Sheryl Mays - Affirming Your Truth

Sheryl Mays

[00:00:00] Wendy Manganaro: Hi everyone. My name's Wendy Manganaro and I am the Host of the Wellness and Wealth podcast. I'm so happy to have you find us. And if you could take a moment and hit that subscribe button, I'd really appreciate it. This is the podcast where we believe when you show up better for yourself as a woman business owner, you show up better for your business. 

So sit back, relax. And learn from the practical to the woo-hoo, how to best take care of you. Have a great day. Stay blessed. And leave a review when you're done listening to the show, thanks so much. 

[00:00:38] Wendy: Hi everyone, today we have another fantastic topic. It's affirming your truth. We will be joined by Sheryl Mays and, as always, I'll read Cheryl's bio and we'll get right into the show.

Sheryl Mays is a Chief Experience Officer five time author, international speaker, OnAir personality and corporate trainer as the president of Verizon Shine Consulting and coaching firm. She provides consulting services and training for individuals, teams, and organizations on customer experience, customer service, and customer support.

Cheryl is a contributing writer for Entrepreneur Magazine, the New Zealand Dream blog, Founder of Affirm Your Truth, the Movement. Cheryl has a passion for creating experiences that will allow businesses to increase their referrals, sales, and accelerate profits using a breaking the script concept, leading to an increase in customer retention.

She is an award-winning sales leader in the corporate world with more than 20 years leadership experience, a native of Buffalo, New York with one daughter, a granddaughter, and two furry friends. She holds a BS in business administration, leans Fix Sigma, black Belt neuro programming practitioner, and a Jack Canfield certified trainer.

She has had several positions with various. Organizations and presently volunteering as an alumni for Seminole State College, a counselor for S.C.O.R.E Orlando, and an ambassador for Seminole Chamber of Commerce. Her quote, I empower people to do the impossible and be unapologetically bold and confident when not working

she enjoys spending time with her family, her church, traveling, running marathons, and taking on the trails with her two four legged partners. She has just released her Affirm Your Truth The Movement E-Journal series and shop. available riseandshine.com/affirm and you have a podcast, correct. 

[00:02:37] Sheryl Mays: I do have a podcast.

[00:02:39] Wendy: Yes. The customer's tea? 

[00:02:41] Sheryl Mays: Yes. 

[00:02:41] Wendy: Oh, what a great name. Okay, so that is a lot. Cheryl. I love reading people's bios. I'll tell you why. Cuz I, I know for me, and I could be crazy that I feel like when somebody reads my bio, I'm like, oh, that is me and I stand in my superhero. 

[00:02:55] Sheryl Mays: You're like, ok, I guess I feel better. That's why I don't sleep at night or didn't sleep at night cause I was doing stuff . 

[00:03:03] Wendy: Exactly. So welcome to the show. I'm so glad you're here with us today. 

[00:03:09] Sheryl Mays: Thank you. I'm excited to be here. 

[00:03:11] Wendy: Yes. And so I love this idea of affirming your truth and, we'll get into the questions.

I know for myself as far as that concept sometimes I think it's a journey to understanding what your truth is. But I think once you know it, you don't wanna stand in anything else, but sometimes it takes a process to get there. So I think this is a great topic, especially for women business owners.

So my first question to you is, as part of this affirming your truth, what does, speaking positivity into your life mean to you? 

[00:03:46] Sheryl Mays: It's interesting when you talk about affirming your truth and speaking positivity because you're right, it's a journey, it's a process, and we see things twice.

We see things first in our minds, and then we actually see them. So we have to first think about how am I thinking about this thing that I wanna have happen in my life. What about this thing that just, it brings me fulfillment, it brings me joy, it brings me happiness. Even when I think about it, this smile comes across my face and I just feel like I'm in my moment.

And so it is a process to get there, because we gotta get rid of the junk. We gotta get rid of the junk. We gotta get rid of we call them ants, those negative thoughts. Those automated negative thoughts, we gotta get rid of that stuff. We've gotta get rid of listening to the chatter that we allow people to bring into our space, and then we start to digest the chatter.

And now we're starting to fill ourselves up with this doubt and this fear. And so understanding that all of that is going to happen. Nobody is avoid from bad things happening or bad moments in our lives. Nobody is avoid from that. And so when you understand that those things are going to happen, and I can't always blame the event.

The event, it's the thing that happened to us. And sometimes that's where we allow ourselves to be defined by the thing that happened to us. But when you think about it, the reality is, and we share this as a formula, as a Jack Canfield trainer, this is something that we call being 100% responsible for your results.

And it's a formula. It's really simple. It's E plus R equals O. And what it means is the event plus our response equals our outcome. So when this thing happens, when this event takes place, and it has literally stopped us in our tracks, it has stopped us from even thinking about the possibilities. How are we going to combat that?

First we've gotta combat it in our minds, and that's when those words of positivity come in. When you begin to say things like, I am enough. I am worthy of my success. Things that are happening to me are happening because I deserve them. When we start to speak like that, then when those things occur, those negative voices that appear in our head, we can easily silence them. 

That is still a journey of a process, but once you start to see it work, And you start to go, wow I thought that was like this mountain. But then you come to the mindset of that was like a little pebble, based on everything else that people are going through.

This is really a pebble. And guess what? I got over the pebble and then guess what? I had another pebble that was just a little bigger, but I got over that. And then so on and so on, and you realize I can get through this. And so now you continue to speak these words of positivity, and you speak them more frequently to yourself.

So now you're ahead of it. So now you're not being reactive to the negative, but you're being proactive to the negative. And that's a reframing because that puts you in a different space. And so that's why speaking positivity is so important because it allows us to jump over those pebbles quicker, easier, and having learned something.

Because with every jump there's a growth aspect. . 

[00:07:31] Wendy: Absolutely. And as You were talking, I'm thinking I used to call myself a molehill into a mountain girl, because that's how I was raised that everything. We used a lot of hands in our family.

Everything was traumatic. And I like to call myself an drama queen. I really understand that, that idea. And I love what you said, the E plus R was that it? 

[00:07:52] Sheryl Mays: E plus R equals O. 

[00:07:54] Wendy: Equals O. And I think that's so important for us to understand because I think as an entrepreneur sometimes we'll take or as a person, that sometimes we take one little tiny thing in the day and we go, I had a bad day and some result didn't turn out the way we thought it was, and we will sometimes allow it to define our whole day, which was just really a moment of time of that day. So I like that. So let me ask you your perspective of this is that,

when you're a positive person, people who are not positive, people don't always like that. I'm just saying , they're just like, oh my gosh, get away from me. Now, I think that life happens to all of us, but I think that there's this idea that if you're positive, nothing affects you at all.

And people who are not so positive don't appreciate that. At least that's been my experience, so how do you balance yourself out? Because I don't think positive people don't feel anything. I don't think that's true. I just think that we different way of looking at things once you've learned the process,

but I know that there's a lot of people out there who get turned off by that strangely. 

[00:09:11] Sheryl Mays: It's interesting that you say that because it things happen to everyone. I don't care how positive you are, we can even say, you can be Ghandi. Things are going to happen.

It is going to rain on your parade, as they say, you're gonna forget. You're gonna forget your phone at home. Somebody might accidentally run into you and you've abided by all the traffic laws. Things are going to happen and just because you're a positive person doesn't mean that those things aren't going to happen.

Now, where the difference sets in is that positive person understands that things just happen. Things just happen. Now, some things we do create, so let's be real. Some things we do create because of our lack of participation in our own stuff. We seem to think it's gonna go away. If I don't look at it, then it's gonna go away, but it doesn't.

It just manifests. So there's that. But when you think about in general, things are just going to happen and we can sit there for hours and go, why did this happen to me? I must be cursed. Oh my gosh, I'm under this black cloud. The world is falling. Nobody is paying attention to me. Oh my gosh, I must have done something wrong

at some point in my life of 50 plus years , I must have done something so wrong that today is the day that I pay for it. But when we realize that, you know what, sometimes stuff just happens and John Lewis says this, and I haven't posted on my computer, and it says, we're asking ourselves the wrong questions.

Instead of saying, why did this happen to me, let us change that and go, why did this happen for me? And maybe you forgetting your phone at home was a reason for you to go. You know what? Maybe today I cut off from social media. Maybe today I do some self care. Unfortunately, as it is, maybe you having that little bumper stopped you from going and having a major accident at the next light. Why not look at it from that aspect instead of, oh my gosh, all of this stuff is happening to me.

Maybe it's happening for you. And so when you're optimistic and positive, you can see it in that regard. And it just allows you to keep moving. They used to have this thing where you would brush it off your shoulders and your viewers can't see what I'm doing.

So I am literally brushing it off of my shoulders. And sometimes you have to do that and you keep moving forward and it picks back up. And that one contract that didn't go through did not crush the world. That one response email that you were coming back, that didn't come back so favorable was not the end of the world.

But from that, you probably learned. I think one of the things that I know in my business is when I put together a proposal, and if you're in business, proposals take a lot of time. I don't care if you have a template, it's still conducive to that particular company.

And so they take a lot of investment. And so you're getting the data and you're putting all of this into the proposal and then you're pretty it up, cuz you want it to be your brand and you submit it and you get it back and they go, thank you very much. But we've decided to go in another direction.

That happens. It happens. But in the process, how I think about it is I just learned how to do a bomb proposal. Man, that thing was rocking. Even though they didn't accept it, I just know now I can do a proposal. And so that's the difference. 

[00:12:45] Wendy: And there is that idea of learning from that or making it into a tragedy. And it's so funny that you're talking about this because on occasion I'll turn on a YouTube and listen to a podcast. It seems the ones that I've been listening to lately has all been there is no failure,

there's just learning from what you did. And I love that because it releases all the voices we hear as far as like how we speak to ourselves, because then there's no shame and guilt in it. It's just something that is, as opposed to something that is attached to us as good or bad.

There's no good or bad. There's either you get it and that's fantastic or you learn from it. There's no real failure in that, which I think is amazing. So I'm curious though, for you, were you always a positive person or did you have one of those moments where you're like, well, this isn't gonna work for me, I gotta find something else?

I'm always curious about somebody's background of how they get into where they're at now. 

[00:13:45] Sheryl Mays: I've been one of those people that have always saw the tomorrows. It's like, oh, tomorrow is, this is gonna be a better day tomorrow. I've always been one of those people and I still have things that happen, things that go wrong, in my family or in my business that is unexpected.

Or things that I plan in the positive, and then they went in the total different direction. There are those moments when I just sit at my desk just like I'm sitting right here and I just throw my hand back and go, oh my gosh. For a moment, though. For a moment because we need that time.

When we try to escape our feelings, then we harbor onto these things that we haven't been able to release. . And as you're holding onto it and festering on it, then another thing happens and that compounds on it and another thing happens. And so you don't stop and feel the emotion, which means now you're devoid from having that feeling of what it feels like to have had a loss, to have had a miss.

So then when something happens, it is a mole hill. Because you haven't allowed yourself to feel those moments of disappointment and those things are good for us. We always talk about our mental health and yet we wait until it's Mental Health Month . We wait for somebody to tell us this month is mental health month.

Focus on your self-care, and then everybody wants to start meditating and doing all of these mantras. This is something that we need to do for ourselves. If it hurts, cry, if you need to go out in the backyard and scream, then go out in the backyard and do that. Let yourself do that. Give yourself some grace to say, this is an emotion.

This is not something that I need to escape. This is something that I need to release. And then you find that you've let it go. And so what do you have left? I got nothing but positivity left in my tank. 

[00:15:53] Wendy: So I love to ask this question because I always feel like people are on different parts of their journey.

So for you, what are those signals for a female entrepreneur is not standing in their truth, they're not affirming it. What is it to you that is a signal going, oh my, this is not where I wanna be, because I think there's subtle things that happen to us that we don't realize that we do

And somebody else who has a little more experience can go, that didn't sound like that's really where you were wanted to be. 

[00:16:30] Sheryl Mays: And I think you said it right there. It doesn't sound like that's where you want it to be when you're sharing with someone what it is that you do. If they don't see your passion in it, if you're not, talking about your business and you are like on Cloud nine, and they're like, okay, whoa, slow down , then you are not as passionate about it as you were when you started.

Why? Because it was hard. It's hard. They always say this, being an entrepreneur is not for the week at heart,

So you saw someone on television that went from, you know how we see all of these in Florence and they say, I got 40,000 followers in 72 hours. And you're like, oh my gosh, I'm looking at, I got a thousand and it's taken me a year to get there. You look at things like that and you start to compare yourself.

But you don't know their story. You don't know their story. And so, we have to allow ourselves to be able to, number one take the journey. You gotta take the journey. But to your question, the one would be the passion that's left you when you're talking about what it is that you do that started you on this journey. The second thing is to give up, is to give up so easily. We often hear, and you'll hear successful people say that sometimes you give up right before it's getting ready to happen.

You give up way too easily, and I think if you're ready to throw into towel and say, you know what, I can't take another devastating mode, or I can't take another one. Now, if it's not crushing the business financially, because then you need to, rethink, what is your business model and how is that gonna work?

But if it's just you in your head saying, I don't know if I can keep doing this. This is getting hard, then you're not looking at the resources that you have, because the minute you start asking for help and the minute you start bringing in help, then you find that you're in a better place because you don't have the drudgery of going, oh my gosh, I have to do now the things that I don't like to do, the things that are not in my lane of genius.

I gotta do those things because it's a part of the business, but they don't bring you the passion. And so you don't get to focus on the things that start you on your love journey. So for me, my love journey is I love training. I love training individuals. I love coaching people. I love people thinking that they can't, and then they go, oh my gosh, you are not gonna believe what just happened to me.

because of the way they reframe the method of thinking. I love to see that. And so whenever I talk to my clients, I am just like this. Whenever I'm training, I am just like this because this is what brings me passion and joy is to be able to share this with your listeners. And you know when you stop feeling that, when you're just showing up, but you're not showing out, there's a difference.

And if you're just showing up and checking your name off the box and checking tasks off. then you need to recheck if you're really vested in this, because again, this is not for the week at heart. And Wendy, it brings me to this picture that I put in one of my books where it talks about, it's an iceberg and you see the ocean and it's a common picture, and at the top it says success.

But what people don't see is what's below sea level. And that's where the doubt, the fear, the sleepless nights, the anxiety, all of those things that come into play. So, we can look at the Mark Cubans and the Grant Cardones, and we can look at all of these people and go, oh my gosh, they're flying around in these private jets.

I guarantee you, and I can wholeheartedly say this, I guarantee you there were nights where they were curled up in the ball going, what the heck is going on? Right nights where they were in just filled with anxiety and fear and doubt. But again, that positivity that says, I'm the person for this. Okay. I had my moment

Cause we need to have the moment. I had my moment and I cried and I sweated and I'm going to take a shower and I'm coming back. I'm pouring some coffee and it's game on. 

[00:20:46] Wendy: And so I had a client at one point in time and they franchised.

And I would work with the franchise owners. And what you were just talking about. I'll never forget the day that I got this call from one of the franchise owners going, I am done and to this point, I think people watch the, you're gonna get six figures and six days type of thing.

And they go, I'm gonna be in business. And granted I'm very much into manifestation and money and I love it. It's not a negative by any means to me, but I think some people watch that. And they don't see any of the backstory. How were an overnight six figure company. And so I'll never forget cuz this person so defeated because they went in going, this is the brand, so this brand's going to, make me a lot of money thinking that there was gonna be no work. Like no work. And when it was work, they couldn't handle it.

They Wanted to go back to a nine to five job. And I think that's the difference is like part of affirming your truth is knowing why you're doing it. And that's what you were just talking about. Because if you are not passionate about what you do for a living, it doesn't matter. Even if you had all the money, it's not gonna matter because 

you have to like what you do. 

[00:22:08] Sheryl Mays: Exactly. And how many people do we know that you ask them, how do you feel about your job? And they go, it pays the bills. 

[00:22:14] Wendy: But that was a perfect example right there cuz , this person called up so defeated. But I also think that part of that is that truthful thing.

Why am I getting into this? Do I think it's a quick fix? And usually those things, Because again, you don't see the backstory of the 10 year overnight success. 

[00:22:35] Sheryl Mays: Yeah, exactly. 

[00:22:36] Wendy: So I really do agree that part of that kind of mindset, is this disappointment back to what you were originally talking.

This disappointment, I can't get over that, so I'm just gonna let it go because it's not what we imagined in our heads because it's, it takes a little more than that to be able, especially to be a successful entrepreneur. Probably, some of the most creative people I've ever met are entrepreneurs.

But I also know that it takes a certain stick-to-ive-ness to be able to be successful in the long run. 

[00:23:16] Sheryl Mays: Exactly. And especially, for female entrepreneurs, because we already wear a million hats. And then there's that extra layer of guilt. There's always that extra layer of guilt of not giving more.

To your family. And then on the other side is not giving more to the career . And so there's that continuous internal battle that goes on. And so, for us it's the opportunity of knowing that, and there's a saying is you are where you are supposed to be at the time you're supposed to be there.

And so I always think about what's the next level? What's that next big thing that I wanna do? Because that's my bha, that's that big, hairy, audacious goal that you have no idea how it's gonna happen. You don't even know who to ask about making it happen, but you see it and it stays in that far view of yours, and that's what keeps you going.

And you know that if I stay on my track, If along the way I continue to grow, I continue to hold true to my, the thing that I love, to the thing that brings me passion. And along the way I pick up resources from others by investing in myself and as I'm investing in myself, I can then give back to the thing that keeps me going to the thing that makes me very passionate about, I can then pour back into my community.

I can pour back into my family, whatever the thing is that you love, and then you find that you are at a place where you have exactly what you want. Oftentimes, we're so busy chasing the sale that we forget that businesses are sustainable because of the relationships that they build. It's not because of the sales, because if you have no relationships, then your sales are gonna dwindle.

So, when I named the movement, affirm your truth. It was just that. It was to say, this is what I want. And often that's a question we never ask ourselves. What do you want? And that's where it starts. Because if you decide what you want, and then the reasoning is why?

What's your why? Because those are very powerful. Especially when we get to those devastating moments when you can look at that sheet of paper and go, oh yeah, that's right. This is why I'm doing this. Then it comes back to you and all that zest comes back. , then you have the opportunity to be able to do exactly what the mission is, and that's to be unapologetically bold about your success, to walk confidently beyond your fear and into what might seem impossible.

But it's not because you are enough and you are worthy of your success. And that's what the movement is really about because I speak to so many women that are, achieving great things and you don't know about it because they're like, well, I don't wanna boast, I don't wanna brag. I don't wanna make other people feel bad.

No, , this is what you share. Because it lets other people know that they can too. So it's reframing that mindset. And it goes back to our childhood. We're taught don't show how fortunate we are in front of your other friends that are less fortunate. Don't make them feel bad.

Don't brag about the fact that you got an A and you're the only one in the class that got an A. Don't brag about that, but that's the wrong message because we carry that into our adult lives and we're not bragging about our successes, and we should be, because that's what keeps us moving forward. 

[00:26:52] Wendy: And it shows other, especially for females, women, that it's possible.

I think that's incredibly important. Yeah. And part of the onus of doing this show is when we take care of ourselves, when we do these things, especially if you get into that whole conversation of legacy, that's the legacy is that I've put myself out there, I've become visible even to the ones who are uncomfortable because they may be introverts, but there's a way to do it so that leaves that legacy for others. That's an incredible legacy to leave. 

One of the things you said, and I always like asking my guests this when they talk about knowing what you want. when I started work first working with coaches, she would ask me, what do you want?

And I'd have no idea. Like it was such a novel idea. At that point of my life, for somebody to. ask What do you want then go for that. And I was like, what do you mean what do I want? I don't know what I want. So getting into their truth would require them understanding what they want when they're at that level of I know I don't want that, but I don't know what I want.

What's a good first step for them? 

And it's so interesting that's the way you put that question, because when you ask a person, what do you want? They go, well, I know what I don't want. And it's like, no, that's not what I asked you, because it's so quickly for us to point out the negative.

I know this is what I don't want. Well, if you know what you don't want, then what you want is possibly the opposite of what you don't want. So if you're listening to this and you're like, you know what, no one's ever asked me that question. I've never asked myself that question.

I have no idea. Take a sheet of paper, sit down in a place that's quiet where only thing you hear is the voices in your head and ask yourself, what do I like? What brings me joy? When I think about it, what makes me smile just by thinking about it, right? When I create that image in my mind, what is it that makes me feel warm inside?

When you start just by breaking it down and asking those types of questions, believe it or not, the brain is going to bring up memories. That's just the way it works. You ask it a question and it's going to find the answer for you. That's called a goal producing system, a gps.

So it's going to find the answer for you. So it's going to resurface experiences that you've had. It's gonna bring pictures to your mind. And you just start writing them down. Don't write sentences. Don't write when it happened. Don't write how it happened, who you were with. Just write it down. If it was, that day on the beach, when the sun set, just write it down and then look at your list and you'll start to see things jumping out at you because you'll see that they're so frequent.

Like, wow, I never really realized how much I love the beach. But every time you went there, you had such an incredible experience. There is these things that you'll see that will be so frequent that you'll start to go, okay, obviously I'm gonna put this at the top of my list, and now you start comprising a list from the list.

And so you might have 15 or 20 things that you've written down initially, and then that second list of what are the things that are so frequent, you might end up with five on the list. And then from those five, then you start to look again and go, well, am I more passionate about this than this?

And it's called the passion test. And it's literally comparing one thing over another. And we used to do it in school. Everybody knows how we used to do that. We would go, would you prefer this or this? And you would have to make a decision. And so you do that until you get to the one or two things that are left on your list, and then you'll look at them and go, wow, either yay or nay.

That's where I wanna put my focus on because that's the thing that brings me passion. And so there are, those are tools that we have. When you're not at a place where you can go, gosh, let me just sit here and go, what do I want? Oh, I wanna do this. And so you go through the process. But if you take it slow like that and do it in manageable steps, then you'll be able to really see how you came up.

With those two things that you are so passionate about, and maybe that's the element where you go, wow, either that's gonna become my new hobby, or that's gonna become on my goal list, or I'm just going to, take the plunge, take the leap of faith so you have a choice, because we have a choice in everything that we do.

We have a choice. That's a suggestion that I would give people. 

And I've never heard that. I've heard lots of different ones. That's fantastic. If you were there, because I rem I remember being at that spot, I was so shocked.

Somebody said, well, what do you want? I'm like, why are you asking me this? I was starting a business. That was a good question to start asking right then, but I really, I love that and I love how simple that exercise is so that you can get there because we have a tendency to overcomplicate everything if allowed. So I think that's a great exercise. I hate to wrap this up. This has been such an enjoyable conversation with you, but I'm going to have to wrap this up. I believe that you have a, Self discovery assessment for our listeners, if you can tell them, where to find you, where to find that, that would be fantastic.

[00:32:24] Sheryl Mays: Absolutely. This is a journey. This is truly a journey. It's a journey of life and whatever it is that you wanna do. And so I have a self awareness assessment that was created by a clinical psychologist. And if you remember when you were younger and we used to do those mad Libs where we would fill in the blanks and we would create these really interesting stories.

Well, I wanted something unique and different, and I wanted people to start to think and prompt them on what pieces of the brain to trigger. And so she created this mad lib that allows you to look at areas in your life where you wanna see change, and it's called a Discovery Madlib. And you can go to my website at risingandshine.com/affirm that's going to allow you to gain access to the affirm your truth movement.

 Portion of the website where you can see the ejournals.. There are ejournals there on affirmations. There's an online merchandise shop for affirming your truth. But, more so that is the initial letter. After that, there are three other letters that can follow but take that initial letter. Would love for you to do that, and we can connect afterwards.

If you go to the website, it tells you how to be able to do that. You can connect with me on Facebook, on LinkedIn. on all of the social media sites. I am available as Rise and Shine cf and the only one that's different is LinkedIn where it's Sheryl Mays. 

[00:33:50] Wendy: Thank you so much and I'll have all of her links in the show notes to make it easy for the listeners.

So just go back to the show notes. So thank you so much for coming on Sheryl. I enjoyed our time together today. 

[00:34:02] Sheryl Mays: Thank you, Wendy. I did too. So you have an amazing day and your listeners stay encouraged and understand that this is a journey, but you are a winner. So you got this. 

[00:34:14] Wendy: Thank you. And to my listeners, thank you.

Have a blessed week and come back next week for another fantastic show.