Trauma Limits Success | Anne Yatch

What’s shakin? Hey, it’s good to have you with me today, and today we’re going all in. I’m super excited. I know I say a lot of things but you have no idea about my level of excitement right now for who I have on today. Because this person is a dear friend to me just an awesome human being and somebody who can help you break through to whatever it is you need to and literally just throw into the fire any sort of traumas or anything that you’ve been going through so you don’t have to deal with that shit anymore holding you back. My guest today is an entrepreneur for the last 12 years a graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Georgetown master’s program get this an International Security and Counterterrorism she’s kind of a badass Annie Yatch and her team now focus their training on communication feedback systems and accountability processes to create the most sustainable fulfillment and success. Annie Yatch. Welcome. 

 

Thank you so much for having me here, Rick, I am so honored to be here. I absolutely love everything you’re doing. So thanks for having me. 

 

Thank you. This is like two years in the making, I think. 

 

I know it’s a little wild. 

 

It’s so cool, because I like this kind of interaction because I am actually so everybody knows I am actually a client of yours and, and SEAL team leaders in many different ways. So a lot of the things that we’re going to talk about today are just things that I’ve even experienced, personally that you’ve helped me through, and a lot of the self work and I thank you I mean in front of like 50 countries worldwide. Thank you for being who you are. You’ve been a big part of my life. It’s so open. 

 

It’s my complete honor anytime I can help somebody work through anything that’s limiting them. I’m all in.

 

So I have some very deep questions for you to start out with. All right. So I mentioned things like traumas, you know, and I want everybody to get to know you as a person too. As we go through the conversation today, you know the next 30 minutes or so, and trauma is something that I think everybody has experienced at some point in their life and you know, whether they realize it or not, but you specifically help entrepreneurs in this way, and is that different?  I’ve never asked you if this is a different type of approach than what you would with let’s say somebody who’s just like a W two employee or something like that, or kind of coasting through life. 

 

It actually is a really different approach, and that’s because we found about seven years ago that literally you can put the best systems into a team you can put the best training into a team you can develop leadership on a team. But if that team has a CEO or an executive that has trauma that is unresolved, that trauma is going to ripple down to all the members of the team and cause a lot of caps and frustration. It’s going to limit where that company can go revenue wise. So once we identify that we’re like, alright, well, this trauma piece is really the bigger piece and entrepreneurs are very different, right? We’re all wild horses. You cannot restrain the entrepreneurs. So the way you’d go about this for an entrepreneur would be very different from how you would go about this first day as a W two employee. 

 

That’s interesting. There’s one thing I’ve noticed over the past several years  or actually maybe became aware of myself is that the entrepreneur or the CEO in whatever organization ends up bearing the emotional load of the entire organization. I’m not talking even just the revenues, usually I’m talking to people in it too. It’s a crazy situation to me, but I love how you focus on revenue, because that’s a direct tie back to trauma, how do traumas limit revenue?

 

So what you typically experience with entrepreneurs is that they have some sort of a pattern that’s been existing throughout their lives that started back when they were very young. What happens when you’re very young in this like pre logical state, is you come up with a story that you think is real, and because you’re so young, and you don’t know you take the story and it becomes your tool. You use that tool. Over and over and over again, to create a similar environment so that you can survive that environment, and what’s interesting about that is most times we bracket ourselves based on that tool or that story that we learned and it will be bracketed just underneath where you need to be to truly explode your business. That’s because if you were to go to that penthouse, that incredible feeling of wow, if I could actually take this to say, multiple million dollars or a billion, you’d have to face some of that unresolved trauma because that unresolved trauma is going to hold you in that old story until you break free of it. So that’s why it’s directly linked to revenue, because the revenue that you’ve been able to create up until a certain point is restricted and run by the subconscious that has created that trauma. Once you break free of the trauma, the subconscious is no longer limiting you, your revenue has no ceiling. 

 

The way you’re describing this, which is beautiful, by the way, because it hits like all the feeling meters, you know, and it’s when you’re talking about limiting the revenue  and using this as a tool right to it’s kind of what the way you describe it as a tool. I’m gonna call it a stupid tool right now, because who wants to be limited in their revenue right as an entrepreneur who wants to be limited in their in their potential so you’ve got this tool that you keep using, but it’s a stupid tool. Could this be called self sabotage, in some ways? 

 

It could be self sabotage, it could be a victim mentality. It could be a fear of failure. So a lot of it goes back to self sabotage. You’re literally sabotaging your ability to drive revenue to new places, because of the trauma that you’re not aware of that is stuck in that subconscious part of your brain. 

 

Can you give me an example I mean, I know mine, right which which was like stupid, deep and ridiculous because it’s like a double edged sword. But can you give me an example of what well, I’ll just share what mine is if that’s okay, and I’d love to hear an example from you. Because I don’t know if everybody would relate to mine. In the work that I did with you, mine was a fear of death, but not of, you know, like death in business or anything like that, like a literal thing. Like there was something programmed into me from when my dad passed away when I was 16 years old that unless I produce accomplishments, I’m going to die. But then if I actually do produce accomplishments, I’m still going to die. 

 

So you had a pretty intricate, complex web. That would restrict your ability to ever go above a certain level of growth. 

 

Yeah, it was like this middle ground of suffering is where I was stuck. Even with how successful I was even a couple years ago. I mean, since then, and this is legit, right? Since then, no doubt since the work that I’ve done with Annie, revenue and ReachOut has doubled. We’ve gone public, and now we’re looking at a billion dollar valuation in a few years. So this is real stuff. I mean, you would think that fear of death is kind of like a cliche thing, you know, but for me, and I didn’t even realize it, which was still crazy to look back at. If I were to actually achieve, I felt I was literally just gonna write their fall on the floor and be done.

 

That’s not conscious. It’s all subconscious, right? But most of us can’t figure out what that restrictive thought or story or tool is. Because it’s caught in the 11 million data points of your subconscious. We can only harness maybe 40 data points at any one time in the conscious mind. So think about trying to sift through 11 million data points on your own to figure out what is this trauma. What is this story? What is this tool that I keep using over and over again, getting the same result that’s restricting my purpose, my greatness, my impact in the world? 

 

It’s pretty crazy. What’s another example that you could give? I mean, obviously, we’re not naming names or anything, but I mean, mine’s a little extreme. Maybe. I think it is. When I look at it I laugh now when I look at it. 

 

It’s really not because entrepreneurs have such a complex web in their minds anyway, of everything they’re creating all the time. Yours is actually one of the most complex ones, but there are a lot of complexities that we weave into the story because we have to make it true. So for example, we just did an intensive over the last weekend with a bunch of CEOs that flew out and one of the stories was that and this is so unique. He was put on a plane at age five by his mother to go live with his father in a different country. When a five year olds put on a plane, the five year old believes that they have died, that they are dead. So, at that moment, he was suspended all the time. So for him, he can only live in the present moment. He can’t live in the past or in the future, which as a business owner means he can’t plan for anything, he can’t, like, have a strategy that he’s fulfilling. So he would constantly be in the loop of the present moment trying to distract himself with things that are only in the present so that he could never plan anything. Now, amazingly enough, he created a multimillion dollar business, but he couldn’t get over a set level of revenue. He was stuck. So once he went through the process, he went home. He’s like, “Annie, I’m planning all the time. I’m actually able to move from the path I’m planning trips with my family to planning trips with my wife and strategy for the business is like we came up with a whole new business plan that’s going to bring in a couple of million dollars that I never would have done before because I never could plan.”

 

I’m chuckling because I mean, I relate to that story in a little ways, because if there’s one thing that stuck out, right, it’s like, ironically, this guy created a multimillion dollar business, and that was the same thing with me. How does that still happen? Because I mean, I’m thinking of your example of this other gentleman right to where I was even thinking as you’re saying like, he couldn’t even look at like, past performance could he give benchmarks? 

 

No, he couldn’t even look at the valuations of a company before he bought it. Because if you looked at that, that was planning. It was wild, and now it’s a whole different ball of wax. Everything he’s doing is completely different in a very good way. But it happens I think, because you get so stuck in the comfort of this story using this tool for security sake. So if you’re that stuck in it and you can’t see it, then it just feels like that’s the norm. If that’s always been how it is. It’s not like you’re going to randomly change it for yourself if you don’t do some work. 

 

How is it still achievable to some degree, you know, even though it’s a minimized degree that you can actually see some sort of success with having these limitations? 

 

Well, here’s the thing. So that story, whatever it was, gives you some level of fuel. So let me use another example of another client. So one gentleman is a high level fitness influencer, and he had a story his whole life that he’s just supposed to be mediocre. So he would always get like last in an event. That actually drove him to put extra pressure on himself to get him out of that mediocre performance into something higher. So his whole life he used the drive or the fuel of ‘I don’t want to be mediocre’ to completely expand his business, but then he got stuck at a certain level because fuel like that, to not be mediocre. only gets you so far. There’s got to be a higher level of emotional resonance or connection that you have to something that’s greater than that old fuel to break through that trauma story. 

 

So for him, he did a lot of work so that I don’t have to be mediocre anymore. I’m already living in greatness. There’s a lot more than went into it right because it’s a very complex process. But now I think right after we completed the process, he went out and he brought in a $1.3 million weekend in two days and I guess there’s something about this that works and like that is very accurate. So it just blows your mind, the more you see, and the beautiful thing about trauma. I wish more people understood this and if people take nothing else away from this call but this; If you do the work on your trauma, you actually are able to identify your greater calling in life, because that calling is directly linked to the trauma story and the trauma lesson that you learned.So there’s no reason from my perspective not to delve into the trauma and not to do some of that work. Because not only will you get the ROI of new revenue, growth, personal growth, but you’re going to be able to let go of some of those old stories that completely limited you and it will impact your family, your friends, your network, your business. 

 

That’s wild to me. Yeah, I was with Ed Mylett a couple of months ago and he was talking about how he gauges it as like a thermostat and the self sabotage of what you’re talking about here you know, and how people get stuck. It’s like the thermostat has a high and a low setting as he describes and it’s like if you get too hot meaning like you’re, you’re going too strong and you’re actually achieving too much success. You will actually dial it down like turn on the air conditioning.

 

It’s true.

 

Yeah, for sure. Because otherwise, I mean for me anyways, it’s like well, I’m gonna die if I don’t turn on the AC, I’m gonna collapse so that I could see some of these other stories that you’re talking about. It still perplexes me and I understand what you’re saying how there’s fuel for that and it can get you only so far. What are the emotions behind that fuel? Is it just disdain for yourself, you know, trying to please other people, because you do get so far as you’re explaining, but then that’s only as far as you get?

 

Well, it’s because it’s usually based on a negative perception, right? So you can only get so far with a negative perception of yourself. So it could be anything from I’m not lovable, to I have to prove myself to fit in. That’s another one that was really big. Gosh, there’s so many different complex stories, but a lot of it is that fuel comes from a negative place rather than having your fuel be something positive, that’s a higher vibration, higher resonance. So that’s why people get so far you can get extremely far based on the negative fuel. But if you want to go to the next level of everything in your life, it has to come from a positive space that has a positive perception of who you are and something that’s very congruent in alignment with every aspect of who you are as well. 

 

I love it. I love it. You’ve talked a little bit about the ways that your subconscious brain will mess with you, you know, it’ll just stick with you from here until eternity. Where’s that tipping point? You know, I call it how it is right? It’s just gonna stick with you all day long. But where’s that tipping point? Because I’m assuming which, I think by the way, if you’re listening to this, and you’re an entrepreneur, and you know, even if you don’t realize it yet, Annie is somebody that can help you. I’m speaking from personal experience on this, but I’m sure that you talk with people and they’re like, You know what, I don’t know if it’s really for me right? Why in the world or what’s your perception of the reason behind that saying, “Okay, I want to remove this limitation.”

 

Well, I think for some people and what I’ve heard, and we haven’t had, you know, thankfully, people who come to us are really ready to do the work but I think when we had one or two people ever that weren’t ready, and really what that means is that they have so much comfort in the old negative story because they’ve built so many processes around trying to manage it, that they feel like they would lose control if they stepped into something that isn’t right. So you have to fight against ‘okay, I don’t know what this outcome might be. But I know this one thing,’ and some people you know, it might be a courage issue. It might be a fear issue. It might be that they don’t have the support they need or they don’t have the tools they need. But from what I’ve seen, a lot of it goes back to the comfort they have of living in that old story. They’ve already managed it. They already know what it looks like to a certain degree. They just don’t know how to get themselves out of it.

 

And they’ve got their stupid toolbox that they love.

 

For what I’ve seen most people that get stuck like that. There’s a difference between letting their ego go and asking for help and allowing trust to exist between two people, and when people have a major mess of trust issues linked to their trauma, sometimes they just can’t cross that threshold.

 

I don’t know if I’ve ever asked you this question. I’ve known you for so long now. I mean your background is in military intelligence, right? How in the world did you even get into this realm of conscious and subconscious? You know, I’m assuming you may have even done well, I know you have done work on yourself to share. 

 

Yeah, I’ll give you a little bit of the background. I mean, it’s not like I, you know, went to school for this and thought, Oh, this is what I’m going to be doing for the rest of my life. Actually. My trauma is that I went through an experience with my current now former spouse, but during that time that I was with him, he was a former Navy SEAL and he had a lot of Trauma. Of course, in those days like 10 years ago, I was like, ‘Oh, this is all his trauma. It’s not my trauma at all.’ What you started to realize is that the traumas when you’re in a relationship really sync up. So what happened for me is yes, I went to school for counterterrorism and intelligence. I love that world and I loved observing people, but it wasn’t until I was in a romantic partnership with someone who had so much trauma that we just couldn’t move forward in the way we wanted to. The business was stuck at one level and revenue. We knew we couldn’t move it past that level because of the trauma. He and I were stuck at a certain level in our relationship because of the trauma that he had experienced and I wasn’t aware of. So for about 15 years, I went with him to every single trauma related therapy I could find to try to figure out a way to bring him back to who he was because the person I had met originally was so different from the person that I was in relationship with.  I was like there’s a problem you gotta solve. There’s something off that I don’t understand. 

 

So after going through all those things for 15 years, I he and I both started looking at how can we do this faster and better and more effectively, because you can go to therapy and talk to people for you know, 20 years, and then you can do a one hour session and something that therapist never told you and 20 years is revealed. You’re like, ‘Oh my God, why didn’t I do this 20 years ago.’ So for me, it was all about how do we create a way to move through trauma that feels more like freedom than something that is sitting in the same story and sitting in that misery. So that was really how this came to be. 

 

That’s amazing. 15 years. That’s it, you would think that you know, you could go to school for something like this right? Then overnight, you become like, well, well, people do right. We’ll just call that what people do overnight to become counselors or therapists and I’ve seen a lot of that. I’ve got varying opinions depending on the actual person, and I think a lot of it has to do with motivations going into it. But what you said there was, it was just nothing short of beautiful and that you wanted people to move through their trauma, as if it was just becoming free or heavy or going after freedom. You know, in a way that’s a release rather than a way that’s like, I don’t know, I’ve seen therapists who were there. They’ll beat certain things into you. You know, and it’s not a fun process.

 

Nobody wants to go through that. I mean, if you think about it, why would I want to sit in the trauma over and over and over again and build that story deeper into my subconscious? I wouldn’t. That’s the complete opposite of what we want to do. So we had to create a process whereby you’re not sitting in that trauma. You’re literally just asking questions or responding to questions so that we can look at the process, the system, the story and watch how it evolves. That doesn’t require you to go back and give somebody every detail of their trauma or to live through it again, which is the goal. How do we make this happen as a safe, beautiful container, where you achieve freedom quickly. 

 

I don’t think that the phrase ‘you’re just gonna have to learn how to deal with it’ is in your vocabulary.

 

Absolutely not. I mean, you never know how much time it might take somebody but if they’re willing to put in the effort in the work, and they’re willing to identify some of the patterns, everybody can be helped. 

 

That’s so cool. What’s next for you? You know, I mean, what I’ve been through your intensive process. I know you’re developing new systems and things all the time for this coaching is your obvious very big thing which by the way, everybody in life needs a coach or multiple coaches for that matter, depending on what different areas there are.  So what’s the next big thing for what you see where you can take your clients? 

 

Well, I think the thing that I’ve been really excited about is that from what I’ve seen, at least out there, there hasn’t been a program yet for executive women. So women who are running businesses, women who are entrepreneurs, that really focuses on a holistic approach to how you build your business. Balance your life, how do you heal your trauma and how do you make sure you’re in the best shape of your life. So that combination of what I think every single woman, if I could have had a mentor that allowed me to optimize my life across all those levels, I feel like I would have felt so nurtured and so loved and so cared for, and that’s really the next thing that I’m working on. Building a community for women who want to work on all four things together and be mentored by this elder community of extremely intelligent brilliant women so that we don’t lose some of the lessons that are essential to living life the best way possible.

 

I love that I mean in my field, right, in tech, that I’ve always said I’m an advocate for females and in whatever roles whether it’s in you know, frontline roles or even leadership and executive roles, and I think they exemplify that by people that I put into place. Vendors I hire, and I even chose you as a female coach to work with me. One of the best decisions of my life by the way, absolutely phenomenal. Where do you see this going? Traumas in themselves. Do you think that’s one of the factors and why there’s not as many women in executive and leadership roles?

 

Well, I wouldn’t say that’s necessarily trauma. I think that there are a variety of factors that play into it. You know, I think that for most of us, we’ve spent so much of our life sacrificing ourselves to help other people that I think sometimes we get into cycles that don’t allow us to step into some of that power or that greatness at the executive level who might want to experience I think, to be honest, you know, if if women have children, they’re very tired. It’s an exhausting process. To be honest, in corporate America, there aren’t that many coaching programs, right? Yeah. I mean, I think it’s growing and it’s building. But I think that women really need to feel cared for and nurtured in the process. Sometimes it can feel very clinical. So I think that’s also where a woman isn’t sure she’s going to have that nurturing and so she’s like, Well, how would I go to a therapist or why would I work on this if not sure if it’s gonna make anything better, but I think we can do it differently. 

 

No doubt you can. My brain was going to you know, the traditional roles and sort of like pleasing the people that are around you because of what society has impressed upon. You know, as far as what the traditional roles of the traditional definitions are, what a man and a woman in a relationship have to be and what are the parts they have to play at home. You mentioned having kids, you know, in my opinion, I think it’s all bullshit. For the most part that either can do what fulfills both of them and then there’s no limitations whatsoever. 

 

I think that after you have kids, you sort of lose yourself a little bit as a woman, and it’s that process of when do I get to put time, energy and effort into reclaiming who I am? Most women aren’t able to do that effectively without support.

 

That’s interesting. What’s the best place for that support to get? How do you work through that because I can from an outsider’s perspective, perspective, I could see that happening. You know, where women go through a phase in their life to where they are the moms and moms or moms. That’s a true statement, right?

 

Moms are moms, but I think that as women when you’re a mom, you sometimes forget the dimensionality of who you are. Right? There’s the you when you were single, there’s the you when you have children there’s the lover, there’s the you know, executive there all these different aspects of woman, it’s really hard after having children when you’re already exhausted to figure out who am I again, and how am I stepping into those roles in a way that really serves me and supports me? It’s hard to do alone. That’s what I’ve experienced and what other moms are telling me.

 

Awesome Annie, you are amazing. Everyone go find Annie. Best place will be LinkedIn, look her up. Annie Yatch. You can find these links in the show notes too, and you’re just amazing. Blew my mind. I love what you’re going to be doing for women now in the next phase. That you’re moving into to help that demographic. Thanks for spending time with me.

 

Oh, anytime. You know, you’re one of my favorite people ever. I just think everything you’re doing for women in the IT space is phenomenal, and I love the group that you’ve brought together and supported everything you’re creating. So thank you for bringing such great impact into the world. 

 

You want to break free of whatever and go all in contact with Annie.

 

Have a nice day.