795 Sheri Riley: Exponential Living

When we think that it’s a destination we’re trying to reach, when we think that it’s all the stars aligning, and we’re a great (fade music softly) businesswoman, we’re a great entrepreneur, we’re a great mother, we’re a great wife, we’re a great spouse, when we think it’s all those things, it’s external.

What peace really is, is that inner commitment to our own personal calm. It’s no matter what’s going on around us externally. We are committed to being at that place of peace, which is our truest place of power internally.

No matter what’s going on around us, no matter how busy our days get, no matter how out of control our schedules become, we always get to make the decision to declare that inner calm, and that really is our power.

We all know what it’s like to be busy, ticking off things on a never-ending to-do list, our work never done. We may feel in control, but are we really? As long as our success or happiness is something external to us, we’re never at peace or in our true power, says leadership coach Sheri Riley. So today we dig deep inside ourselves to learn all about what Sheri calls “exponential living”.

MELINDA

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m a 5-time serial entrepreneur and the CEO and founder of Podopolo, the interactive app revolutionizing podcast discovery and discussion and making podcasting profitable for creators. I’d like to invite you to take a minute, download Podopolo from either app store, listen to the rest of this episode there, and join the conversation with your questions, perspectives, experiences, and advice … Because together we’re stronger, and we all soar higher when we fly together.

Today we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who spent 20 years creating marketing strategies for global superstars and companies like Usher, Warner Media, and Converse, before starting her own leadership development company empowering professional athletes, coaches, entertainers, corporate executives, and entrepreneurs to grow personally and dominate professionally.

Sheri Riley is the founder and President of Exponential Living – and also the bestselling author of Exponential Living® – Stop Spending 100% of Your Time on 10% of Who You Are.

Today we’re going to talk about how to truly live in your power – in peace, with clarity and courage.

What does success mean to you? Many people measure success by social status, money in the bank, awards, recognition, hitting a business milestone, things that are all external to us, things that we see as a destination. Sure, these are all wonderful things, yet we can achieve these and still be unhappy and unhealthy and striving for more and more. So, what if true success and happiness is all an inner mind game, something internal?

Sheri Riley knows what it’s like to overachieve and still feel unsuccessful. After years at the top of the entertainment industry working with Usher, Toni Braxton and Outkast, and creating the marketing strategies of major brands like Warner Media, the NBA, and Converse … happily married with two amazing children, Sheri said she felt unsuccessful.

Today she talks about the wakeup call that led her to found Exponential Living, a personal and professional leadership development company that helps athletes, entertainers, top CEOs and entrepreneurs grow personally to dominate professionally.

Listen on because Sheri talks about how to find peace, clarity and courage within ourselves to be in our POWER – an acronym that we’ll break down in a moment.

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Sheri Riley

and be sure to download the podcast app Podopolo so we can keep the conversation going after the episode.

Melinda Wittstock:

Sheri, welcome to Wings.

Sheri Riley:

I’m so excited to join you on this conversation. I’ve been looking forward to it.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, me too, because I love the concept of exponential living. Gosh, that sounds so good. What does it mean in practice?

Sheri Riley:

In practice, the funny thing is, it took me almost a decade to be able to say it this simply, but truly, exponential living is a lifestyle of pursuing peace, choosing clarity, and living courageously. I have found that any challenge, any victory that you need to celebrate, any obstacle that you have to overcome, any area of growth that you’re dealing with, if you can do those three things, if you can pursue peace, when you get to that place of peace, that pursuit of the peace, it gives you clarity.

And you have to choose clarity. You have to then commit to trusting and believing what you hear in that inner voice within yourself. And when you put peace and clarity together, it will empower you with the courage to do anything, to stop when you need to go, go when you need to stop, sit when you need to sit. So, it really is a lifestyle. It’s a lifestyle of pursuing peace, choosing clarity, and living courageously.

Melinda Wittstock:

That is beautiful. So, let’s break it down. I want to get into this concept of peace. And you say things like, peace is the new success. So, what does peace mean in a busy female entrepreneur’s life?

Sheri Riley:

Absolutely. Most people believe that peace is something external. When I was going on the journey of writing my book, Exponential Living: Stop Spending a 1 00% of Your Time on 10% of Who You Are, I knew the core message was peace, but I had asked a friend of mine if she would just be my vision partner and really help me evolve. How do I express that in business terms, in simple terms, in the everyday busy high-performer terms, how do I express that?

And she kept saying to me, “Well, Sheri, peace doesn’t exist. Like, it’s just such a busy world that doesn’t exist.” And what I realized, Melinda, is that it doesn’t exist when we think peace is something external. When we think that it’s a destination we’re trying to reach, when we think that it’s all the stars aligning, and we’re a great businesswoman, we’re a great entrepreneur, we’re a great mother, we’re a great wife, we’re a great spouse, when we think it’s all those things, it’s external.

What peace really is, is that inner commitment to our own personal calm. It’s no matter what’s going on around us externally. We are committed to being at that place of peace, which is our truest place of power internally. That is that amazing space and place, where my favorite book says, when Jesus was in the boat and the waves were going crazy, and literally, the disciples woke him up and said, “Hey, you’ve got to wake up. Don’t you see what’s going on?”

And he said, “Peace be still.” And what that said is, no matter what’s going on around us, no matter how busy our days get, no matter how out of control our schedules become, we always get to make the decision to declare that inner calm, and that really is our power.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, gosh, I couldn’t agree more. I think that in the entrepreneurial journey, if you believe that success is external to you, you’re going to struggle, because even if you reach this destination and you think at the destination you’re going to be “happy”, there’s always something more. So, it has to come from within. So, this concept of peace is within you.

But ‘the power actually is within you’ is something that I’d certainly learned along the way as a five-time serial entrepreneur. I think you start to see that the people who are really successful, and actually are enjoying the journey, are actually getting better results. And moreover, it’s your life. You want to enjoy your life. So, this is pretty core.

Sheri Riley:

Yeah. And so many of us, we missed it, especially in Western society, because so much of our definition of success is centered around how many zeros are in our bank account and how many commas between those zeroes, what letters are in front of our name, what letters are behind our name. So, we equate so much of our success on those things.

And the truth of the matter is, I had to have a breakdown to really understand this, because if you had asked me, four years ago, five years ago, “Sheri, are you successful,” and I would’ve said, “No.” But here’s the reality, I literally had worked in the entertainment industry at the highest level doing the marketing for Usher, Tony Braxton, Outkast. I had a successful consulting firm, at that point for, about 17 years where our clients were the NBA, Warner Media, Converse, Nike. I had been married, at this point, for about 13 or 14 years. I had two amazing, highly functioning, in a very positive way, children. All the-

Melinda Wittstock:

And you thought you weren’t successful?

Sheri Riley:

And I thought I wasn’t successful. Exactly, exactly. You want to know why?

Melinda Wittstock:

Why? Yes, why?

Sheri Riley:

Because there was much more that I wanted to achieve. So, what I realized is, never allow what you want to accomplish to rob you of the joy of what you’ve already achieved.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, my goodness, this is so important. This is why, in our team culture at Podopolo, we really try and operationalize celebrating the victories because if you’re always onto the next thing and you’re always living in the future rather than in the present moment, you rob yourself of that. Then, we could get into the power of law of attraction or energy, or whatever, where if you’re really taking the time to celebrate what’s great, you’re going to get more of what’s great. But if you’re constantly focused on lack and what you don’t have, it’s almost like it’s inviting more of that into your life.

Sheri Riley:

Exactly, exactly. And here’s the thing, we don’t stop and just take a moment and enjoy or celebrate the victories because we are onto the next, onto the next. And you’re right, it robs us of our confidence, because what we do is, we think drive and confidence are the same, when the truth of the matter is, drive is what pushes us to achieve, confidence is who we are when we get there.

But we do so much work on the external, on what drives us, and don’t do the work on the internal, the peace, the clarity, the calm, the self-awareness, those things that really are the builder and sustainer of our confidence, then there’s always this void because there’s always this disconnect between what we’re driven to accomplish and who we really are when we accomplish those things.

Melinda Wittstock:

We could say it really is our successes about who we’re being as much as what we’re doing, arguably more about who we’re being.

Sheri Riley:

Absolutely. Because then we wonder how could these “successful people” make decisions that destroy their external success?

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, you see that all the time.

Sheri Riley:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

You see it’s almost like there’s a self-destruct button. You get to a certain level, and maybe deep subconsciously, maybe you believe you don’t deserve it, or something, but people start acting against their own self-interest in a weird way with success.

Sheri Riley:

And I feel a lot of that self-sabotage is because we haven’t done that inner work. So, it does manifest itself, whether it’s in not feeling worthy or imposter syndrome. But I find a lot with women, successful women, women that have reached a level of success, whether it’s through being an entrepreneur, whether it’s through the corporate ranks, is that we believe that it’s the more, the more, the more. So, we’ve got to be the best spouse, we’ve got to be the best parent, we’ve got to be the best…

So, what happens is, these external benchmarks eliminate who we are, that we are great, not because our title, we are great not because of these phenomenal children. Those things are part of it. But we are great because of who we are. We are great because of the person we are. The things we achieve are just an add-on.

And that’s why a lot of times when we do lose the job or we do have a challenge with our children or we do have a rough time in our marriage, it begins to erode our confidence even more because we’ve spent so much time building these external accolades and not really reinforcing who we are. Those things are a benefit or a component of who we are when we show up.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, there’s a very big difference between getting your validation from who you are from within as opposed to other people. If all your validation is external to you, you’ve just given away your power.

Sheri Riley:

Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:

Because there’s a great phrase in, “What you think of me is none of my business.”

Sheri Riley:

Yes, yes, yes. And my good friend, Dr. Karmetria Burton, she said, “Validation is for parking, not people.”

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. That’s so astute. I think there’s a lot of women who sometimes are playing this waiting game where we’re, I don’t know, waiting to be anointed or something. There’s some day where some person is going to say, “You’ve arrived,” or whatever, and waiting and waiting for that moment rather than realizing it’s really entirely from within. When you’re working with people, especially with women, how do you change that around for them?

Sheri Riley:

The first thing is, the woman has to be ready, willing, and committed, because if you’re not ready, willing, and committed, I can’t do more for you than you’re ready, willing, and committed to do for yourself. So, the first is just the recognition that, “Oh, my God, I want something different. I know that there’s a void that this work won’t fulfill.”

Then, once they are ready, willing, and committed, it really is about starting with them learning how to live in their power, and that’s with the decisions that we make. And some of those first decisions are, stop saying, “I don’t know.” That’s one of the first things I do with my clients is, I stop them from saying, “I don’t know.”

And you would not believe, Melinda, how many times we use “I don’t know” as just a crutch, because we’ll say everything we do know, and then sandwich it between two “I don’t knows”, and eliminate what we do know. So, we start with that. Stop saying, “I don’t know,” because you do know something. Just do what you do know, meaning, I don’t know how I’m going to manage my children and work and my travel schedule.

Well, okay, what do you know? Well, you know that you have a community of two or three other parents that you guys can create a schedule of support when one of you needs the other to pick up the children. You do know that. So, it’s focus on what you do know.

Then, the second thing is, I encourage them to give themselves permission, dot, dot, dot. Give yourself permission to get help. Give yourself permission to say no. Oh, my God, let’s start with that. Give yourself permission to say no. Give yourself permission, dot, dot, dot.

So, that’s where we start with all of my clients, is getting them to stop saying, “I don’t know,” and then allowing or empowering them to give themself permission, and then, dot, dot, dot, what is that in their lives.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, I want to get into this concept of power, because power, in your case, is an acronym. Let’s talk through the P, the O, the W, the E, and the R.

Sheri Riley:

Yes. Live in your power. It is the very first principle of exponential living, and the essence of it is making decisions, our choices. First of all, learning or owning that we have choices. So, with that, there’s five keys to living in your power. The first key is that P, our perspective, and that really focuses in on our vision.

A lot of times we’ll have goals, and we’ll have these big targets in life that we want to reach, but we really don’t clearly define our vision. And our vision is really the steps that we take to get to the goal. I love when Steve Harvey, I’ve actually spoken on stages with him, and he has shared the story of how at one point he was $20 million in debt with IRS, but his vision was that he would be a multimedia mogul.

And a lot of times we don’t have that vision to really show us where we’re going. And you wouldn’t believe, Melinda, how many females, especially, that I work with that I’ll ask them what’s the vision for their life, and they’ll talk about their career goals, they’ll talk about the boards that they serve on, they’ll talk about the community service that they’re committed to. And I’ll go, “Okay, all that’s great, but what is your vision for your life?”

And it takes them a minute to really understand, what do you want in the totality of who you are as a parent, do you want to travel, what are the hobbies that you don’t get to do, because you haven’t really committed to that being a part of your overall vision for your life. So, it starts with that vision.

The second key is then ownership. What are you actually focused on? And what that really means is, what’s most important, what’s most important? Because so many times with our to-do list, it just becomes a dumping ground. And if something comes up, we put it on our to-do list. If it comes up, we put it on our to-do list, and we never really think about, one, is this really something I need to do?

For all my female entrepreneurs and all my female executives, let me just share with this one thing, and for those of us who are married to our husbands, I just want to say, let him fold those towels. Let him wash and fold those towels. They’re not going to be put in the cabinet the way you want to, that’s okay. But it’s okay if your spouse or your children fold those towels.

And I’m being funny, but it’s literally the reality is that we don’t have to control and manage everything. So, what are those things that we really should focus on, the most important things, and then we take ownership of that.

The third is the wisdom. And the wisdom boils down to, what are those next steps? When you identify what’s most important, then you have to identify, okay, what’s the most important next steps? And what this really helps us do is, it helps us understand when an opportunity is actually a distraction.

So, when great opportunities come up, well, many times their distraction. So, when we get crystal clear on our vision, and then we take ownership of what we supposed to focus on, those most important things, then with wisdom we can really identify when an opportunity is a distraction, when this is something that’s taking us off the trail of what we really are to be focused on.

Then, the fourth key is the engagement, and this is honestly the most important one. My daughter taught me, when she was six years old, when I was at her lacrosse game, and I had been on the phone for a bit of time while she was playing lacrosse, and when she stopped playing and the game was over, she came over to me and she said, “Mommy, I can’t believe you were on the phone for my first ever lacrosse game.”

Melinda Wittstock:

Right.

Sheri Riley:

And it broke my heart, because what she taught me is that my presence was not enough. I needed to be present.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, really a 100% present. I think-

Sheri Riley:

A 100%.

Melinda Wittstock:

… [inaudible 00:17:30] stories, right?

Sheri Riley:

Yes. Because we believe multitasking is a real thing, and it’s not. There’s a neuroscientist out of Stanford, and others, that have proven multitasking doesn’t exist. So, we’re missing so much of the engagement because we’re not present.

Then, the last key is the reward, which comes from our consistency. And that’s where we have to identify what are those things, those triggers, that keep us from being consistent.

So, when we focus on our perspective, really get crystal clear on our vision, take ownership of what we’re supposed to focus on. And wisdom really define when opportunities are distractions. Get present, really get engaged and present. That’s when we get the reward, and that is what we get out of living in our power.

Melinda Wittstock:

I love that. And speaking of clarity, we started at peace and clarity and courage, that provides tremendous clarity. And one of the things that you were talking about is knowing the difference between a “meh” and a “hell, yeah”, because there’s so many distractions along the way. And it can be very confusing for people, especially with entrepreneurship, because there’s so many different things and different directions your business can go in and different things you can be doing and different people that come out of the woodwork and get on your calendar, and it’s maybe not the right timing and whatnot. So, how to get that clarity in practice and know, with clarity, what’s now, not yet, or never.

Sheri Riley:

Yeah. And that’s what the power of working with a coach, because a lot of times, like my dear friend, Les Brown, says, “It’s hard to see yourself when you’re in the picture frame.” So, I have five coaches. I have two business coaches, I have a spiritual coach, I have a life coach. So, I’m a product of the product. But that’s where getting a coach to really help you hear your own thoughts, and really getting clarity around those things that are most important, or having a vision partner.

Like I shared when I was writing my book, I had a vision partner. And really, that vision partner is someone who, they’re not committed to being the devil’s advocate, but they are committed to just challenging ideas. They’re committed to listening, with an open ear, to catch things that you may not hear or may not see. They’re committed to help you gain clarity by allowing you to just continue to talk it out in a safe space.

So, identifying vision partners, or getting a community. I have different masterminds that I do with like-minded entrepreneurs. We come together once a quarter, we take an hour to an hour and a half per each person’s business, and we talk through the business, we talk through where we are, what we’re looking at for that quarter, specifically for that quarter or that month, and we get that input from each other, like how we stretch, what do we need to stay accountable to, what do we need to see that we’re not seeing, how do they offer help and support?

So, whether it’s a coach or a vision partner or creating your own mastermind, the key to all of that is finding the accountability, the safe space, and then, the encouragement. So, you create the safe space to hear yourself think, you create the accountability so that you can then move forward with those parameters around you to stay focused, and then that way you move into that place of the results and really being able to accomplish those things.

Melinda Wittstock:

And I can see where the courage comes from this, because if you’re really in the now, you have real clarity and you’ve really envisioned who you are, why you’re here right now, I like to joke, in your earth suit, your current manifestation, and what’s special about you, what’s your zone of genius, what is it that you really want, and having clarity about that, then, the decision-making comes so much easier because you do, I can see this, you do have the courage to just, you just know what’s a yes, what’s a no.

Sheri Riley:

And so many people think the peace is the hardest part, but you just tapped into it. It really is the courage. Because a lot of times we know exactly what to do, we just don’t want to do it, because it takes courage to say no when you’ve been a people-pleaser, and really make that change. It takes courage to step out of your comfort zone. When you have a very successful high six-figure career, but you know you want to step into entrepreneurship, it takes courage to make that adjustment.

It takes courage when you know that there’s some financial challenges that may occur due to some of the decisions that you want to make. It takes courage to say, “I’m going to take a sabbatical,” and really truly take the sabbatical. I’ve got clients that, literally, a part of their corporate package is, they get, after so many years, a six-week sabbatical. You wouldn’t believe how many of my clients don’t take it because of the fear. They don’t have the courage of what that would look like, to step away for six weeks, even though the company encourages it.

So, that key, that courage and the eighth principle in my book, is the courage to be faithful, because so many people, honestly, that’s where they fall short in their journey, the exponential living, is, they go through all the work, overcome all of the challenges, but when it gets time to that courage to really make that transformational leap to where they really want to be. Many times they settle for where they are.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, you mentioned, all those years back you were having this outside success in so many areas of your life and you didn’t feel successful. What was the process that you personally went through in that moment? What was the crisis? What specifically was going on in your life, and how did you get to what you’re doing now and where you are now? Take me through that, I’ll call it a ‘sheroes’ journey instead of the heroes journey.

Sheri Riley:

Yes. And there’s been a couple of them. The first one was when I was working at LaFace Records, which was the record company for Tony Braxton, Usher, Outkast. Loved my job, I loved the people I work with. It was everything I dreamed and worked and hoped for, but I was miserable. I literally had this external success, but I didn’t have a good life, and I crashed and I burned.

And that’s when I first had the revelation of, “Oh, my God. Sheri, you have to stop spending a 100% of your time on 10% of who you are and expecting a 100% of your fulfillment. So, I went on this journey of, okay, well, how do I fill the gap, how do I go from this 10% living to this 100% living? And that’s the journey of those nine principles that are in my book.

The second time was, I was at that point, at this point I’d been a successful entrepreneur for 17 years, I had this amazing company, phenomenal brand, phenomenal clients, but I knew there was something more, I knew there was a higher calling for the work and the impact that I was supposed to have. And that’s the transition that, honestly, was harder than crashing and burning, because that transition impacted every area of my life, my business, my marriage, me as a mother, how I showed up in the community.

So, for that transition, that’s where I realized I needed help. And that’s where I got help from working with coaches. I realized that the work I had to do on my own, but I needed support. And one of the greatest challenges I’ve found with a lot of women that I work with is recognizing when we need support, when we need help, and then actually speaking and asking.

So, many of my clients, they just don’t have the courage to ask for help. So, I started this journey of asking for help. That’s when I learned the power of masterminding, I learned the power of having a vision partner, I learned the power of coaching, to be very transparent. My husband and I, we had separated, and this is when I learned how I needed to show up in my marriage, of sharing with him what I really needed in the marriage.

With my eldest daughter, my bonus daughter, being able to really share with her, “This is how I need you to show up in our relationship.” So, the greatest outcomes came from these deep-rooted broken moments. And that’s where the Exponential Living Curriculum and the work that I do now, it was birthed out of really knowing there was a greater calling, but honestly, having to have the courage to do the work on me personally and not just on me professionally. And that’s why I say, exponential living empowers you to grow personally and dominate professionally, because the more I grew personally, the more dominant I became in my professional work.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, you work with all sorts of people. Obviously, entrepreneurs, really anybody who is taking on something big. An entrepreneur who’s solving a problem that hasn’t been solved before, envisioning something completely different, or an athlete, an artist, these are people who are, in essence, creators. What are some of the biggest issues that they have walking this journey?

Sheri Riley:

Yeah, it is an ongoing process because we get to higher levels of success as we grow. And everyone has their own unique story, but there are some commonalities. And the biggest commonality is that lack of confidence where there’s so many successful people that have the drive to succeed, but that confidence, meaning, knowing who you are, and really knowing who you are.

One of my clients, when I first started working with her, and I asked her, I said, “Who are you?” And she rattled off of her resume. And I said, “Okay, that’s what you do. Who are you?” Then she tells me the phenomenal impact that she makes in the community with her philanthropic work. And I said, “Okay, that’s how you serve, but who are you?”

And she started getting a little irritated, “I’ve told you.” I was, “No. Who are you?” And she couldn’t answer the question. And that’s where our work began. So, being able to truly learn who we are, which allows us to be more empowered in our confidence for when any of those things go away, when we lose the board Chair position, when we get transitioned out of our company, or whatever it may be, we are still solid in who we are. That’s one commonality.

Another commonality is the whole idea of peace. So many of us are so riddled with the anxiety and the stress of success that we’re starting to learn and appreciate and value more than just the accomplishments of success. We’re starting to value that peace, that inner peace, that self-awareness, and how it does really impact and increase our productivity. That would definitely be another commonality.

So, how I work with my clients is, for our corporate executives and entrepreneurs, we have our power broker coaching and training curriculum, and then, for our athletes and entertainers, we have our 360 degree Champion Coaching and Training Curriculum, and both of them are rooted in those nine principles of exponential living.

And it’s a mix of one-on-one coaching, group coaching, masterminding, training, personality and behavioral assessments, that really allow people to learn who they are. Because many high performers, when you think about it, at some point, whether it’s middle school, high school, college, when you first get in your career, you set that goal, whether it’s to be in the NBA, whether it’s to be a C-suite executive at a corporation, whether it’s to own and operate a multi-million dollar business, we have to be focused.

Malcolm Gladwell tells us, “We need those 10,000 hours,” and so we get so locked in into accomplishing the goals, we lose who we are along the way. So, those are the commonalities that many high performers share. And the work that we do really allows them to be in alignment with who they are personally and how they want to show up professionally.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s fantastic. So, the obvious next question, Sheri, what’s the best way for people to find you and work with you?

Sheri Riley:

Yes, I would love for people to go to my website, which is sheririley.com, S-H-E-R-I, R-I-L-E-Y. There you can get more information on our coaching and training programs. You can also book me as a speaker. I would love to come and speak at different companies, organizations. Also, I would love to connect on social media, LinkedIn, which is sheririleydotcom. D-O-T-C-O-M. It’s spelled out. Then, on Instagram and Twitter, which is just Sheri Riley.

Melinda Wittstock:

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us today.

Sheri Riley:

I love it. I love how we soared together, Melinda. I love it.