I thought I knew how to help people become happy.  Because I thought I was becoming happier.   

To me, success, wealth, image, and status equated to happiness.  Of course I knew deep down that happiness doesn’t come from those things.  We all “know” this. 

But then, there’s our Ego.  And our Ego is what keeps us seeking.  Looking for more, more, more.  Never believing we have enough of whatever it is we think we need.   

This is the story of how my Ego took the wheel of my life and business, and how I got back to myself and my soul.  I hope it helps you get back to your soul.   

To the part of you that knows happiness is already within you. 

For the past year or so, I was focused on business coaching.  I started out as a Confidence Coach, but quickly started attracting clients who wanted help with their businesses through gaining confidence.  I found I was able to help them with not only mindset, but also strategy. 

This felt very safe to me, for several reasons.  For one, you know that nagging feeling that you “should” use what you went to school for? That was part of it.   

I had just gotten my MBA the year prior, which involved blood, sweat and tears, as I was working full time while going to grad school.  Business Coaching was so similar to what I went to MBA school for, which was business consulting.  In addition, I had a background in sales and wanted to be able to utilize my expertise. 

The other reason? I believed it would be easier to make money.  I could charge more money for business coaching, since I was helping someone get a physical ROI (return on investment). 

It’s important to note that both of these reasons are Ego based.  Why? The Ego is the voice that diverts you from your soul.  It’s the voice separating you from other humans.  It often goes back and forth between making us superior to others, and inferior to others. 

It also latches onto our “identities”.  I was identified at the time with being a business woman.  I was also identified with being successful, which to me at the time meant wealthy. 

The Ego wants to keep us in our comfort zones.  It wants to keep us tied to our perceived identities, the mental structures of “who we are”.  So, for me, business coaching fit the bill.  It was easily something I could latch onto without even realizing it. 

Now, when I started my business, I had none of these intentions.  In fact, I never intended to make my little blog into a business.  I simply wanted to serve and help people grow their confidence through mindset. 

Once I realized I could profit from it, Ego took over.  “Let me allow this to make me somebody”, says the Ego.  And as I became a coach and started seeing all these other coaches with these big careers and platforms, I latched onto the idea of just how big of a somebody I could become.  

“I’ll become a coach, start a podcast, make it big.  I’ll become super wealthy.  I’ll be someone.  But, don’t worry, I’ll be using it all for good.  To spread positive messages.” The Ego pulled me in with this.  And you better believe I had some guilt.  Would I truly be helping people as a business coach? Isn’t it wrong to be flashing around money and glamour like these people are? 

But as I listened to these coaches and influencers, I learned from them, “It’s okay to be a millionaire and drive a fancy car and live in a mansion! In fact, you need to be focused on this! And ‘everyone’ should be charging ‘high ticket’ for their coaching.  Even if they’re new!” 

Now, I don’t think it’s wrong to be a millionaire.  Oprah is a millionaire.  But Oprah isn’t showing her G Wagon, if she even has one, on social media.  She isn’t about these things.  She’s about service.  When you look at her Instagram page, you aren’t filled with, “Oh – I guess I need a glamorous life!”.  She may have a G Wagon for all I know, but she isn’t identified with money.  At least, in my perspective of her. 

That’s the big difference I see.  I was becoming identified with money and success.  It’s a very Ego driven thing, to be money driven.  To seek the G-Wagon and all the glamour. 

But why can’t we do both? Why can’t we be wealthy and help people? We absolutely can! But which one are we truly, truly, truly focused on…. which one are we about. I thought I was about service, but I wasn’t.  I was about money, prestige, status, image, physical appearance.  Let me look on the outside as successful as possible.  It’s embarrassing to admit. 

My first business coach told me to charge $3,500 for six one hour life coaching sessions when I was a beginner.  To her, that was completely normal.  She didn’t feel wrong about it.  Why? Because she had been indoctrinated into this mindset of teaching people to charge ridiculous amounts of money, even just starting out.  I believe it’s because they are trying to convince themselves it’s okay to charge what they’re charging. 

I have to call this out, but I don’t want to judge them.  I truly believe many of them have great intentions, but their Ego is in charge.  Their Ego is getting so inflated with the opportunity to be somebody through their influencer platform.  It wants more and more and more and there is never enough of anything to satisfy the Ego.  

Now, this mindset seems to be incredibly prevalent.  Every coach I’ve worked with has told me to double my prices or more.  But it never felt right.  It never did.  And my clients don’t feel right doing it, either.  

I did find myself getting swept up in the Ego, and it was behind the wheel for a hot minute.  Luckily, I was able to catch myself through increasing my awareness, my consciousness.  

But before, I was trying to fit myself into the mindset of these specific coaches.  Keep in mind, there are many out there who aren’t money focused and Ego driven.  Who aren’t using spirituality and manifestation as a me, me, me thing. Who are truly out to serve and do what’s best for the collective.  

While I deeply enjoy working with my business clients, helping them grow soul centered businesses, I know that isn’t my whole mission.  

My mission is to help women truly tap into their authentic confidence.  Not surface level confidence.  Not feeling successful, liking their outer image, becoming more outgoing…I want to help women get to know their soul.  And we do that through identifying the deep roots of our ‘identities’ that we carry around.   

Our perfectionism, our people pleasing, our insecurities, our anxiety, the negative stories about ourselves and our lives – these are all things we need to get to the root of.  And then we can release these identities by increasing our awareness, among other tools.  

Once we release these identities, we get in touch with who we truly are – our soul.  And our soul doesn’t experience jealousy, envy, insecurity, anger, resentment, shame, the desire to be better than other humans.  That’s all Ego.   

it’s a beautiful journey.  It’s what allows us to feel inner peace and joy.  That is what I’m about.  That is my mission.  That’s what my Spiritual Mentoring program is.   

So what about business coaching? I’m still going to offer it.  I’m still going to launch my masterminds and other business programs.  I want to work with women who are soul driven in their businesses, or who want to be.  I want to help women become conscious leaders, so they can help others awaken as well.  I believe that’s important work. 

But right now, I am just not passionate about making sales and marketing a big part of my business.  I’ll of course teach those things to my business clients.  But I don’t want to talk about it on the podcast or on Instagram. 

I want to go deeper.  I want to talk about consciousness, soul work, unifying, service.  How to be helpful to the collective.  Not becoming separate from it by making ourselves into these superior mini celebrities. 

It’s really hard to admit when we’re wrong.  But it’s incredibly important.  By showing you how the Ego took over, I hope it helps you start identifying where this might be happening in your life.   

It’s not always taking over in the sense of making us go after money and fame.  It’s all in the separation from one another.  It’s often telling us why we aren’t good enough to change careers or relationships or improve our health.   

Sometimes, it tells us we’re better than others because we aren’t money focused.  Or that we’re superior because of our religious ideologies or political affiliations. That, of course, is also the Ego.   

As Eckart Tolle so simply puts it, “Any time we feel superior or inferior to others, that’s the Ego”.   

That’s what I find so important to recognize.  We are all one.  All of us are equals at our soul level.  These material things, titles, manmade identities, they don’t mean shit.  And when you start seeing things this way, when you see yourself as equal to others, you start removing their identities, too.   

You see beyond their Ego’s.  You are a soul seeing another soul.  It’s magical.  It’s indescribable. It’s God. It’s love.  It’s peace. 

When we see past Ego, our own and others, that’s what awakening is.  It’s a rise in our consciousness.  And it’s quite possibly the reason Jesus came to this Earth.  To help us awaken.  It’s might just be all of our mission.  And each time one of us awakens, we help others just by being more conscious around them.  Just by seeing past their Ego, and into their s o u l.   

From my soul to yours, 

Leah Pardee 

Spiritual Mentor 

Host of the Candid Confidence Podcast