Healing, Growth, Happiness And Love With Stephenie Zamora

Nick McGowan (00:01.019)
Hello and welcome to the mindset and self mastery show. I’m your host Nick McGowan. And today on the show, I have a very special guest. Now I do like to think that all of my guests are special, but I don’t love all of my guests the way that I love this one. So I want to introduce Stephanie Zamora. Steph, how are you?

Stephenie Zamora (00:21.418)
great thank you for having me finally a year later.

Nick McGowan (00:23.543)
Yeah, it’s about damn time. So while we record this episode, we are in two separate houses because we live together and we’re in a smaller place. Um, and when this episode comes out, maybe right now, as you listen to it, it’s been a year since we first met.

Stephenie Zamora (00:42.51)
For one year, no aversary.

Nick McGowan (00:44.203)
No aversary. Yeah, it wasn’t too long after that. Maybe just a few weeks that we actually started dating and being together from what? 2,500 miles away from each other? Steph, all right, like every other episode, why don’t you kick us off? Tell us what you do for a living and what’s one thing that most people don’t know about you that’s maybe a little odd or bizarre?

Stephenie Zamora (01:09.678)
Well, I do a lot of things and now I do those things with you, which is very exciting. And I’m sure we’ll touch on that a little bit, but I always say that purpose is my purpose and purpose has been my purpose for as long as I can remember. It was very existential as a child and my whole life and work has organized around that figuring out why are we here? What’s the point of this life and how do we make it meaningful for us? And that has looked like coaching and programs and books and speaking and podcasts.

as well as design development, helping purpose-driven businesses get their message out into the world.

Nick McGowan (01:46.575)
All right, now what’s that one thing that most people don’t know about you that’s odd or bizarre?

Stephenie Zamora (01:51.326)
I would make an excellent getaway driver. I missed my calling. Yeah, that or a stunt driver. If I could go back, I would do that.

Nick McGowan (01:53.723)
Damn, she’s right. So we have a Toyota 4Runner that she drives like it’s a tiny little Porsche. And there are certain times where we’ll be bobbing and weaving and she’s just calm, cool and collected and just moving about, moving around. And I’m like, how the fuck did you get through that?

Stephenie Zamora (02:15.746)
You have to know the line of your car, the line that it will take turns tightly and not topple over.

Nick McGowan (02:22.487)
Yeah, yeah, I still haven’t reached that limit yet. There have been a few times, I don’t know if you felt it while we were driving where I’m like, oh shit, fuck, we’re about to go. So

Stephenie Zamora (02:26.798)
Thanks for watching!

Stephenie Zamora (02:30.998)
Here we go, we’re gonna roll.

Nick McGowan (02:35.599)
When Steph and I first met, we were connected by her assistant at the time, uh, who’s reaching out to people for podcast interviews. And I was not doing any sort of guests, um, initial calls, like intro calls. Some, some people will do it where it’s 30 minutes long, 60 minutes long, something like that. Stephanie and I have both done, done those at different times. Um, but I’d gotten to a point where I wasn’t doing them. Uh, not to sound big headed about it, but our process was pretty great.

Stephenie Zamora (03:03.301)
It’s too important for the little people.

Nick McGowan (03:04.983)
I was just thinking about how many fucking meetings you have throughout the day. And you’re like, I don’t want a meeting anymore. Uh, this could just be an email, but her email came through and suggested that we can have a call. Now I know it was just a template and I wasn’t special. Uh, my, the four in me tells me I am special, but, um, we, uh, we had a call because I, I saw her, I mean, look at this, look at this. So we had a conversation and I think we talked about the podcast for.

Maybe three minutes? Yeah, if that after my first few minutes of just being a dumb fucking moron Um, I instantly fell in love with Stephanie. I am not afraid to say that at all. I uh, for those of you who know me and for those of you who listen to the episodes often You know that I can just keep talking and talking and talking when we first met. I was just like

Stephenie Zamora (03:34.262)
Maybe a minute or two, yeah.

Nick McGowan (03:59.423)
I even threw up a quick prayer that was like, God, what is this creature in front of me? Um, and we had, I don’t know, a half hour scheduled and we were on the phone for about two hours, something like that. It took me, it took me a few minutes. It felt like 15 minutes, but it was probably only like two or three. And I remember at one point it had to be like, all right, game face on, have a conversation. Um,

Stephenie Zamora (04:09.582)
Two hours. Yep, you finally learned to use your words again and…

Nick McGowan (04:26.679)
We had such an incredible conversation that I think was kind of destined to happen. And now here we are. We are the love of each other’s lives and we have our business together.

We are doing incredible things. Um, hopefully by the time this episode comes out, we’ll be able to talk more about the business that we have and that we’ve created together, but if not, in the beginning of the year, there’s a lot that’s going to be happening with our company, Choose Your Calling. And I want to be able to talk about the stuff that has gotten you to the point to where you’re at Steph, because you and I both were on this kind of similar path in certain ways where we were barreling toward each other without really knowing

trauma and a lot of craziness. Now I know about your story because I love you and I’m insatiable be curious and ask loads and loads and loads of questions but look we’ve only been together for about a year at this point. I know there’s a lot more for me to learn and there’s a lot that most people don’t know about you. She has written a memoir and there’s a lot that’s in there. She doesn’t really name names of the people. I know some of those names and we’re of course not going to bring that up on the on the show but

Why don’t you talk to us a bit about the journey that you’ve started, um, as early on as you can and kind of cultivate it to where, where you’re at today.

Stephenie Zamora (05:47.914)
Yeah, definitely. So I, you know, I, like I said, purpose was my purpose. I was always trying to figure out who am I here to be and what is the work that I’m here to do. And I don’t believe that work is just the way that we make money. It’s our contribution. So I was always trying to figure out what is it that I’m really supposed to be doing? And I have a background in graphic design. That’s what I went to school for. I worked at different agencies. I started a design business with an ex-boyfriend that was also a designer back in like 2008 in the recession.

And that felt good. Like I knew I was entrepreneurial, but I also had this sense that I wasn’t here to be just another designer, which is no shade to those who are. It’s not my calling. And I started realizing around that time, around 2009, 2010, that I think it’s a tool for me to do bigger work in the world. And I didn’t know what that was, but around the same time I was working in an office.

a home office in a garage with no windows, which I hated. Then I was basically doing data entry and reception work to help pay our bills while we got our business off the ground. And it was one of those moments where a book jumps off the shelf and hits you over the head. And it was Jack Canfield’s Success Principles. And the first chapter of that is all about taking 100% responsibility for your life. And I felt like I was pretty good at that. I would never blame traffic if I was late. I would always be like, oh, I guess I should.

probably should have left earlier, probably should have checked the traffic report. But that helped me do it on an even deeper level of everything that happens. What did I do to allow that to happen? And the things that are out of our control, I wanna be very clear about, I would also ask, what do I do now? Because it’s not that we manifest everything horrible that happens to us from abuse to natural disasters to whatever else, but we are responsible for what we choose to do after that. So I…

Nick McGowan (07:16.87)
Hahaha

Stephenie Zamora (07:44.786)
I took that to heart a lot more. And the second chapter of that book was figure out why you’re here, which spoke to me being existential and angsty and trying to figure out what’s the point of all of this. And so I started my own blog. I had been blogging for years, but I started blogging under my name for the first time and just writing about how I saw the world, what I felt, what I thought, the questions that I was always asking myself, and that slowly evolved into its own thing.

I discovered the online business world, the online marketing world. I got, I won a ticket actually to an event in New York with a big name, woman, entrepreneurial coach, ended up joining her mastermind, did that for a year and all of that throughout all of that, I was really wrestling with, do I apply what I’m learning to this design business or do I focus on the thing that’s really calling me, which is to write about what I cared about, to write about purpose, to write about the quarter life crisis, which I felt like I was going through at the time.

And, and so I ended up just moving in my own direction. I grew my business to be for people trying to find their passions and split the business first with my ex. And then we broke up, which thank goodness, cause now I get to be with you. Even though that was a long time ago. Um, and that path.

Like I started working with more solopreneur, so I was still doing design and development and helping people like that. It was writing a lot about finding your passion and purpose. I launched my first program that was all about like finding your joy and your passions and aligning your life with it. And all of the people that I worked with became very entrepreneurial. So I very organically started teaching them everything I knew about building two businesses that were successful and design and branding and all of that. And by 2014, I had.

I had grown my life and my business to a really amazing place. Like I was the happiest I had ever been, the healthiest I had ever been. My business was thriving. I had an incredible team that did all the work for me. I had money like months in advance. Like it was just, life was good, except the relationship that I was in at that time. And when I ended that two year relationship, he started stalking me a little bit. And when I told him he needed to leave me alone, he ended up committing suicide. And that, as you know, knowing me and my story. Just.

Stephenie Zamora (10:07.09)
absolutely flattened me. The PTSD was so bad that I would drive in circles around my house because in the time that it took to lap the block again, I would forget that I was going home, I didn’t know who half my clients were, I couldn’t put my life story in order. Like it was, it was really bad. And that PTSD led me into an abusive relationship with a drug addict, which of course just messed me up even more. Led to a slew of health issues, anxiety, panic attacks, dysphasia, I

Business died a slow death. I filed bankruptcy like my entire life came undone. And I learned more than I ever wanted to know about what it takes to heal and find wholeness in the aftermath of challenging chapters and big life transitions and trauma and grief. But I did the work and I rebuilt my life and I rebuilt my business. And I continued doing that work for several years through different relationships and other traumas and things like that. And last year, 2022,

I really dug in and got clear about what do I want my life to look like? What’s the right life for me? I had spent so much of my life aligning with the people that I was with and decided that I wanted to buy a camper. I wanted to go home to New Mexico. I wanted to move towards owning land. I wanted to focus more on the work that I’m here to do. And in doing that, I feel like the work that I did last year, very intentionally, which is very similar to what you were doing is what led us to finally meeting.

Nick McGowan (11:07.367)
Hmm.

Stephenie Zamora (11:34.218)
And me being in the right place to be ready for a relationship like this and a partner like you, and even being in the right place to see a new evolution for the work that fits so perfectly with merging our businesses, bringing other people in and just, I don’t know, building a life that I never thought I could have. I never thought I could have a partnership like we have. And granted it’s had its own struggles cause I’ve had health issues this year, but yeah, that’s the.

That’s the timeline.

Nick McGowan (12:06.132)
Well, obviously there’s a ton to that.

Nick McGowan (12:11.631)
There’s a big thing to talk about that’s kind of through, it’s woven throughout all of it, of doing that tough work and the hard work and actually doing the fucking work. I’ve told you there have been different times where I remember being in my old marriage and being like, well, we need to talk about these things. No, right now everything’s okay. So just sit here and watch TV or whatever and not doing any of the work and then being able to actually

to get to a point where I can get a divorce and then actually doing the work after that. I told you before we hit record on this that literally last night I thought podcasting changed my life. And one hand, that is a cheese ball fucking sentence.

Because that’s like, so not cliche because it doesn’t happen to everybody, but there’s a Testament for us to be able to walk through and keep doing the work that can lead to other opportunities that will lead to other opportunities that we don’t know about yet. So when you think back to 2013, 14, when you were

really rocking and rolling and then you got flatlined. What sort of wisdom do you look at that you feel daily, if not weekly, that you’re like, thank God in some ways, I kind of went through that so that I could learn to be where I’m at now.

Stephenie Zamora (13:33.494)
That series of experiences really taught me over and over again, because I definitely did not learn the lesson the first time, to trust myself above all else. And you and I have talked about this in regards to our relationship and relationships. Like, this is the first relationship I’ve been in where there’s been zero no at any point. Whereas in every other relationship, I would get that no within the first week to month. I would know exactly why it was going to end, and I would try to prove myself wrong, and…

Nick McGowan (13:45.051)
Hmm.

Stephenie Zamora (14:03.586)
and pinned it on myself. I was trying to manifest it into being. And outside of even the relationships, I gave a lot of my power away when I was trying to heal from all the trauma. So I had really incredible people around me during that season, really brilliant people, people who had achieved so much, learned so much, helped tens of thousands of other people, like really incredible, smart, intelligent, experienced people.

Nick McGowan (14:15.053)
Hmm.

Stephenie Zamora (14:33.122)
who constantly got it wrong with me. When I would come to them and I would try to tell them what was going on in the abusive relationship or I would try to talk to them about what I felt I needed to do with my business, they would coach me or advise me or be my friend from a lens that had decided who I was and what was best for me, based on their perception, interpretations, their story about me, what they had decided about me. And most of them meant well. Like truly, they loved me, they cared about me, they meant well.

Nick McGowan (15:00.499)
Hmm.

Stephenie Zamora (15:03.406)
and they would get it so wrong. So unbelievably, terrifyingly wrong at times. And it took me about four or five years after my loss to really start trusting myself again. Like to really be able to see, I’ve given my power away to these people because I think that they’re smarter than me. And part of that was that my self-worth was so low.

Nick McGowan (15:28.312)
Hmm.

Stephenie Zamora (15:30.942)
after the suicide loss, which I blame myself for, of course, after the abusive relationship, which made me feel like garbage after everything that had happened. Like I didn’t feel worthy of anything good. I didn’t feel like I could trust myself. And here are all these smart, brilliant people who love me to death and seem to know things about me that I couldn’t see myself. And so I would, I couldn’t make decisions for myself. And I finally, in 2018, I decided to move to the mountains in a big-

part of that was I wanted to get away from everything and everyone. Everyone told me I was running away and it certainly looked like that, but I did it very intentionally to step outside of relationships, to go be by myself and to be isolated so that I could hear myself again. Because, and this is true for so many people and true for you as well, especially when you feel like a special, unique unicorn, Enneagram four, like what’s right for me is generally different than

what most people do or what’s right for most people. And I had lost that. And I had that up until the death. Like my life was really in alignment because I was trusting myself and listening to myself and doing things in the way that felt right for me and my energetics and my personality. And then I just gave it all away. And so the biggest lesson that I learned time and time again was to just trust myself first and foremost. And part of that is trusting my intuition, which you’ve experienced is incredibly accurate.

Nick McGowan (16:58.251)
100%.

Stephenie Zamora (16:59.23)
obnoxiously so, and learning to trust myself and my intuition from a place of, I know myself and I know what’s best for me and I know my gifts and my skills. And I have the ability to discern between when is it an old trigger versus when is it something that’s happening now? And I’m not always perfect in that, but I have built a stronger relationship with myself and my intuition.

because a lot of what happened during that time was me, was me not listening to what my intuition was screaming at me to the point that my throat closed up.

Nick McGowan (17:40.715)
And there’s more that we can get into with that too. I think one of the big things that you and I’ve talked a lot, a whole lot, a whole lot, and being in this space right now and doing the recording and being in my seat as the host, it’s interesting because I love you and I’m your partner and we have that dynamic, but then also being the host and guest sort of dynamic that I’m so used to with the hundred plus episodes at this point. Um,

It’s really interesting to me to see the different patterns that come up throughout different, uh, guests that I have and to have somebody like you that I not only live with and do life with, and we have a business together, but that I can also see those similar patterns and certain things that are outside of that. And the most interesting thing to me is really that we as people tend to lose ourselves within ourselves without being able to actually

con converse with ourselves and have communion with ourselves to be able to understand that There are other people that love you and they want to help and all that There are also people that don’t love you and they’re fucking terrible and they don’t want to help But being able to actually listen to yourself. So I want to spend a little bit of time with that and Full honesty, we need to cut this episode relatively short because you and I could talk for hours and hours and hours So we need to limit it Plus there’s gonna be more time that you’re gonna be on the show I’m gonna be on yours and

We may have our own shows coming out dropping little bombs here. She’s probably gonna punch me in the mouth later folks, but So talk about No, she’s not she’s absolutely not she’s lovely and she doesn’t abuse me at all and I appreciate her for that Talk a little bit about the experience of

Stephenie Zamora (19:13.492)
No.

Stephenie Zamora (19:17.126)
You and your domestic violence jokes.

Nick McGowan (19:31.263)
how we as people and what you do even with coaching clients to be able to help them, to be able to listen to themselves and be anchored in themselves enough to be able to trust themselves and move along from there.

Stephenie Zamora (19:45.634)
The most important thing is to build that relationship to yourself. And it sounds so simple, but it’s not because we have so much conditioning. And it’s always the first piece of work. And one of our programs in the company is Actualize and the whole first module is about alignment and we’re always in alignment. The question is with what am I aligned with? What feels right and true for me, who I am, who I’m here to be the way that I’m wired.

Nick McGowan (19:51.329)
No.

Stephenie Zamora (20:14.238)
living the life that’s right for me or am I aligned with what everybody else wants for me, what everyone else expects for me? Am I aligning with ways of being that I think keep me safe from the trauma and abuse I’ve experienced? Am I in my winning strategy, which we talk about a lot and that’s such a core part of every conversation I have with people is if you don’t understand your subconscious winning strategy, you have no idea how to live in alignment and how out of alignment you are.

Stephenie Zamora (20:43.454)
And our winning strategy, which I know you’ve talked about before, is basically, how do I stay as safe, secure, and successful as possible and achieve a certain level of love and belonging? That’s what our subconscious is after. And so I had no idea until I learned about the winning strategy, that everything that I did was for that to stay safe. And was me trying to be what was wanted and needed in every situation. I was not a factor in that. I would amplify.

parts of myself so that people would choose me, would want me, would love me, I would be irreplaceable, I would be the best damn version of whatever it is you wanted or needed. And it took a long time to untangle from that because it’s so inherent to our worldview and how we move through life. So the first, you have to know yourself, you have to know your personality, you have to know your unique energetic wiring. We use human design for that and the Enneagram for personality.

Stephenie Zamora (21:39.662)
And understanding your subconscious winning strategy, which means understanding your core wounding, which means understanding your traumas and the different things that you’ve been through and how they’ve shaped you. Because we’re out there thinking that we’re making all these conscious choices, but we’re being run by our subconscious. And all of that is rooted in this deep, dark stuff that we don’t want to look at. And that’s where the deeper work comes into play and doing it on a cellular level, on a neurological level.

repatterning the subconscious, rewiring the brain, getting all of the stored stuff out of ourselves so that we can move and be differently. And when we do that deeper healing work, which we try so hard to avoid, then we have the space to figure out, well, who am I actually? What do I actually like? Why have I been over here trying to behave that way when I’m wired to be over here doing this?

Nick McGowan (22:22.081)
Mm-hmm.

Stephenie Zamora (22:29.106)
Why am I building a life that looks like that when really I want to be way over there? And we’ll start to see the conditioning and the beliefs and the expectations. And until we do that, you’re just, you’re, you’re paddling upstream in a raging river because you’re being pulled back by that deeper stuff. Like you can’t, you can’t know who you are if you haven’t unpacked what has shaped you into the winning strategy in the way of staying safe that you have now.

Nick McGowan (22:58.395)
There’s a weird kind of…

I don’t know, feeling or thought that I have and that I feel other people give me when I bring up the winning strategy. Cause it sounds like a, a powerful thing. Like, fuck yeah, that’s my winning strategy. That this is how I win. But then as you actually walk through it and work through it and understand about yourself and how it ties to you, it really opens up this giant core wound to show this is why your winning strategy has been that way. You and I have almost daily conversations.

I’m like, I can feel like my winning strategy is just trying to claw out. So let me, let me recoil a little bit. Let me figure this thing out. Let me talk to you in a minute about it and being able to work through that. Um, I’m glad that you brought up actualized and there’s a lot more programs that we have and more that are going to come out and there’s a lot more that we’re going to do, especially in 2024, uh, that’s going to be able to help people work through their traumas, the past experiences, figure out who they are and what they’re about and what they want to do and then what

changes, be it a podcast or a book or business, what have you. And Steph, I love you to pieces. I think you’re absolutely stunningly beautiful. And from the inside and out, and I appreciate everything that you, you are today because of everything you’ve gone through. And again, I think a big takeaway for this episode is that you’ve got to actually look at the things. You’ve got to do the work, but you got to look at it first. But along those lines, what sort of advice would you give to somebody on their path?

towards self mastery.

Stephenie Zamora (24:35.418)
Exactly what you said. The, the deeper healing and processing work, like it is not enough to intellectualize your healing. It is valuable. It gives you a certain amount of leverage, but it doesn’t give you true freedom and leverage to move differently, to respond differently. Like it gives us more space when we’ve done the cellular healing and, and you’ve experienced process work. I have done an absurd amount of process work and I always recommend it. Like find the type that’s right for you. But.

Nick McGowan (24:43.472)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (25:00.452)
hehe

Stephenie Zamora (25:05.278)
everything that we experience that we don’t process in real time, meaning we don’t feel it, we don’t move it out of our bodies, whatever that emotion is, gets stored in our cells, our bones, our tissues. And so you can intellectualize why you are the way that you are, why the trauma affected you how it did, why your childhood shaped you in whatever ways all day long. And that will give you a certain amount of leverage to point to it and see it happening. And

choose to behave differently at times, but you don’t have the full freedom to show up differently, to respond differently. And there’s this charge when we’re triggered. And when we haven’t done our deeper work, we can be triggered by so many things and not even realize that we’re triggered. There’s this like amp to it and this reaction and aggression or emotion, whatever it is. And when you’ve

Process which can take time when you’ve processed those traumas and all those stored emotions out of yourselves Unresolved grief all of that stuff You’re still gonna feel like the twinge But you’re free of it. Like I’m no longer I’m no longer a victim or a prisoner to that trauma to that unresolved grief to those old emotions to those all these old things because They still feel them But I’ve processed all the old stuff out. So now I get to respond to what’s in front of me from

Nick McGowan (26:06.711)
Mm-hmm.

Stephenie Zamora (26:25.75)
this moment as me free and clear of all the old stuff. And we can’t do that when we just intellectualize it. So whatever process work looks like for you, knowing that it’s getting it out of your body and your cells, I can’t recommend that highly enough.

Nick McGowan (26:37.072)
Hmm.

Nick McGowan (26:41.071)
Yeah. And likewise, um, I’m glad that you brought up the cellular piece of it, as well as the intellectual, the somatic is part of the cellular, but how everything ties together and look, you’re going to be back on the show many more times. There’s going to be a podcast that we’re going to be on together to be able to talk through more of this. So I’m hopeful that this is kind of a part one of very, very many. Um, and Steph, thank you so much for being on, but before I let you go, where

where can they connect with you?

Stephenie Zamora (27:13.322)
Well, I’m assuming the new website will be up by time this is out. I’m hoping. So choose your calling.com. Otherwise, if that’s not up yet, Stephanie Zamora.com. And if it is up, that will redirect.

Nick McGowan (27:18.24)
Yep.

Nick McGowan (27:27.08)
Well, that solves it. I love you. Thank you for being on today.

Stephenie Zamora (27:30.887)
I love you too.