Trauma, Sales & Leading with Your Heart w/ Anastassia Lover

Facing a ton of adversity in communist Russia, Anastassia Lover moved with her mom and sister to America when she was really young. She didn't even know she was moving to America until she got to the airport, that's how critical it was that they move quickly and silently. Lunden and Anastassia discuss the challenging family and personal situations she found herself in as a result of how she was dealing with this traumatic childhood situation and how she has since been able to transform this pain into purpose as a motivational speaker, author, sales coach, sales consultant, life coach, and business mentor!

Episodes mentioned:
Ep. 78: Change your perception using NLP Techniques w/ Aubrie Pohl

Timestamps:
(0:00) Intro

(2:43) Growing up in communist Russia

(5:20) Connecting with your "fire"

(6:07) Moving to the USA (without knowing it)

(8:00) Using "dissociation" to cope

(8:37) First breakthrough moment

(13:00) Finding out who we really are

(14:20) How can I create the life of my dreams with all this baggage?

(22:15) Corporate sales, personal growth, rejection

(25:52) I met my destiny again

(29:00) Are our steps ordered?

(30:30) Get more YES's in your life

(33:20) Our beliefs about money

(40:00) "Bad" sales

(43:00) Become more of what you want to see in the world

Connect with Anastassia Lover:
Get your free book: https://linktr.ee/anastassialover
IG: @anastassialover

Transcript

Lunden Souza: [00:00:01]
Welcome to Self Love and Sweat, THE PODCAST. The Place where you'll get inspired to live your life unapologetically, embrace your perfect imperfections, break down barriers and do what sets your soul on fire. I’m your host, Lunden Souza.

Lunden Souza:  [00:00:11]
Hey friend, it’s me, Lunden Souza, online lifestyle transformation coach. I help people all over the world, just like you, who know they are meant for more, get their mind right and their body tight and go from crazy busy to crazy happy. And hey, if it’s our first time meeting….Welcome, so happy to have you! And if you’ve been with us for a while, it’s so great that you’re here too. I’m really excited to share this episode of the Self Love & Sweat THE PODCAST with you.

Lunden Souza: [00:01:05] 
Welcome back to the podcast. Today's special guest is Anastasia Lover. Oh my gosh, I love your name. Anastasia Lover is a motivational speaker, author, success coach, sales consultant, life coach and a business mentor. Being a sales veteran since 2005, Anastasia passionately shares her knowledge on business development, sales confidence, client attraction, money mindset and the art of influence, skills of communication and leadership. She's a mother of two athlete, entrepreneur, philanthropist and coach committed to her clients success after being born in communist Russia and facing a lot of adversity growing up, Anastasia has made it her mission to help entrepreneurs reach their highest potential and create impact driven legacies. Anastasia's work has led her to speak on many stages across the country and help countless entrepreneurs, CEOs and professionals grow successful businesses through elevating their sales confidence and skills. In her personal time, Anastasia love spending time in nature, hiking, rock climbing and kicking butt and jujitsu. But nothing beats spending time with her two beautiful children, Landon and Savannah, which are her biggest accomplishments yet. Thank you so much for being here, Anastasia. It's so great to have you on the podcast. For those of you listening, not all my guests do I really know in person, but I've had the privilege of meeting Anastasia twice in person, once was in a course together, and then the second time she was speaking on the stage of the course I was taking, which was so awesome. And her story is so inspiring and you're just such a great human, so I'm so happy to have you here. So I kind of want to start with the diversity in the in the bio I read, you said there was tons of adversity and facing a lot of that growing up coming from a different country. And I want you to kind of share a little bit about that. What was that like for you and how did that help you to do what you're doing now?

Anastassia Lover: [00:03:01] 
Thank you so much, Lyndon. Really such a pleasure of being on this podcast. I've listened to a lot of your podcast before and it's just so inspiring to meet other people that get to share their stories. So I'm really excited to be on here and just share my story and hopefully with my story I can inspire somebody out there and say, go after their dreams, become the person that they want to be, and just know that they have value inside of them that's just waiting to come out and impact the world. So I'll start off by sharing with you a little bit about my story. I'm in my mid thirties now, so I have quite a long story, but I'll share with you kind of some of the moments of impact that really led me to become the person that I am today. As you mentioned in my bio I grew up in or I was born in communist Russia up until the age of 11. Well, communism ended in the early nineties, but it was a very repressed society. I mean, it was nothing like what it's like to be living here, right? Entrepreneurship didn't exist. You couldn't just be who you want it to be or follow your dreams or follow your goals. There was a lot of. Limitations. A lot of suppression. Standing in line for food and water and power outages. That was the norm. And of course, I was being a young child, I didn't really know the magnitude of it yet, but my parents and my grandparents really had to go through a lot of struggle and you could really feel it in the air.

Anastassia Lover: [00:04:34]
I mean, I'm an empath. I can kind of sense people and people's energy and feeling that feeling of sadness and anger and guilt and suppression. It really radiated. I was also an introvert. I was very inside the box. The society kind of taught us to play by the rules. Stay inside the box, be good, follow the rules. So I was the perfect definition of that. Growing up, I was very inside the box, got good grades, wasn't very sociable, definitely was an introvert. So I say that I would be probably the last person that you would ever expect to not only be a sales coach, but also be a speaker or motivational speaker, which is what my passion is now. But I think I always knew. And somewhere inside of me, I think all of us know somewhere inside that there is kind of this fire that starts to build. It's almost like this rebel part of me that was building up. I didn't know what it was yet. I hadn't connected with it yet, but it was growing. And I knew that somewhere inside of that fire, inside of that rebellious Anastasia, those deep down inside, I knew that my purpose and my passion was in there somewhere. I just hadn't connected with it yet. I hadn't expressed that yet.

Anastassia Lover: [00:05:54] 
So so yeah. So that was my memory. I mean, I had a lot of memories of growing up in that society. Again, being a child, I didn't really know the magnitude of what people actually experienced, but I moved to the United States when I was 11 years old. And the funny thing is that I did not know that I was moving to the United States until I was at the airport. Believe it or not, I found out because the person checking our passports said, Oh, you're going to the States. Wow. And I was like, What? What do you mean? I thought I was going to visit my grandma in another part of Russia. So the backstory of that is that when communism ended, the mafia took over and my dad got involved with some pretty bad people that we basically had to leave Russia to save our lives and we couldn't tell anybody. So I didn't have a chance to say goodbye to any of my friends, my family members, my grandparents that basically expected us to come over to their house. The next weekend and then the following weekend. So nobody knew that we were coming here. And I didn't find this out until I was at the airport. So because of all that drama, when I moved to the States, my parents ended up getting a divorce. And this was a divorce that it was traumatizing. It lasted about seven years and it caused a lot of emotional damage for myself, my two sisters growing up, we were kind of stuck right in the middle of that divorce.

Anastassia Lover: [00:07:33] 
We you know, we were the centers of the arguments between my mom and dad. My dad actually ended up moving back to Russia to a different part of Russia because he had a business that he had to still sustain out there. We were moving multiple times. We were on welfare. And it was it was a very traumatic experience. I think my sister is dealing with it in a different way than I did. But the way that I dealt with it during that time is I became very dissociated. So through everything I. Didn't want to necessarily associate myself to those feelings that I would have felt. I became very cold. I became kind of neutral. I was also the middle child, so I was already naturally neutral. I was also introverted, as I mentioned. So it caused me to become very associated. And, you know, being a teenager, growing up in a completely different environment, I mean, I had to adapt to a completely different lifestyle here in America. And also going through that divorce, it was very difficult. I think my first breakthrough moment came to me when I was 15 years old. And this is one of those moments of serendipity where I actually I think that that was the moment that I really got to meet my destiny. So I got invited to my first seminar, which just happened to be the Tony Robbins Unleashed the Power Within seminar.

Anastassia Lover: [00:09:00] 
It was by total chance, my mom's boyfriend got a ticket from his job. He didn't want to go, so he asked me if I wanted to go. I had nothing else to do on the Friday evening, so I said yes. Now I had no idea who Tony Robbins was, but I decided to say yes anyways, so. I still remember being at that event, and I've never in my life felt so inspired and so empowered. And just to see one man in the room of thousands of people making such an impact, just through his words, just through his energy, it sparked the fire inside of me. And through everything that was going on in my life. I really felt like that was the first moment that I started to get to really connect with what my purpose will ultimately be in life. And it really sent me on the upward trajectory. Now, it's really funny because. Sometimes it's the littlest moments, the most random moments in our life that end up being the biggest moments, because not going to that event ultimately decided, right, who I wanted to be for the rest of my life now. Of course, just like any teenager that goes through ups and downs. It wasn't all butterflies. Because when I turned 18. I think all of those feelings, all of that trauma that I experienced started coming to light and it started coming out of me.

Anastassia Lover: [00:10:34] 
And I think that rebel that was growing inside of me finally came out and said, You know what? I know you've been a good girl up to this point, but we're going to take a little pivot. We're going to let me shine. We're going to do things my way now. And I made a. A completely crazy decision of moving from. I was living we were living in Irvine, California, which was a very I don't know if you've ever been, but it's a very kind of like white picket fence bubble moving from Irvine, California to Long Beach, East Side, Long Beach, which if you've never been, you know, this is what all the rap songs are about. So it was a very, very big change, right? It was a completely flipped my life upside down. And the reason why I decided to do this is because I still felt like inside I didn't know who I was. You know, I've always been this kind of disassociated person trying not to connect to my emotions, trying not to connect with all the experiences that I've had in life. So I was on this quest to almost find out like, who am I? Right? I wanted to experience life because I truly believe that in order for us to find out who we are, we have to put ourselves out there. We have to experience life. Of course, those experiences led me to a complete downward spiral.

Anastassia Lover: [00:11:57] 
I started hanging out with the wrong people, started getting in trouble with the law, almost joined the gang. Thankfully, I did not. But that was very close. I started dating a drug dealer, which was a horrible, horrible relationship, and it was very difficult. There were times that I was living out of my car, times when I had to literally eat out of a grocery store because I didn't have money to buy food. I thankfully I didn't have any issues with addiction. I know a lot of people when they hit their rock bottom and when they go through those hard times, they experience addiction. And to me, I think because of the fact that I grew up in such a repressed society, one of my biggest values is freedom. So I refused to do anything that was going to take that away from me. So going through that experience, living in Long Beach and going through that hardship, I think it was more of a conscious choice that I made to truly, like live out my bad side, to feel total freedom of expression, and to find out who I am. Because, again, I'm a true believer that for us to find out who we really are, we not only need to experience everything that life has to offer, but sometimes we have to experience who we are at our worst. That's when we really get to find out who is this person that's inside of us and what are we capable of now? What ultimately saved my life that made the pivot was when I had my first child, when I was 21 years old and everything changed.

Anastassia Lover: [00:13:35]
 It wasn't about me anymore, right? I had this and I think all the mothers listening to this podcast can relate because when we have that first child, second, third children are a little bit different. But when we have that first child and we look at them in the eyes, everything changes because it's not about us anymore. It's about raising and protecting this life that now depends on us. And I felt like I had already experienced the bad side of life. So now was time for me to provide an experience and to create the good in life, right to experience the good side of life. But I didn't go to college. I had a track record of a rest. So how can I create this life that I wanted, this life of my dreams when I had all this baggage, basically, that I was bringing with me and living in Newport Beach, I had at this point, I had met my ex husband. I moved to Newport Beach, California, which is a very I would say not very. It's a very expensive area to live in. Let's say, let's say and I had to provide for my family. But without a college degree, with this track record of arrests, I didn't see any other options.

Anastassia Lover: [00:14:50] 
So. The only option that I saw for myself was to go into sales because I figured at that time most people blatantly suck at sales. They're not good, they're afraid of it. So if I can figure out if I can learn how to become good at sales, then I'm going to have job security for life regardless of my college degree, regardless of this track record. And at that time, my best friend, she talked me into joining a network marketing company with her. So she painted the dream for me. She painted this beautiful dream of all the money that I can make. And I said yes. Now, I had Zero Network. I had no friends. I had very little sales experience. And I was an introvert. I had it was so uncomfortable for me to even go out there and speak to strangers and speak to people. And I got to say that this was one of the most challenging things that I've ever done. I mean, we would literally go out in the street and talk to people and walk up to them in restaurants with our little flip charts. And it got so bad that our husbands refused to take us anywhere. They were like, We're not taking you guys anywhere. It was really, really challenging, but it taught me so much. It was one of those other experiences that really taught me what I'm capable of. It taught me discipline. It taught me courage.

Anastassia Lover: [00:16:17] 
And I think the most important thing that it taught me was how to step out of myself, right? How to step out of my own limitations and step out of my own way, to really get out there and to serve people. Because Sayles is not about us. Right? I know. We think that, man, I'm so afraid of getting out there and selling and offering my value. But at the end of the day, sales is not about us. It's not about our ego. It's not about how we look. It's not about our own fears, but it's simply about getting out there and just wanting to serve, wanting to help people despite whatever limitations we have. Network marketing, of course, if you're if you've ever experienced that, they're really big proponents of self-development. So I think that is when aside from my experience at the Tony Robbins event, that's when I really intentionally started my journey of self-development. I started reading books like Thinking Grow Rich How to Win Friends and Influence People was a big one. So that's when I really started that journey of self development. And I came across this gentleman that. She invited us, me and my friend, to a an event. Now, we thought it was a networking event when we went. But little did I know I was about to. Have my date with destiny. I know Tony Robbins talks about this date with Destiny. So I felt like I was having to have my date with Destiny again.

Anastassia Lover: [00:17:45] 
So when I came to this event, the event was called Double Your Dollars by a gentleman named Matt Brauning. And I know, you had recently interviewed Aubrie Pohl on this podcast. So if you guys haven't listened to that podcast, make sure you do. So the gentleman that she talks about that invited her to the event that basically inspired her to do the work that she does. That's also. Matt Browning So we have the same mentor. So I attended his event and it was completely transformational. Not only did it teach me the that I was in control of my own destiny, that I was in control of my own future. But it taught me this amazing technology of neuro linguistic programming. And I fell in love with it so much that I wanted to teach it. I wanted to become a coach. So I actually became a coach and a speaker for Matt Brauning for that seminar company. And Matt, of course, also studied with Tony Robbins. So I felt like Tony Robbins was here again, encouraging me to follow my dreams and connect me to my purpose. And so I became one of the speakers. I started traveling, I started doing speaking engagements, basically promoting his events and his company. And I felt like I was living my dream. I felt like I was at this high point in my life because I had the opportunity now to transform lives, to make this incredible impact in other people's lives.

Anastassia Lover: [00:19:13] 
However, it wasn't sustainable, and what I mean by that is simultaneously, as I was coaching for this NLP company, one of Matt's other students also started his own company, and because it was a brand new company, he wanted to bring somebody on to help. So he brought me on as his chief of operations or chief of operations, as we called it. And it was incredible. Incredible. Right. So again, I was out there, I was coaching, I was speaking, I was helping, I was serving. But as as we all know, if any of you have ever started a company, it is very work intensive, especially in the very beginning. So I was working these 12 hour days and I was doing everything. I was doing everything from sales to marketing to finding event venues to filling up those events to to creating affiliate relationships with other other speakers and other coaches. And it was a round the clock type of a job. And I wasn't making basically any money. I was barely making enough money just to pay my own bills. It got to the point that I was so emotionally, financially and energetically drained that I was getting sick all the time. And there was also this feeling of incongruence, because here I was teaching these entrepreneurs how to create successful businesses. But not only was I not an entrepreneur myself, I was an employee, but I was also financially broke.

Anastassia Lover: [00:20:49] 
I couldn't even buy myself lunch whenever we would go out to lunch. And I remember the specific moment when I was about to speak on stage. This was at a three day event that we were doing in San Diego, California. This girl came up to me right before the beginning of the of the event, and she said, You know, Anastasia, you are so inspiring. How does it feel to be you? And I said, Well, what do you mean? It kind of caught me off guard. And she said, How does it feel to be you? I mean, you're you're young. I was like in my early twenties. You're you're speaking. You are. It looks like you're living your dream. You're inspiring people. You're making impact. You're teaching all these entrepreneurs. How does it feel to be you? And I kind of dismissed that question because we were just about to start the event. But on my drive home that night, I really stopped with that question and I thought about, Well, how does it actually feel to be mean? And I got to tell you, it felt pretty shitty because I was like it was almost like all these insecurities just came into light and I said, What am I doing? Imposter syndrome just completely took over. And I thought, What am I doing? I'm here teaching all these entrepreneurs how to be successful, and I'm portraying this picture of myself as this person who's created this success in her life.

Anastassia Lover: [00:22:13] 
But none of that was true. And I think it made me feel so low that I ended up making a decision to walk away from coaching, from speaking. And I went into corporate sales not only because I needed the money at that point, but also because I felt like I knew that I always wanted to be a speaker. I knew that that was my destiny and my purpose. But I didn't want to do it when I didn't feel aligned, when I felt incongruent. And I made a decision that until I go out there and really find my value and create the success that I can then teach to other people. I wasn't going to come back. So going into corporate sales, I think that was. You know, the heaven's kind of shining, shining that purpose on me. And as I went into corporate sales, it was such a big growth journey. It was very difficult. You know, it was a constant progress of personal growth. It was building up stamina to really face rejection, faced so many insecurities that I had, especially being an introvert. But knowing NLP as my background, your linguistic programming and understanding psychology, understanding how to communicate with people, how to really get out of my own way and let go of my own ego and stop worrying about fear of putting myself out there or fear of rejection and just going out there and serving people. Right. Because so many people, the reason why they're afraid of offering their value to the world is blatantly out of their own ego.

Anastassia Lover: [00:23:57] 
Right. We don't want to look bad. We don't want to be rejected. And we let that stand in the way of us serving the people that were meant to serve. So I had to go through those journeys to to really figure this out. And corporate sales. Most of it was spent in corporate financial sales. It's a very boiler room type of environment, very masculine energy. And again, me being more dominated by feminine energy and being an introvert and an empath, it's something that I really had to learn how to how to essentially sell in the way that feels good to me, that resonates with me, that's aligned with me, and that feels good to the people that I'm helping. So through that, to make the long story short, eventually I ended up in corporate finance, and it was a very lucrative position. Very lucrative. And I got to this point. If you've ever experienced this, you get to this point in your life where everything is going great, you're making money, you're comfortable, you are. You can go on vacations. You can afford anything that you want. But you get to this point that you ask yourself, Is this all there is? Is this the pinnacle of my life? Right. Here I am in my mid thirties. Is this the best that it's ever going to get? There's no way that this is it.

Anastassia Lover: [00:25:23] 
There's no way that this is it. And this question I was asking myself every single day. I mean, my life, it was great. But it was I was doing the same thing every day. I didn't feel like I had a purpose. I didn't feel like there was any growth, nothing to look forward to. And even though I was on paper, I was succeeding, I really felt deep inside that I was failing. So 2020 hits and I think all of us experienced some sort of a big pivot when 2020 hit. So for me, when 2020 hit, I met my destiny again. I came across a free online Tony Robbins events, if you can imagine. I feel like Tony Robbins has been the rock that has kind of showed up at all the pivotal moments in my life. And the event was all about helping people pivot their life. And this is something that I felt like I really desperately needed at that point. Now, I didn't know what this event was ultimately going to be about, but when I showed up to the event, it was a virtual event. It was all about helping people grow, start and grow an online coaching business because of course, everything was online these days. And when I showed up and it had no intention of starting a coaching business at that point, but when I showed up to that event and I sat through it and I decided to invest and to continue learning and I decided to commit, I made a decision that, hey, this is my purpose calling me again and this is the last time.

Anastassia Lover: [00:26:55] 
I'm never going to walk away from it. I'm never going to deny it again. So I ended up leaving my corporate job cold turkey, wasn't ready for it, didn't replace my income at all, but I left it cold turkey. And here I am. So. I think that the biggest lesson that I learned through all of this is, yes, oftentimes I look back at my life and I say, you know, ten years ago, had I stuck it out, had I stuck with being a coach, who knows where I'd be today? Right, if I would have started an Instagram channel when Instagram first came out. Who knows where I'd be today? But at the end of the day, everything that I feel like happened in my life has led me to this perfect moment that I'm at. So I think this is one of the biggest kind of takeaways from that I would love everybody to to take away from my story. Is that where you are today is exactly where you need to be, regardless of what's happened. Because everything up to this point has been a journey of growth and learning and leading you to to where you need to be. So a little bit about my story. I know that wasn't a little, but it was so great.

Lunden Souza: [00:28:00] 
And I love learning more and more about you. And one thing that I thought about, because I listen to a lot of podcasts too, and I love just hearing people's journey in their stories because we always think, Oh, someone's like an overnight success. So you see their highlights and you're like, It's been great, you know? But I heard on a podcast recently, your steps are ordered and we need the last four steps to be where we're at or however you decide to look at these steps. Do you believe that to be true, that like where you are today would not be possible with all that you've described going, I mean, from not even knowing you were moving to just, okay, let's do it. You know, I moved to a different country, but of course, I knew I was moving. I planned it for four months. I knew, you know, to I grew up or I should say not grew up. I went to school in Long Beach. So I know Long Beach and I know how there's different spaces in that town that can be a little bit more dangerous and more geared towards violence and gangs and things like that. And gosh, there's so much I didn't know about that. But do you believe that your steps are ordered? Would you change anything?

Anastassia Lover: [00:29:05] 
Yeah. I am such a true believer that like exactly what you said, where we are today, everything that happens in our life leads us to who we need to become is just a matter of perception, right? It's a matter of are you choosing to look at those moments as something to learn from, something to grow from, something to add to your capabilities? Or are you looking at it from a sense of. Oh, this happens. So now, because of that one thing that happens, you're kind of adding to your list of excuses as to why you can't be the person that you're really meant to be. So I absolutely believe that it's something that we have to really, intentionally believe. We have to decide on that, hey, everything that happens in our life is intended to bring us to who we're meant to be. And really looking back at my life, I think that every big pivotal moment, every transformational moment has it wasn't planned. Right. Just like moving to the United States. States had no idea. Just like going to the seminar when I was 15 years old, I had no idea what it was going to be about. So I think we just have to, in a lot of times be able to let go of those expectations, let go of control and just be willing to accept. What the universe for God, what life has to bring us and go with the flow. Yes. Yes.

Lunden Souza: [00:30:27] 
And speaking of yes, I feel like there's been a theme of you just being like, yes, I'm just going to go like I'm just going to try it. I'm just going to see and I know that you really help your clients lead from their heart and get more yeses, of course, in their business and sales related, but probably more yeses in terms of like I'm patting myself on the back right now and like, yes, you know, like those personal moments of like, fuck, yeah, you know, so how do you do that with your clients and how has your experience helped them get more yeses through you stepping in and saying yes more often? How are you able to get people from just putting their toe in the water? It's like, just go all in, show you what you're made of. How do you do that with your clients?

Anastassia Lover: [00:31:12] 
So I focus when it comes really to anything, right? There's always going to be that 5050 factor, the 50% mindset, 50% strategy. Now, whether you want to say 80% mindset, 20% strategy or vice versa, there's always going to be that. And I've always been a student of not only am I a sales coach, but I've also been a student of sales. So I've taken many, many sales trainings by different some of the biggest names out there. And one thing that I find is that a lot of people, they focus so much on strategy that they really don't, especially when it comes to sales. Right. Most people that I coach, most people that I work with are entrepreneurs that have never had a sales background, so they don't have a reference point to kind of stem from. And a lot of the biggest limitations that happen is in their mindset, right? First off, in their ability to believe in themselves that, hey, I can get out there, I can offer my value, I can make impact, I can help people and I can get those yeses. There's also a lot that happens even on the deeper level, right? So, for example, I'm going to share with you this this one story of a meetup that I did back when I was working with Matt and doing meetups. It was a meetup in Redondo Beach and it was a small little group of entrepreneurs.

Anastassia Lover: [00:32:35] 
But the goal of that meetup was to basically help entrepreneurs connect to their values. It was the specific topic that we were going over is finding out how your values are ultimately creating the results that you're getting in your business. And there was a one lady that I picked as a demo that I brought her on and I took her through an exercise of eliciting her values. Now, she was a life coach, wonderful lady, big heart. But what we saw was that money. Was at the very bottom of her values list. And she was wondering, why am I not making money in my business? So when I noticed that, I started probing a little bit deeper and I asked her questions. And eventually she said, You know what, Anastasia, let me stop you right there. I hate money. I hate my knee. I wish I didn't need it. I wish I didn't have to have it. I absolutely hate it. And. You know how and this wasn't a conscious process. It wasn't something that she was walking around with thinking, I hate money. But somewhere deep inside that belief, whatever the belief that around money that she had was absolutely affecting her results as to why she wasn't getting paid in her business. And so a lot of the work that I do is really helping people transform their current relationship with money, what it means to receive right for the work that they're giving with what it means to sell.

Anastassia Lover: [00:34:07] 
Right. If they're walking around with this belief, this idea that sales is unethical or sales is pushy, it absolutely is affecting their results. Now, whether you call it a law of attraction, whether you call it Tony Robbins talks about the reticular activating system where you're filtering things into your experiences based on your own beliefs, based on your own emotions and values. And so a lot of the work that I do is really helping people kind of transform that relationship with sales and money so they can feel confident getting out there to offer their value to help people and to truly serve from the heart without having to worry about. Being unethical or being pushy. And then once once they've mastered that, once they truly feel confident, right? Once they've mastered that mindset, piece strategy becomes easy because strategy at that point is all about learning the art of communication, right? How do you ultimately communicate your value in the way that resonates with people, in the way that makes them excited to continue the conversation or continue working with you? So I think that is that is the biggest piece that I've seen that's really different from me and a lot of the sales trainings that I see out there. But that's really the piece that makes the most difference.

Lunden Souza: [00:35:23]
 Yes, I love everything that you said there because mindset is huge. Mindset is so major and oftentimes with entrepreneurship and things like that, the somehow like misconception is like, Oh, you're just super successful and you just get to make your schedule whenever you want and life is just entrepreneurially awesome, you know? And I often tell people like, if you want to be confronted regularly with your inadequacies or things you need to work on, or areas where it's just like mirror, mirror, mirror, become an entrepreneur, become a leader, you know, it's really not rainbows and butterflies, but I can't imagine it any other way. There's no, like you said in other countries that doesn't exist. And in entrepreneurship you can really craft the life that you want and dream of and what I love. Two points you kind of mentioned that you work on is like the mindset of worthiness to receive or that fear of rejection. So when we think about that, it's not just a sales script, it's like anyone can really read, right? But how do you deal with what people do say? Yes, it's like for some people it's like, do how do you even receive that? For some people it's like someone will say yes to them and they'll be like, Are you sure? And you're like, What the heck? You know? Or The fear of that rejection and feeling so afraid of someone saying no or not right now or whatever. And I feel like those are two powerful things to, to mention.

Lunden Souza: [00:36:44]
 And then, yeah, our mindset surrounding money is so major and I don't think that you can get that until you get that. You know what I mean? It's like how and in my life that really was money was a tool for manipulation and power. And so I had to reevaluate my relationship with money a lot. And then living in Austria versus coming back and living in America money system and stuff like that is set up differently. And I just feel like, yeah, money, money, mindset, sales, things like that, that can be very sticky and uncomfortable for a lot of people. And I think that's because probably a lot of us and I don't know, this is just a mind trade and just a possibility, but and maybe you can help us as consumers to kind of distinguish. It's like there's been times where it's like still a sales has been sticky, where you bought something and it wasn't what that person promised or someone, you know, you were kind of bamboozled. So how do you coach your clients to lead from that heart centered space which you shared with us? But then as consumers on the other end, it's like, how do we know what is selling with the authenticity? If we're hopping on a call with a coach and you know, we're in this sales call or whatever, like what lenses is helpful for us to have to distinguish if this is authentic or something that we should buy into or not.

Anastassia Lover: [00:38:06] 
Yeah. That's a that's a wonderful question. And I absolutely agree with you, because we've all had experiences with salespeople or somebody selling us something, and those experiences could have been good and bad. Now, we may have had thousands of wonderful experiences with people selling us something, whether it was selling as a product or a service or even an idea. You go to your morning, get your morning coffee and you ask the barista, Hey, I'm feeling spontaneous today. What's great on the menu? And she says, you know, we have this new drink. It's amazing. You're going to love it. And I know your taste. You're you have to try it, right? So we have a lot of good experiences, but for some reason we tend to only remember the bad ones. Right. Maybe there's been one, two, three, five times where you've been scammed, ripped off the person that wasn't ethical or they weren't honest. They told you something, but you got something else. And even though you've had these hundreds or thousands of wonderful experiences, we tend to remember the bad ones. And the reason why that happened that happens is because for our own protection, right, our subconscious mind holds on to those memories because we want to make sure that we don't repeat them again, that we want to make sure that we learn from them. And, you know, it's very, very common for that to happen. So I can't say that there is a specific method of how to never get fall for an ethical person ever again. I think the important thing is if you did go through something negative, obviously learn from it and understand that that is out there.

Anastassia Lover: [00:39:47]
 And I think that that's a big part of my purpose is to help more hard centered entrepreneurs learn the art of sales. Because for some reason and I don't know why, but it's usually the bad people out there that are the best at sales, aren't they? Right. And when you think about everything that bad that's happening in the world, from the wars to the policies to the legislatures, so all these different things that are happening in the world, somebody out there is selling an idea to make that in reality, right. Every idea has to be sold, has to be persuaded in order for that idea to ultimately come to fruition. And I think that there are so many hard centered entrepreneurs out there that maybe they don't have the skills of of selling or influencing or positive persuasion, but they have a passion. They have a purpose. They want to make the world a better place. And the ones that do know how to influence and how to persuade those are the people that we know about. Right? The Mother Teresa's, the Gandhis, the Martin Luther King's of the world. So that ultimately is a part of my purpose, is to help more heart centered entrepreneurs learn these skills of positive persuasion, positive influence of how to sell better ideas to the world so that we can make the world a better place. And if you are an entrepreneur and maybe in the past you've. Had experiences with salespeople, bad salespeople, and you have that negative taste around sales or money. Now that you are an entrepreneur, you have to ask yourself, Is that belief serving me? Right. Is that belief serving me now as an entrepreneur? Is it serving the people that I'm meant to go out there and serve the people that I'm meant to help? And most likely, if you have a negative connotation with sales, that's probably not serving you.

Anastassia Lover: [00:41:39]
 So it's just like when you think of a child, I have a five year old son who is deathly afraid of the dark. He won't go into any dark closets or dark bathroom and he will ask me to walk around the room with him everywhere. Now, imagine if we never let go of that belief, right? If we grew up as adults being afraid of walking into a dark closet. So eventually, at some point, you have to realize, is that belief serving me or does it become an inconvenience? Does it prevent me from doing the things that I want to do? And I think this is a great example of that. Right. We have to at some point choose intentionally to redesign that belief, because what is a belief right. Is just something that that we make up to give us some sort of a purpose or it has some sort of a purpose at the point that we decide to believe that. Right. Maybe it's for protection, but if it's no longer serving us, we have to make the decision to revisit that belief and say, you know what, I'm going to get myself out there. I'm going to offer my value to the world. I'm going to help people. I'm going to choose to receive money, receive abundance in exchange for the value, so that I can continue to grow and I can continue to expand and I can continue to make more impact.

Lunden Souza: [00:42:53] 
Yes. And something that I'll add on, because I know that's why you and I are having this conversation here today, too, is I feel like as an entrepreneur, leader, whatever person, human, if you feel like there is something missing or lacking in your life or you feel like you're constantly, let's say, getting bamboozled by people who are inauthentic, whatever, whatever you want to see more of in your life, become it. And you will have more of those people come onto your podcast, come into your life. I remember when I wanted I'm like, you know, I felt like a lot of some of my clients early on in my coaching were just like not being really consistent and you know, and then I was like, okay, well, how can you be even more consistent in your life if you want to see be the student that you want to have as your client, be the authentic version of yourself so that you can attract more people who are doing that, or you have more discernment of what is authentic or inauthentic. And I think as you continue to say, I'm the common denominator denominator and you become more of that, then more of that starts to come to you as well. And I love what you shared about is this belief serving regarding money. I remember thinking like in my head, the belief was like all people that are rich are like manipulative and you use it to to manipulate people to do what they want. That's what I saw. And then I had.

Lunden Souza: [00:44:19] 
Well, is that serving me? No. And is that true? No. There's not all people that have money or this. There's I found. So I went out and I found many examples of people who, you know, had a lot of money and weren't that way, who were generous, who weren't manipulative and all these things. And as my business continues to grow in, my abundance continues to grow, I tell myself to like, I'm not going to be that belief. I'm going to be this new belief that I chose. That's more empowering. And so sometimes I just feel and so for a lot of people that can feel kind of like a slap in the face is like, okay, well, if you're not, if it's not happening in your life, become it. Don't wait for something outside of you to be that. You do it first and be that magnet to kind of bring it more or more into you. So that's really what I felt when you were when you were saying that. What's something? There's so I know that your story is so robust where you're at now, I just feel like your seed hasn't even, like, come out of the dirt yet. Right? It's like I feel like there's just like you said, it's like you get that moment where you're like, I know this, isn't it? Like, I don't know what else is in store, but, like, I just know. So what's something exciting that you're working on now that you're continuing to develop in in your world?

Anastassia Lover: [00:45:32] 
Yeah. So I have a lot of exciting things actually, and. What I want to point out is at this point of my life that I am just beginning this journey. I feel so different than what I shared with you when I was at this corporate job where I was making tons of money and I was, like worrying about. Time slipping away. I started worrying about aging like, oh my gosh, every year is going by, I'm getting older and what's happening? Everything is just going downhill. This is the moment where even though I am nowhere close to being at the top of where I want to be at one day, I feel so inspired. I'm not worried about time because I know that this life is just beginning. There's so much in the future that I'm so excited about, so much that I'm uncertain about. But again, it's just I'm kind of choosing to just give in and let life present opportunities to me. So there's a couple of things that are that I'm working on right now that are really exciting. I just finished a course, my first course and this course. I'm so excited to offer it to people because it's for the average entrepreneur who doesn't have. The background of sales who maybe has feels insecure or self conscious about putting themselves out there and talking to people and selling and maybe has a lot of those limiting beliefs. This course is for those people. So I focus. A big part of that on really creating a full transformation within yourself so you can build a better relationship with money, so you can build a better relationship with sales and really feel fully confident.

Anastassia Lover: [00:47:11] 
Because if you feel confident and you get to a point where you absolutely fall in love with sales. And you get out there and you're just offering help to people that need help. How many more yeses do you think you'll get in your business? A lot. Right. So the first part of that course is all about mastering that mindset. And then the second part of the course is now we're going into how do you actually communicate your value to the world, to the people that you're meant to serve, to your clients in a way that resonates with them, in a way that truly shows your value in the way that solves a problem for them and ultimately builds trust. Right. Because a lot of the a lot of the reasons why people don't buy is because of trust. They may not trust you, the company, the product, the service. They may not trust themselves that they can even achieve that result. So I really focus on how do you start to infuse those trust factors into your delivery, into your presentation, into your invitation so you can fully build trust in this person so they can make a confident decision for themselves. So if you do want to learn more about this course, you can go to my link tree link and learn more about it. And the second thing that I have coming out here in August of 2022 is I am releasing my first book.

Anastassia Lover: [00:48:31] 
It's called The Impact of One Voice. Now it's a collaborative book. So me and a few other entrepreneurs, some other coaches are collaborating on this amazing book. And in this book I go deeper into my story and I talk about how do you create what I call self contained freedom? That's actually the title of my chapter because my biggest value through life that's really inspired me to become an entrepreneur has always been freedom, right? Freedom from breaking away from that repressed society growing up in Russia, freedom from breaking away from needing or being dependent on the system and truly finding everything that you need within yourself, that value that you have, the goal that you have, and monetizing it to really create the life of your dreams. So to me, that is ultimately what freedom is about. So I go into that. So I do have a gift for all of you listening to this podcast. If you go to my link tree link, you're going to see where I can give you a gift and I want to give you a gift of this book. So if you go in there and connect with me, I'm going to send you this book for free because I want to inspire you. I want every single one of you, whether you're an entrepreneur or if you're just wanting to go after goals, personal goals in your life, just know that you have every resource available already inside of you to create the life that you want and to go after your dreams.

Lunden Souza: [00:49:58] 
Thank you so much. And I'll include your link tree link in the description. So wherever you guys are listening to this, it'll be very easy to find and connect. Thank you so much for being with us today. It's just yeah. So it's so great to learn more about you and get to know more about you and to make a bigger impact, a bigger ripple effect through this podcast with amazing guests like you. So thank you so much for being with us. I appreciate you and I can't wait to see you again in person, hopefully one day again soon.

Anastassia Lover: [00:50:27] 
Yes, yes. That will happen. And thank you so much for having me on here and just letting me share my message. Ultimately, I just want to share my message and inspire people. So thank you for allowing me to do it.

Lunden Souza: [00:50:37] 
Absolutely. We appreciate you. Thank you.

Anastassia Lover: [00:50:40]
Thank you.

Lunden Souza: [00:50:41] Thank you so much for listening to this  Episode of Self Love and Sweat THE PODCAST. Hey, do me a favor. Wherever you're listening to this podcast, give us a review. This really helps a lot and share this with a friend. I'm only one person, and with your help, we can really spread the message of self love and sweat and change more lives all around the world. I'm Lunden Souza, reminding you that you deserve a life full of passion, presence and purpose fueled by self, love and sweat. This podcast is a Hitspot Austria production.