Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to Be the Giraffe. I'm your host and guide, Chris Jarvis. Perhaps you're wondering, why be the giraffe? The giraffe literally evolved to be more vulnerable. But the truth is that giraffe gets to see things others can't and reach heights and reach food others won't. If you are looking for ways to stand out and reach higher in business, with money, and in life, then you are in the right place.
Welcome to Be the Giraffe.
Welcome to Be the Giraffe. I'm your host and guide, Chris Jarvis. This is the show where innovators share how they stood tall, broke free from the herd, and reached higher in business and in life. Today's guest is Cassidy Mayoral. Cassidy is a faith driven entrepreneur who has proven that you can be successful and have a servant's heart. She was one of the first 50 employees at Peloton before riding her way into her first fintech startup. As the chief revenue officer of Sell Up, Cassidy is transforming the way people think about business and sales. She credits her success to her ability to turn challenges into unfair business advantage. If you feel like something is holding you back and you want to sell smarter, scale faster, and serve at a higher level, you'll want to hear this story.
Cassidy Merrill. Welcome to Be the Giraffe.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: So welcome. You're here. You have done so much, and I'm in awe because at your age, I was trying to figure out a lot of things that you've already figured out. So this is going to be super cool. There's a lot of young people who watch this who I think are going to identify with a lot of the story you have.
Super cool. You were one of the first 50 employees at Peloton. Like in college, I was, I don't know, like, drinking beer and trying to get a job. And you were, you were an intern in the U.S. senate and you were one of the first 50 employees at Peloton.
[00:02:02] Speaker B: Chris, it makes me sound a lot cooler than I really am. I promise.
I came from a normal family in the suburbs of Philadelphia.
I was incredibly lucky to have a dad that. That would point at billboards of successful people and would point to, like, happy couples having lunch or would see people running and you'd go, cass, that's gonna be you.
And built with, you know, 2/3 of Americans come from a family with addiction.
So having that chip on my shoulder, feeling like I had something to prove, mixed with that level of I expectation kind of gave me the freedom to spread my wings and See what I wanted to do now, the Peloton story is not as sexy as it sounds.
I worked at the King of Prussia mall, which is now the largest mall in America. I was working there because I was paying my way through college and I was working at Tommy Bahama and Peloton was opening up their first store. I was like, what is Peloton?
And I was like, this is an iPad on a spin bike.
And I applied and I was one of the first salespeople in the US and it was also a masterclass in sales because trying to sell something that has a high price point and nobody understands what it is, no one understands what it is or what the value is.
We were coming up with marketing campaigns. I was throwing this bike in the back of my car, taking it to country clubs, taking it to Snap Kitchen, all these cool places as a way to raise awareness.
So while it sounds really cool, and it was, I made great money. I learned a lot about the startup world.
It was truly cutting my teeth in sales for the first time.
[00:03:57] Speaker A: Well, you say yours isn't sexy. I started selling at Cutco.
So I sold knives, and I was trying to sell a $670 set of knives to people who sell, you know, who sell people buy, you know, knife for 10 bucks at Walmart or something else. And I'm trying to. And I'm trying to learn value things that I can't afford.
But. And as a college kid, certainly you couldn't have afforded a Peloton bike on your own. No, but there's something about getting dumped into sales at an early age.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:04:26] Speaker A: That you learn rejection, you learn.
I was enamored by the fact that I could make as much money as I was willing to work.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: Mind blown.
[00:04:35] Speaker A: Mind blown that it wasn't an hour. It wasn't about showing up.
I wasn't getting paid to show up. I was getting paid to accomplish something.
[00:04:43] Speaker B: Absolutely. And more than anything, what I learned was that it was a transfer of energy. I had always thought that I was a bad salesperson. In fact, to this day, I still tell our team, I'm the anti salesperson salesperson.
I'm introverted. I don't necessarily like being approached by people myself when I'm in a store.
And the reason why I loved politics and fell into that world when I was younger is because I was like, oh, I can make a difference. Well, when I found that out in sales, that I could make a difference just by transferring energy and believing in someone's greater outcome than their current reality in that case at Peloton, our demographic was a lot of doctors. It was a lot of lawyers, and then it was also new moms who couldn't make it out of the house to go to the gym.
It was their husband and their wife would come in, and it was, what is the difference? What is the value that I can give you in this scenario? New mom doesn't have the time to work out. Oh, my gosh. What would it be like if you could find that extra 20 minutes?
How much more could you pour into your family, to yourself, to your life? So I know that's on a small scale, but that. That's what. One, fueled the dreams in college, and two, kind of brought me to where I am today.
[00:05:57] Speaker A: But I want to stick with that again because there's a lot of young people who watch the show, and then there's a lot of parents.
It's kind of like your demographic and my demographic. So it's a bring your daughter to work day here at BE the draft.
But there's a lot of people who are trying to inspire their kids. Right. We've tried so hard to inspire our children to have a better life. But as I think that one of the biggest mistakes that we've made, my generation has made, is we've made them too comfortable. And so we don't allow them to struggle. We don't allow them to do things. And if we want people to become successful, the need to learn rejection, to learn how to push through things is so important.
And I think we've done a disservice generationally with that by not wanting kids to be uncomfortable, and we create so much accommodation. But that sales job, it comes fast and furious. Like, there is a. And there's no one to blame, but you're the only person on the call.
[00:06:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:55] Speaker A: How was that experience? I think it's important for people to understand what you get out of that experience at a young age. Being forced to basically sing for your supper.
It's just so different than just showing up.
[00:07:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
To kind of share a story that.
That maybe even is a little bit deeper than that.
The reason I had the opportunity to work at Sell up, not Sell up, to work at Peloton was I actually experienced a traumatic brain injury my freshman year of college.
And I was on medical leave for a year.
And when I finally went back to school, I had a completely different school set up at the University of Delaware. All my classes were remote and were virtual.
And something that I was fighting for myself was, you know, in this 2.0 version of my life.
Do I still have what it takes? Because Chris, I had to learn how to read again.
I couldn't get my eyes to work at the same pace. I had to learn how to be in rooms, not be overstimulated.
When I took that job at Peloton, it was so much of convincing myself that, that I still had the skills and I still had the ability to even do something like this.
In fact, I'll go as far to say as all of the things in life that should have disqualified me from being good at something for having the opportunity, for having the at bat have made me absolutely dangerous.
And sitting in that discomfort, in the discomfort of sales, in the discomfort of a rock bottom of a situation.
Discomfort and rock bottom can be the biggest propellant if you are willing to sit with it. That no from the prospect that hey, I had doctors say to me you have to take a year off from school. And I'm like, don't you know I have stuff to do?
Don't you know who I'm supposed to be one day? But sitting in it and, and really discovering what is the purpose in this pain. We do something at sell up called the sell up download and it's what went well, what didn't go well and what can I do better next time we get people back to an emotional equilibrium because it's the most important thing you can do. Guess what? We don't just do that in sales, we do that in our relationship. I built a company with my husband and if I could have gone back and done something different when I was younger than I would have started implementing what's going well, what can I do better?
What went well, what didn't go well, what can I do better next time in every single situation.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: I think we've just laid out the whole the next three segments. So we're going to go through all of that. The what went well, what didn't go so well, what can we do better?
It's so important to ask questions about things and I think that's also part of the discomfort that, that I can remember when I met Jack Canfield he had said to me, he put this question out to a group and said if you have the courage, go home and ask your wife, ask your kids, ask your husband, ask whoever your partner is on a scale from 1 to 10, how am I doing?
And any answer other than a 10 has a follow up question.
And that was just such a fascinating thing to be able to ask that question. But it was more about the really getting to the know and how important that here's like one of the world's leading success coaches.
One of the simple things is just getting people to be comfortable getting a no.
[00:10:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: And asking for feedback even when you may not want the answer.
[00:10:38] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:10:38] Speaker A: And that was just like that constant feedback loop is so important.
[00:10:42] Speaker B: And you learn nothing. You learn nothing from winning.
You learn nothing. I thank God for the failures and for the nos because that's where the 1% difference comes in.
[00:10:56] Speaker A: It's so important. And I think that's part of the sales. I think that's why sports are so important for kids to have that situation where you, you lose. I think there's something to sitting in the pain, not getting through the immediate gratification all the time with the device and just having some thinking about it. I still remember my junior year high school basketball championship. We lost in a state championship and lost in the last minute of the game and I was captain of the team and it's horrible.
I remember I'm more hurt by my daughter losing the state championship and in wrestling on a miss scoring mistake, like just silly. But it's those things that hit you so hard because you didn't. The pain is where you learn. And that's part of that. So when we come back in the next segment, I want to talk about, I want Cassidy to teach you how you can take how you can go from some of this pain and some of these things that you may see as challenges because she glossed over a bunch of those things. And there's a lot we're going to go a little deeper into if you're willing.
[00:11:57] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:11:58] Speaker A: To help people identify with some of the challenges you have so you can elevate your perspective and see a better path for you in becoming your giraffe. We'll see you after the break.
Chris Jarvis with Be the Giraffe. And this week, I am so excited to welcome Cassidy Merrill to the show. She has an explosive story about how she took all of her challenges in life and turned them into superpowers so she could live a life full of joy, impact, and change the lives of other people. So if you are looking for more passion, more purpose and actually more enjoyment out of your life, more fulfillment, and you want to impact others, you have got to check out the magic that Cassidy has for you on the next episode of Be the Giraffe.
Welcome back to Be the Giraffe. My guest today is Cassidy Mayoral, who has had an extraordinary, extraordinary young life. Got a lot done so far. So you're one. I can tell you're one of these people who does a lot in a little amount of time.
You glossed over something in the last segment because we were talking about challenges and how people overcome challenges, and that's one of your superpowers. And I know for me, it was probably in my late 20s that I started addressing some of the stuff that I had as a kid. And I started doing therapy, and I went through the stages of blaming my parents for all the crap they gave me and.
And my father's alcoholism or my mother's codependency or whatever the things were. It was that. That normal state, right. And I can remember, you know, it took me a long time to go, well. I went from not being even aware of it to then becoming aware of it and placing the blame and then.
And then getting to a place of actually accepting them for who they were. Because for the longest time, I wanted my dad, who was very logical, to be more loving and warm and open like my mother. And I wanted my mother to be more logical, even though she was super warm and loving. And it wasn't until later that I was like, why can't I just appreciate.
[00:14:18] Speaker B: Them for who they are and effectively blame them? If you're going to be mad at them for the things that they did wrong, you got to be grateful for all the things that they did that made you exactly who you are.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: And. Yes, and that was. I remember watching I Am not yout Guru, the documentary Tony Robbins did spectacular. It was so good. I had it on my phone, and I just stopped and I stood there and watched the whole thing. It was that good.
And I can remember him talking to one of the people at the seminar about, like, you should thank your parents for the gifts they gave you. And so I know for me that there was so much of this that I learned from my parents. But again, for people who might be in that earlier stage of still blaming their parents, I know you have.
You know, you have some stories, and you've dealt with. You know, you've dealt with some similar stuff. So, like, what did you learn? Like, what did you feel when you were younger? That being in that family situation that wasn't ideal, right? The family situation that wasn't ideal. What did you. What did you feel at first? Because I think there's gonna be a lot of people who will feel.
Who might be feeling similar things, and they like to know where you're coming from so they can kind of see themselves in you, and vice versa.
[00:15:29] Speaker B: I want to Start by saying two things can be true at once.
[00:15:33] Speaker A: Two things can be true at once.
[00:15:35] Speaker B: Maybe that doesn't apply to accounting, but it can apply to life. Most of the time, I love it.
I got the family that I should have had. I do have a great family. And life also happens. And there's the reality of not everything is going to be perfect.
From a really young age, I felt like I didn't fit in.
I felt incredibly misunderstood. And that's something that's really common when you grow up with addiction or alcoholism in the family, you don't know if it's safe to have people come over to play. If people did come over, would they find you out? Would they not want to be friends with you?
What would that say about me? What does that say about the values that were passed on to me?
Does that make me bad or not good?
And a moment that really shaped me.
The first time I ever heard it was when I was in first grade from an adult in my life. That was, you know what, Cassidy?
You're not lovable, let alone likable.
And that was said in a state of.
When someone was under the influence of.
And man, that set me on a rampage my entire life to become someone who was lovable and likable. I remember writing down, you know, first grade, second grade, third grade, all the way up until I was. I mean, today. But you know, in school, when you write down what you want to be when you grow up.
I put down things like president. I put down things like world leader, founder of a Fortune 500 company.
I wanted to be someone who was important and good and worthy of being recognized because I felt so invisible and deeply unlovable as a kid.
And what that can do is really give someone a chip on their shoulder. And that was the best thing that ever happened to me.
That drive, the drive that it gave me, the drive was an incredibly great thing until you get to the point where you can disappoint yourself when the success isn't enough, when you drop the ball. Because at the end of the day, we're all going to disappoint ourselves.
[00:18:11] Speaker A: Especially when you demand perfection.
[00:18:13] Speaker B: Exactly. Exactly. For me, the way that that so one that should have disqualified me from a lot of things.
Experiencing addiction, experiencing the tumultuousness of a home that was built on that foundation.
According to statistics, I should be an addict myself and praise God that I'm not.
So something that should have disqualified me, had set me up to have this chip on my shoulder to apply to things like peloton to apply for the internship in the US Senate to get a job at an awesome fintech startup.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: Start a company.
[00:18:53] Speaker B: Start a company. Start a company with my husband. And the most important part of that though, is that when you have a chip on your shoulder, you put so much pressure on yourself. And that pressure kind of hit a climax for me when I was about to graduate college and it was a situation, you know, most of my life I wasn't a believer. I certainly didn't believe in God. I laughed at people who believed in God. And I hit rock bottom my senior year of college.
That loved one's addiction was absolutely an unbearable point for me to handle.
I had experienced adversity outside of that as well. And I remember sitting in the shower, couldn't even stand. That's how much the depression had taken over.
And I thought, you know what?
I can't do this anymore.
And I couldn't. Personal development, my way out of that state. You know when you have a family that there's so much chaos and you feel like it's your job to fix it because you fixed everything, you've been able to achieve all of these things, you can't fix that. And when that is your focus and you think you are the source of the universe to make everything better, when that crumbles in on you and you have nothing, there is no mantra, there's no high fiving yourself in the mirror. There's no five step routine in making your bed that can bring you joy again.
That year I had been invited to church by a guy I was set up on a blind date with.
And he would drive up to to where I was, to take me down to D.C. to take me to church.
And March 20, 2019, I gave my life to Jesus.
And it fundamentally changed everything. The prayer that I had prayed in that pew at that church at Howard Theater in D.C. if anyone knows it was God. I have no idea who you are.
But if you're in the business of making people new, please take this depression from me because I can't handle it anymore.
And I can happily say that from that day forward, I praise God for it. I have not experienced a suicidal thought or a depression since that day.
And I'm no longer at the center of my universe. I am no longer the one who has to do and fix and solve and be capable of all of this. And I no longer have to be striving to be perfect in order to be loved.
Because my identity now, and I don't know what it is for everyone Else. But my identity now is as a daughter of the king of the universe who I don't have to do anything to be loved. I don't have to do anything to be good, including fixing other people, including fixing companies. Even if the company I started failed, I would be good and I would be loved.
And man, I'll tell you what my unfair advantage was, that rock bottom that led me personally to God, because now, and my husband could definitely tell you this, my faith has given me this. Well, this reserve that even when maybe the proposal doesn't come through, even if the deal doesn't happen, we were in a really crazy position at one point where when we had first started sell up and we didn't have a lot of money, I mean, we were living in a one bedroom apartment and we had a client who wasn't really in alignment with us morally and ethically anymore. And I looked at my husband and I was like, we have to get rid of them.
And I don't. We didn't know where the money was gonna come from.
But when you're operating off of that, off of that reserve of faith, off of he will always provide. As long as I put my faith to my feet and I keep showing up, that is our unfair advantage. But wouldn't you know, two months later we signed one of our biggest clients who completely changed the name of the game for us.
I don't know, Chris, did that answer the question?
[00:23:34] Speaker A: It's fantastic.
I think for people in the audience, the big.
The thing is I take at least two things away from that and it's similar stuff to my story is thinking that what you do is more important than who you are is a heavy weight to carry.
If you feel like what you do is more important than who you are, you're playing a really tough game. Like, that's a really dangerous game.
And the other one to think about is the question we're going to talk about after the break is think about are you trying to fulfill a contract that nobody else signed?
I felt that, that I was there to save my mother. When my parents got divorced and I was 10, I thought I had to be the man of the house and be there. And I spent decades thinking it was my job to save her. Decades for you to fix your family. And so if you're feeling that, that are you doing things that you put the pressure on yourself but nobody else has assigned it and expects you to do it, you're playing a really dangerous game. So if you're feeling that way, you want to Come back after the break and we've got some ideas that could help you.
Chris Jarvis with Be the Giraffe. And this week, I am so excited to welcome Cassidy Merrill to the show. She has an explosive story about how she took all of her challenges in life and turned them into superpowers so she could live a life full of joy, impact, and change the lives of other people. So if you are looking for more passion, more purpose, and actually more enjoyment out of your life, more fulfillment, and you want to impact others, you have got to check out the magic that Cassidy has for you on the next episode of Be the Giraffe.
Welcome back to Be the Giraffe. I'm Chris Jarvis and we are elevating. We're going deep, and Cassidy Merrill is helping us with some very vulnerable, which is very giraffe of you. Thank you. Of course, we talked the last session about you had a moment where you weren't sure you wanted to live. And I had that moment after I got divorced. And then when I had no money, my partners kicked me out of a business that had been my identity for 15 years. And it was like I thought I was the owner and founder of a business and I thought that was my thing.
At the same time, my sister, who was born my brother, I have a transgender sister who when my mother got divorced, I took on the role of being an unsigned contract, a single sided contract where I thought my role was to help my mother after the divorce, and she was crushed.
Even when she got remarried, I still felt like I had a role which some other man has already stepped in to help her with.
But he subsequently died, which then amplified it all. But when my sister, who was born, my brother was also suffering from mental illness. The healthcare system wasn't taking very good care of her, ultimately over medicated her to death.
[00:27:05] Speaker B: I'm so sorry.
[00:27:06] Speaker A: Really, it was horrible. But what happened was I had this role, but at one point, I hated my sister, not because of the transgender, but because of the mental illness that was causing pain on my mother, which was keeping me from saving her because my sister was making her life hard.
And so like these, it wasn't until I had a moment that was, oh, my goodness, my relationship with my mother. Once I had a kid, I realized that my relationship with my mother is mine and hers, and my mother's relationship with my sister is also theirs. And I have no part of any of that because I realized that when I had Chloe, nothing else mattered. Like, I didn't care what any of you thought about my relationship with her. It took that.
[00:27:42] Speaker B: Right.
[00:27:43] Speaker A: And so where I'm going with this is I think it's very common for people to want to please their parents or to do certain things or they set expectations that they have to be perfect because they're unlovable.
[00:27:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:56] Speaker A: And like, that's the thing that drives you. Because it was same thing with me when. When what I do is more important than who I am, I will do things at a higher scale.
I will work harder because I have more at stake. I have my whole self worth tied up into this cut go sales job, into this beach volleyball tournament, into whatever I'm doing this baseball game because I'm playing it for something else. I put too much weight on it. So that was a skill.
That extra weight I put on myself made me really good at it because I would put more into it. But then it was the same thing that was holding me back. Right. It was this moment of the thing that drives you is the thing that holds you down. And so I think for people in the audience that are watching this and maybe they're feeling the weight of unfair expectations, pressure, a bad hand they were dealt. Something like that you found God and that was your journey. And people find different things that guide them through.
[00:28:56] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:28:57] Speaker A: What is that transition like when all of a sudden your life changes and the people around you, because it's people don't leave to be. Like when you leave a place that you don't that isn't great for you and you're looking for something better.
The thing that people miss out on is like, the people you leave aren't usually happy with you.
[00:29:15] Speaker B: No, no, not at all. Chris.
A lot had changed in that time. I mean, even from the dynamic of, you know, most of the business books and most of the books on successful people that we read are about men. And I am so pro men. I'm pro woman, I'm pro men, I'm pro everyone, whatever you want to be.
But my idea of success and being a winner and being lovable and good came from the very masculine, traditional sense of success.
And when I had transitioned into this season of leading by my faith, I took one the big jump of leading, of trying to learn to lead more feminine, to step into that state of what flow looks like from there. And when I asked myself, God, what would I how would you have me move? What would you have me do in the most pleasurable way as a woman?
It was go to Florida, sell everything that doesn't fit into your car, and go be by the Beach.
So at this point it was 2020, it was a pandemic. Actually, it was 2021 and I sold everything that didn't fit into my car. I was working at the tech startup at the time. We were all remote and I moved down to Tampa, Florida. Didn't know anyone, didn't know anything.
And that was really hard because when you come from a family dynamic where you know, hey, so and so needs this, hey, don't talk to this person right now. Hey, I need to talk to you about what just happened. Hey, can you go?
Well, hey, guess what? When you remove yourself by a 17 hour car drive or a three and a half hour flight, people aren't going to like that they don't have access to you anymore.
And when you still really love those people who have always had access to you, that's really a hard decision. You know, you get the Italian, the Catholic guilt put on you. Hey, are you leaving your family?
Yes, but not in my heart.
[00:31:20] Speaker A: Are you too good for us? Yeah.
[00:31:23] Speaker B: And I'm really grateful that no one ever really put that on me. Maybe I put a little bit on myself.
But what I can tell you is that when I did get down to Florida, I knew that working for someone else was no longer for me.
The biggest way that I could make an impact was building and creating my own mission.
And my parents were like, well, you're not gonna quit your job.
This is everything you've ever wanted on paper.
This is everything. You make great money. You are learning from serial entrepreneurs.
Yeah, but that quiet whispering in your heart when you know that something is not for you anymore.
And listen, if I would have listened to my parents advice and my mentor's advice and people around me advice, I would have stayed there and I would have made a lot of money. And I would have been crying myself to sleep because I would have known that I was lying to myself in order to make other people happy. And I made a commitment to myself that year that I gave my life to God, that I would absolutely slay any dragon. That meant that I had to please other people anymore because my joy and my source was not coming from that anymore.
So I did what any logical person would do. I quit my job and told no one.
And when.
[00:32:48] Speaker A: You can't get punished if nobody knows the crime, you can't get.
[00:32:50] Speaker B: Punished if no one knows the crime.
But here came the fatal mistake.
It was the time for open enrollment. I needed to get on COBRA insurance or whatever it is you get on when you don't have a job.
And my insurance agent, or whoever it was that was helping, didn't realize that I didn't tell my parents that I quit my job. So when she was going to help my parents the following week, she had shared that. Oh, yeah, I helped Cassidy get on Cobra.
And they're like, what, she's a snake charmer. Yeah.
And I called my dad a couple days later. I'm like, hey, dad, what's up? How are you? And I finally built up the strength in myself. He's like, cass, is there something you want to tell me? And I was like, oh, do you already know? And he was like, why don't you tell me, Dad?
I quit my job, but I'm going to start this company, and I know what's really going to help people. And he goes, cass, I just want you to fail as fast as possible because I want you to start winning. And it's really scary to see you do something where I know that the chances are that you're going to fail. Most businesses fail.
And it was a beautiful conversation, and it was a sad conversation. Not everyone in my family felt like it was a good idea. My friends had no idea what I was doing.
And it was a moment of freedom like I could never.
I could never describe to you. When you deny a lot of worldly comfort to do what you believe you are called to do, it's like one of those, like, little notches in your belt. It's like when you finally start keeping the promises that you make to yourself and you start living by that true alignment code that you know is in your DNA to do.
And that's what set that moment, that uncomfortable phone call that disappointing other people to make sure that I didn't disappoint myself and my creator changed everything for me.
So if I could leave someone with something, there, it would be if you know in your heart, in your soul, contract what it is that you're supposed to do.
Don't be scared to disappoint other people, because on your deathbed, you can read all the things. It's a lot scarier to talk about the things that you couldn't or that you didn't do because you were scared of what other people would think. Guess what? Those people are probably dead by now. They don't care. They don't care.
No one is thinking about you. This is the greatest thing. And my best friend Courtney, she's great. She always looks at me and she goes, cassidy, no one's thinking about you.
And it's funny. It's hilarious. And I'm like, yeah, that's the reminder I need. If you think people are going to care, they won't. They're not thinking about you. Everyone's thinking about themselves.
And if they are going, if you're from a small town, like the way I was from a small town, guess what? Maybe they'll talk about you for the next three months or three years, but three years from now, you're going to be building something that's incredible, and you're going to be happy, and you're not going to care what they thought anymore.
[00:36:08] Speaker A: Just pure gold. And, you know, it reminds me, I can remember my dad.
He knew that I had this thing about taking care of other people.
And so when I told him that I was going to adopt Tyler and Kirsten, his first response was, are you sure?
And I said, yeah. And the next day he called me back and said, I'm so sorry. He said, I love the kids, and I didn't mean to really interfere in your life. And I said, dad, I don't.
I'm not upset with you because you know that I've taken on other people's responsibilities my whole life, and you're just concerned for my safety. And I think that's a lot of times when parents say they want you to fail fast or they say be careful, or they don't. They don't encourage you. I think an important step is to get to a place where you realize the intention of the statement, not what you want it to be. So it's not, oh, you don't believe in me.
[00:37:07] Speaker B: Right.
[00:37:08] Speaker A: It's, you want me not to hurt. And I appreciate that.
[00:37:10] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, look how loved I am.
[00:37:12] Speaker A: Right.
[00:37:13] Speaker B: Someone cares.
[00:37:14] Speaker A: That's right. Someone loved me. So that's a big one if you can think about that. How does someone really. Getting out of your own way and stop worrying what other people think or to embrace the intention of what's there. But always being true to who you are is so important.
[00:37:28] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:37:28] Speaker A: That's such a powerful message. And so what I want to share with everybody in the last segment is like, you're such a soulful, wonderful person and we do love you, and so grateful you're here that in the next segment, we're going to talk about how she's taken that and turned it into magic in business. So you're not going to want to miss it. Catch you after the break.
Chris Jarvis with Be the Giraffe. And this week, I am so excited to welcome Cassidy Merrill to the show. She has an explosive story about how she took all of her challenges in life and turned them into superpowers so she could live a life full of joy, impact, and change the lives of other people. So if you are looking for more passion, more purpose, and actually more enjoyment out of your life, more fulfillment, and you want to impact others, you have got to check out the magic that Cassidy has for you. On the next episode of Be the Giraffe.
Welcome back to Be the Giraffe. I'm Chris Jarvis. Today we're joined by Cassidy Merrill, who, while you were at commercial, she was just imparting wisdom and magic all over the studio and lit the place on fire. So I'm gonna have to make her repeat herself. So we were talking about in the last segment, you spent so eloquently. If you haven't seen it or you have seen it, go back and watch it again. Rewind.
The whole point that what's in your heart drives you and doing things for other people is such a terrible, terrible waste of a life doesn't mean you should do what other people don't want. But trying to figure out what's important to you is such a big part of this, and it changed your life dramatically.
But you said something about, like, we debated off camera at the break on whether or not this is too personal and not business enough. Yeah, that was your question. And then your observation of yourself was.
[00:39:40] Speaker B: Well, you know, the truth is, one, if I'm leading by my principles, is that one. I'm gonna lead by faith. I'm gonna be authentic to myself, and I'm going to lead from my feminine heart.
[00:39:51] Speaker A: Which means what, by the way?
[00:39:54] Speaker B: Gosh, I don't know.
To me, it's leading from a place of flow. For me, leading from my feminine heart is from my vulnerability. That my vulnerability. Vulnerable vulnerab. You know what I'm trying to say. From my speech pathology background, being vulnerable and loving and caring deeply is a superpower of the feminine. And men can have that in them as well. You know, we all have our masculine and feminine within ourselves. But if I am truly leading from that spot, then I know that some of the greatest advice, life advice, whatever you want to call it, I could possibly give you is from my vulnerability because I've read so many. I've read all the personal development books. I've read so many of the business books. And. And the truth is, business is easy.
If you've read five business books, you've read all the books. If you've attended one seminar, you've attended all of the seminars. Because business is easy. Dealing with the trash in your head or the stories that you've conjured up in your heart, that's hard.
[00:40:55] Speaker A: Say that again.
[00:40:56] Speaker B: To them, business is easy. But dealing with the trash in your head or the stories that you've conjured up in your heart, and that's the real work. And, Chris, when you. When I was able to work through and it's not linear. It's not like I've arrived. It's not done.
But since I've done a lot of the work and I've started that journey, business is easy.
You know, I attended a Tony Robbins event with my husband, and Tony talks about something called your favorite flavor of suffering.
And mine was truly, when something would happen with people I loved or I cared about and it was bad, I would spiral the anxiety and everything would take over so much that I was incapable of executing at work.
That is a dragon that I slayed about two years ago with thanks to God, with thanks to my husband, and with thanks to the teachings of Tony. And that is the proof. That year we doubled our business. We doubled our impact.
Because this is part business as well. I think it's fair to say.
In the past 18 months, we've added $14 million of revenue to our clients.
That doesn't happen when I'm sulking in my car or in the passenger seat about how, gosh, things are so hard at home.
With all due respect, screw the story.
Slay the dragon. Go get stuff done. Because there's people who need you out in the world.
You need you out in the world. Something. And maybe this is helpful. Maybe this is a word for someone. But one of the things that if you feel like you can't work with your head trash and you feel like maybe you're not worthy of dealing with it.
I would think about the little me as a little girl and imagine that she was my daughter.
And if she came home and she saw me acting the way that I felt, like I was acting the way that I. The emotions that were taking over me, how would I make her feel in every. And if I succumbed to the dark thoughts that I was experiencing, what kind of life would my daughter live? Or what would little Cassidy be experiencing?
And that allowed me to push through the darkest thoughts or the head trash. Because if I can't do it for me today, the me that's sitting here, I can do it for the little girl who all she wanted was adult, to stand up for her and, man, push through the head trash.
Because your life is on the other side.
And I'll tell you, we have a really exciting hiring process at sell Up.
In fact, we tell people, don't submit your resume. I don't want it. I'm not going to look at it.
Both of us.
What we do is we ask a question of a story that should have disqualified them.
What was an adverse. What was an adversity type story that you have and how did you overcome it and how did it. What was the lesson that you learned? And then the next question is, are you a winner?
And define what a winner is to you.
If I look back at my story, I was always trying to answer those two questions.
How am I going to overcome this?
And do I actually believe that I'm a winner? And what does a winner mean to you? And we have collected and we have enrolled people into our business that have just become, you know, I sometimes joke, we're the island of misfit toys. Listen, we're going to be the number one growth firm in the country. And we've collected a bunch of people who life could have disqualified, but they chose to enroll themselves into a higher identity because skills are teachable.
You can pick up the book like you can pick up a book. You can learn it. I can. And my husband and I, we can sit there and we can teach you how to sell and we can teach you how to increase your revenue. We can teach you how to have better relationships with people.
But I can't teach you to believe in yourself and want to get out of bed and fight to be the best version of yourself every day.
Yeah.
[00:45:30] Speaker A: You said so much there. And it's like the vulnerability thing for people out there.
You had moments.
You had moments. But the key with this vulnerability thing is asking for help.
Like the reaching out to other people is such a big.
It's not like I don't want people to get misinterpret the story because they see what a beast you are at all of these things and how strong your will is.
But those moments of when you were, when you were struggling, there was reaching out to people.
[00:46:09] Speaker B: Absolutely, Chris. And if that got overlooked. My goodness.
[00:46:16] Speaker A: No overlooked. But I want to overemphasize how important that is. Because part of being vulnerable.
[00:46:20] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:46:21] Speaker A: Is asking for sharing that. And I know for me, when I went to business school, there were people I went to school with who went to Harvard and went to Yale and went to all these places and I went to University of Rhode island and I thought that that was. I would just say I went to school back east and hope they assumed I went to Brown or Harvard or somewhere else.
And it took a long time to get to the place where I realized that the things that you overcame.
Being the first kid to go to college isn't an embarrassment. It's something you should be proud of. Or having gone to the state school and then getting into the top 10 graduate school is actually more. It's actually more impressive. Or you made it yourself, or you started your own business or you overcame adversity or you had a transgender sibling or an alcoholic parent or someone died or whatever it was, someone in your family went to jail. Any of the things that happened, those are all things that your parents came over as immigrants. Like, all these stories that people are afraid to tell are actually stories that help them identify and connect with people in a way that people are genuinely good and they want to help other people. But they don't know your story. They can't help you.
[00:47:21] Speaker B: No, not at all.
One if you are suffering right now, ask for help.
And if you are open to it, also pray that it be removed. That being said, I asked for help. I had a mentor, and she was such a lifeline for me. She even enrolled me into therapy at the time.
I called my father one of the nights in college when I felt like I didn't know what I could do.
And being vulnerable enough to guess what, you can't make the difference that you want to make in the world if you're not here in the world. The world. The world needs you.
The world needs your unique gifts.
While you were still in your mother's womb, before you were even there, he knew you.
And there are gifts inside of all of us that we need to unlock. We need to ask for the help so we can get to the other side of it.
And asking for help, especially when you're a young entrepreneur, ask for help while people are still excited by your story. Like, oh, I remember when I was young and, you know, you remind me so much of myself.
Leverage that people want to When I'm mentoring people who are in college or about to go into college, the number one thing I tell you is enroll people into your vision and your mission.
People want to help young, hungry people.
People want to help people who also want to help themselves.
So ask.
Ask for what you need and what you're going to do with that when you get there. Does that make sense?
[00:49:16] Speaker A: Very much.
It's the, you know, like the new mantra for the whole be the giraffe.com world is not just the TV show but is stand out, reach higher, elevate others.
Like that is, that's the mission is to do well so you can bring, you can bring other people up to that, up to that level. And your story is, it's spectacular.
It really is. And so thank you, you know, for all the people who are out there. If you want to start a business, if you're stuck, if you've got a difficult family situation, if you have you just don't believe in yourself or you find yourself living somebody else's life, you're not living your dream. You haven't found your purpose, you haven't found your passion. If you're in any of those places, then, or you know somebody who's going through that, please share this episode because Cassidy's got such a great, such a great story and comes with such a big heart. And so again, if you want, I think the antidote to suffering is our favorite flavor of guest and that's Cassidy Murrell. So I'm very, very happy to have had you today. Thank you for being here.
[00:50:25] Speaker B: Thank you so much, Chris. It was a pleasure.
[00:50:26] Speaker A: We'll see you next week on Be the Giraffe, where you get to elevate your perspective, see a better path, and ultimately be the giraffe. Catch you.
