Jen Casey (JC): You have an amazing story, so I would love for you to share how you became this thought leader and author who’s making so much impact on the world. How did you become this version of you today?

 Nichole Sylvester (NS): It’s definitely a crazy-different version than I was 10 years ago. A lot of people would say that, but for me, I was living in extreme chaos. If you would look at my life 10 years ago, I was clearing up my home in Las Vegas that we bought with drug money. I was living this life and there was a murder in my home. I was an abused woman who was in abusive relationship after abusive relationship, I was neglected as a child, and I just never saw my worth.

I didn’t understand what it was to live a life and say, “I’m a valuable person. I’m lovable. I deserve to have all the good things in life.”  

Then, I had a daughter. When I had my little girl, I realized I had someone to take care of and I could change this. She doesn’t have to grow up how I grew up. She doesn’t have to feel the way that I feel right now, but it’s all on me. So I moved to L.A. to try to live a normal life and that’s when I found spirituality. I found meditation because I was having massive panic attacks. I literally blacked out from a panic attack on the freeway in Pasadena. I was in an ambulance and when I got to the hospital, I remember my friend saying, “You have to do something.”

I didn’t want to take the medication because it made me feel like a zombie and I didn’t want to feel like that, so my friend recommended I go to a retreat. I was really reluctant because I was atheist and anti-church, but I got there and started recognizing some of these narratives, like, “There’s a part of you that can never be hurt or broken by your past. There’s a part of you that is not the things that have happened to you.” I was like, “What is that? I don’t know, but this makes me feel good, so let me follow this.”

I found myself going to my first silent meditation retreat on my 30th birthday. It changed everything. Not talking for three days and meditating, you end up noticing the things you’re saying to yourself and the things you believe. I just went down this path. Eventually, I had this awakening of: share your story, help women, and everything will be taken care of. That’s when I started realizing I had to actually come out and share these things that happened to me instead of suppressing them, which was making me sick and have anxiety.

JC: Three days! That is a fairly long time to be in deep meditation. What did you experience from that?

NS: On your first meditation retreat, you realize how awkward you are and how uncomfortable you are with the silence. Sitting down for your first meal of no talking and having another human in front of you that you can’t talk with, you notice that you want to fill the space and that you’re not ok with just being. That’s huge because now when I’m around people that I know are not comfortable with that, you notice it. They want to fill in all the gaps. You’re in the car and they can’t just listen to music or just be. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just the majority of people.

JC: It is! I tend to be more introverted and when I’m with somebody that I’m comfortable with, there’s a ton of silence and no need to fill it. That’s so fascinating. So this whole idea of Harmonious Hustle… I love it. I remember a woman I was talking to about the hustle and she was like, “I don’t like to use the word ‘balance’ because I don’t think there’s such thing as balance. I think there’s harmony that we can find between hustle and flow and masculine and feminine energy.”

What does Harmonious Hustle mean for you and how does that show up in your business?

NS: I hated the word hustle for a while. I thought of hustle as the kind of hustling that I used to do and that my ex did. I took that same gritty energy into my finance business in 2010. I sold life insurance and mutual funds with that masculine energy of, “I don’t care. I’m making ALL the calls. People WILL buy from me.” I recognized that I was miserable and associated it with a lot of negative things, so I went on this whole spiritual journey of being done with the hustle.

I found myself off of the harmony again because I was not wanting to charge people and make money. I started rationalizing that I didn’t like luxurious things and that’s B.S.! It was like I was trying to unpack too much and take on this identity that wasn’t mine. I was trying to kill off the version of Nichole the hustler, but then I realized that’s my grit, that’s my passion, and that’s my power. I’m going to bring her back in and own her again! There’s also this other version of me that needs to listen to myself and not other people, to pray, to meditate, and take time away and say no. I don’t need to be focused on all the calls and all the things, so that’s where Harmonious Hustle was born.

JC: I appreciate that because there’s such conversations right now in the coaching world about having hustle or having flow. I get it… people are picking their side of the fence and having polarity. They’re like, “No hustle! Hustle is a bad word!” And other people are like, “Let’s puke together! Hustle all the way!”

On one side of the fence we have Gary V. I love him and adore him, but he’s also got bags under his eyes. His mode of function works for him and probably wouldn’t work for the majority of people. On the other hand, you have some amazing spiritual leaders who just meditate and receive. For somebody who is trying to find their way through that and figure out what feels most aligned to them, is there any advice that you would give?

NS: I would say that we need different things every day. I went to a sound bath retreat for New Years Eve and came home in a space of deep reflection. Finally I was like, “No! I need to put on Jay Z and go to Soul Cycle!” And then I was back in my flow.

This whole idea of everything being graceful and effortless… I think it’s nonsense. Writing my book took discipline, it was uncomfortable, I was stretching, and I was becoming a new woman. You have to decide what kind of legacy you want to leave and know that it’s going to need you to do both. We’re multi-dimensional and trying to be one thing is just limiting yourself.

JC: I love that you said the word ‘discipline’ because it is an important piece and almost does get a little bit lost. That thinking of, “Well, if it doesn’t feel easy and like I’m in alignment with creating this piece of content today, then I’ll just wait until I’m in flow.” Which is never!

I don’t know if you know the book The War of Art, but it’s all about having those upper limits around your creativity and having that discipline. I know you also said there’s this fine line of figuring out when to say ‘yes’ to something and when to say ‘no’ to something, and that saying ‘no’ was what you needed to do. I think this is an interesting conversation because some people are like, “I’m going to say yes to everything!” and then there’s the people who are like, “Create boundaries! Say no to everything!” I think this is just such a funny game of finding harmony between the two.

NS: Yeah! It comes down to inner authority and having harmony there. I love selling. I get such a high off of selling, but at the same time, I don’t believe in hard selling. I don’t want to push anyone to do something they don’t want to do. I believe in abundance, I believe I don’t need to do that, and I trust that what people feel is right for them, when they feel it, is for them.

Now, if someone comes to me and they’re like, “This is so exciting! This is for me!” and then they say they can’t afford it, I’m going to work with their mindset a bit, right? Can we just trust that each of us knows what we need and feel into that? The empowered yes and the empowered no requires you to trust yourself and know that it might look really ridiculous, some of the things you’re going to say yes and no to.

Life has a way of weaving and doing what it does. All we have to do is show up our best selves in every moment. 

JC: That right there was just so freaking good. Obviously, this took time for you to develop and refine your own alignment. You know, this is kind of a muscle that we’re all building of figuring out how to know when something isn’t an empowered yes or an empowered no. I’m curious, what are your beliefs about success and money?

 NS: Success and money… I think that it’s all highly personal. I think everything in life is highly personal. There’s people that feel at peace and content living on a farm making 40,000 dollars off their crops and there’s people making 40 million dollars buying all the things and doing all the things. It’s really an internal thing.

I go off and on of focusing on wanting to make a million dollars to realize that I’m chasing. I never want to be on a chase. The chase does not feel good to me. It feels competitive. I love doing all the little upgrades and luxury things in life. I love being able to invest and do things for other people. I just want to do all the things that feel good to me. So for me, success is always like an internal check in of, “How do I feel right now?”

JC: Absolutely. We overcomplicate feeling good and staying in alignment. I get it, there’s all this noise and so many Instagram quotes that are telling you to do all these different things.

 NS: I get caught up just as much as anyone else. I wonder if I am not doing enough. I’m simultaneously very hard on myself and it’s also where I’ve learned to have radical compassion with myself. People that are finding success and doing these things have this internal part of them that’s like, “We can keep going. There’s not enough done here.” It’s a gift and a curse!

For my own peace and to be present in my life, I sometimes have to back down from that. Just asking myself what I am really meant to do. The cool thing about life is that when you’re putting in the consistent work and are dedicated to being the fullest expression of your potential and live from that place, magic and miracles unfold. You don’t know how quickly something can explode in your life. So for me, it’s going there again and again, and as soon as I go off track, come back. It goes off track a lot!

JC: I’m glad that you said that because I think sometimes people who are newer to spirituality, the law of attraction, and even reading your book are sitting there going, “Oh, well it’s easy for her. I can’t do that…” It’s really about the wiring of their belief systems and their model of the world. For people like that, I think it’s so important that all great leaders share the behind-the-scenes and that it’s not all perfect.There are days when there’s highs and lows.

What else would you say to the person who is new to their spiritual journey, who’s the personal development junkie, who is reading 50 books a week and thinking, “I will take alllllll of this in! I want to change!!!”

NS: First I would say this: if you read my book, then you’ll never say, “Well, it must be easy for her.” Instead, what I get from people is, “Well if she can do it, I can do it.” You would NEVER expect that I could go from that to now being paid multiple six figures a year to help people find this within them.

What it shows is that there is this seed of potential and we’re truly coded for greatness, all of us. We’ll never be able to access the codes if we’re not willing to do the work to dissolve all that isn’t the code.

It takes diligence. I call it ‘spiritual stamina’ and it is something we build. So for anyone new on the journey, I would say begin to look at yourself as just as special as anyone else that you’re looking up to. The whole thing I always go back to is that we’re one of one, so if you’re one of one, you’re never going to be expressed again. Are you willing to do the work to nurture and cultivate your own seed? And if you’re willing to do that, in time, your greatness will be revealed.

Sometimes we put all of our energy into a single person or a single book that has the answer. What if you just took time to listen to yourself for ten minutes a day? Be with yourself! You’ll find out a lot about what you’re here to do and what you’re capable of.

JC: We’re so often fixated on an external answer. It’s going to come if you listen.

NS: I’m a guide and you’re a guide. We are here to help people on their journey of becoming who they’re meant to become, but what they’re meant to say, write, and perform… that’s internal. I think too many people are always looking at external. They don’t want to be with themselves because you’re not just going to find your business idea, you’re also going to find your shit. That’s what we’re really running from.

JC: That is such a good point! We’re taking in all of this information, scrolling Facebook, and filling ourselves with information and ideas almost to the point of overwhelm and overstimulation. It’s this whole idea of creating space so that you can figure out what is it that I do want instead of looking at what everyone else has already written about, going, “Oh, well… that’s already been done.”

There’s soooo many inner battles during the journey of entrepreneurship that newer entrepreneurs and newer coaches think that they’re the first and only person ever to experience them and they feel like they’re going it alone. Do you find that too?

NS: I find that because of that, there’s too many new entrepreneurs and coaches that try to quit their jobs and go into this and then find themselves in more chaos and struggle because they’re chasing the easy and graceful life.

In year one, you don’t go to Bali and take off work for two weeks. That’s not what you do! In year one, you are showing up for your dream EVERY DAY.

I think because we’re promoting all these things like “make this money” or “do this thing”, people are looking at that and don’t get to see the other side. That’s why I like Lauren, who I connected with you from, because she also shares the crap! It’s HARD some days! It is challenging but life is multidimensional, so we stop trying to think that we’re supposed to be high all the time.

I made a video in a Tony Robbins’ group a couple of years ago that got me many clients. I was kind of nervous making it because I was like, “If you’re a woman who follows Tony Robbins or Gary V, you have to watch this.” The video was about how, as women, we bleed, we have kids, we have different biology, and we can not wake up at five in the morning to live on this rigid life and expect it to be our fullest expression of the women we’re meant to be. It’s just not the way we work. Our brains are wired differently. Our bodies are wired differently. I think when we start allowing the down, allowing ALL of it, we tap into this greater wisdom and power.