Hilary Silver: I am prepared to ignite.

John Lee Dumas: Yes! Hilary is a relationship expert and master empowerment coach of 15 years. She helps make all of your relationships easier, healthier, sexier, and stronger.

Hilary, take a minute, fill in some gaps from that intro, and give us a little glimpse of your personal life.

Hilary Silver: All right. Well, I guess I could start with personal because what I do is so tied in to what I do professionally. So, I’ve been with my husband for 17 years. I got two kids who are 7 and 10. And let’s see. I am a living, breathing version of my brand, honestly. I have been in practice as a private practice therapist in Denver since 2003, and about two and a half years ago or so, I decided that I wanted to make a bigger impact, and I was tired of really repeating myself one person at a time in the privacy of my office, and decided to branch out into the online world so that I could really reach more people.

So, that’s what I’ve been working on in the last two years, and I’m doing more coaching, and speaking, and more group programming. I’m making it happen.

John Lee Dumas: And what would you say, throughout all your learning and educating others, has become your area of expertise specifically?

Hilary Silver: So, as a therapist, I was focusing mostly on relationships and was working with men, women, and couples individually and together on love, sex, and marriage. And I’ve actually further niched that down since going online to really focus on people who are entrepreneurial and who have relationships because we, as you probably know, we have an extra special set of challenges when we are entrepreneurial and we’re trying to have a relationship that’s still happy while we’re building our empire that we’re so passionate about.

John Lee Dumas: Well, speaking of this empire, what does Fire Nation need to know that we probably don’t about your area of expertise while we’re building our empires?

Hilary Silver: Well, I think that we can have it all and enjoy it, too, but it just doesn’t come easy. And so, I think we just need to be extra careful about navigating about how we are showing up for ourselves so that we’re not last on the list, and we’re becoming unhealthy or unfit as we’re chasing our passion, and that we don’t neglect those other areas of our life that are actually our priorities too because we could climb, climb, climb to the top and then find ourselves sitting all alone at the top of that mountain, and I think only then might we realize that our marriages or our relationships were important to us.

And so, I think it’s super, super important that we get real with ourselves and make sure that we don’t lose sight of our priorities. And sometimes, the solution just comes down to scheduling. It doesn’t sound sexy, but it’s true.

John Lee Dumas: Hilary, you spent, now, 15 years becoming healthier, becoming sexier, becoming stronger, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have the tough times and the struggles that we all just face on a day-to-day basis. So, take us to the worst of the worst, your lowest entrepreneurial moment to date. Take us to that moment, Hilary. Tell us that story.

Hilary Silver: Oh, my gosh. Well, I’ve had quite a few, and some of them are mostly focused on just the business side of things, like when I went against all the advice that everybody said and I created my first online course before I had an audience. Yeah, that was a bad one.

But in staying true to my own personal message, I would say, for me, when I discovered Periscope, which is an online live video tool that I’m sure most people who listen to you already know what that is. I discovered that in July of 2015, so just over two years ago, and I was hooked immediately because I found that right when I was at the beginning of trying to grow and was desperate to get my messages out, like my helping message was just this fire in my belly, and it was like somebody handed me a microphone and put me on a world stage.

And so, I was addicted. I was doing it every day. I was thinking about it all the time. It was interrupting my sleep. Every time I was working with a client, I was like, “Ooh, this is something good I should be talking about.” I got really swept away, and it was amazing. It was a total high. But what I was hearing from my husband was things like, “You’re always on your phone,” or, “Get off that phone,” or, “Come on.” He was kind of frustrated with me, but I wasn’t hearing him because he wasn’t saying it in a direct way where he really had my attention. I just thought he was annoyed, and I was like, “Get over it,” kind of.

And I guess that’s what happens with all addicts in any form. We just don’t see it. But we finally had, I think, about seven months in, this serious, serious conversation about I’m not present, he doesn’t feel important, he’s not getting his needs met, and he was able to actually say to me what was really happening, which is, “I miss you. I’m sad. Don’t you miss me? That makes me sad that you don’t miss me. And we’re really struggling here.” He was struggling.

And it was a good wakeup call for me, which is just every time we go through a challenge, I go through a challenge, I’m looking for the lessons, and it’s kind of an incubator for my content. So, it was a good wakeup call for me, but that was a tough time for sure.

John Lee Dumas: So, what’s the one lesson that you want our listeners to get? Boil it down to one sentence, Hilary. What do you want to make sure Fire Nation takes away from that really tough time in your life?

Hilary Silver: It is okay to pursue your passion with fierce determination and to make sure that you are still showing up for yourself and for your partner.

John Lee Dumas: Hilary, let’s talk about one of the greatest ideas that you’ve had to date. You’ve had a lot of good ideas over the years, but what’s a story of one of those aha moments that you’ve had and how you’ve turned it into success?

Hilary Silver: It was a typical therapy private practice, where I was just seeing one person at a time, but I was actually pretty successful at it, so I had a wait list, and I was turning clients away. And I think it’s pretty taboo for therapists or anyone in that kind of industry to think of ourselves as business owners. We’re supposed to be altruistic, and we just want to help people for the sake of being helpful, and I was one of those people, but I was still making money, and I was pretty successful.

But I just had this wakeup call one day where I was like, “Why am I sending my potential business away to my competitors? This is ridiculous. I’m tired of trading time for dollars.” So, my first real step was admitting that I was a business owner and not feeling bad about that, even though I was in the helping profession, and owning the entrepreneur inside of me.

And that’s when I decided to take on a contract therapist, and I brought somebody into my business to work for me, and that was my first business-y kind of move, where I was accepting passive income and branding myself so that, when I had this person working for me, we were cohesive in delivering the same content and helpful messages in the same style.

And so, that was really the beginning of my expansion before I went online. That was my first big aha was it’s not mutually exclusive to want to help people at such an intimate, core place in their lives and to also want to make money.

John Lee Dumas: So, again, Hilary, let’s kind of run that back with your biggest takeaway, the lesson you want to make sure Fire Nation gets from that aha moment that you had, and how you turned it into a success.

Hilary Silver: So, it was really I was limiting myself, I think, and we do that, my limiting belief that I’m not a business owner or that I’m not an entrepreneur because my business is about helping people. And so, I busted through that limiting belief and have, I think, multiplied my business. I should know the numbers, but I don’t have them, but being able to really serve more people at once, and to increase my revenue, and to work smarter not harder. So, really busting through those limiting beliefs, I think, is critical for our success.

John Lee Dumas: So, what do you want to tell Fire Nation?

Hilary Silver: If you’re bumping up against a wall or a ceiling, it’s coming from within. And so, instead of looking outside of yourself for those answers, it starts inside. Everything starts inside. What is it that you’re holding onto that’s keeping you from getting where you want to go? Do you have “should” statements inside? Because we all do. If you’re not exploring them, they will hold you back.

John Lee Dumas: Hilary, you have a lot of things to be excited about today, but what is really firing you up? When you get up in the morning, and you head off to work, or you head off in your day, what’s that one thing that just really excites you now?

Hilary Silver: What really excites me, I’m a content queen. I live and breathe what I do, so I wake up every day and I struggle to actually figure out, “What am I gonna talk about today?” either in my social media, or with my email list, or with my people, my audience, because I love what I do, so I’m always fired up when I wake up in the morning.

And I think, right now, the project that I’m working on that I’m most passionate about is, in January, I’m rolling out a new group, and it’s going to lead into a nine-month mentorship/mastermind, and I’m super, super excited to be able to work with a small, intimate group of women for a long period of time so that they are able to nurture and develop their businesses in the direction that they want, but also to have the support around how to handle things at home and to not lose themselves along the way, so they can actually really feel fulfilled. I’m so fired up about that right now.

John Lee Dumas: So, why nine months?

Hilary Silver: Because six months doesn’t feel long enough, and 12 months feels too long, so I picked nine.

John Lee Dumas: It’s funny that you say that because a lot of people ask me, “John, why did you choose 100 days for your journal?” because I have the Freedom and the Mastery Journal. I’m like, “Listen, 50 just didn’t seem like enough. It’s not even two months.” And I’m like, “But 200 just seemed like a lot,” so I just kinda went in the middle there, like 100. It just kinda felt right, and sometimes, that’s okay.

Hilary Silver: That’s right. It’s funny. I teach this to my clients in every way, and I know this in certain areas of my life, but sometimes we just learn a lesson in a new way. And for the last few months, I’ve been kind of struggling with this because I’m expanding and growing myself, and I found myself looking outside of myself for the answers, and that this person might be able to help me, or that person might be able to help me, and really, the reason that I broke through that was because I went back to my own basic message, which is, “I know best,” and to stop listening to all the noise and the chatter because everyone has their own way, and to really tune in to what I know best.

And so, that’s another huge lesson that I’ve just learned. Again, once again, I learned the same lesson again, but for me, so that intuition about not listening to what everybody else is doing and to just go back to what feels right for us.

John Lee Dumas: Fire Nation, Hilary’s been dropping value bomb after value bomb, and she has more in store for us when we get back from thanking our sponsors.

Hilary, are you ready to rock the Lightning Round?

Hilary Silver: I am. Let’s do it.

John Lee Dumas: Yes! What was holding you back from becoming an entrepreneur?

Hilary Silver: Nothing was holding me back in the very beginning. I knew I was unemployable from the very beginning. I just kind of had an insubordinate air, a little bit of rebelliousness, so I had no trouble. I went back to grad school when I was 27 and went straight into private practice from there, knowing that’s what I wanted to do, even though everyone told me not to. I think it was really just a matter of figuring out what it was going to be, what my business was going to be, that took me some time to figure that out, honestly.

John Lee Dumas: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Hilary Silver: I love this. The best advice I ever received was: If you really want to be a true thought leader, you have to stop quoting other people and start quoting yourself.

John Lee Dumas: What’s a personal habit that contributes to your success?

Hilary Silver: I wake up at 5:00 a.m. every day because that gives me time to myself. I spend about ten minutes tuning in to myself and checking with where I’m at, and my mindset, and what’s on my mind, what am I worried about, wondering about, struggling with, what am I looking forward to, drinking my coffee alone, and plugging in to my business a little bit so that when my kids wake up an hour and a half later, I can be totally present with them, get them off to school, and then go to work out and not feel rushed because I’ve gotten some of those important – just checking the email or anything pressing going on before I start all that, and then I can start my workday around 9:00, 9:30, having had time for my kids and time for me.

So, I think that’s my best habit.

John Lee Dumas: Now, let me put you on the spot here for a second because you said that you love to quote yourself if you’re gonna be that influencer, so what is one of your favorite self-quotes?

Hilary Silver: Protection prevents connection.

John Lee Dumas: Crushed it!

Hilary Silver: Yeah, I have a lot of them, but that one just came to my mind at first. But what that means is that when you’re in a state of protecting yourself from getting hurt, or from failure, or from whatever you might be afraid of, you are blocking what it is that you really want. Most of us want connection. We want to connect with our lovers, with our audience, with our friends in some kind of meaningful way, but all of those fear-based behaviors will prevent that from happening.

John Lee Dumas: Recommend one Internet resource.

Hilary Silver: Well, if I ever thought I’d be 45 years old editing my own movies in iMovie or creating my landing pages and click funnels, I just never thought. So, I’m not the most tech savvy person, but I would say that it’s actually an app. I’ve started using Venmo for exchanging money because there’s no fee, and you get your payment right away.

John Lee Dumas: If you could recommend one book, what would it be and why?

Hilary Silver: I think my favorite book is The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Wattles. It was written in 1910, so it’s pre-law of attraction, but it is absolutely all about law of attraction. It’s mindset, and you can apply those concepts that he’s talking about to all things, not just money.

John Lee Dumas: It’s been a long time since I read that book, and I remember reading it and really enjoying, so I think that’s gonna go back into the rotation, Fire Nation. I highly recommend it. And it’s actually a great audiobook, too, so if you’re not already an Audible member, head over to EOFireBook.com, and you can get that book for free.

Hilary, let’s end today on fire with a parting piece of guidance, the best way that we can connect with you, and then we’ll say goodbye.

Hilary Silver: The best two most important things for my success have been my mindset and having a vision. When my mindset isn’t in the right place, it doesn’t matter how hard I work. It’s just not gonna happen. And if my vision isn’t totally clear, then I’m working so hard and I don’t know where I’m going. So, for me, mindset and vision would be the whatever it was that you asked me for.

John Lee Dumas: Parting piece of guidance.

Hilary Silver: Parting guidance. And then, the best way to reach me is HilarySilver.com, simple like that.

John Lee Dumas: Fire Nation, you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with, and you’ve been hanging out with HS and JLD today. So, keep up the heat and head over to EOFire.com. Just type “Hilary” in the search bar. Her Show Notes page will pop up with everything that we’ve been talking about today, timestamps, links galore – best show notes in the biz. And of course, head directly over to HilarySilver.com to learn more.

And, Hilary, thank you for sharing your journey with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you, and we’ll catch you on the flipside.

Hilary Silver: Thank you.