Can trusting your intuition really help you build a successful business? In this episode, I’m sitting down with Carol Surbey, business coach and strategist, to talk about blending practical business strategies with intuitive decision-making for next-level success. 🚀
Carol shares how she helps entrepreneurs simplify business growth, trust their instincts, and make decisions that align with their bigger vision—without getting stuck in perfectionism or overthinking. We dive into manifestation, trusting the process, and how small adjustments lead to massive results over time.
If you’re an entrepreneur looking to scale with more ease, clarity, and alignment—this is the conversation you need to hear!
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
✅ Why perfectionism is holding you back—and how to take action anyway
✅ How to tap into intuition for smarter business decisions
✅ The power of small shifts to create big success
✅ How to trust the process—even when the next step isn’t clear
✅ Why manifestation and strategy go hand in hand in business
✅ Tools to avoid burnout and create long-term success
Resources & Links:
💡 Grab Carol’s Business Burnout Recovery Checklist → CHECKLIST
🌟 Learn More About Carol’s Coaching & Consulting → carolsurbey.com
📲 Follow Carol on Instagram → @carol_surbey_consulting
Connect With Me:
💸 Join the Manifestation & Money Community → www.manifestationplayground.ca
🎙 Follow the Podcast on Instagram → @manifestationandmoneypodcast
📩 Let’s Connect! → www.4leaflifestyle.com
If you loved this episode, please take a moment to ⭐ rate & review ⭐ on Apple Podcasts or Spotify! Your support helps spread the m
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
My name is Carol Serby and I am with Carol Serby Coaching and Consulting. I'm actually a business coach that works North America wide, Canada and U. S. and I help entrepreneurs take the mystery out of business and just make it. Simple. I'm really well known for my straight talk. I'm really well known for my supportive approach, and I'm able to help entrepreneurs understand strategic insight with hands on practicality and then really being able to delve into , their intuition, their gut feelings to make sure the alignment of what they're creating , not only aligns with the market, but aligns with who you are and how you want to show up.
Carol (00:02):
I'm an entrepreneur myself. So in 1995, I lived in Vancouver, BC, Canada. And my husband and I together, we started a specialty concrete company down there that we ran until we sold it in 2019. Even as a kid, , I never quite Played by the rules in school. Not that I was a troublemaker, but I was always that kid that asked, how come we're doing it this way? Isn't there a better way to do it? And that way of showing up has been prevalent throughout my whole life. So it only makes sense that I'm an entrepreneur.
, , there's a lot of people out there that if you ask them, what do you want? They couldn't even answer that question for you. They are so removed from their own sense of self empowerment. They're so removed from what really lights them up. And again, I'll come back to the intuition piece.
So the perfection in knowing what we want is also something that gets in our way, right? , as we take steps towards what we want, the path , is revealed to us, right? So , in perfect. Action or progress over perfection is what I'm looking for from the people that I'm coaching because What I do know for sure is that when you're first starting out in your business, or when you're first starting out with a goal, you just have to start, ?
, even just as an example today, , someone was walking me through their process and I said, so what's the problem with this process? And he's like, I don't know, I'm screen sharing and I've highlighted it in red, right? Like he says, what I'm still in it. I'm like, yeah, you're still in it. I said, if you could get out of this process from an entrepreneurial and a business owner point of view, how much time?
He was like, Oh, okay. This thing has to change a little bit. I could probably do a little bit more here. , when we talk about the power of manifestation, , manifestation is just a dedication to something you say that you want, ? So sometimes that dedication comes up in, I want to say affirmations, but that's not what I'm meaning.
Jenni (2) (00:07):
but that was good because you framed something in there that I haven't really come across on the show yet, and I think so many of us get hung up on or fixated on creating the ideal life, that perfect life, that dream life, that we don't go into it going, okay, here's like Kind of what I want.
Here's your choice point. Do we continue going on the highway or do we take the exit, , that's feeling right. That's saying all the right words. That's, , glowing in the color that we like, , whatever it is. Right. , it's the same thing. You have to get on the highway first.
How can I flip this, flip it on its head? So I'm actually stating something in the positive. If I don't want that, then maybe what I need to do is I say, I want that and just leave that alone. Right. Don't step into it. , so yeah, , if we wait for, , perfection, we get into that analysis paralysis and then it.
That really makes sense. , do you have any tools or suggestions for people who know what they don't want on how to hold the vision of flipping that from that negative into the positive and holding on to that instead of just fixating on what they don't want?
, And then I think we're at the point now, I'm not really sure to how spiritual I should get , on this call, because, , I don't want to scare , some of your listeners, but I think from, , the 3d to the 4d to the 5d worlds, we're really at the point where there's some of us. And I know you and I are two of those people that are actually working in 5d.
There's the matrix revealed in the red light of the laser. So if we are aware that the universe is conspiring for us. For what we want there's a certain number of us that are now capable of rewriting the code and I know you speak to this quite often and I think you actually did a Facebook live not too long ago that spoke very much to , so we're all at various stages of this line of thinking of, , how do I rewrite the code?
Carol (00:13):
, we've been raised to not trust the process, right? Yeah. We've been raised that the process isn't necessarily there to support us, right? It's there to support someone else in some other way, but not necessarily there to support us. And, , if we look at ourselves, You can use the terms as a spiritual being, , , I'm almost even more likely to now consider myself as a coding engineer.
Because, yeah, in manifestation, by essentially putting out there what you want, that is, yeah, you're like rewriting the code. You are trying to shape your reality that you are forming. And you said in there, trust. And , every time I hear that, I'm like, , why is it so hard to trust? Trust our own intuition, trust the way we're feeling in certain situations.
a really fun test. Here's a really fun exercise in learning to trust yourself. , you know about muscle testing, right? And I'm sure many of your listeners know about muscle testing, but for , those of us that don't, , if we were to hold our arm out to the side and have somebody press down on our arm , And we're trying to hold it strong.
And it makes sense. I'm being attracted to, or repelled from. Right? So here's a really fun exercise. Next time you're in the mall and you're tempted to go into a store, Oh, I'm just going to go browse to see if there's something in here. Stand at the door and ask yourself, Is there anything in this store that I need or is of value to me?
I do this at Christmas for my Christmas shopping. Fascinating. I'll go to each store. Is there, , I have my list, right? Physical or in my mind. Generally it's on my phone. And I'll say, is there anything in this store that is on my list or would be of benefit to anybody that I'm buying Christmas gifts for?
But again, it was what, I hope it was what they knew at the time. I'm really trying to trust that we weren't deceived by, right? So I hope that it's all that they knew at the time. And, , here we are 35, 40 years later. We now know better. We now know more, right? So that journey is the same, but you know as we're going through when we talk about the chakra systems, right?
By the time they're seven years old, they have been told that who they think they are isn't trustworthy. That society and teachers and parents and doctors tell them who they are, right? So in general, , a child's chakra energetic system is shut down by the time they're seven years old. So we wonder why we don't trust ourselves.
Jenni (2) (00:20):
. Yeah, It's a continual rewriting, like it's not like you're like, okay, I've rewritten it, I've put in the work, I spent all month getting really clear on what I want, , it's an adopted lifestyle that you choose to embody, to always be making those decisions, to always, like you said at the beginning of this chat, Be questioning things.
So how do we wrap this back into business? Me being a business coach, right? , so many people get locked up in those stories. Well, my buddy, my eight year old buddy told me when I was five that I couldn't add. So that means today that I'm, I can't touch QuickBooks online because I can't add, right?
, , and that is where so many people get burnt out in their lives, ? Is they're trying to appease What their old stories are, , as the new stories try to come through, they're pushing them down and pushing them down, pushing them down. No, there's only one way to get to grandma's house on the highway.
, they are, as a CEO in a business, , you don't necessarily take your business home. And talk to your spouse about it. You might, , some of the superficial stuff, but some of those deep down problems that are really bothering you, you probably go, I can't put this on my spouse. I can't put this on my children.
, and finally they have a place to share these heavy, heavy, heavy loads. , be it, , operational burnout or, , just not pricing, right. That's causing financial problems in the business. Or how do I level up my leadership? , I want to bring in more teams. , And giving yourself permission to do that, I want to add a very, what I feel is a very important piece here, and I'm not really sure how it fits, but I'm called to add it, so I'm going to trust that, is that when CEOs actually look back on the purpose of their business, why they're in business, very often it doesn't even correlate to what the business does.
Ooh, so corporate, right? So what if I added a layer of knowledge that the reason he wanted to do this was because his daughter would be going to university in another year, and he wanted to be able to pay for a full ride to university. University away apartment, everything for her so that she could get the base knowledge that she needed to get for her to be successful in her life.
The local baseball team. They needed, , 500 bucks for new jerseys if he so chose, he wanted to be able to support that baseball team. He wanted to be able to do philanthropic work, his business. Was his tool for him to make the money so that he could live out his passion and what he wanted to be, which was to be philanthropic.
So I really encourage people to, , spend the time to check in with themselves, to do the walk, to do the drive, to sit in a coffee shop with headphones on, whatever your process is, right? to really start to allow those desires. To start to come through you because at the other end of it, just like , my client who wanted to be philanthropic, there's lots of really good work that can be done because you actually start to recognize what your unique desire is in this world and allow yourself to open to that.
on YouTube. She is a power pose expert and practice some of those power poses to really get comfortable in knowing what that feels like, when you start to honor yourself first, you're going to be forced to create some boundaries. Again, I'm not saying disrespect your parents. I'm saying you're going to be forced to create some boundaries.
In that honoring of yourself, you can now grow into the purpose, the reason why you've been put on this earth. And some people aren't going to like it, and some people aren't going to respect it, right? So that's where you need to turn into yourself, and respect yourself.
and at the end of the day, you're the only one that can keep you safe. And the best thing to do is to lean into that gut feeling. I remember, just as a quick segue here, I used to run. And there was this really beautiful old gravel pit near my house, like three doors down. And it had a one and a half kilometer trail around it.
I was running. I stopped dead in my tracks. And I looked down, this beautiful, long, tree covered, , the tunnel, tree tunnel walkway. It was probably about 300 yards long. And I stopped dead in my tracks and I went, not today. And I turned around and I went home. I don't know what I avoided. I'll never know.
Again, , that really comes down to creating burnout in us. I just can't show up in a way that feels good for me. I'm constantly giving to other people, and what does burnout create? It creates illness, it creates weight issues, it creates relationship issues, and there's probably a whole host of other things. So as part of, , understanding burnout for your business community specifically, I will share with you a, , a tool that I have. It's called the business burnout recovery, , checklist. Okay, and it's a way to help create clarity, create financial awareness, some leadership growth strategies, some self assessments, so that you can actually come back to yourself and start to really be aware of what is it that I want.
, looking at some regular self assessment pieces and recognizing that our path isn't perfect and to bring you back to those constant adjustments as we have to go through, , and as we continue to make those consistent adjustments through our progress, either in business or in life, , we can apply this tool to both for sure, small adjustments really, truly lead to big results.
Oh, my joints aren't as sore. Oh, , whatever the aha or the realization is. . And at the end of that, It really is up to you what your comfort level is with the big result, right? Maybe we say, Oh, I want to lose 20 pounds. We get to 20 pounds. We'll go, Oh, you know what? I could, I'm enjoying this and I could maybe do another 10, right?
And, , just as a sidebar, September of 2025, I'm putting together a summit, , For business leaders who want to bring more of the intuitive sense into how they show up and how they run their businesses. So I know it's , a little bit down the road, but, , if you come over to my website, you get On my mailing list.
My name is Carol Serby and I am with Carol Serby Coaching and Consulting. I'm actually a business coach that works North America wide, Canada and U. S. and I help entrepreneurs take the mystery out of business and just make it. Simple. I'm really well known for my straight talk. I'm really well known for my supportive approach, and I'm able to help entrepreneurs understand strategic insight with hands on practicality and then really being able to delve into , their intuition, their gut feelings to make sure the alignment of what they're creating , not only aligns with the market, but aligns with who you are and how you want to show up.
Carol (00:02):
I'm an entrepreneur myself. So in 1995, I lived in Vancouver, BC, Canada. And my husband and I together, we started a specialty concrete company down there that we ran until we sold it in 2019. Even as a kid, , I never quite Played by the rules in school. Not that I was a troublemaker, but I was always that kid that asked, how come we're doing it this way? Isn't there a better way to do it? And that way of showing up has been prevalent throughout my whole life. So it only makes sense that I'm an entrepreneur.
, , there's a lot of people out there that if you ask them, what do you want? They couldn't even answer that question for you. They are so removed from their own sense of self empowerment. They're so removed from what really lights them up. And again, I'll come back to the intuition piece.
So the perfection in knowing what we want is also something that gets in our way, right? , as we take steps towards what we want, the path , is revealed to us, right? So , in perfect. Action or progress over perfection is what I'm looking for from the people that I'm coaching because What I do know for sure is that when you're first starting out in your business, or when you're first starting out with a goal, you just have to start, ?
, even just as an example today, , someone was walking me through their process and I said, so what's the problem with this process? And he's like, I don't know, I'm screen sharing and I've highlighted it in red, right? Like he says, what I'm still in it. I'm like, yeah, you're still in it. I said, if you could get out of this process from an entrepreneurial and a business owner point of view, how much time?
He was like, Oh, okay. This thing has to change a little bit. I could probably do a little bit more here. , when we talk about the power of manifestation, , manifestation is just a dedication to something you say that you want, ? So sometimes that dedication comes up in, I want to say affirmations, but that's not what I'm meaning.
Jenni (2) (00:07):
but that was good because you framed something in there that I haven't really come across on the show yet, and I think so many of us get hung up on or fixated on creating the ideal life, that perfect life, that dream life, that we don't go into it going, okay, here's like Kind of what I want.
Here's your choice point. Do we continue going on the highway or do we take the exit, , that's feeling right. That's saying all the right words. That's, , glowing in the color that we like, , whatever it is. Right. , it's the same thing. You have to get on the highway first.
How can I flip this, flip it on its head? So I'm actually stating something in the positive. If I don't want that, then maybe what I need to do is I say, I want that and just leave that alone. Right. Don't step into it. , so yeah, , if we wait for, , perfection, we get into that analysis paralysis and then it.
That really makes sense. , do you have any tools or suggestions for people who know what they don't want on how to hold the vision of flipping that from that negative into the positive and holding on to that instead of just fixating on what they don't want?
, And then I think we're at the point now, I'm not really sure to how spiritual I should get , on this call, because, , I don't want to scare , some of your listeners, but I think from, , the 3d to the 4d to the 5d worlds, we're really at the point where there's some of us. And I know you and I are two of those people that are actually working in 5d.
There's the matrix revealed in the red light of the laser. So if we are aware that the universe is conspiring for us. For what we want there's a certain number of us that are now capable of rewriting the code and I know you speak to this quite often and I think you actually did a Facebook live not too long ago that spoke very much to , so we're all at various stages of this line of thinking of, , how do I rewrite the code?
Carol (00:13):
, we've been raised to not trust the process, right? Yeah. We've been raised that the process isn't necessarily there to support us, right? It's there to support someone else in some other way, but not necessarily there to support us. And, , if we look at ourselves, You can use the terms as a spiritual being, , , I'm almost even more likely to now consider myself as a coding engineer.
Because, yeah, in manifestation, by essentially putting out there what you want, that is, yeah, you're like rewriting the code. You are trying to shape your reality that you are forming. And you said in there, trust. And , every time I hear that, I'm like, , why is it so hard to trust? Trust our own intuition, trust the way we're feeling in certain situations.
a really fun test. Here's a really fun exercise in learning to trust yourself. , you know about muscle testing, right? And I'm sure many of your listeners know about muscle testing, but for , those of us that don't, , if we were to hold our arm out to the side and have somebody press down on our arm , And we're trying to hold it strong.
And it makes sense. I'm being attracted to, or repelled from. Right? So here's a really fun exercise. Next time you're in the mall and you're tempted to go into a store, Oh, I'm just going to go browse to see if there's something in here. Stand at the door and ask yourself, Is there anything in this store that I need or is of value to me?
I do this at Christmas for my Christmas shopping. Fascinating. I'll go to each store. Is there, , I have my list, right? Physical or in my mind. Generally it's on my phone. And I'll say, is there anything in this store that is on my list or would be of benefit to anybody that I'm buying Christmas gifts for?
But again, it was what, I hope it was what they knew at the time. I'm really trying to trust that we weren't deceived by, right? So I hope that it's all that they knew at the time. And, , here we are 35, 40 years later. We now know better. We now know more, right? So that journey is the same, but you know as we're going through when we talk about the chakra systems, right?
By the time they're seven years old, they have been told that who they think they are isn't trustworthy. That society and teachers and parents and doctors tell them who they are, right? So in general, , a child's chakra energetic system is shut down by the time they're seven years old. So we wonder why we don't trust ourselves.
Jenni (2) (00:20):
. Yeah, It's a continual rewriting, like it's not like you're like, okay, I've rewritten it, I've put in the work, I spent all month getting really clear on what I want, , it's an adopted lifestyle that you choose to embody, to always be making those decisions, to always, like you said at the beginning of this chat, Be questioning things.
So how do we wrap this back into business? Me being a business coach, right? , so many people get locked up in those stories. Well, my buddy, my eight year old buddy told me when I was five that I couldn't add. So that means today that I'm, I can't touch QuickBooks online because I can't add, right?
, , and that is where so many people get burnt out in their lives, ? Is they're trying to appease What their old stories are, , as the new stories try to come through, they're pushing them down and pushing them down, pushing them down. No, there's only one way to get to grandma's house on the highway.
, they are, as a CEO in a business, , you don't necessarily take your business home. And talk to your spouse about it. You might, , some of the superficial stuff, but some of those deep down problems that are really bothering you, you probably go, I can't put this on my spouse. I can't put this on my children.
, and finally they have a place to share these heavy, heavy, heavy loads. , be it, , operational burnout or, , just not pricing, right. That's causing financial problems in the business. Or how do I level up my leadership? , I want to bring in more teams. , And giving yourself permission to do that, I want to add a very, what I feel is a very important piece here, and I'm not really sure how it fits, but I'm called to add it, so I'm going to trust that, is that when CEOs actually look back on the purpose of their business, why they're in business, very often it doesn't even correlate to what the business does.
Ooh, so corporate, right? So what if I added a layer of knowledge that the reason he wanted to do this was because his daughter would be going to university in another year, and he wanted to be able to pay for a full ride to university. University away apartment, everything for her so that she could get the base knowledge that she needed to get for her to be successful in her life.
The local baseball team. They needed, , 500 bucks for new jerseys if he so chose, he wanted to be able to support that baseball team. He wanted to be able to do philanthropic work, his business. Was his tool for him to make the money so that he could live out his passion and what he wanted to be, which was to be philanthropic.
So I really encourage people to, , spend the time to check in with themselves, to do the walk, to do the drive, to sit in a coffee shop with headphones on, whatever your process is, right? to really start to allow those desires. To start to come through you because at the other end of it, just like , my client who wanted to be philanthropic, there's lots of really good work that can be done because you actually start to recognize what your unique desire is in this world and allow yourself to open to that.
on YouTube. She is a power pose expert and practice some of those power poses to really get comfortable in knowing what that feels like, when you start to honor yourself first, you're going to be forced to create some boundaries. Again, I'm not saying disrespect your parents. I'm saying you're going to be forced to create some boundaries.
In that honoring of yourself, you can now grow into the purpose, the reason why you've been put on this earth. And some people aren't going to like it, and some people aren't going to respect it, right? So that's where you need to turn into yourself, and respect yourself.
and at the end of the day, you're the only one that can keep you safe. And the best thing to do is to lean into that gut feeling. I remember, just as a quick segue here, I used to run. And there was this really beautiful old gravel pit near my house, like three doors down. And it had a one and a half kilometer trail around it.
I was running. I stopped dead in my tracks. And I looked down, this beautiful, long, tree covered, , the tunnel, tree tunnel walkway. It was probably about 300 yards long. And I stopped dead in my tracks and I went, not today. And I turned around and I went home. I don't know what I avoided. I'll never know.
Again, , that really comes down to creating burnout in us. I just can't show up in a way that feels good for me. I'm constantly giving to other people, and what does burnout create? It creates illness, it creates weight issues, it creates relationship issues, and there's probably a whole host of other things. So as part of, , understanding burnout for your business community specifically, I will share with you a, , a tool that I have. It's called the business burnout recovery, , checklist. Okay, and it's a way to help create clarity, create financial awareness, some leadership growth strategies, some self assessments, so that you can actually come back to yourself and start to really be aware of what is it that I want.
, looking at some regular self assessment pieces and recognizing that our path isn't perfect and to bring you back to those constant adjustments as we have to go through, , and as we continue to make those consistent adjustments through our progress, either in business or in life, , we can apply this tool to both for sure, small adjustments really, truly lead to big results.
Oh, my joints aren't as sore. Oh, , whatever the aha or the realization is. . And at the end of that, It really is up to you what your comfort level is with the big result, right? Maybe we say, Oh, I want to lose 20 pounds. We get to 20 pounds. We'll go, Oh, you know what? I could, I'm enjoying this and I could maybe do another 10, right?
And, , just as a sidebar, September of 2025, I'm putting together a summit, , For business leaders who want to bring more of the intuitive sense into how they show up and how they run their businesses. So I know it's , a little bit down the road, but, , if you come over to my website, you get On my mailing list.
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