through the inaccurate self-image that you have of yourself, you actually have to become that person as well as just envisioning being that person.   Steve Rush: And it's the unconscious mind that holds us back from being the person we could be, right?   Amira Alvarez: Correct.   Steve Rush: Yeah.   Amira Alvarez: Correct.   Steve Rush: So, I have this notion of mistake it until you make it.   Amira Alvarez: I love that.   Steve Rush: Not fake it until you make it because fake it until you make it comes with a lack of authenticity and you get spotted because other people will have that intuitive worry about, oh, that doesn't feel right. But if you are genuinely doing it, you can screw up with good permissions. And eventually you'll learn from that and mistake it till you make it.   Amira Alvarez: Love that, that's exactly true. And yet, so many people feel afraid to make a mistake because when we're brought up children, if you made a mistake, the love was cut off. Now your parents maybe didn't intentionally decide to… the energetic flow of love in that moment. But as children, we make that mean that all are secure gone, because we know we're going to be fed, clothes, survive, if that flow of love is there with our significant parental units.   Steve Rush: One of the things that I know you focus on as well, when you're working with your clients is helping them think about not only their own internal voice, but then they met with other critics that are outside of them. And you've come up with some ways and techniques to help really kill off your critic’s power. Tell us a little bit about how you do that and what that might look like?   Amira Alvarez: Fundamentally, you have to want what you want more than you care what other people think about you, okay. That's the fundamental thing, so I always work on with my clients on what do they really want and not the surface level, but the core deep level, that's really driving them and to get them super attached to the pleasure of achieving that, but also the regret of not achieving that. And so, in that moment, when you hear the critic's voice, you have to understand if I give into this, right. If I dive into this, which side of my executing on? The pleasure or the regret, okay.   Steve Rush: Right.   Amira Alvarez: And then fundamentally you have to really look at what that person has as their driver, their motivation. This is super critical. People will give you compliments and people will give you critiques as manipulation. And it's like, you have to just open your eyes to this. We're taught in many ways to really trust people, regardless, especially when they give us compliments, okay. But let's say someone who you admire critiques you. Not just a troll on social media, okay. But then you have to ask yourself, what is their motivating factor? What do they have to gain if you will? Because people do this unconsciously. I'm not saying that people do it consciously, but they may want to cut you down in order for them to feel better about themselves. This happens with our best friends. This happens with our family.   Steve Rush: Yeah.   Amira Alvarez: It's sad, but it it's true.   Steve Rush: It happens in business all the time. I see it as a coach and leading others in exactly the same way. People will reduce others position to elevate theirs.   Amira Alvarez: Correct, and so you have to really see what is their motivation here. Some people are motivated to help you, okay. It's from that place that you need to go, oh, I'm going to take that in with this caveat, Steve, have they done what you want to do? Who are you taking advice from?   Steve Rush: Right.   Amira Alvarez: That was a big thing for me. Like, am I taking advice from my ex-husband who I love dearly, but who never built a business? Nope. That's not the right person to take advice from. That's someone who doesn't have the mindset of an entrepreneur, okay. Doesn't know how to build a business. Am I taking advice from my great uncle, who is a super nice guy and super smart, but has never done what I want to do, whether it's in corporate or in your own business? Like you have to really look at whose advice you're following as well.   Steve Rush: For me, that's massive, right? Because we often will take advice from people close to us who love us or good intentions are giving their advice to us. But actually, as you've just described, it's probably not relevant advice and unhelpful advice because it's probably coming from their perspective rather than the perspective of yours to grow, where you need to grow too.   Amira Alvarez: Correct, and circling, linking this back to the whole self-image piece and identity piece. If you're someone who has the self-image that says family above all else, which many of us do. I know, I love my family dearly. If you have a loyalty pack with your partner, your romantic partner, or your parents that says, if I do something different than what you want, I am rejecting you and breaking the tribal bonds if you will, you won't make a decision that is actually great for your business, great for your professional career and ultimately great for your family.   Steve Rush: Right, yeah   Amira Alvarez: It's really dramatic.   Steve Rush: Yeah, I've perhaps not made that same correlation. And I think it's so relevant that folks should pay attention to that because unconsciously, again, it comes from that unconscious place. We'll make a decision to appease or please, or support another. We're actually, it might be contrarian to where you really need to go. And that's a tough gig to deal with too as well, isn't it?   Amira Alvarez: A hundred percent, a hundred percent. So, you need to learn good communication skills. You need to learn to look at your goals and the results you're getting, not at the emotional side. Emotions are funny, Steve. Like you have to feel into things that’s going to give you a lot of data, but if you let your emotional fears, that's the way to distinguish. If you let your emotional fears drive you. You'll be held back from your good, what you really want to create in this world.   Steve Rush: Right, that comes from the good old neuroscience that sits in the middle of our brain, doesn't it? Where you have to have emotion to act, but actually you need to balance the emotion with logic and data and other facts that come with it. So, it makes sense of the world.   Amira Alvarez: Correct, a hundred percent.   Steve Rush: You are massive around desire and passion in successful people. And I know you've said it in the past that the one thing that really sets successful people apart from others is the level of desire that they have. So how can I influence my desire? Isn't that just an innate thing that I have or not?   Amira Alvarez: Yes and no. So, here's what I see happening for people. They have some reasonable goal that they think is achievable, but it isn't a true desire. It's not what they really want, or they have what their family thinks is acceptable. Go be a dentist and accountant, a lawyer, a doctor, when you really want to start a recording business, right? Like there's something totally at odds there. So, it has to be your true desire and you'll know it by how it feels.   Steve Rush: Yeah.   Amira Alvarez: It needs to feel a little scary. Like how the heck am I going to do that? And you probably will have the question of, who do I think I am? Wanting that. Asking for so much, okay.   Steve Rush: Back to your identity again, isn’t it?   Amira Alvarez: Correct, okay. It's got to be a stretch for you. And that's where it's a true desire. So first you have to really own that true desire, and that is a feeling state. It might feel a little scary, but it is a feeling state and then you have to really want it, okay. So, they're connected, but slightly different. You have to be someone who wants that and is willing to do whatever it takes, as long as it doesn't limit someone else's life. And that is a discernment thing that I teach my clients in order to get it, which means, like I had to learn how to do things that were hard for me.   Steve Rush: Right.   Amira Alvarez: And I had to move through them. I needed to be so committed to it that I wasn't going to stop.   Steve Rush: Yeah, and you can't teach that level of desire, but you can unlock it, can't you?   Amira Alvarez: Correct.   Steve Rush: So how do you go about doing that?   Amira Alvarez: I keep asking questions, until I can see it and feel it in the other person,   Steve Rush: Right, I guess it’s one of the natural feelings, isn't it? It's all there. We all have these passions, desire. But all of the other stuff around the edges, you know, life, paying the mortgage, being secure, safety, all of some of the good old-fashioned hierarchy of needs gets in the way sometimes of actually allowing that desire to come to the front, right?   Amira Alvarez: And sometimes I will tell you. Sometimes it requires that education, the personal development side, that the really understanding how the world works, understanding how desire works, understanding that making money is good, not bad, right? Like raising your level of awareness around that. And that's one of the things that, you know, we do in the podcast. We do in our morning mindset club, we help people raise their level of awareness so that they can even begin to say, actually, what I really want is this, because until you let go of some of that baggage, you won't be able to claim what you truly want, and it will be very challenging.   Steve Rush: I agree. I agree. So, what's some of the work that you and your team are focused on right now?   Amira Alvarez: So many things, Steve, it's so good. Well, fundamentally, I'm going to say it again. I love the teaching that we do in the podcast. That's totally accessible and free to everyone. So that is a big initiative of ours. We put out three teaching episodes every week. One is a coaching call that you can listen into. And then two others are different formats on me teaching how to really scale and the success mindset around that, so that's a big one. We are currently in a process of really scaling our mastermind. It's called The Spirit of Wealth Mastermind and Masterclass. And it is all about the self-ownership piece, owning clear desires, quantum leaping, if you will. I use that phrase with an acknowledgement that it may be overused for people, but if you're someone who's like, what did she do? I want to do that too. Like this is the format for it. And I will tell you, we've just had so much success with it. From people who are already successful, meaning lawyers that are making $50K a month, going to $135K a month, in two months kind of thing. Yeah, right. It's like amazing. And not isolated, multiple lawyers doing this. To people who don't have a business, or they're just starting their business. And they're making their first, you know, $10,000 a month in three and a half months, four and a half months. Just this year, I can count four or five women in the group who are in that category. And that's really inspiring for me, Steve, because, you know, I used to dissuade people who didn't have something already to leverage from joining. But the fact of the matter is, this process works in terms of changing yourself image, moving through the blind spots, letting go of those loyalty packs, building a scalable plan and executing on it because you have the accountability and the focus and the community. We built this whole, you know, really amazing, if I do say so myself, a really amazing program and it shows in the results is what I'm saying. Getting this out to more people is our big initiative right now.   Steve Rush: Kudos to you, and congratulations. That sounds fantastic.   Amira Alvarez: Thank you, I appreciate that.   Steve Rush: So, we're now going to spin the lens a little. We're going to ask you to bear some of your leadership experiences. Now I'm going to dig right into your top three leadership hacks. If you had to distill them Amira, what would they be?   Amira Alvarez: Okay. So, the first one is blame the system, not the person. If you're growing your business, if you're growing your corporate career, you need other people, you need a team. You need other people in the organization. And by nature, things are going to not work out. We've all made mistakes. So instead of being accusatory, being frustrated, being in blame, blame the system, figure out a better system, usually it's communication. So that was a big one for me. The second one is take a hundred percent personal responsibility for all your results. Not just for some of them, not just for the big ones, not just for the good ones, but for all your results. What did I put in play that caused this? On the good side it allows you to back engineer, the positive stuff. We want more of that on. If you're getting results that you don't want, you also need to look at what causes you put into effect. And own that and make a shift, actually do something different in the face of this. That's huge. That's huge. And then the third one, and again, this comes back to team, but I thought it was a good one to bring up, was higher for judgment and decision-making. Rather than skillsets, years in the business, like ability, all of that, you do need skillset. You do need people to play well with others. But look at judgment. If you've got people who can make good judgment calls, good decision-making in your business, you can let them run with things at much faster pace than if they don’t make good decisions, then you're always going to have to put in protocols and structures, SOP, and look over their shoulder or double check their work. So that will save you a huge amount of time. And it will just make it so much fun, more fun for you to be a leader. Then you can lead, and you're not mired in the details.   Steve Rush: Great advice Amira. I have seen trust in the same process, right?   Amira Alvarez: Correct, yes.   Steve Rush: So, the next part of the show, we call it Hack to Attack. This is typically where something hasn't perhaps worked out for you. It could have been catastrophic screw up, but as a result of it, you've learned from it. And it's now serving you, well as a positive in what you do, what would be your Hack to Attack?   Amira Alvarez: So, the big one for me was learning to invest money and not freak out if it didn't go the way I wanted, that was a big one for me, because as you're growing your business, you're going to make mistakes around money and the faster you fail and the faster you learn from it, the better. So, here's my experience. I hired marketing contractor for $30,000. The idea was that X, Y, and Z would happen. And all my red flags were going off when I was signing that contract, he was mansplaining to me, right. He was talking down to me when I was asking questions. Saying things like, I've never had anyone questioned my contract. If anyone says I've never had someone questioned my contract.   Steve Rush: They properly have.   Amira Alvarez: Right.   Steve Rush: Yeah.   Amira Alvarez: Of course, question my contract. I want you to be clear when you sign a contract with me, I want you to be a hundred percent clear about what you're signing. Why would I not? Right. But he came highly recommended from someone I trusted and admired. This was many years ago and I was like, who am I? I'm just starting out. I need to get over my fear of spending money. So, I signed on the dotted line anyways, did not execute, was in some ways a complete and utter waste of $30,000, which at the time was a significant amount of money.   Steve Rush: Right.   Amira Alvarez: Now, the thing that I learned from this, which I now see as a huge positive, and it saved me millions of dollars, is that I now trust myself implicitly. I know what a yes is and I know what a no is. I know what a red flag is versus you’re playing small. I didn't know that before that experience. So, from that experience, I learned this incredible skill and I've never made that mistake again. And it's saved me millions of dollars since then, because I know with absolute certainty, what is a yes, and what's a no.   Steve Rush: It’s also paying attention to intuition, particularly when we're growing businesses and we're maybe less experienced in our career. We often think that intuition, that gut feel we get, perhaps doesn't serve as well. And probably four or five times it will, right?   Amira Alvarez: Yes, yes. A thousand times, yes, Steve. People really need to learn to trust themselves. But here's the rug, you can't in a vacuum, you have to take action and experience the result. Some of the results are going to be massive failures, massive, and you have to be willing to experience that so that you can know the difference.   Steve Rush: Yeah, got it. So, the last thing we're going to do is give you a chance now to do some time travel. So, you get to go back to pump into Amira at 21 and give her some words of wisdom. What would you advise to her at 21 be?   Amira Alvarez: Okay, so I have mixed feelings about this because fundamentally, I don't want to live my life differently, right. All of it was what got me to where I am right now.   Steve Rush: Right.   Amira Alvarez: However, I understand the question, okay. So, you know, it comes down to being lovable, okay. And I know that's a little bit of a woo, woo kind of thing to say, but if I had understood at 21 that I was truly lovable, it would have cut back on so much jumping through hoops, trying to be someone I wasn't, feeling bad about myself, thus slowing down how I executed on things and how I followed up on stuff. It would have eliminated my fear of rejection and how that showed up in my life and my business. It would have just eliminated so much noise, emotional noise, which is what keeps you from actually executing. And then of course, I would have told her to learn sales, right. Like fundamental.   Steve Rush: And of course, all of the things that you have learned is the reason why you are still unstoppable. So, for folks listening in, but want to listen to the podcast and get to know a bit more about the work you do, where can we send them?   Amira Alvarez: Absolutely, so you can go to theunstoppablewoman.com. So that's with the, in front, theunstoppablewoman.com/listen for the podcast or slash free stuff for a ton of resources that we have. The morning mindset club is a great one to start with. We have an income breakthrough, jumpstart guide. There are all sorts of things on that free stuff page. So, theunstoppablewoman.com/freestuff   Steve Rush: And they will be in our show notes as well.   Amira Alvarez: Awesome.   Steve Rush: Amira, listen, I love chatting to you. You are so passionate about the work you do, and it comes with a real sense of cause. And I love that about you. And I just wanted to say, thanks for coming on our podcast and joining our community too.   Amira Alvarez: Thank you so much for having me, Steve. Such great questions, and I hope it helped your listeners be unstoppable too.   Steve Rush: Without a doubt. Thanks, Amira.         Closing   Steve Rush: I genuinely want to say heartfelt thanks for taking time out of your day to listen in too. We do this in the service of helping others, and spreading the word of leadership. Without you listening in, there would be no show. So please subscribe now if you have not done so already. Share this podcast with your communities, network, and help us develop a community and a tribe of leadership hackers.   Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.