Soul Aligned Success with Leticia Guzman Owner of Leticia Guzman and Associates: Embracing Authenticity in Business

In this episode of the AG45 Soul Aligned Strategy Podcast, host Katherine Breuss speaks with Leticia Guzman, owner of Leticia Guzman and Associates with American Family Insurance. Leticia shares her journey towards achieving 'soul alignment' in her business over the past five years. Initially unaware of the importance of aligning her personal values with her business, Leticia gradually invested in personal and professional development, hiring a coach to help her gain clarity and confidence. This alignment led to significant changes in how she approached her business, attracted clients, and built a cohesive team. Leticia emphasizes the importance of investing in oneself and the profound impact it can have on one's business and life. The conversation also touches on the integration of core values into business practice and the positive outcomes of being truly aligned in one’s personal and professional life. 

Find Leticia - https://www.linkedin.com/in/leticia-guzman-71305812/  

 

[00:00:00] AG45 Intro: Welcome to the Ag 45 Soul Aligned Strategy Podcast, where business meets purpose growth feels good, and results meet enjoyment. Hosted by Katherine Breuss, CEO, and founder of Ag G 45, this show is built on 30 years of hands-on experience across four countries, three businesses, and one incredible life. 

Raising four children. Katherine brings a rare whole person perspective to business strategy and leadership. I. This podcast is for business owners ready to stop spinning, start aligning, and build a business that delivers real value while creating a life that feels yours. At the end of the day, you are the engine behind it all, and when you're clear and aligned, everything moves with purpose. 

It starts with you. Let's dive in. 

[00:00:52] Katherine Breuss: Leticia, welcome to the AG 45 Soul Aligned Strategy Podcast. It's amazing to have you here. I appreciate your time. Um, and I'd love if you could share with the audience who you are and, and your business. 

[00:01:10] Leticia Guzman: Absolutely. Well, thank you first off for having me. I appreciate being here. Um, I'm Leticia. I have,  I am the owner of Leticia Guzman and Associates with American Family Insurance, downtown Waukesha. Um, been down here for 18 years. Um, and I, I love my town. I love. I love our agency, our, our, our team, our community. 

It's, they haven't been down to Waukesha. It's a great place. It is. Yeah. I'll,  

[00:01:36] Katherine Breuss: I will say it's pretty cool. Like I wasn't very familiar with,  Waukesha until the last couple years and it is such a lovely area.  

[00:01:46] Leticia Guzman: It is. Yeah. Coffee shops and little shops and we love it. I'm still here 18 years later. 

I'm still here.  

[00:01:54] Katherine Breuss: That's amazing. So 18 years,  you must be doing something  And   I, I would say more than something,  Yeah. And since this podcast is, is focused on the power of being soul aligned mm-hmm. As a business owner. And the way that we see soul alignment is understanding who you are as a human, what you want, and aligning it to your business. 

Mm-hmm. Um, my question for you, Leticia, is, is how important is. Alignment or sole alignment,  for you and the success of your business?  

[00:02:36] Leticia Guzman: So,  I, I feel this, if you asked me this five years ago, I would not have been able to articulate or be able to explain this  Um, but over the last five, I would say the last five years, over the last five years. 

I became aware of the, of being aligned and within the business. And that for me was one of the biggest breaking points. Um, I feel  I feel it was always aligned to some degree. But there are times where you have to, sometimes I realized that I wasn't that confident, right? 

To, to know that, hey, listen, this is who I am in my personal life and this is translating into my business world. It's hard to, 'cause some people will say,   you have to be one way in your personal life and you have to be another way in your business. And I've heard that for long. And for many years I was   who am I here? 

But who am I here? And eventually. I realized it's not, it, it's, there is no separation. It's all everything, right? So your whole world, if you're, and, and if you don't bring that alignment of who you truly are into the business, I feel you, I feel you wouldn't always say yes from an alignment and maybe out of obligation, right? 

Mm-hmm. And in the last five years, I've done some intense,  Maybe not soul searching is a word, but maybe some, some alignment. Um, and confirmation in alignment. And now I, now I see it, now I'm   I, I see it. I am who I am outside of my office. I am who I am in my office, and I am who I am with all the people, whether you're a member of the community, whether you're a member of my agency and even on my team. 

And it's. I feel I can say yes from alignment now and not out of obligation. And that is important because every offer, every partnership, every piece of content that I create is, is a full body. Yes. Right. Um, I'm not launching from the sake of launching. I don't, I I don't move out of pressure or fear. 

I'm  I, I, now, I, it's all about how I Right. And I wait until it feels  And that's been the biggest game changer. And I said, five years ago, I've been   I do. And now I'm  no, I know I do.  

Um, it's  

[00:05:15] Katherine Breuss: I, I'm curious in terms of the impact. So there was a time in your life where you feel you weren't a soul aligned. 

 there were some part of alignment, and then the last five years you've become more soul aligned in your business. What is, what are the. Biggest impact that you have seen from being more soul lined than previously?  

Okay. That's a good question. So, I, I lead, I, I lead with a mission. I lead with who I am. 

Um, I, I'm confident in my, in what I deliver. I am very confident in what we're expecting. Um, we. I'm very aligned with my core values and my agency are very in alignment with who I am. Okay. And now that gives me the opportunity to lead with my best foot forward and my most authentic self. Okay. And now I'm attracting  

mm-hmm. 

[00:06:22] Leticia Guzman: The, I'm attracting people that are in alignment with, those are my people. Yeah. In business and in my personal world. Over the course of the last five years, I'll, I'll tell you,  I can reflect on the, the days where I was attracting wrong opportunities because I wasn't very clear. I wasn't crystal clear. 

I wasn't, those my, I wasn't clear on, I. I wasn't aligned, period. It's the end of the,  that's it. Um, and also the other thing is that when you're not aligned and you're misaligned, it creates resistance. Yeah. Which is gonna create burnout,  Um, you, you do lose clarity and confidence because you're not even clear on what you're, on, what you're trying to convey. 

And I feel when you can get to that point, you transition everything. Now I attract people on my team. Hmm. That are more in alignment with what I believe, and those are the people that, that are working in your world with you every day. I also attract people that are me in my personal world. 

And when you are attracting that and you are surrounding yourself around people that are in alignment with who you are, it's a completely different lifestyle, right? You do show up as your authentic self. And that that has, that has been incredible. And I can see how our opportunities that we're attracting are much different. 

[00:07:50] Katherine Breuss: So you're seeing the results from it? 

[00:07:52] Leticia Guzman: 100%. Yeah. I'm seeing my, I'm seeing different results from my team members too, because I'm showing up in a very specific way. Right. And they're almost matching that those people that aren't matching that are also the people that were. Hard in ways with, and that's  hard. 

It's hard to to know. And I knew that that would happen. Um, and it was difficult, but until it was for me, I had to kinda sit back and say,  let that go and let the opportunities come into play. Um, it was about being able to see the bigger picture.  

[00:08:31] Katherine Breuss: Yeah. I love that you said that it's not easy. 

It's, God, it's not easy to, to let go of the weight. So  and I, I use the,  metaphor of,   being in an ocean and  when where you wanna go and who you are,  that, those are first steps. Um, it, it becomes  oh, I can do this. I can swim to there, I can do that. 

However, if you still have. Dead weight. You have anchors onto you, the wrong people or the wrong opportunities, or the wrong environment or whatever that inhibits you. It makes that swim a hell of a lot harder and it can even  pull you back or, or bring you down. Right. And even recognizing that you had some,  some,  people or, or circumstances or opportunities that you had to say no to or let go of. 

It's not an easy thing in particularly at first, but when you do. It's that swim, it's that resistance starts to,  go away. But it's not easy,  

[00:09:41] Leticia Guzman:  one of the,  the most rewarding five years to, to be able to experience that transition and get aligned. One of the most difficult, but one of the most rewarding. 

Because I, I, I feel completely different and I believe that my audience and my team and my, my, everybody around me can feel it. Right. Um,  it's, it's difficult. Not easy, but here we are.  

[00:10:12] Katherine Breuss: So what did you do in particular? Was there anything in particular that you did that helped you get more soul lined starting five years ago? 

[00:10:23] Leticia Guzman: So one of the biggest things,  I hired a coach. Mm-hmm. Okay. And I felt, at that point in my life, I felt  I thought I knew who I was and I, I, I did. I was  oh, I know who I am. I know who I am. I can tell people who I am. But I took a step back and said, do I truly know and am  and one thing's knowing. 

And the other thing is truly feeling confident. To say, am I okay? And confident telling people this is who I am. And that's where I found the biggest opportunity because I don't know that I felt confident to be able to say, this is who I am and this is how I'm going to show up and these are my boundaries. 

And maybe I didn't, maybe I thought I had boundaries and maybe I didn't. And I started doing some more internal. Internal thinking and, and I ended up connecting with a gal,  that was incredible for me. She was phenomenal. And she made me do homework and I was doing hours, oops, hours of homework, Katherine , every week for her. 

And I told her I wanna know who I am, and I wanna be confident in explaining who I am. I wanna be confident that it spills out into my whole world. That's where it started to align. Um, that was the biggest thing. That was, I, I felt I was in college going through all the homework and the learning, but it started there. 

Then I hired a business consultant,  and more of a business standpoint. And then I started working through leadership. And through the leadership learning is where I started to recognize and learn. Internal pieces and how it started to all pull play together. So that's the one of it. 

But yes, 

[00:12:14] Katherine Breuss: I love it because,   in terms of what we do is, is this whole piece of, there's coaching to it, there's consulting to it, and whether it's us or it's someone else, the importance of business owners, having the advisors on their table and the power of investing in yourself. And the power of investing in your business,  is, is huge and I am. 

And I'm guessing that you would say it was one of the best investments you've ever made?  

[00:12:47] Leticia Guzman: Yes, it was. It was one of the biggest investments, to be honest with you as  And that was, those are the one, the resistance,  But I knew that if I was trying to achieve this for the long haul, I had to start internally with me. 

And understanding that and being completely aligned internally before I could expect anything else in my world to be in alignment. Mm-hmm. It went hand in hand. And now I live, I feel I live this life of in full alignment, which again, five years ago I would've been  I don't know what you're saying to me. 

I don't understand that completely. I'm aligned. But the work that I've done in the last five years has been intense and incredible. Um, it's,  I. I, the three ladies in my life that have all coached me to some, to some degree,  therapy,  coaching from a individual standpoint and then from a,  a business standpoint. 

So there was different areas where they all had to come together. Um, and I am a completely different person than I was five years ago. Um. It's, it's hard to be able to reflect back and look at where I was then, and I didn't know any different. Right? But now in reflection I'm  wow, what a, what a world of a difference. 

[00:14:08] Katherine Breuss: It's amazing and hats off to you for doing it because,  not a lot of people do. And the, and, and even people do, but they don't go to the depths because it does take work. It takes work to get to know who you truly are and then start aligning because there is weight, there's those anchors that you get used to, and that can be pretty scary to snip and cut away. 

And it's moving more into the unknown, which a lot of people feel more safe in the known, even if the known isn't good for you. Sure.  

You know, people stay 

[00:14:44] Leticia Guzman: Yeah,  And,  comfort. Right. I would say comfort kills,  comfort can completely kill the future of,  where you're going or that moment 

Um, it is, it's, it's, it's been, it's been a journey for sure. But  when you're, when you're hiring people to do the things that they're great at, and you hire someone to, to coach you and help you become more in alignment with who you are and spread that there are deeper things that you sometimes discover or uncover that need to be addressed in order for you to progress. 

So some of the challenges that's from a leadership standpoint, I maybe wasn't comfortable in certain spaces or having certain conversations, things that. Well, that comes from somewhere. It could come from a skillset that you need to develop. It could come from childhood trauma. You, it can come from anything. 

So there's, there's a whole piece of it. So it's, it's, it was a, it's been a journey.  

[00:15:45] Katherine Breuss: So if there was. One piece,  of advice that you would give to a fellow business owner that's maybe looking to, to take their business to the next level. What would that be?  

[00:16:02] Leticia Guzman: Obviously becoming more and,  being aligned. 

Right. Um, taking that, that to understand where you are and how confident you are. In and then under and, and looking at your business. So taking a step back and understanding this is where I'm at, this is where I wanna be. Um, I would, for, for me, it was hiring a coach. Mm-hmm. Um, that was the transformation that I needed because that, that making that investment in myself opened up much more. 

Initially, I was   I'm gonna hire this coach. I'm gonna make this investment. A part of it is making that investment in ourselves. So sometimes we feel guilty doing something for ourselves, and I'll be the first to say that I will do anything for anybody and not question it. When it comes to myself, I'm   do I reinvest in myself? 

This is a lot of money. This is all things. Honestly, what that did for me tenfold has come back to me in many different ways. Um, that that's where it starts,  is hiring that individual and. Kind of releasing and giving someone else that opportunity to say, help me. Right. Um, but when you it, it's, it's hard because when you're not doing that, you're playing small. 

Right? Yeah. Because when you're playing playing small, you play small because deep down you don't feel safe being seen. Mm-hmm. Right. And when your business isn't in alignment with who you are, it's hard to fully show up for yourself and. If you wanna show up for yourself and be your biggest, authentic self, you, you're gonna have to  you're gonna have to expand. 

Um, and for me, I would say  get yourself a coach. Um, and, and be, I. Just kinda release that,  and, 

[00:17:49] Katherine Breuss: and I've gotta say, and I love,   I love you're, you're preaching to the choir. Like, I love what you're saying and I need to make a note to everyone listening. I did not ask Leticia to say these things or pay her to say these things. 

That is,  it is, it is a hundred percent true, and it's hard for people to make that investment for the reasons that you've said in terms of,  investing in yourself,  people can feel guilty, but al  it's ki it's an intangible, it's an invisible thing when you sit and you say, work on yourself. 

And it's not   we're gonna hire a sales coach where it's   that person is going to get me X amount of sales. Each year,  which there's more of a of an ROI on that. 

[00:18:35] Leticia Guzman: Right. 

[00:18:36] Katherine Breuss: Whereas with a coach or,   even some of the business consulting, depending on what it is,  because,  we work with some businesses that get them to be leader run. 

It's not much on the bottom line results. You know, the ROI is is a little bit. Um, murky. It's not  this is what I'm gonna get. Yes. Uh, end it. So that can be hard. That could be scary investment.  

[00:19:01] Leticia Guzman: I,  I'll, I'll be honest with you, during that timeframe, I,  it was difficult to invest that money. 

I had never invested that first payment. I was  this payment's only gonna cover me for the next six months, which means that I also have to come up with another one, and then another one and another one because I knew it was gonna be a couple years of working with her. Um, and then I was   I'll, I'll, I'll do it for six months and see where we're at. 

Well, I couldn't stop because there was, the evolving from there was a constant. And if I didn't do that, the work that I did with my business consultant would not have been the same. Right. It went hand in hand. Now I didn't see that initially. I didn't see that coming. Um, but it was, it was probably one of the biggest investments that I made. 

And it was the toughest because it was for me. Mm-hmm. And again, it's hard for us to sometimes do those things for ourselves, but I knew that everything starts with me.  

[00:20:05] Katherine Breuss: Yes. It's, 

[00:20:05] Leticia Guzman: I day  

starts with me. My mindset starts with me. My life starts with me. My business starts with me. I lead a team of eight that starts with me. 

So I have to be able to center, align my,  align myself appropriately in order to be able to show up for my team and for the people, right? The people that rely on me. And most, most incredible amount of investment, best investment. And it's  it's a start. It's a snowball of everything. I believe that. 

[00:20:39] Katherine Breuss: It is because  we are, I,  I say that we're the engine behind everything we do because the ripple effect of the decisions we make, which are the actions we take and the people around, and if you are misaligned, those decisions are gonna be misaligned. Those actions are gonna be misaligned. 

The people you're attracting are gonna be misaligned. And  You're gonna be living in a life of resistance,  versus when you're in alignment, you start to, the decisions are aligned, the people are aligned, the opportunities are aligned, and it becomes this life of flow. And yes. Um, and it is in my 30 years of doing this in varying forms,   I can attest to that. 

This is true. What you are saying,  is this is why I love it. I'm  oh my God, you are, you are  You, I couldn't have paid anyone to say anything you said. Um, but hats off to you because it's also not an easy process. And I love that you said that your coach gave you,  homework to do and that you did it. 

Because it's not a matter of showing up and being   now you do this for me. It's you have to invest the time. Um, not only the money, but the time. Um. To do the work. And you gotta be hungry and you gotta be open to be evolvable.  

[00:22:03] Leticia Guzman: Yes. One of the things that,  that helped me, and this, and I, I say this because this helped me when I was continuously reinvesting by keeping her on as my coach, right? 

Because I went through this every six months, I'm  oh my  here we go again. I'm going through those feelings again. Like, how am I going to afford this? Um. One of the things that she taught me, and this was again, one of the million things, but  money is meant to be circulated. Mm-hmm. Okay. 

I had to understand that because what that meant to me was money is meant to be circulated somewhere. Where would this money be best spent now? 

Not on objects where. We reinvest in our businesses and our family and our friends all the time. Right? We reinvest in all different places. But that investment had to start here because that's where it all starts to flow, right? Um, and that's, one of the things that she, she helped me continuously keep her on as my coach. 

Okay. Um, but I, one of the things that I feel she was also rem reminding me is  when you're misaligned, it's creating that resistance, which you've talked about, right? But that resistance is what causes burnout.  

Absolutely. Right? Oh   

And then you're you. You lose clarity, which you're gonna lose confidence. 

And now when things come to me, I'm attracting opportunities. So if I'm attracting wrong opportunities all the time, I need to ask myself. Where am I going that getting me these wrong opportunities, right? But helping me get in front of the opportunities and attract the opportunities are me putting myself in a space where I know,  it, where I'm in the line meant, right? 

And all of that goes hand in hand. Um, but  it, here we are. 

[00:23:53] Katherine Breuss: That's awesome. I love, again, I said, you are singing to the choir. I love everything that you've said and I,  again, hats off to you for,  taking investment in yourselves because, and  and this is what I love about business owners, regardless of results. So regardless if their business is doing or not. 

What I love is that they're taking a risk and they're betting on themselves already By doing that. They're, they already have this belief of  I can do this, I can, right? And then it's this whole thing. It's  wow. Now imagine if all these business owners were aligned with themselves first and then aligning it to the business. 

Imagine what can then occur. That excites me because then there's this ripple effect even beyond them. So it's that ripple effect you talked about. Leticia,  your employees,  and the impact and the leadership that you have with them and how,  what you do rubs off on them. And there's that ripple effect. 

And then it will, you, it'll show up within your clients and then it'll show up with all the businesses around. And    I see these, the, the waves, the, the, the ripple of alignment going out into the world and. That excites me.  

[00:25:17] Leticia Guzman: Yeah. You know, and for, for business owners, and this, this may not, I feel it goes hand in hand, but one of the things that I never, one of the things I had was I believed I had a core values. 

Okay. I believed that we had a core value here in this agency. Well, come to think about it. If you're not discussing your core values, you. And you're not, you're not holding people accountable to adhering to them. You're gonna have some challenges, okay? But here's the thing. If I am not confident in who I am and how I'm showing up every day, and if I'm not aligned,  my core values  what are they? 

They go, but  

then I, what are they? I'm not holding anybody accountable for 'em. So for me to be able to be in alignment helped me create my core values. Which now helps everybody understand where we all need to be to be in alignment, right? And that was one of the things that I was   what is it for core values? 

We talk about 'em, we need be kind, this, that, and the other thing. They weren't written out, but it wasn't until I started to, until to implement them and everybody understood them. In the agency, the shift, but I believe that it was in the process of me becoming very aligned to be able to develop these core values that I live to as  

And then your team lives too. Right? So that was another thing that I thought, man, I had, I had, I,  meet people you. That,  and then also have this core value. I'm  man, I, I feel I was way behind the eight ball. That's far behind.  

[00:26:56] Katherine Breuss: Oh, oh my God. Actually, you are,  ahead, you are doing things next level that   a lot of people aren't, aren't doing, or they're doing it at a surface level. 

 I hear a lot of business talks about core values. Oh  I've got values. And then I say, what are they? Um, it's, and they, they,  they think about it and there I sit and I go,  they're not. Right, because  it, it's integrated everything. It's not a piece of paper on the wall, it's not a tick the box. 

We've done it. It is the way you show up and it's,  and it should be, it should support the identity of,  of the business. So. I,  again, Leticia, I love our conversation,  when we were in the coffee shop. I loved our conversation. It was amazing. Uh, this conversation is,  amazing and, and I'd love to have you on again and, and continue this because you've got such great insights and experience to share with everyone else. 

So,  I appreciate everything you, that, everything that you've shared and said. Is there one last thing that you wanna share with everyone else before we,  we say goodbye?  

[00:28:17] Leticia Guzman: Um,  I, I've shared all of it. I,  I don't Thank you fully. Can be who you are. And when you, when you get to a point when you are aligned in, in facets of your life,  I don't live a perfect life and I am not perfect and my life is not perfect. 

But I'll tell you what, it opened up the doors for me to be in spaces that I would never have the opportunity to be in today. And if I was in the opportunity or had that, I would never have been able to fully show up and that opportunity would've been. An opportunity that wasn't a successful opportunity. 

Um, and I, I truly believe that. And now, now when I show up every,  I, I wake up every day and I'm showing up. I see it. I, I see the opportunities that come that,  opportunities are  we, we track such a different opportunity. And, and I've been in spaces now where I'm   five years ago, I've been in a situation this before and my situation today, and the outcome of it is completely different. 

Of all the work we've done. Um, that's it. That's all I have.  

[00:29:28] Katherine Breuss: I love it. It sounds to me, you're doing the first day of being all in. So even if you are a little bit    you're going, Hey, I'm here. I'm gonna  I'm gonna, even if I'm a little bit scared or this feels a little bit stress, might as be all in it, because why not? 

Yep, yep.  

[00:29:48] Leticia Guzman: We didn't come this far as business owners to come this far. Right. You gotta continue to evolve.  

[00:29:54] Katherine Breuss: Yeah.  

[00:29:55] Leticia Guzman: And starts with us.  

[00:29:57] Katherine Breuss: It does. I love it. Leticia, thank you much. I, it has been such a blast and I appreciate, again, your time and sharing all your wonderful insights.  

[00:30:06] Leticia Guzman: Well, thank you for having me. 

It's been, it's been a pleasure to, to get to know you and you're amazing. Love talking to you.  

[00:30:14] Katherine Breuss: Well,  We're gonna do this again, Awesome. 

Leticia and everyone, thank you for listening in. Um, and we will have Leticia back on for sure. All.  

 

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