Natalie: Today on the show I'm speaking with Bettie Spruill and she tells us her amazing insights of teaching transformational work all over the world, including places like Mexico and Ghana. So, stay tuned for that.

Natalie: Hi! I'm Natalie Ledwell and this is The Inspiration Show and today my special guest is my friend Bettie Spruill. How are you, Bettie?

Bettie: I'm doing well, Natalie. Thank you.

Natalie: Such a pleasure to have you here on the show. I've been friends with Bettie for a few years now and I know that she's doing some incredible work all around the world which were just talking about which we'll fill you in, in a moment. But before we do that Bettie, why don't we just start with your background and what it is that you do?

Bettie: Let's see, what do I do? I've been working with people this past week in Mexico City with this very same question. What do you do and how do you answer that in a way that it makes a difference with people? It's a couple of things. I work with people to realize the impossibilities especially in the area of leadership and team building. I've come to realized that after 47 years of working in the transformational industry that it really isn't about self improvement but it's about how do we participate and engage with other people. In a way that we work together because my possibilities only exist with you and with others.

Natalie: Right. Because you work mainly with companies, is that right?

Bettie: Companies and individuals as well and communities. Like I was just in Ghana, West Africa, working in a village of where they ended up adopted, 12 years ago. Using some of the same principles of effective communication, commitment, responsibility and expanding people's capacity to participate together, expanding people's capacity to honor and respect each other. If the mission or the enterprises business of this community or even if it's in a love and marriage relationship. There's certain principles on finding that when it's working, a congruent, a consistent between people.

Natalie: Right.

Bettie: So, that's what I do.

Natalie: Okay. So, what do you find, I mean I know like you said you've worked in Africa, you've worked in Mexico, in the US and around the world. What do you find is like the common denominator or the one thing that you find that most people, you know need improvement or want improvement on?

Bettie: I would say most people. So, first of all I have a priest opposition. In a priest opposition isn't the truth but there's a way that I deal the world. And that priest opposition is that people are whole, perfect and complete.

Natalie: Right.

Bettie: And number two that people work perfectly and they have all the resources that they need to have their lives turn out in the most extraordinary way. They just don't have access to the resources. And what I find is that language and communication is the key to how people participate in work together. So, one of the main things that I work with especially, I would say women with how to make request, how to make powerful request of the people in their lives and how to fulfill on the promises that they make because our promises in fact, create our futures. And when I can evoke powerful request from people on my team and when I fulfill my promises in my future staffs being by chance that I have more say so over my life and this is what I work with people about.

Natalie: Okay. So, that's wonderful. So, I mean, do you work mainly with women? I mean, I'm thinking women are stepping into their power these days. Do you find that that's the case across the world?

Bettie: I do. Yes, a different kind of power.

Natalie: Yeah.

Bettie: It's power with versus power over.

Natalie: Right.

Bettie: And that power also shows up in language again. I've studied for the past 20 or 30 years and worked with people who I would assess as powerful and what I noticed was that they had a way of speaking, they had a way of engaging, they had a way of asking other people to bring their full commitment to whatever the enterprise is. And so, yes I work with women, I work with companies, I work with all kinds of people because I don't think that these principles are based in gender. But the thing about women that I've noticing, they have a different kind of way of being with power than men. And I find that that power is power with cause relational ship power. And that the more they could step into that power and be with it and then find the language of accomplishment, they will see a different kind of power that has to do with the connectedness of a life and I now like to call it divine power.

Natalie: Right.

Bettie: Because divine power has to do with connection.

Natalie: Of course.

Bettie: Yeah.

Natalie: Okay. So, how do we ask for something? How do we request something? In a way that's effective.

Bettie: Oh, like with us.

Natalie: Yeah.

Bettie: And I've known you for a few years as you said and at the ATL meetings which is leadership meetings and I've watched you interview other people and so finalize it, I'll just make a request. And I went to you and I said, "Natalie, when are you gonna interview me?" And you said, "Oh, okay. Let's get a date there." That was a request.

Natalie: Right.

Bettie: Because I could have been sitting there, waiting for you to come to me which you may have, you know eventually.

Natalie: Yep.

Bettie: But I made a request and you said yes and it was very simple. You said, "Okay, let's get a time." You emailed me, I emailed you and it happened. So, request creates action, without a request there is no action. And then, you could have done three things. You could have said, "Okay, Bettie. I accept." Or you could have said, "I decline." Or you could have said, "It's sometime in the future but not right now." So, which is a kind of offer, but the power of that has to do with we invented something together, we made time happened, the moment you said yes. Now, if you had said no which was perfectly okay because when you make any request, you can decline. And this is what I find with women and with people, who operate as if they don't have power, is they can't accept no, like no is simply no. It doesn't mean anything about my worth, my value. It just simply means that we have the right to decline and I have the right to decline. So, part of my work within business, with many people. I give them 10 days to practice decline, no matter what request that made of them, you decline for 10 minutes a day because in our bodies we feel like we have to say yes even when we don't mean it or we don't want to. But once I begin to declined, I begin to have a kind of emotional fortitude. Then I start to have clarity around my vision, my commitment in life and it's not based on a "have to". It starts to be based on "What are my commitments? What am I really up to?" And I can't say yes to every request made of me. But to be clear about which was I say yes to and which was I say no to and know that it doesn't mean anything if people say no. People have that right.

Natalie: Yeah. And that's the thing; you know I think it also gives you control.

Natalie: I mean I find myself at times saying yes all the time and then being overwhelmed and going, "Okay. Why did I say yes to all these things?" But once I start to say no and be more selective and going, "What is my priority? What is important to the vision of my business?" Then you have control over that and you feel less overwhelmed than stressed. Now, Bettie, I think we all agree that we're moving into this whole new paradigm of collaboration and cooperation. How do you see that playing not it in the corporate world?

Bettie: I see again. It has shows up in language again, so, the language of requests, promises, assertions, decorations and offers.

Natalie: Right.

Bettie: And when I began to observed and noticed that wherever there's effective action those five things are happening. So, it takes some of the mischief out of life when I could say, "No, this is a promise. This is a request. And make a request distinct from an expectation."

Natalie: Right.

Bettie: So, in business especially, if I can't discern what's an expectation from what's a request then I think I'm own with my own. I'm saying yes to things that don't matter even as the CEO which I'm working with a CEO now in Mexico. And we're learning this technology in his business and so he becomes a different kind of listener. He's listening for, when people say yes and mean it or when people are saying yes because they just wanna get away from you know the boss or whatever people do. So, it brings a kind of, as you said before, a different kind of power in terms of observing. What's the mission of the company? What's the bottom line of the company? As you know now, there are two bottom lines in most businesses. You know there's the bottom of the financial bottom line and then there's also the social consciousness bottom line. So, what are we really saying yes to? So, that's what I'm finding in business there's more about and learning.

Natalie: Yeah.

Bettie: This is a learning to be learning organizations because if people can't learn, if they don't learn they become obsolete in the company, in the business world anyway. So, learning to learn is a big part of what I'm finding in the businesses that I'm working with.

Natalie: Right. Yeah. Excellent! So, tell me a little bit more about your work that you're doing over in Ghana. Are you working with a specific village?

Bettie: Yes. I have a village and I have been there for about 12 years now.

Natalie: Okay.

Bettie: Break some of these principles of community building. And this is what I learned by working in Ghana for the past 12 years. That life focal was about self development or self improvement but a good friend of mine Stuart Embry has said, "The self doesn't need to be improve because the self is perfect but it's how we participate together that needs to be improve." And now, that will then give me a different identity about myself by how I show off with other people.

Natalie: Right.

Bettie: So, work with them in terms of commitment something. You know what's a commitment? And as you and I both know commitment is what's leftover with all the excitements is gone. And then work with them on what is a mission? And unless we have a mission together, we become just individuals trying to have something to happen but once we have a mission that we have stated together for ourselves and our mutual concerns, I think we have a different kind of power. And in this village in the past 12 years, they learned about commitment and then you've had a way, they've learned about responsibility, they've learned about caring about the concerns of the whole village versus my individual concerns which now as I look at it, I think is one of the biggest issues facin' us on the planet today, is moving away from me to we and once I identify myself as we, I become a different kind of participant and what we're doing together.

Natalie: Yep. I know a friend of mine, Michael Drew has a covert nibble called pendulum and it actually goes through and looks at all the different faces throughout history. And we go from an I to a me, to a we, to a they and we're actually swinging into a we period at the moment, you know which really is an alignment with this paradigm that we're talking about.

Bettie: Yeah. And it's like moving from dependants to independence to inter-dependency which is the new; I believe the new paradigm, recognizing that we all in this earth together and we have a relationship with the earth itself.

Natalie: Yes.

Bettie: And so, it's taken care of all of it in a whole new way.

Natalie: Yeah.

Bettie: Yes.

Natalie: Yes, very exciting. So, tell me about like a transformation from someone that you seen, from somebody that you've work with that's really been inspiring for you.

Bettie: Oh, there's so many. I just left Mexico and young lady there rear, I met her when she was 18 and now she's 24. So, it's one of the things I buy. I like to work with people over long periods of time not just a weekend cause I don't think weekends are enough for most people, for sustainability. And now, she's this amazing woman who started her own business, believe it or not and in her business, what she wants to do is to find ways to empower and work with women and especially Latin America about owning their confidence, their power because each culture has this world view about who they are relative especially to men, huh?

Natalie: Yes.

Bettie: And so, and I'm noticing this with her, not overpowering, not dominating but she's fighting that women in Latin America can live extraordinary lives, it is not dependent on the men in their lives. I think women here in the United States keep going to the extreme with that as if I, you know people in the Asian world but we're all working that. How do we form partnerships and what's the sacred partnership? And a sacred partnership has to do with equality and has to do with one knowing themselves this whole perfect incomplete. So, this young woman is amazing.

Natalie: Yeah.

Bettie: My business partner down there that I met about 10 years ago, who again is a working mother, her kids are a 16 and 15 and she has the most amazing business that she's been developing for the past six years. Many, many stories of and then people who started out wanting to be entrepreneurs but then have the skills of an entrepreneur but they knew they couldn't go to work and work with someone else everyday for five days a week.

Natalie: Yeah.

Bettie: Quite pick those. And in my own personal story Natalie that I'm quite inspired by. I was born in North Carolinas, a little farming village and I've travelled the world. I love what I do. I don't feel like I'm working most of the time. It's something you know that I've committed my life to like making a contribution and the kind of contribution when people do, when people are kind to each other or people are to each other. Because I discovered early that people who are fulfilled from within don't hurt other people.

Natalie: That's right.

Bettie: And you may have found this too, you just can't hurt someone else when you feel with light, love and joy. It's when you're empty that you hurt other people.

Natalie: Yup.

Bettie: And so, I do it whether it's in business, individually or wherever I am, I want people to know one thing that they really are cool. They really are pretty cool people on this planet. You know just awake to that and live that and everything will be fine.

Natalie: Yeah. Exactly! Hear, hear. That sounds fantastic. Bettie, thank you so much for joining me today, you've been amazing. Where can we send people if they wanna found out more about you or any of the programs or anything that you have.

Bettie: www.bettiejspruill.com.

Natalie: Excellent! And so, are you running any programs in the near future?

Bettie: Yes, I am Natalie. I have three courses for women. One is taking place in Mexico and August I think one in the Los Angeles area and then one in the Florida area.

Natalie: Right.

Bettie: So, three this year. These are all in my website and I'm looking forward to it. Then, I have a coaching program also who I certify coaches in auto logical coaching. Big word but it means being, being plus producing you know extraordinary results and all that's on my website.

Natalie: Wonderful! So, guys if you just click on the banner to the side there, you go straight through to Bettie's site from there. So, thanks again for joining me Bettie. It's been an absolute pleasure having you.

Bettie: Natalie, thank you so very much, you're amazing. I've admired you since I first saw you and just thank you so much for all that you contribute.

Natalie: No worries. Thank you. Now guys, I encourage you to share this video and the information in it and you can do that by clicking the Facebook and the Twitter share buttons above. If you haven't done so already, make sure you put your email on the box above there, cause I would love to send you my Manifesting with the Masters Video E-Course. Includes masters like Bob Proctor, John Assaraf and Joe Vitale. Its valued $87 but I'd like to send it to you for free so make sure you put your email on the box to get that. So until next time, remember to live large, choose courageously and love without limits. We'll see you soon.