Meet Ted Smith

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ted Smith. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Ted, so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.

Until I began my healing journey 5+ years ago, my confidence and self-esteem felt very forced and inauthentic. I had all kinds of self-sabotaging thoughts that would cause me to shrink back and constantly be unsure of myself. And while I didn’t realize it at the time, I had almost zero concept of self-love and instead treated myself like sh*t — beating myself up, putting pressure on myself, and not taking care of myself.

I found the things I was good at (first academics, then work) and clung so hard to them because (I thought) I needed praise and accomplishments to make me feel better about myself. But those dopamine hits weren’t sustainable.

Once I began healing myself and pushing out of my comfort zone — or my “familiar zone,” as my partner calls it, which I think is so much more appropriate — my confidence and self-esteem began to build as well. I’ve shown myself I can do scary stuff and not only come out on the other side, but also learn some wonderful lessons and become even stronger and wiser. And nowadays, I feel leaps and bounds better about myself and my abilities. Much of what I do flows naturally without needing to try so hard.

I would not say I’m fully confident and feel good about myself 100% of the time, but I feel like a completely different person compared to where I was 5 years ago, or really even 1-2 years ago. It’s an ongoing journey that I’m grateful to keep navigating — and I know it’ll only continue upwards from here.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

What I love about my business and the work I do is that it’s very much an extension of who I am. My “brand” is ME. So much of my life, and the experiences I’ve had, have led to this moment of me answering this question — and it all contributes to the coaching and hypnotherapy that I offer.

After spending 15 years in an abusive relationship with an alcoholic narcissist, I finally hit rock bottom and decided to get help. From that point forward, I never looked back. Once I began to learn how to love and prioritize myself, it only took me three months to realize I needed to end that relationship for my own health and well-being (and his, too, really).

And along the way of my healing and growth, I discovered how passionate I felt about helping other people on their journeys, too. Within a couple of years, I had written and published my bestselling book, started my business, and quit my corporate job to focus on my business full-time.

My own lived experience has shown me what’s possible when someone decides to hop in the driver’s seat of their own life and really choose happiness for themselves. We can grow and change VERY quickly when we prioritize ourselves, our desires, and our healing.

Because I found immense value in receiving coaching and hypnotherapy for myself, I decided to receive training in both of these so that I could offer them in my own unique way. By combining my training with my own lived experience and my intuition, I get to help my clients transform their own lives in some pretty significant ways.

I particularly love helping people improve their relationships — to see what thoughts and behaviors are unhealthy, to understand their role in whatever challenging relationship dynamics they have, and to take responsibility for changing their relationship experiences for the better.

I help my clients with all kinds of relationships, but especially with dating and romance — which makes sense, given my own experience flipping from a highly abusive and unhealthy marriage to now 2.5 years into a thriving, delightful relationship with my now-partner.

And with the help of hypnotherapy, I help my clients heal. We all experience different forms and levels of trauma in our lives — trauma that plays a significant role in shaping who we are, how we think, how we feel (or not feel) our emotions, how we make decisions, and what actions we choose on a day-to-day basis. So much of what we do is unconscious; we don’t think about why we do or say the things we do and say. And hypnotherapy helps us go much deeper into ourselves to understand where these things come from and whether they still serve our highest good or not.

I’ve felt a special calling to support men. I believe we’ll all have a different experience living in this world when more men choose to step up, face themselves, and heal. And as a man myself, I have the lived experience to know what kinds of societal norms and pressures influence how we think and what we do. I understand men’s barriers because I’ve faced many of them myself.

I also believe there’s a lot of power and mutual healing that can happen when we bring people together in safe, loving environments. So I’m delighted and honored to host Men’s Healing Intensive retreats at my home in St. Louis on a regular basis to bring beautiful, amazing men together in that way. And the transformations that happen are pretty remarkable when the men are willing to really “go there” and be open and vulnerable with each other and with themselves.

I’m also excited about a new joint venture to launch a wonderful community called Integrators of Light + Love. My long-time coach and friend, Andrew Sartory, and I have decided to partner in offering a paid subscription service where members get to regularly receive guidance, perspectives, teachings, and meditations from us. We’re excited to bring people together who want to anchor more peace and joy in themselves, and who want to continue learning and growing. You can connect with me on Facebook in the links below to learn more about the community.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

It’s hard to narrow down to just three because so many things are intertwined and multi-layered. But here are three aspects of my journey that I’ve found to be very impactful in launching and running my business:

1) Prioritizing my own healing, and my own joy, first and foremost. This means remembering that I do what I do because *I* find joy in it and have grown so much as a result of the journey. It means I pay attention to where my own thoughts might be limiting me, or how self-sabotaging behaviors might be showing up in subtle ways — and I see these as opportunities for me to further grow and expand.

2) Remembering that everyone on this planet is on their own journey on their own time. I used to think that everyone needed healing, and I would judge people who are living unconsciously and unhappily like I used to. But I’ve recognized more and more that each of our souls came here to live different lives for ourselves and to serve different roles for each other.

3) Slowing down and being present. This has helped me immensely in moving away from my old ways of thinking I need to do and accomplish more and more in order to be praised and feel good about myself. It has helped me slow down my overthinking and reduce stress/anxiety because I’m not always worrying about the future and the unknown. It has helped me disengage from societal pressures and norms about what I “should” be doing in my business. It has helped me with #1 and #2 above. And it has helped me remember who I really am at my core: a gifted healer who’s here to live my fullest, richest, most joyful life and help others do the same.

My advice to those who are early in their journey of starting a business is to recognize what’s really important to you, what you really want — and to go for that. Notice where you might be doing something (or not doing something) out of obligation or putting others’ needs ahead of your own. And remember that everything I’ve listed above is a process and doesn’t happen overnight. After all, these are things that I’m still actively learning and remembering myself!

Okay, so before we go, is there anyone you’d like to shoutout for the role they’ve played in helping you develop the essential skills or overcome challenges along the way?

I’ve worked with my coach, Andrew Sartory, for 5 years off and on (mostly on) now, and he has definitely been instrumental in my own personal healing and growth, as well as helping me shape and grow my business.

He’s a fellow business owner and entrepreneur and has had a lot of similar experiences as far as his own growth journey. He’s connected me with some other amazing experts too, who have all helped me in various ways.

We’ve grown so much in our relationship and as individuals, and now I’m so thrilled that we’re collaborating on launching a new community like I mentioned earlier. I love getting to learn, grow, and expand alongside someone I care about and admire so much. It makes “work” feel even more fulfilling and fun!

My relationship with Andrew is such a perfect example of how much I’ve evolved over the last several years. We’ve both grown and changed so much, and now we get to mutually enjoy one of the most thriving and satisfying relationships I’ve ever had.

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