JJ: Welcome to the show, May.

May: Thank you, JJ. I’m happy to be here.

JJ: I’m very excited about this conversation. I do not see too many people in the spiritual world talking about wealth to the level that you are. And I was very honored to be on your show. Thank you for having me on your show. And I really am just so attracted to your talk about abundance and wealth and intuition and integrating spirit and soul into what we think is wealth attainment and, as you said, goal attainment. I was watching some of the testimonials from one of your events and people talking about that blend and that integration, which is what I focus on doing too with the body and soul and spirit and really meshing those altogether because that’s what I think is true healing when everything is connected and we’re looking at it that way. And I know you’re super successful. So you’re probably the most successful person I’ve had on the show financially, and I want to talk about it in a spiritual way.

I know people are unwilling, at least in my audience. I know there’s this fine line between spiritual and what they think they need to do in order for them to be successful and how some of that may not feel spiritual and how to use intuition. But we had talked before we started recording about your definition of wealth. So why don’t we start there and go over… You’ve written a couple of books, “The Path to Wealth: Seven Spiritual Steps for Financial Abundance.” And I definitely want to dive into that a little bit. But let’s go over what is your definition of success and wealth?

May: Well, my definition of wealth is being whole and complete, lacking nothing in every area of your life, not just your finances but also your health. And thank God your shows are out there because you’re helping people to have really healthy bodies and healthy spirits and healthy minds. And in addition to that, your use of your skills and talents in really fulfilling ways. We should be doing things that we enjoy, not just to make a buck. And also being whole and complete, lacking nothing in terms of recreation and rebalancing it with our relationships and even our spiritual connection. So whole and complete, lacking nothing in every area of your life. That’s my definition of wealth.

JJ: And did you struggle in any of those areas in order to understand and learn the importance of having them all in alignment and healthy?

May: Well, I find that I’m most happy when everything is in alignment. I find that I have a sense of freedom and happiness and peace when everything is in alignment. But things can happen. You can catch a flu bug or a cold and feel out of alignment. This morning I took my cat to the vet and he got diagnosed with Cushing’s disease and diabetes, and so I took him in to have sort of a checkup. And he hates going to the vet. And when I reached in to pull him out of the carrier at the vet, he bit me. And so I’m on antibiotics now because he bit me, which he’s never done in his 13 years. So I’m feeling a little imbalanced because my cat, who is like a kid to me, bit me. But he was just scared.

So we have stuff that happens in life that can throw us out of some balance. But it’s my position that if we spend some time every single day looking at and revisiting the things that are important to us in every area of our life, if we establish and revisit goals every single day, that puts us on a solid foundation, so that even if your cat bites you or you get a cold, you’re not going to be imbalanced. You won’t be on a shaky foundation and you can simply look at an event like that very peacefully and say, “You know, this too shall pass.”

JJ: True. That’s great. And I’m so sorry your cat bit you. I’ve got a cat. And one of my boy cats, the last one that I had, before he passed, I promised him. I made a promise that I would never take him to the vet again. He was feral when I found him, and he became very attached to me. He hated the vet. It was so traumatizing. And then I let him pass at home naturally because I couldn’t. I promised him and I felt like it was the right thing to do. So I get that, in terms of being able to be resilient and find such a good center that something like that doesn’t throw you so far off.

May: Right.

JJ: Okay. So wealth in all areas. Now, do you have any specific ways to help people? Or what do you recommend people to do to get that balance?

May: I think that it’s really important for people to recognize that whatever they are programming their brain with, their brain is going to help them see evidence of that all day long. Think about the last time you might have purchased a car or a big item. If you’re like most people, you think, “Oh, I need a new car,” and maybe you look at all the different models, and you talk to your friends and family about it, and you look at reviews and you narrow down the different models. And then maybe you even go and test drive them. And so you’ve narrowed it down and you’re so excited. You know that’s going to be your car. Or maybe you’re still figuring out how to finance it or how to get it. But in that moment that you know that that’s the car you want, that it’s your goal and you’re so excited about it, don’t you start to notice that car driving around everywhere? You never noticed that car before. It was a really emotional goal. So that’s your subconscious jumping in and illuminating. It’s filtering these thousands and thousands of cars that are driving around on the road, and it’s almost illuminating and bringing to your attention those cars that are in alignment with your goal. And then your intuition, of course, will show you how to actually have that car. It will show you a way to make it yours.

But since our subconscious will illuminate whatever we’re programming into our brains, my recommendation is that people set aside about 25 to 30 minutes every single morning and program what’s important to them before they pick up their mobile device, before they turn on the news or read the newspaper, before they program into their brain what other people think are important to pay attention to. They should program into their brain their completed goals with gratitude. So describing your goals with gratitude as though they’re already complete in advance will help them to notice possibilities to achieve those goals sooner.

Now, I have countless numbers of stories in my books, but one in particular that is a great illustration of this is I travel for work a lot, and in my last company that I started, which was in the healthcare space, I would have a normal routine. I get off a plane. I get my bags. I get my rental car. I go to the hotel, drop everything off. And then I go to the closest grocery store. And I’ve been to this city before, Cleveland, and I know the closest grocery store is five minutes away to get my protein shakes and water and things I need for my stay. So I’m in the car ready to go to the closest grocery store, which I know is five minutes away, and I get this really strong thought, this intuitive thought about a grocery store that’s 15 minutes away.

Now, the normal cycle that people will go through is the rational mind will jump right on that and try and talk you out of it. And mine did. Mine was saying things like “May, it’s 9:00 at night. What are you thinking driving across town in Cleveland at 9:00 at night when there’s a perfectly good grocery store five minutes away? And I just want to remind you that your appointment tomorrow morning is at 8:00 in the morning, and that’s 5:00 in the morning Seattle time. You’ll be too tired if you waste time driving across town tonight.” So that’s a rational thought and a rational conversation that most of us end up having. And that is intended to talk me out of making the drive because my rational mind doesn’t see any benefit of me doing that.

So that’s when you have to really recognize that maybe that other thought was an intuitive thought. And maybe it’s a gift, like Albert Einstein referred to. He said that we have an intuitive mind that’s a gift. We have this rational mind that’s a servant. And somehow we’ve decided to honor this servant and we’ve forgotten this intuitive gift. So to activate that intuitive gift, what you do is figuratively stomp your foot and say, “Hey, intuition, if that was from you, give me a definite lead. Make it obvious.” What that does is it allows that intuitive mind to actually have a voice. Oprah Winfrey said that she has listened to that still small voice of intuition her whole life, and the only time she’s made mistakes is when she didn’t listen. So that still small voice of intuition needs to be invited to speak up.

So I invited mine too. And what ended up happening is I had these thoughts, this conversation that said, “Well, you know, it’s true that it’s 9:00 in the evening here, but it’s only 6:00 in Seattle. It’s too early for you to go to sleep anyway. And who knows? Maybe everything you want will be on sale at the other store. Just make the drive.” So I did. As I was walking into the grocery store, there was a guy walking out at exactly the same time who I recognized. This was a man who I met six months before at a trade show. He represented a very large potential customer. He was not returning any of my phone calls or emails for an appointment. And here we are, face to face. Well, during the conversation that we struck up, he asked me about our growth of our company and all these things. And before the end of the conversation, he invited me to go make a presentation to his group. Well, that led to another presentation, and then another presentation, and a contract worth over $400,000, which was the amount I was writing about and revisiting every single day in my goal attainment meeting.

So this kind of irrational path is available to each and every one of us if we invite intuition to guide us. And it’s not that difficult to do. It’s as simple as saying “Hey, intuition, if that strong thought was from you, make it obvious.” And it will chime in. And I’m not the only one that believes that. I mean, Bill Gates said often, “You have to rely on intuition.” And Steve Jobs from Apple said you actually have to have courage to follow your heart and intuition. And Steven Spielberg, Dr. Wayne Dyer, Albert Einstein, and the list goes on. Even Thomas Edison who invented the light bulb said you have to rely on intuition. It’s not reserved for only a few. It’s available to each and every one of us, if we invite it to be a part of our lives.

JJ: Beautifully put. I use a lot of law of attraction terminology, so for me, the exact correlation is in getting into alignment with yourself. You talked about the 25 to 30 minutes to program what’s important to you with gratitude and appreciation, and then allowing that impulse, which would be the intuition, to guide you and to follow the impulse. So for me, with law of attraction speak, if you will, I would say that someone who is, let’s say, out of alignment, who is in worry or obsession or in scarcity, they’re not going to be present to the intuition necessarily as much. Do you think there’s a time when people shouldn’t listen to what they think is that voice because it’s actually not in a good space? It’s out of alignment. It’s actually going to lead them further down a rabbit hole. Would you put it in that same kind of like if you’re in a good space or you’re in an allowing or neutral space, that intuition is really powerful and important, but then that inner voice may be of worry or anxiety or scarcity?

May: Well, I make it even simpler than that. As you know, my background is starting, growing, and selling companies. And I have trained I don’t know how many thousands of employees that have worked for my different companies. I’ve had six of them in the past and two going on right now. So I’m a big believer in making it really, really simple. Just do it and the understanding will follow. So my advice is if you get a strong thought or a gut instinct, if you feel the urge to contact someone, go somewhere, or do something, if somebody says something to you and it resonates with you, and you just have this awareness that “Yeah, that’s meaningful.” Or see even a billboard. I mean, I drove by a billboard one day and it had a message for me. And if you feel comfortable taking action on a thought, a gut instinct, a feeling in your heart, a message from someone else, even a sign that’s external to you, go ahead and take the step.

If you don’t, then just do what I recommended. Just say, “Hey, intuition or source of intuition.” I actually call it the source of my intuition. I gave it a title and brought it into my business and I call it the chief spiritual officer or CSO for short. Just like my CFO or my COO, I figured that the CSO was the subject matter expert for intuition. So I just say, “Hey, CSO, if that’s from you, give me another lead. Give me another sign. Make it obvious.” That invites that intuition to chime in, to have that voice or that thought or that idea get louder. And guess what. You can ask for as many confirming intuitive hits as you want. You don’t have to just wait there and then take some sort of action. If you still feel uncomfortable, just ask for another lead. Just ask for a confirming sign. Eventually you’ll get it.

I can remember one time I got an opportunity to do business with a very, very large company. They wanted to resell our software and equipment to their customers. And I had this bias because I knew a lot of the people that were the executives of that company. They had come from another company, and then with the other company, they had slow paid my previous company. And so I had this bias. I don’t know if I want to do businesses with them. I just don’t know. I don’t know. So I kept asking, “Hey, CSO. Hey, intuition, I need another sign.” Well, I can tell you that your listeners would have had the 10th sign and been absolutely sure that they should at least investigate the opportunity. But again, I was unsure. I was biased. So I kept asking, “I need another lead. I need another sign.” And I got, like, 50 of them.

And one day I’m driving across the bridge to work and I look up and there’s a billboard and it says, “Your fortune will be made in San Diego,” which is exactly where this company was located. And I just started cracking up because my CSO has a sense of humor. And I went to the office and picked up the phone and called them and said, “Okay, let’s look at how we might be able to put a deal together.” And that resulted in a wonderful contract. I didn’t have any of the problems that I had previously with the same team. And it served so many more customers in really meaningful ways. So you can ask for as many leads as you want. If you still feel unsure or uncomfortable or feel nervous or fearful, don’t take action. Just ask for another lead.

JJ: I love that. Very simple. Very, very easy. And I also love that you used the car analogy because I use the car analogy all the time to eliminate frequency or vibration, that you didn’t see them before and now, whether it’s that you want the car or that you’ve already bought the car, all of a sudden, now you see them everywhere. So it was delightful to hear you use the same sort of idea to describe and to explain a concept because I think the car one is super powerful. Everyone can relate to that. Everyone has purchased a car before and then all of a sudden noticed a lot of them on the road, or wanted a car and then noticed some on the road. So that was great.

Now, we talked a little bit about goal attainment and wealth. So on one side, we have, and I don’t mean to make them sides because I think that the intuition fuels some of that decision making, right? So we’re allowing ourselves to integrate a higher part of who we are to connect to source or to God or to spirit or to whatever anybody wants to relate to that name or entity or however you think about it. But then there’s also, on the flipside, the educational side. In order for you to be successful in business, did you rely on your intuition to help guide you in what to learn next, or did you come in with a certain amount of information and said, “Well, I’m really good at these things” or “I have a knack for these things. My strength lies in this way”? Maybe you’re right-brained or left-brained or a combination of both, and you excel in certain areas of, let’s say, for me, my brain does not work in coding. When I sit with a computer person doing a code, my brain literally zaps and it’s done. But I’m awesome with strategy and big picture thinking and detail-oriented. I can do both of those. So would you say your intuition guided you on your education, or did you come in to this and learn through trial and error of following your intuition with a certain set of skills that allowed you to excel in starting, growing, and selling businesses?

May: Well, I started my very first company when I was six. And I had a foundation from my parents that they told all 10 of us kids. I’m the last of 10 children. And they told us over and over again, “We’re going to absolutely take care of you. Food, board, everything. But if there’s something extra that you want, then you need to figure out how to facilitate a fair exchange of value. You need to find a problem that somebody has or a convenience that they want, and provide a solution. And in return, they’ll provide you with money, which you can use to get whatever it is that you want.” And I remember seeing my brothers go and mow lawns and wash cars and trim hedges and all sorts of stuff. And at six years old, I asked my mom. I said, “So all those people that are out on our beach, in front of our house, look thirsty. Could I facilitate fair exchange of value and provide some stuff that would give them refreshment?” And she looked at me and said, “Well, sure.” And so she helped me with this idea of creating a solution to somebody being hot on the beach, facilitating a fair exchange of value. And I’ve carried that with me. I had lots of business while I was in grade school and high school.

But when I went away to college, I knew that I loved business. I knew I liked making money and I loved solving problems for people. I love to take complicated ideas and make them really simple to understand. And I knew I wanted to go to business school, so I went to the university in Seattle. And in the first two years, everybody takes the same core classes, and then you apply to the business school or whatever you think your major is going to be. And I found that the major that I liked the best was the one that told a story, and that’s marketing. I love to sell. I love to get paid to be a professional friend maker. So at my core, I love helping people understand things that might seem complicated at first. I love to help them succeed, and I like to make money in the process. So marketing was a perfect place for me.

Now, as it turns out, the summer before my sophomore year in college, guess what. I started another business with my sister, and we grew that to about 250 employees while I was going to school full time. And what I did was I used the same goal attainment strategies that I discuss in my book and I started being grateful in advance for graduating with honors quickly, for a thriving and prospering business, for all this stuff in advance of achieving it. And sure enough, it turned out that way. Now, along the way, I always find that I always get better than what I ask for in terms of my goals. I get better than I even imagine.

And better means in my first business, I got a chance to meet some really great mentors. And these were older guys that were worth hundreds of millions of dollars, hugely successful. They’re on their gazinteen business. And they’re just brilliant. And they gave me lots and lots of advice, but they also told me that there’s no reason I would ever have to fail, that the only person that could really impact failure is myself. If I had things that showed up that were challenges that might have seemed like a mistake or a failure, those were not failures. Those were simply learning experiences. And so I got this great group of mentors who were wonderful cheerleaders who confirmed for me that I could do what I wanted to do.

JJ: I have to ask and you don’t have to answer. I want to know the birthday and the month. I’m curious about your astrology sign.

May: Mine?

JJ: Yeah.

May: May 6.

JJ: Taurus. Okay, that would be…

May: Was that your guess?

JJ: No, because I’m sure there’s a lot… Obviously, in astrology, it’s like a recipe, right? You can have 10 different recipes for chocolate cake that have different ingredients in them. So Taurus is just Taurus. That’s your sun sign. That doesn’t tell me what some of the other things are. But I hear the Taurus in how practical you just got with creating the business plan and going through everything before you deplete a retirement account, because for a Taurus, the stability of that is super important.

May: And there’s a lot of people that think, “Oh my gosh. I want to own my own business.” And there’s never been a time easier than now to own a business because you don’t have to have a brick and mortar office or storefront. You can open up a store on the internet today.

JJ: Yep.

May: But you still have to understand money going out, money coming in. How do I attract the people that are going to have that fair exchange of value with me? How do I serve them? All those things in a business plan. And there are tons of free business plan templates online. Just do a Google search. “Business plan templates free” and a whole bunch will show up. And it’s worth the time. And then in everybody’s city, there are two things. There’s an organization called Score, which is a whole bunch of retired businesspeople who would be happy to go through your business plan with you with fresh eyes, with experienced eyes. The other thing is most universities now have an innovation and entrepreneurship center, and they have tons of free resources. So if somebody has graduated from college, they should probably check with their school if they have resources. They even have people that will come and intern for little to nothing. That will provide you with some help. And some of them have MBA programs and they’ll take on your business idea and help you flesh it out as part of their curriculum, and then you get all the benefit from it. So there’s lots of resources at local universities and colleges as well.

May: Well, my morning routine is I think Ink Magazine, when they read my book “The Path to Wealth,” they actually boiled it down and called it “A Simple Morning Routine to Prime Your Brain for Success.” So what I do is every morning, I don’t even think about it anymore. It’s like brushing my teeth. I just do it. So I get up and I set aside 25-30 minutes, and first thing I do is read for five minutes an uplifting book. And these are books that put you into that receptive mood, that make you think, “Wow. If those people could be that successful, I could be that successful.” It’s making what you want familiar and welcome.

The second thing you do is write out a gratitude letter. And I just choose to write it out to that CSO characteristic of spirit that I described that’s the ultimate adviser and guides me through intuition. So I say thank you. Thank you for all these things I have, and thank you for these things I want. But it’s really important that when you’re describing what you want, you need to describe it as though it’s already complete with gratitude. So instead of saying “I want to be debt-free,” you would say, “I’m so grateful that I’m financial free, with a minimum or more of x number of dollars to use and enjoy to bless others with and to invest and increase. I love my financially free life.” So you’re describing it as though it’s already done, with gratitude.

And then the third step is to read what you wrote out loud so that you can anchor it more fully within you. You speak it out loud so that it really gets anchored in your subconscious and in your absolute being. And you use all the emotion of your words out loud. And then finally, the last thing you do is in about five minutes, think of one of your goals that you just wrote down and see if you can see yourself in the movie of the goal already being done. This is a technique that many professional and Olympic athletes use every single day. They mentally and physically train every single day to perform at their highest levels. So you want to see yourself in the completed picture, in the completed movie. You use imagery and imagine all of the surroundings. Who are you with? Where are you? How do you feel? What’s going on? And then that’s it. That’s your daily morning practice.

And then throughout the day, I just watch. Expect and watch for leads. Expect and watch those strong thoughts that come into your head, that gut instinct. If you get a strong thought to contact somebody, contact them. You don’t need to know why. I had one woman who wanted a sound retirement plan and she didn’t even have a savings account. And after learning this technique, she got this strong thought about this woman she hadn’t talked to in about 15 years. And she couldn’t remember how the relationship ended, so she was really nervous about just picking up the phone and contacting her because she thought, “Oh gosh. Did I do something?” You know what I’m talking about, right?

JJ: Yeah.

May: And finally, she kept asking for another lead. “Hey, CSO. Hey, intuition, if I’m supposed to do this, give me another lead. Well, over about the next two weeks, she keeps having this thought of this woman. She hadn’t thought of her in years, and every day she’s thinking of this woman. So now she knows, “I got to contact her.” And she tracks her down, calls her up, and the woman is like, “How’s it going?” They have a nice conversation. “What prompted you to call me?” And my friend said, “Well, I’m doing this new prosperity program, and it said that if we have an intuitive thought or an idea, that we should just take action. So you came to mind and I called you.” She said, “Really? A prosperity program. What are some of your goals?” And she outlined the retirement plan idea. And this woman said, “You’re kidding me. I just put together a group of women and they all work in finance. And we get together once a month and we talk about finance. We have some wine. And we even pool a little bit of resource together and invest. You want to come join us?” So she goes to the meeting and has a great time.

She contacts me several months later and tells me the story. She says, “May, I got thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars of free advice from these women. They rolled up their sleeves and helped me put together a plan for my retirement using just the income that I’m making now. But here’s the best part. I would have never met any of these women, and I really like them. They’re now my friends. And since I’m around them and they’re just normal and they’re more successful than I am, I can see that if they could do it, I could do it. So I’m now taking some more classes and I think I’m going to probably be able to get a better job in the future that makes more money.” She has a new mental equivalent because she’s hanging around with friends that are already doing that.

JJ: Beautiful. I was with a client yesterday remotely. I do coaching. And I had shared something similar to the “Well, I’ve always sort of believed and thought if they can do it, I can do it. It’s just a matter of understanding that I need just to learn something. I need to learn something new.” And that for her was something new. She had not really heard that before, and she was like, “I really like that. If they can do it, I can do it.” And I said, “Well, why not? Someone else had to learn about it. Someone else had to start it.” So I find that it’s so funny, the parallels that are happening from this conversation today that happened yesterday that have been practiced. And I think that story is amazing and it’s really going to hit home for so many people who want to expand and move past where they are but haven’t had the experience yet. So to hear someone else’s experience of how it’s worked and to trust that intuition and trust the intuitive process, trust themselves, and to know that if they’re on a growth path and they want to have more than they have now, that they practice every day from 25 to 30 minutes all the steps that we just outlined, which I think are awesome and are again in alignment with everything that we’ve been doing on Spirit, Purpose, and Energy.

I’ve got a manifestation 30-day challenge that starts tomorrow. We are recording this today on the 31st. And I think I’m going to share this show next week because it’s absolutely going to help fuel everybody in the group to continue the practice and to get on board with becoming accountable. That’s why I created the group so that people are accountable to doing this practice in the morning. And not quite what you laid out, but similar things: visualization to an appreciation list to increasing their energy and their positivity and their visualization about their life and what they want. But this is much more detailed and a little bit longer, but I think is so much powerful because of the structure that you’ve put together, especially reading it out loud. And I definitely would encourage everyone who’s listening to do that and to do all four steps, of course. Do the whole thing. And to get May’s book “Path to Wealth: Seven Spiritual Steps for Financial Abundance.” And to check May’s website out as well: maymccarthy.com. Anything else we can share with the listeners or direct them somewhere? You want them to check something out? I know you mentioned to me that you’ve got some free downloads of chapters of the book.

May: Yep. They can go to maymccarthy.com, see videos. They can get lots of free information, including the first few chapters of both of my books. But I guess to close out, what I would really like your listeners to remember to remember is that they’re incredibly powerful. I mean, they learn to drive. They learn to read. They learn to ride a bike. They learn to type on that crazy keyboard that’s not even in alphabetical order. And through repetition, they were able to master all of those things. In fact, I think probably many of your listeners could probably say that they drove home from work and couldn’t remember large parts of their drive home because they were so skilled at doing it now through repetition. And cultivating and enabling your intuition to show up and guide you and direct you is no different. You just need to put the time in to practice. And the way that you do that is visit your goals every single morning as though they’re complete with gratitude. Do those steps. And throughout the day, when you have a strong thought, a gut instinct, a message that’s external to you or something that resonates with you, don’t just dismiss it. Do not just rely on your rational mind. Give that intuitive mind, that intuitive still small voice an opportunity. And all you have to do is just say, “Hey, intuition, if that’s from you, show up again and make it obvious.”

JJ: May, this has been awesome. I appreciate you being here, and I hope to have you back again. Thank you for all your wisdom and your inspiration, your direction, your structure, your guidance, your testimonials. And I know everyone who’s listening is going to take this and run with it, and I hope to have some more testimonials to add to your bucket as well.

May: Oh, thanks.

JJ: And for another opportunity to integrate and embed these practices and visualizations into your mind, body, and soul, I invite you to come to Releasing What Weighs You Down in January. I’m not sure if I’m doing this again, so come on over to releasingwhatweighsyoudown.com. We have limited seats. And we definitely want to commune with you in this way to help you achieve the goals that you desire and to let go of things not working for you. releasingwhatweighsyoudown.com.