Judgment vs. Discernment: How to Decide Who to Trust in Business

Alecia St. Germain 00:00
There are a lot of people out there vying for your attention. A lot of people telling you that they have the answer to your problem, and a lot of people who would love to do business with you. And it can be really hard to tell who really is going to be for you and what makes sense for your business. And when you are getting caught up in the rush of the dopamine of the sales, and not wanting to miss out, and having that FOMO that comes up for people. So today's episode is going to be about discernment versus judgment, how to go through the discernment process, and maybe even think about some things you need to think about before you choose to hire someone to help you in your business or for really life in general and who you want to trust and let into your space, so let's dive in. Hey, you leader, entrepreneur, business owner, solopreneur, whatever you call yourself, we know you're a visionary business builder, wealth seeker looking to combine a passion for doing good with leading consciously. It's time to shift from a traditional focus of pure wealth accumulation to one that integrates well-being and fulfillment. You're here for a purpose, and it's time to shine your light. So here we go. Welcome back to the Conscious Edge podcast. I'm your host Alecia Saint Germain here with Jonathan Duggar today. Hi, Jonathan. How are you?

Jonathan Dugger 01:37
Hey, Alecia. I'm doing pretty well. Fending off some sniffles like you as well. Yeah, we were not in the same space.

Alecia St. Germain 01:46
You've been at several conferences the last couple of weeks, traveling around to some wellness conferences, and I came to you and I was telling you that there's some things that I'm seeing in the coaching space that are a little alarming, a lot alarming, really, for me. And you are sharing the similar sentiment. And one of those things being that people are developing a huge distrust for the coaching industry. I think for consultants, for a number of individuals, I should say, like industries, but really the coaching and consulting industry overarch, and you saw some of the same thing at the conferences that you came up with. What was your experience?

Jonathan Dugger 02:30
There are a lot of folks that have entered into the coaching and consulting world from a place of necessity. This was just came up last week. The conference I was at in Boston that during COVID there was just such a shortage of mental health providers of people that could be considered resources for helping people plug into other resources like advocates that kind of thing, and so some people saw that as an opportunity to expand their skill set and expand their range of practice. Others saw it as a place to make money and a place to get a TikTok presence or some other sort of social media presence. And even though resources have improved since then, the folks that are practicing in an inappropriate way, from a standpoint of just not being qualified, or promoting something as fact that's baseless in terms of actual research behind it, authority behind it, any sort of practice authority behind it, it's gotten worse, and in some cases dangerous. There's a lot of one of the sessions I was in San Diego a couple of weeks ago was looking at some of these advocacy practices with youth, with high school age students, and there's these whole organizations that have developed these advocates slash coaches for kids that have no educational background, they have no experience background, but what started in a place which I think was a very helpful place of kind of like a boys and girls club, and this was in California specifically, but has become this place where kids are coming in for counseling with very unqualified people, and there have been a range of very traumatic events that have happened due to that. So that's kind of the extreme of things that are happening. But there's a lot of places in the more in the middle of that where people are getting just bad advice, coaches are taking on, and I'm using air quotes for coaches are taking on clients that are not a good fit, but they need the money, they need the exposure, whatever it is, and like you said, this is causing a public. Response of the coaching industry is bunk. The coaching industry we can't trust it. The coaching industry is unqualified, and because unfortunately we live in a society that often goes to the black and white, or without looking at the middle ground. And I just want to be clear that I'm not in any way, shape, or form saying I'm not fallible. My background's better than your background. My anything like that. This is all about this. This whole subject area is about discernment. Us figuring out the right process to get to making good decisions. That's helpful for everybody.

Alecia St. Germain 05:34
And I think my perspective on it very similar to yours. I was sitting in a mastermind last week, and we were talking about how do we, how do I, because I clearly have a very strong feeling about this, an opinion about this, and how do I plan to move forward without taking a jab at because one of my values is I don't want to take jabs at other people because I think everybody is on their journey and I really like to believe that we are all humans trying to figure it out and we are going to make mistakes and when you know better, I hope that you do better. That's my expectation of humanity and people: is that when you know better, you do better. Does everybody make that choice? Maybe not. And if they don't make that choice, then I question myself and I say, "What is going on in this human's world that they feel so unsafe that they have to do things that are unsavory, we'll call it, or unethical, right? And so, like, there must be something they're trying to serve to just be okay. And so, what I see, so on your side, you saw there was like a necessity because there was a shortage, and then there became an opportunity, and then it became a money making thing. Same thing on this side is a lot of people, especially within the coaches who coach coaches, who coach like t here is a t here is a bit of a culture of coaches coaching coaches on how to build their coaching business.

Jonathan Dugger 07:11
Yep,

Alecia St. Germain 07:12
and I hired a coach like that because I had a certification, and I was like, cool. I know very much how to do the thing, and I do it really well. But like, how do I market this thing? How do I find very specifically? Remember going, God, please, if you want me to do this, you have to send me something so clear that I cannot deny that this is my next step. And so, this marketing coach showed up who did a lot with coaches, and so I have found a lot of help from other coaches in that industry who helped to build the business. And there was very much a message of if you have learned how to do something in life, like you've mastered like how to keep your house organized, and you can create a system around it. Then you can coach people around it. You can disseminate that information. And the other piece is the scale, scale, scale.

Jonathan Dugger 08:10
Yeah.

Alecia St. Germain 08:11
And it's like, well, if I can do one piece of real estate, if I can do one thing, well, I can scale it if I can teach a lot of people, more people to do it, or if I can only work with clients one on one, because maybe I do. I'm going to say homework, and I don't know. I'm must have home organization on the brain, but like maybe you're an organizer, you're a home organizer, and you can only work with one client at one time, and so then it's like, well, I'm going to teach people how to be home organizers and build their business and home organization, just like I did, because again, I can do one on many. So this idea of like I have to like we have to scale, we have to do more, we have to learn as coaches how to coach groups of people, which there is a place for that, and it's really powerful. But there's also still a place for working with people one-on-one, and so I think the scale culture also created a lot of. That's a good

Jonathan Dugger 09:12
point. Yeah,

Alecia St. Germain 09:14
this breakdown in quality, and I know anybody teaching scale. One of the mindset things I have heard said over and over again is there's a certain amount of like quality reduction that you have to tolerate when you go to scale, and so people get less results, people get more frustrated, but the wrong people end up in it who aren't really going to get the results.

Jonathan Dugger 09:39
Poor fit, yeah,

Alecia St. Germain 09:41
yeah, and so like refunds go up in those industries because you've got people coming in and being dissatisfied, and then there's just a acceptable refund rate.

Jonathan Dugger 09:53
Yeah, and I haven't even thought about that piece of it, but scalability in a lot. Regards has become sort of the wild west, and it's become easier because of social media and funnel type marketing and things that are more about volume and less about quality. And so it it skips kind of like judgment; it skips a lot of steps and goes right to okay, we got to butt in the seat, or somebody paid their registration fee, or whatever it is. It's about collections and not about quality collections and quality fit. I hadn't thought about that. That's actually that's a big piece. Interesting.

Alecia St. Germain 10:36
So, all of that being said, my position and what I said was, I really wanted to lay out for people when you're thinking about a coach or a consultant, we have our judgments, but how can we really discern who's right for us and own the decision that we've made to work with people? Because that was one of the other things that came up in my mastermind was my friend Shannon said, "Well, look, everyone is adults. Everyone can decide who they want to work with and who they don't, and if they're upset about it, like people are not victims. We're acting like people are victims, and that's when I came to you and I said, 'Okay, but we call it judgment. Like we have judge. Like a judge is handed down. Is there a certain standard of ethics that should be there? Especially, it's really tough because it's an unregulated industry, and I think we're seeing movement towards a lot more regulation. So I think we have a responsibility as someone who is a service provider that there is a certain code of ethics, even if it doesn't exist, that I would like to lay out for people. Like this is what I think. What are your thoughts on that?

Jonathan Dugger 11:58
No, I agree. In fact, along those lines, I'm not big on overly regulating anything, but there needs to be standards of practice. There needs to be some guidelines to help people get started, if nothing else, to have some criteria to build off of. So, one of the things I think would be helpful and really give people a different perspective, and I've said this for years. I think even I've even talked about this. I really wish that there was a requirement. Again, I'm sound like I'm talking out of both sides of my face when I talk about not a lot of regulation. But then you have to have some that from the important pieces. And one, whenever you get into any sort of service-related profession where you are interfacing directly one-on-one or one-on-fuse, there is a lot of potential that something sensitive is going to come up, something that's going to bring up trauma for someone, someone's going to present with some suicidality, something that's of an extreme nature, that most people your what did you call organizational coaching or your home organization coach, your marketing coach, your bartender, your hairdresser. We're not thinking of those as coaches, but under the same umbrella of people that are in that that sort of dynamic and energy of one and one or one or few interface, that there is some level at least of basic training about how to handle when it's outside of my scope, how to handle a referral, how to handle the conversation of this isn't a good fit, but I still want to help you because I've had coaches and I've had therapists tell me I didn't want to let them go because I knew they needed help. I knew I wasn't the best fit, but I knew they needed help, and I wasn't sure where else they could go. I wasn't sure who to send them to, and that's not a reason to keep somebody on the hook with something because I mean that's where this stuff starts to go sideways very very quickly. So changing the perspective and the conversation about how do we best serve our customer or our client or our patient while remaining ethical, remaining in line with our values, remaining legal and legal guidelines, because it is illegal for we don't talk about this very often. For a coach to practice as a therapist, that's illegal. That's actionable. I think it's getting to a place where there will be, like you said, some regulation in place where coaching is going to be more specialized, and if you are practicing outside of that scope, then and not just something that's mental health related necessarily, but outside of a scope. Let's say you're you don't have a financial background at all, but yet you're advising somebody under a on financial things that would fall under license, like somebody that's a stockbroker. Licensed financial advisor-that's actionable. You could be sued for that, and probably you would probably lose. So,

Alecia St. Germain 15:08
and I think on the stand of like we don't want lots of regulation, but as a individual within that field, I think standing up and saying like, "This is how I practice. This is what standard I follow, and being able to help people see. I always tell people you have to interview three of whatever because sometimes you think you found the right fit, but then you realize like, "Oh, it just it was really good marketing, and then I found this other person, and I didn't realize everything that I was missing, or I found this other service or other thing. So, having some comparison between three, even

Jonathan Dugger 15:50
if

Alecia St. Germain 15:51
even if you think the first person is the one, do two more just to verify. Like that's part of your vetting process. But I think being out there and saying, "Look, this is my code of ethics. This is what I follow. Like I will be the first one to say when someone gets on a call with me. These are the things about what you just told me that I can help you with, and these are the things that I would advise you to see a therapist about. And many of my clients see both a therapist and work with me as a coach because we have two different perspectives, and it works really well together.

Jonathan Dugger 16:27
Absolutely, I think it's usually a great pairing.

Alecia St. Germain 16:31
Same thing with people who work with strategy coaches who are very strategic and they're teaching you the how to do something. I often work with those people because that coach is not skilled in immunity to change, which is working with the unconscious drivers, the system of self-protection. That we have these big assumptions that run. They put the foot on the gas, or excuse me, foot on the brake. Foot on the gas. I want to go do the strategy that this coach is teaching me, foot on the brake. I don't feel safe. Something bad's going to happen. I'm going to be judged, rejected,

Jonathan Dugger 17:09
not worthy.

Alecia St. Germain 17:11
And so I always saw my place in the coaching industry as very supportive of those other coaches out there and consultants that brought strategy to the table, but didn't necessarily understand why can't people get out of their own way? Why can't someone just do what I tell them to do? Why isn't it just willpower? And it's like, well, because you have a specific skill set, but you don't have the same big assumptions as someone else, right? So I always see myself as very supportive within that industry, but this idea that one coach or one consultant can be your end all be all that does everything for you is an unrealistic thing. And if they're telling you that they are the end all be all, that is potentially someone I'm going to make a judgment who is serving an ego? Because one of the things I have to do as a coach, and I was trained to do, and asked in my certification was how much of your big assumption is at play with this client. So I've got to check my own self.

Jonathan Dugger 18:16
I want to point something out though that you just did, and you did it unconsciously. That is actually tied to mindfulness. You use the word this person that does these things potentially does this. A judgment would say this person is this person. It's a direct verdict with no intervening process. Just using if you've listened to any of our other podcasts with me on them, talk a lot about language and the use of language, just using the a word like potential leads to curiosity. That is a doorway, a stepping stone to curiosity. So, I think this is a good segue into kind of going back to basics and just to talk a little bit about what the difference between judgment and discernment, how we use those terms and what they really are, and then how that applies to us putting discernment to get to clarity when it comes to choosing a coach or a consultant or a therapist or all of the above. So one of the core tenets of mindfulness is this idea that we try and stay out of judgment, but stay in curiosity, and if you and that's a little bit too generalized. But if you boil it down into basics, what we're in the from a mindfulness standpoint, what we're saying is we want to stay open to information. We want to stay open to processing, and judgment does just the opposite of that. Judgment goes directly to verdict. Judgment leads to very black and white. Judgment is a fear or panic response. Actually, it's where we go from something that's based on usually a traumatic experience from ourselves or someone else, and we jump to an end result without any. Sort of intervening process. So you see somebody that reminds you doing a behavior that reminds you of something that you've experienced or something you've witnessed, and you immediately say that guy is a jerk. That person is a complete waste of time. That's a judgment. That's a verdict. The gavel came down. I told Alecia before we started. I'm very visual thinker, so whenever I, in my mind, when I'm doing this mindful practice, the gavel comes down, is and I see Judge Judy with that gavel coming down because I like throwing humor in there too. It helps me remember things and sort of pegboard things. So we have this verdict that comes down, and we all judge. We all do that, and that's okay. So some of you that are already in this place, where let's just keep this in line with the coaching industry, you've had an experience, or you've seen and witnessed maybe a person online that does these things, and they're saying things that just give you that ick. That Alecia, I call that the ick factor. They're guaranteeing results. They're going to promise you 100. I see this in the fitness industry all the time. 100% you're going to lose 25 pounds in the first 10 days, and you're going to be able to run a marathon by the end of the week. And you're going to, you know, it's not based in reality. You know, it's bunk. But often, we take that as the gold standard, and then anybody else that comes up, we judge based off of that, and we have this verdict reaction: the gavel comes down, and there's no intervening process. So often, it's discernment comes in where we allow curiosity to stay in place before we let the gavel come down, or even sometimes after the gavel comes down, we step back. It's okay that happens. It's sometimes a knee jerk reaction, but we come to a place of curiosity either before or after that gavel comes down. That verdict happens, and we ask a question. It's like, okay, is there something this person could do or say that would change our mind? If there is, what are those things? Okay, let's ask those questions. So now you have an actionable plan. I can ask questions. I can gather more data. Then I can get to a place of clarity and actually make a sound judgment.

Jonathan Dugger 22:12
I can make a sound decision that's healthy and that's based on actual data, actual input, and not any jerk reaction based on past trauma, based on your own biases, based on your upbringing, based on a religious overlay that's not necessarily yours, based on all these things that cause this sort of knee jerk judgment, this verdict type judgment. So it's something that does take some practice, but it's something that happens in the moment. It's not. I get this all the time when I start working with people on a mindfulness platform. It's like, well, I don't have all day to be curious. I don't have the luxury of sitting around and asking a lot of questions. Well, it may seem like that when you're starting the practice, but this happens in milliseconds. And something that I was somebody said to me not that long ago, and it really stuck. The lack of action when somebody gets hung up on something-it's not because they're sitting in curiosity; it's because they're in avoidance. It's because they're sitting in fear. Curiosity doesn't keep you from making a decision. Doesn't keep you from taking action, it helps you form action that's based on fact, that's based on data, that's based on processing to get there. When we get hung up on something and don't take action, it's coming from somewhere else. That's coming from avoidance or fear, typically.

Alecia St. Germain 23:36
Yeah, I think curiosity makes it feel safe to move forward.

Jonathan Dugger 23:39
Yes, I totally agree.

Alecia St. Germain 23:42
Versus taking a lot of time is the moment that I'm willing to step into curiosity. That definitely makes a difference. So the judgment piece is like ready to shut down and run away. And you were explaining it as a fear response. I even see judgment used in selling you the thing.

Jonathan Dugger 24:06
Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Alecia St. Germain 24:07
And that's why I wanted to be so careful because anybody, and I'm so ready for political ads to be done because I wish you would spend more time telling me your platform and what you stand for and what you want to do versus tearing down the other candidate-it is disgusting. Like I'm just going to come out and say it. It is disgusting, and I am tired of it. It does not sway me. It makes me think you need a nap and a snack.

Jonathan Dugger 24:39
Well, and it's counter to this whole concept of curiosity because it gives us nothing to be curious about. It gives us nothing to make a legitimate evaluation. They're telling us about somebody else. They're having us evaluate somebody else from a very negative standpoint, as opposed to saying, "Here's what I stand for. Here's the things I believe in." Here's who I am compared to, and that's when you can compare and contrast. But unfortunately, that's not the direction most of those take. So, and

Alecia St. Germain 25:09
so then, where do I go next? Is I go into conflict with myself because I was like, "Oh, okay, well, that's a judgment, because I'm like, I'm disgusted by your behavior, right?

Jonathan Dugger 25:21
Yeah.

Alecia St. Germain 25:22
So then, how do I get now to curiosity, like, and into discernment? My thoughts around that, and where do ethics come in? Because that was what my real question for you was: Is there a place for judgment, and is judgment within ethics? And what's the line?

Jonathan Dugger 25:40
Yeah, so judgment are sort of neurobiological imperative to judge, which we are. We all do it. There's sort of a human standard, like across cultures, across people, do this something. You can usually know that comes from a very base level of neurobiology. So it comes from a place of having to make a life, or a decision, or a behavior, an action in a life-threatening situation. So that's the way I try and sort of drive home for myself and for others that I'm working with. There are places of judging where you have to make a snap decision with no intervening process, and that's sometimes we call that a that's a gut response. There's you have a gut response. I'm not going to put a percentage around this, but the majority of the time, we don't have to do that. It's not life or death. It's not somebody's going to die or be hurt very badly if I don't do this right now this way. So what I will say though, trust your gut. Trust your gut. Don't ignore that when you're getting those signals. But if you can take five minutes to assess where that's coming from, you're going to be in a lot better place at the end of that, and instead of getting in the situation where you may have to backtrack and try and unwind something where you've made a decision based on that kind of response, but yes, there are moments where that kind of snap judgment is necessary, but those are fewer than you would think,

Alecia St. Germain 27:21
fewer and farther between. Yeah, and if I go to that, what is my visceral response that I'm having? It comes down to values, right? And that, and what has happening is I'm experiencing something that is not in alignment with my values, and I think that's where you make that shift over. Now I had a snap judgment; it gave me a feeling. Where did that come from? And my discernment is, I choose not to engage in a platform that does not align with the values or is engaging in this type of behavior. So now I've set a boundary. Like I, you okay, go about do that, but I choose not to engage. And I think the more that humanity uses discernment to disengage from bad behavior, from behavior that is not in alignment with your values, the less power it has.

Jonathan Dugger 28:10
Yeah, and one thing that this just occurred to me too: judgment is usually aimed at a person. So you say, "Oh, she is so lazy. Discernment is aimed at a context and a behavior. So you see somebody exhibiting what seems to be lazy behavior. Look at the context. Look at the situation. Look at the surrounding events. Look at your own experience. So that's the biggest difference. So that can happen in a moment. That's that biggest difference. And then another thing, then you bring this up a lot about how you feel in your body. You'll notice this if you pay attention to when you judge. Judgment is heated. It's angry. It's pissed off. Discernment is curious and often compassionate. You see, this happened to me very recently. I was in the bank, and there was a person that was being extremely rude or exhibiting rude behavior with the teller, and I judged immediately, and I was like, "What a jerk! What a that was my assessment. And then I immediately recognized that was making me angry, and that was part of my impatience. And I was in a hurry, and I started paying attention. And I noticed this guy's hygiene. I noticed, like, he had missed buttons on his shirt, buttoning his shirt. His behavior seemed aggressive, but he was really asking for help. It was like once I got out of that context of this guy has wrote him off. The verdict, the gavel came down, and then I backtracked a bit. It was a completely different situation, and bless the teller that was working. And this is another good example of that type of job, where obviously she had had some training, and she was like, "Sir, I really want to help you, but you need to tell me how I can help you. All you're doing is yelling at me, and I mean calm, just and it really was a good case in point, though, of how my snap judgment was not based on anything he was judged him as a person. It wasn't even looking at his behavior. It wasn't looking at the context. It wasn't looking at the surroundings. So, getting into a practice mode of doing that doesn't take a lot of time or a lot of effort. It's just a matter of repeating it,

Alecia St. Germain 30:43
and I want to offer the flip side of this judgment, this like snap judgment. And you said it feels very heated and angry, right? And I think that has a place when we can notice our anger. We did a whole episode on anger and how anger can really help us define our values and our boundaries and places where we get to speak our, you know, set ourselves up for success, and anger can be a cue for us. But it's what we do with the anger. Same thing with this: is like judgment is going to happen. We are human, but it's what you do with that judgment and how you shift. Exactly,

Jonathan Dugger 31:16
exactly.

Alecia St. Germain 31:17
But the flip side is not only does judgment feel like heated like anger, but judgment can also feel heated like excited, like dysregulated, because someone could be like, "If you don't act now, and you get the FOMO, and you're like, 'Oh my God, and you get the frenzy, like I got to be the first one up there so I can get the free book, and like it's got a very dysregulated feeling to it.

Jonathan Dugger 31:41
Yes, I actually, I like that even better. Just dysregulated, out of sorts. Yeah, I like that

Alecia St. Germain 31:47
because I could. You can make a snap judgment of I need this. I need this because your big assumption in the background, which was saying, in order for you to stay safe, you've got to take a specific action, and so maybe it's in order for me to be successful. I have let this person influence my mind to a way where I might not be okay. I might not be successful unless I act now, and so that is some of those the dopamine tactics. Dopamine works both ways. Dopamine can be the high and the joy-not even joy, like the happiness-and then dopamine can also redistribute in the feeling crappy, feeling angry, feeling that also produces dopamine too.

Jonathan Dugger 32:36
Yeah.

Alecia St. Germain 32:36
So that's where I think anytime you go too far into that dysregulated state, and those are all making snap judgments that then have an immediate action behind it that you can end up regretting. Yeah, and that's where the discern is like, let me take a breath, let me get back in my body. Why do I think I have to have this? Does this actually solve a need, plug a hole in my business is this something that I was looking for, or does this just sound really fun?

Jonathan Dugger 33:05
Yeah, it's not even necessary that you need or even like the thing, but you really like that person because of what they represent or those kind of things too. So

Alecia St. Germain 33:17
yeah, and that's where we would say slow down, and that's where we go back to our financial plan with Jen Boss, who runs our financial leadership lab and handles like our financial strategy at the Conscious Edge. Is we'd say, okay, Jen, there's this thing I think I need. Let's assess it. Is the money there for it? What do we anticipate this is going to produce for us. How do we decide and evaluate whether this thing that we're investing in is working or not? We get a lot more discernment because we start asking those questions. So I know you came with a lot of questions, Jonathan, that would help with discernment, and we're going to go ahead and put those all in the show notes.

Jonathan Dugger 34:02
Yeah.

Alecia St. Germain 34:03
So the the show notes for this episode will be where you want to go to get all of those that list of questions that Jonathan has come up with discernment. Any final thoughts?

Jonathan Dugger 34:14
I think that the biggest thing to remember and why this put some importance around this practice is judgment tends to shut down everything, and that rarely is a good thing. Discernment and the practice of this opens things up; it keeps curiosity in place. So, if you can think of snap decision, bad decision, quite often as compared to curiosity leading to clarity, leading to sound decision that's in alignment with your values and with what you really need. So that gives just gives you an additional oomph, I guess, to see the value and the worth and those kind of.

Alecia St. Germain 35:01
Yeah, so awesome! I think this was a really great conversation. It was fun to have, and something I think is very needed. I'm really interested to see how the conversations evolved. A few weeks ago, before we recorded this, there was definitely a lot of things up in arms, and I think we're going to be seeing this industry evolving for the better, I'm thrilled, and I look at it as whatever comes into place that needs to be done. Then I'm just going to do that. So, how do I stay compliant? How do I follow the rules so that I can do what I want to do, what I'm here to do? I don't look at any kind of ethics that are handed down, or even if it is some kind of regulation as a hindrance. I think as long as it's done in a way that is supportive of the industry,

Jonathan Dugger 35:56
any industry grows and evolves. There is growing pains, and there are adjustments, and there is a need for tests for regulating and for refining and defining and redefining as you grow. So we've talked about that in some of the other episodes, and that's what's happening right now. What I truly am hopeful about, and I got-I will have to say personally-I've got mixed emotion about just out of these two conferences I've been to, but what I'm truly hopeful about is we have a growing group of people. We call sometimes I call them the light bringers. They truly come from a place of compassion and kindness and wanting to help and wanting to figure out the best pathways to do that, and there are also a lot of people that are getting into the place of how do I collaborate in order to facilitate that. Instead of setting everything up as a competition, which often our society does, it's how do we collaborate to make this happen, and that's very encouraging. That's very positive, and I really am hopeful that will continue to grow.

Alecia St. Germain 37:03
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think it'll all shake itself out. I think the biggest thing I hope people take away from this is I liken this to that person that you meet that is oftentimes older that doesn't trust doctors. Like I don't trust doctors, right? And so then they won't go take care of themselves. They won't go get the mole check. They won't. I don't trust doctors, and it ends up being like cutting off your nose to spite your face. I truly feel that there are great people out there that are helping people in a lot of different arenas in a lot of different ways. It is your responsibility as the consumer to vet people and to use discernment before you make that purchase. Like I said, the more that you do your part as the consumer, the more people do their part as the consumer, the more they will make the choices for the people who really are here for the right reasons, and you will benefit from it. Your business will prosper because of it, and your life will prosper because of it. And the individuals who are here for the wrong reasons will be forced to either leave the like leave whatever it is they're doing, or they will be brought up to the same level.

Jonathan Dugger 38:25
Yeah,

Alecia St. Germain 38:26
and that's really to me. That's the win. Is like when you know better, you do better.

Jonathan Dugger 38:31
Absolutely.

Alecia St. Germain 38:32
With all of that being said, sending you so much love.

Jonathan Dugger 38:36
Be well, everybody.

Alecia St. Germain 38:38
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Sound Advice FM 39:33
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