Unveiling Aleya Harris: The Journey to Authenticity and Entrepreneurial Success
with Christie Osborne
Welcome to a milestone episode of The Flourishing Entrepreneur podcast, episode 100! We're diving into a deeply personal and celebratory conversation as Aleya Harris is interviewed by her friend and godmother of her child, Christie Osborne. In this intimate dialogue, we explore Aleya's transformative journey over the past year — from embracing motherhood and confronting postpartum depression to facing financial woes and leaning into radical authenticity.
Aleya will share how she's been learning alongside her audience rather than speaking from a place of having overcome challenges, which has allowed for greater connection and impact. We'll take a look at Aleya's commitment to flourishing as an entrepreneur and human being, and why each step of her journey matters.
Key Topics:
- Aleya's stories of growth through various crises
- The profound reason for her decision to go natural with her hair and how it empowered others
- The power of vulnerability, the importance of authenticity in relationships, and the spiritual experiences that have shaped Aleya's approach to life and entrepreneurship
- Aleya's internal processes and how to deal with the pressure and expectations that come with being an award-winning speaker
Join us for this profound episode as Aleya opens up about her lessons, the philosophies that sustain her, and her ongoing quest to live with energetic sovereignty.
About Christie Osborne
In addition to being one of the amazing godmothers of Ruby Coral, Christie Osborne is a proud data nerd and founder of Mountainside Media, a data-driven consulting firm specializing in market research, ads, and analytics. Her superpower is helping small businesses and entrepreneurs develop scalable marketing strategies that turn their data into dollars.
Her knack for critical thinking makes Christie a natural analytics master, and she's always prepared to dig into marketing metrics to find and refine strategies that drive ROI.
However, Christie is more than a numbers wonk. She's also a highly sensitive and intuitive Creative in her own right. Her ability to see and empathize with real humans behind the data gives her strategies an authentic touch that drives results without compromising integrity.
Beyond data-driven marketing analysis, Christie frequents the national speaker circuit where she shares her expertise on stage.
Connect with Christie Osborne
Website: https://mountainsidemedia.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mtnsidemediaco/
About Aleya Harris
Aleya Harris is the spark for your spark™. A trailblazer in purpose-driven story crafting, she is a former marketing executive and ex-Google Vendor Partner who brings her dynamic experience to her role as the CEO of The Evolution Collective Inc. Aleya is a StoryBrand Certified Guide, international award-winning speaker, and the host of the award-winning Flourishing Entrepreneur Podcast. Her unique approach as a Strategic Storytelling Consultant has revolutionized the way businesses communicate, transforming workplace cultures and market positioning. With her dynamic energy and proven methodologies, she guides clients to unlock their potential, articulate their radically authentic stories, and achieve unparalleled success.
Sign Up for a Free Workshop
Each month, Aleya hosts a free 90-minute, hands-on workshop to help you use the power of radically authentic strategic storytelling to improve your personal growth, career, and company.
Register at https://www.aleyaharris.com/workshop
Book Aleya to Speak
To book Aleya to edutain your audience at your next event as a keynote speaker, please visit www.aleyaharris.com/speaking to check out her speaking topics, reels, and why. Click "Schedule a Call" to secure the speaker with "that something new" you've been looking for.
If you are a Corporate Event Planner, Employee Experience Professional, Head of Marketing, Learning & Development Professional, Executive Assistant, Speakers Bureau Destination Management Company, or Destination Management Organization who is looking for a top-quality, energetic speaker, you should definitely hop on a call with Aleya.
Connect with Aleya Harris
Speaking & Media: https://www.aleyaharris.com
The Evolution Collective Inc.: https://www.evolutioncollective.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aleyaharris/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleyaharris/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thealeyaharris
Links Mentioned on this Podcast
-
Aleya Harris [00:00:01]:
Today you are in for a treat because I am going to be sitting in the interviewee chair and one of my dearest friends, one of Ruby Coral's godmothers, Christie Osborne, is going to be interviewing me. And as we were preparing for this episode, I only gave her one stipulation to ask me the question, questions that you would ask me if the mic wasn't on. All of those things that you want to know about me and our friendship and who I am and my process and how I approach life and how I approach healing and entrepreneurship, ask me all of those things. And let me tell you, this episode does not disappoint. She really does get in deep and allows me to share parts of my story that I've never shared before that hopefully can uplift you. This is our 100th episode of the Flourishing Entrepreneur podcast, and I'm so excited to have this special flip in the switch moment so that you and I can connect better, that you and I can better tell our connected stories because you know a little bit more about mine. All right, let's go.
Yuliya Patsay [00:01:16]:
Welcome to the flourishing Entrepreneur podcast with Aleya Harris. If you're looking for actionable ways to overcome communication and differentiation challenges by sharing radically authentic stories, you are in the right place. Listen in and learn how to stand in the power of your unique narrative to transform your personal life, business and workplace culture. And now, your host, award winning international speaker, strategic storytelling consultant, and japanese whiskey lover, Ruby Coral's mom, Aleya Harris.
Christie Osborne [00:02:06]:
Aleya Harris.
Aleya Harris [00:02:06]:
Christie Osborne.
Christie Osborne [00:02:09]:
Happy 100th episode. Congratulations.
Aleya Harris [00:02:14]:
Thank you. It's been a road to get here, but I'm glad that we made it.
Christie Osborne [00:02:20]:
And I would, hasn't it?
Aleya Harris [00:02:23]:
Yeah. I can only imagine what you're going to ask me about that road.
Christie Osborne [00:02:29]:
Listen, I was preparing for this interview and having Chat GPT sort of chunk things out for me and refine my questions so that they weren't so wordy. You know how I can be. And I started asking Chat GPT about our relationship, and GPT said that we were really open minded and it was basing this on one of your earlier podcast episodes that I was a guest on when I came out of the crystal closet to which Chat GPT says, listen, you two are very open minded with your crystals and your tarot cards and all of the things. So I thought that was a nice symmetry to the podcast. It's good to be back on your show. Thank you.
Aleya Harris [00:03:16]:
I'm so glad to have you back. And I'm so glad to be in the opposite chair. No, I can say for sure I was going to say, I don't think. But for sure, no one else has ever interviewed me on my podcast, and I can think of no one else who I would want to have do it.
Christie Osborne [00:03:31]:
Besides, I've been so excited about this. And the thing I've been really excited about in particular, we've had this conversation as friends, because we are friends, but behind the scenes, there was this real shift that you had recently, and I think a lot of people in your audience felt it as well. And it was this shift where you were going to double down on some radical authenticity in your own world, and you were going to walk the walk and talk the talk. And I just remember this first email that you sent. I can't even remember the content of it, but I remember how it made me feel, and it made me feel like I wasn't alone, that my challenges did not have to be shameful if I didn't want them to be. And I remember replying to your marketing email, which I know it's a marketing email, but I also know you read them and respond to them.
Aleya Harris [00:04:27]:
I certainly do. And I write them. So it's really just a normal email. Please, you can respond to the emails, people.
Christie Osborne [00:04:34]:
You can respond to the email. So I responded to the email and I said, this is amazing. I feel like you are showing up as the real you. And you said, I am. So given that you have really had a lot of change in your life recently, especially in the past year and a half, there were blessings, there were challenges, there were pivots, there was a reordering of things in your domain. Aleya. If we were writing the book of Aleya Harris and these past 18 months were a chapter in that book, what would you be titling?
Aleya Harris [00:05:18]:
This chapter the past 18 months? Oh, shit. That would be the name of the chapter. Hold on, girl. It will be going. You'll be going to be getting through this. Or even maybe when you're going through hell, just keep going. Like, that might be the title of the book and of the chapter, because in order to have a transformation, you have to have something happen to you. So in the past 18 months, I had a baby, had postpartum depression, completely, almost was in financial ruin, and decided that I wasn't about that life.
Aleya Harris [00:05:54]:
And I liked nice things and trying to claw my way back from that. But there were lots of moments in time where I'm like, golly, I am so exhausted, I'm so tired. If I could just sit my little Watsoutsi down somewhere, I would, but I didn't have that option because I had just had a baby, because I was broke and I didn't want to be destitute, so I had to keep going, and I wanted to make it worth it. So I found the lessons as I was moving and collecting them and sharing them as I go, as soon as I learn them, as soon as I feel something, as soon as I have an aha moment, as soon as God tells me, oh, this is boom, this is what it is. This is where it was at. Then I share them as opposed to before. My storytelling was like, well, after I lived a five year cycle, I might share from five years ago what I learned and an overcome, and it was clearly in a much better place, so people couldn't see my mess. Now I'm learning and I'm growing and I'm developing with my audience, which is very different, a very different experience.
Aleya Harris [00:07:04]:
And it's really scary. But at the same time, that place of vulnerability has allowed me to make connections I couldn't have made before because people actually, like you said, see me as a real human.
Christie Osborne [00:07:18]:
Yeah. And the best practice has always been like, you don't talk about your ish until it's over and you've learned your lesson. You used a phrase that I found really interesting. Just a couple of minutes ago. You said you really wanted to make sure that your experiences and the stories that you were telling around your experiences were worth it. Worth it to whom? Worth it to you?
Aleya Harris [00:07:45]:
Worth it to your audience, worth it to me. This is how I look at it. I have to go through it, right? So financial, just horribleness. Right? Like, I had to go through it. I made some mistakes. I didn't know I was making mistakes, but I made some mistakes. I made some big ones, and I'm still recovering from them. Right? So the recovery is.
Aleya Harris [00:08:07]:
Most people think that the end of the story is the reward for the journey. It is. Right? So when I am big, kicking it on my yacht, having someone feed me grapes, that will be the reward for the journey. But for me, the biggest reward is to be able to take all the lessons that I've got through that and then share it out so somebody else doesn't have to go through what I went through. And it's like compounding the benefits from the journey. So then I'm able to feel like I made this matter. Although I had to go through this because of whatever I did. And I take accountability for my actions.
Aleya Harris [00:08:44]:
I made it not just be something that was hurtful that I've overcome, but I made it help heal me, help heal someone else. And I'm like, I'm trying to suck all the goodness out of the crisis possible so that it matters in the grander scheme of things. It wasn't just something I suffered through in silence, which then becomes a trauma that you hold on to rather than a triumph that you can share.
Christie Osborne [00:09:10]:
So who did you think you needed to be before all this happened?
Aleya Harris [00:09:14]:
Girl, I don't know. I know I needed to be perfect. That was for sure. And I know I needed to be respected as a marketer, and I needed to fit into the mold of marketer, of person who had it all together, former corporate person, the person that you could trust. And so I thought that trust meant I needed to be the one that you look to that had it all together. Because if I wasn't, why would you trust me? Because I didn't really understand how trust works, and I didn't really understand the grand role that vulnerability has in trust. And I've always.
Christie Osborne [00:09:57]:
Didn't you get yourself some Brene Brown books? What's wrong with.
Aleya Harris [00:10:03]:
You? Read them, and it's cool. And she's brilliant. And I love the concepts of vulnerability and courage, but it's different when you have to actually do it. And the thing is, I thought I was doing it right. I thought I was being vulnerable enough. I thought that's what that meant. And I was vulnerable one on one with people, like behind closed doors or if I was mentoring you, what changed? I didn't have a choice.
Christie Osborne [00:10:29]:
You did, though. Everybody's got a choice, Elaine.
Aleya Harris [00:10:31]:
That's how I felt when I was super depressed. Right. And I was coming out of it. I didn't know I had had so much stripped away and was so raw, and I couldn't find the pieces of the old me to put on the old face again. So if I had been able to pick up that old mask, I would have, if we're honest, and we wouldn't even be having this conversation right now, but it was shattered, so I didn't have a choice. I had to show up in a different way, and I didn't have the skills yet to put together a new mask, but I had this compelling drive to still show up and to tell the story. And that had to solely be spirit because I knew I needed people to see me because I felt so hidden. But I also, at the same time, didn't want anybody to see me because I felt like I'd look totally different.
Aleya Harris [00:11:30]:
It was almost like I had gotten into some horrific physical accident, and had, like, scars across my face. And I didn't want people to see me because I felt ugly. But I also wanted people to see me because I wanted them to comfort me and to help me and to learn from me so that they didn't do or could do. There's all this plop all in the middle. So, yeah, no, I didn't have a choice to show up this way because there was nothing left. And then I never picked the mask up because I actually, once I got comfortable being uncomfortable, I rather enjoyed it.
Christie Osborne [00:12:08]:
I have to confess to you, there's some things you asked me. You said, I want you to talk to me and ask me all the things that you've always wanted to ask and just haven't for whatever reason, because it's none of my business, or we have a weird, asynchronous voxer relationship most of the time. When you came up with the concept of radical authenticity, I thought it was pretty catchy, right? And in that marketing way that we've talked about, I was like, yeah, that's a good. It's a differentiator. We've been talking about authenticity ad nauseam for two decades, right? So what does that even mean? And I've always wanted to ask you, what in the world did you see that was missing that required the quality of radicalness?
Aleya Harris [00:13:06]:
I think it was exactly what you were talking about, because people have been talking about being their authentic self for so long, it had gotten so inauthentic, and I needed to basically be like, you guys are not doing this right. So it either goes into this weird place where you're crying on stage, and if you guys have listened to any of my past episodes, you would hear that I do not like people crying on stage because it's manipulative, or you go all the way to one other side where they get this modeling, mothery, sacronny, sweet sounding voice, and it's them trying to comfort you and comfort themselves, and it's all fake. It's all fake. Or you get the, let me just dump all of my trauma baggage on you. Boom, I'm authentic. And none of that is it for me, authenticity. People had forgotten where authenticness, authenticity comes from or came from. And for me, it requires a sense of spirituality.
Aleya Harris [00:14:07]:
The core of who you are is this soul droplet in this bag of skin and bones. And the closer you get back to that soul droplet, the better. But people didn't want to talk about that. They wanted to say, oh, I'm authentic. Here's my authentic trauma or here's my authentic whatever. And they didn't want to get down to the soul, and they didn't want to have the soul conversation. They didn't want to have the purpose conversation. And how their trauma, yes, could lead them to the purpose and lead them to their karma and lead them to all this stuff.
Aleya Harris [00:14:42]:
But they hadn't finished the conversation. It was almost like a get rich quick thing for authenticity. Like, oh, I think I'm authentic now. Let me go talk about it. I've been doing the work to get inklings and little sparkles of what my soul looks like. So when I talk about radically authentic, it's because I've experienced that, and I want other people to experience it because there's a joy there. There's healing there, there's relief there, there's assistance there. That's where service comes from.
Aleya Harris [00:15:22]:
That's where purpose comes from, all of that. But it's not performative. It's not trauma dumping. It's getting in touch with yourself. And that's a lot harder. It's a lot harder to do the work in silence and to do the work behind closed doors and then just show up as you and show up as what you are versus getting on TikTok and talking about randomness. Right? Oh, that's why they're so authentic. Are they authentic or are they harmful? Authenticity doesn't harm other people.
Christie Osborne [00:15:56]:
I love that. There seems to be a real important ingredient to that, that it almost sounds like there is an emotional maturity that is involved in radical authenticity. Right. Instead of outsourcing your emotions through just trauma dumping and having somebody else take care of your stuff, you really have some sovereignty over your own emotions. You're emotionally sober, as I've run into that concept online. And then there seems to be something about consent in there. There's relationship in there. I'm okay, you're okay, and we're going to consent to the relationship we have.
Christie Osborne [00:16:52]:
Am I hitting that right?
Aleya Harris [00:16:53]:
Yeah, we've talked about this because you've been like, I'm so sorry to give you all my burdens, or, I'm so sorry to be so much. And I remember talking to you and being like, when I can't handle it anymore, it's my job to tell you, no, I need some space, or no, I need this. But people don't take accountability for themselves anymore. And so people that are people pleasers, which is a lot of people. Me, I can get into people pleasing. Lots of women can, especially. That's societally how we're groomed. We then end up picking up the slack and we think that we're helping, but we're not.
Aleya Harris [00:17:32]:
When I can be accountable for my own emotions and I can say simple things, it's not like I have to become like Freud or a psychologist or psychiatrist. I can say things like, I'm mad right now, I'm sad right now, I'm mad at you for this, let's talk about it, or, I have a lot of stuff to say. This conversation is probably going to be like over an hour, and I am sad, and I don't want to apologize for it. Are you okay with sitting with me through this? Yeah, sure. Right. That's me taking accountability and responsibility for where I'm at. Right. Or having set up that relationship in advance for that to be okay.
Aleya Harris [00:18:12]:
But we don't do that anymore. So the consent has to consistently happen, and it doesn't. So we get people pleasing, and then we get narcissistic relationships, and then we get the sense when you're trying to be authentic, and then that scares the other person because they're not used to having interactions like that. So you're talking about energetic sovereignty and being the energetic ruler of your own self. And that also means that you communicate very well who you are, what you do, what you're feeling, and allow space for the other person where they are. And don't try to make them be where you are. And if they can't enter into a conversation with you, love them, send them into the light, and then go find someone who can.
Christie Osborne [00:19:04]:
You're doing speaker training right now. You have a program that is called Spark, the stage at which you have launched and you're relaunching. So that I believe when this podcast airs that you will be in process for that. And one of the things that I have noticed about you, I think you are well suited to do the type of speakers training that you are doing and having been on the speaker circuit with you, because you show up as yourself, and you show up frequently, even if you haven't always been perfectly authentic in the past or whatever, or if you had just drank the marketing Koolaid, you were still showing up in ways that were important and meaningful to the small business owners and entrepreneurs that you are reaching. And what happens when you're a speaker such as yourself or the folks that get trained by you is you start to attract attention. People want to take your picture. I have pictures of you. People lined up, like, lined up down the aisle just to talk to Aleya Harris and the interesting thing that I'm thinking about with what you're saying is we're talking about emotional maturity and self sovereignty and consent in an individual relationship like the one that we have as friends.
Christie Osborne [00:20:25]:
However, when you're a speaker or you're online a lot with strangers, there is formed this parasocial relationship where people feel like they're really close to you and know a lot about you, but you don't know who they are. You have not met them. So it's really one sided. And given that context, my question is, has there been a situation where you have showed up authentically as yourself, radically authentically, and that did not land with your audience at all?
Aleya Harris [00:21:04]:
Never. I would love to be like, yes, there was this one time where blah, blah, blah, blah. And if you're thinking of a time that I told you about, just tell me. But I can't think of one. It's actually been the opposite. The more authentic that I've gotten, the more people are hugging me and crying and lining up after I'm done talking. And I will say as a note, I love you, whoever is listening to this, I do, because I love the humanity and the soul in you. But if you come up, please at least say your name.
Aleya Harris [00:21:33]:
Because a lot of the times people come up to me and they just start talking about, oh, your daughter, this, oh, this is going on in your life. And I'm like, tis true, and you are. So at least give me your name, because I do want it to be a two sided relationship. But no, never have I been my authentic self. Never have I let my soul out to play and had it be a bad thing.
Christie Osborne [00:22:08]:
It's, what would you do if it did happen?
Aleya Harris [00:22:15]:
That would be a sign to me that I was being fake. That would be a sign to me that something happened and I got derailed in my authenticity. That would be a sign that I've gotten too full of myself and my ego had convinced me that I was being authentic and I wasn't. Because, like I said, when you're your most authentic self, your radically authentic self, what you're doing is you're removing things that are separating you and the rest of the world from experiencing your soul. Your soul is innately good, is innately timeless, and is innately helpful, is innately connected. So if something bad were to happen, people didn't resonate, people didn't, whatever. That meant that I would be out of alignment with my soul and my spirit out of alignment with my authentic self. And so something that I can imagine happening is there would be no audience connection.
Aleya Harris [00:23:14]:
People would be sitting there silent. People wouldn't buy my stuff. People would not walk up to me afterwards. All the opposite of what's happening now. It's interesting because when I got pregnant, I was prepared for basically Jesus himself to come and kick it with me on my rocking chair. Because I've always been super spiritual, ayahuasca, mediumship, all of that loveliness. I don't talk about being a medium a lot on this because you guys already think I'm crazy. We don't need to add fuel to that flame, I don't think.
Aleya Harris [00:23:49]:
But it is true. I often talk to people's ancestors. If you're in coaching session with me, especially an energy coaching session with me, it comes up, they come up, I invite them in, and they show up. But when I got pregnant, I was expecting the opposite. Because you're open, right? Another soul is occupying your body. And I was completely cut off. When I was pregnant, I felt the least intuitive that I've ever felt in my life, because everything was focused on developing and welcoming the souls into my body and my baby. And people were busy.
Aleya Harris [00:24:29]:
My spiritual guides are busy. Everybody was busy doing things for baby Ruby coral. And I remember feeling so lost because I didn't realize how, because I had cultivated such a relationship with spirit that I was constantly hearing things, constantly following, constantly seeking, constantly connecting. And when I didn't have that available to me, I felt really lonely. And so I also feel like that would be a side effect. That would have probably been my first sign, is an extreme sense of loneliness before I got up on that stage to talk. And then I would have been out there truly by myself, and it would flop in spark the stage. Some of the first things that I talk about, I lead people through a guided meditation about becoming a channel, because that's what a speaker should be, someone who knows how to channel and just open their mouth.
Aleya Harris [00:25:23]:
And so if I wasn't able to channel, which everyone can, you don't have to be a medium. You don't have to be a lay Harris. You don't have to have done ayahuasca. You have to do anything. You innately can channel. If I wasn't able to do that or blocked myself from doing that, then that's when it would go bad.
Christie Osborne [00:25:42]:
I want to rewind a little bit. I want to go back a little bit and talk a bit about process and hard emotions and how they relate to showing up in the world. However you're going to show up, hopefully that's authentically. Hopefully, it's radically authentically. I have seen you perform beautifully, flawlessly, move people, and have been so convinced that you were okay and on top of the world and succeeding that I missed the subtext of a message you sent me right after I saw you speak, where you said, well, that didn't went well. And I thought you spoke so well that you were talking about something else. I had no idea what you were talking about. And so I just kind of, like, ignored it in my Christie Osborne way.
Christie Osborne [00:26:41]:
And unbeknownst to me, you were processing through this moment where you thought you had failed on stage. And I would love for you to unpack. Whether it's explaining a little bit more that moment and what you were going through or a moment like that, I would love for you to unpack how you deal with those moments and create space for hard and challenging feelings without pushing out authenticity.
Aleya Harris [00:27:17]:
Well, that particular moment was during the thick of my postpartum depression. I decided it would be like an awesome idea to get on stage in front of a bunch of people. And everybody actually gave me great feedback. I love your energy. You were so great. It was so wonderful. And because I was just so sad, I didn't see it. And then that sadness, I knew I was sad, and I knew that I was Aleya Harris, the one that brings the energy.
Aleya Harris [00:27:45]:
I was like, this is going to be horrible. And, oh, my God, that's horrible. And then I felt like, oh, I'm flat, or I'm too gruff because I'm trying to force this out and all of this stuff. And thank God for channeling because it was spirit up there doing the work through my mouth because I was not even there. I cried before that presentation and after that presentation, moving through hard feelings, then I don't know how well I did it. Now on the other side, I just stop and I give myself a break. I take a nap, I eat something, and I realize that there is time. There is enough time to do and be whoever I want to be and do whatever I want to do.
Aleya Harris [00:28:41]:
And I don't need to let self trauma happen in this moment in order to be successful. I get to take a break, I get to be sad, I get to be angry, I get to be down, and I get to say no. When you're striving for something and when you're going for something, like, my goal is to be ultimately Oprah big. You feel like any little crumb that is handed you, any little crumb that is tossed at you, you have to take because you don't know when you're going to get your next crumb. And I just decided, like, if I'm not feeling like catching a crumb today, I'm not. And something else will come, because there's a difference between self consciousness and doubt, which is where that comes from. Then there's faith, which is a little bit better, right? I have faith that this will get better. And then there's knowing.
Aleya Harris [00:29:43]:
I know that. I know that. I know that. My purpose here is to inspire others. My purpose here is to love other people into the highest version of itself. And I can't fail at that. I've preset up that agreement. So it might not look like how I want it to look, and it might not feel like how I want it to feel, but this is exactly how it needs to look like how it needs to feel like for me to do what I need to do.
Aleya Harris [00:30:09]:
And I could even be feeling down or sad or bad or angry right now, because I need to say no to whatever's coming at me. Even though it might look shiny, it might look perfect, it might look wonderful, because that's not the direction that I need to go into to fulfill my highest purpose. So right now, the answer to your question is I just stop. Mmm.
Christie Osborne [00:30:38]:
That's good.
Aleya Harris [00:30:39]:
I mean, I have my limits.
Christie Osborne [00:30:43]:
One of the reasons why I ask is, even as your friends, right, we're close, we have shared really intimate details about each other's lives, all the things, and there is a deep level of trust there. One of the challenges I find as your friend, and I wonder if other folks who are watching and listening to you find it as well, is you are doing a lot of internal processing and you are so growth oriented and you're doing a lot of internal work and growth. It's very easy to see you looking so put together and so strong and performing at such a high level. It's easy to fall into this mental trap of thinking that there's some sort of destination that we're going to be like Aleya Harris, if we take spark the stage, or if we have some control over our emotions or whatever it is. What do you wish people knew about you and your internal process that you think would help them? Better than any framework or any system or any little gem that you can drop on a podcast? What do you really wish people knew about you that would help them?
Aleya Harris [00:32:19]:
There's so many things. One is, I don't get attached to a tool. So my internal process changes based on my intuition, and it's always based on my intuition, like right now, I just finished reading and rereading asking. It is given by Abraham Hicks before I was reading, going through the processes, through movement of spiritual inner awareness. I'm meditating. I choose different ways of meditating because, how do I put it? I'm constantly having a conversation with God. But if a full conversation surrounds sound, would be me in the middle of a room with five speakers. I do one tool and I hear it out of one speaker and I do another tool, and then I hear a little bit more nuance that comes through another speaker.
Aleya Harris [00:33:13]:
And then I might shift and change my perspective or do something physical and that helps me hear out of another speaker. But my goal is to just get this Dolby surround sound moment where I'm hearing the full breadth and scope of what spirit is having for me in any given moment, and to have all of the speakers plugged in, ready and available and connected. So if I were to give anybody the advice is to go after the hearing and the listening, and I don't even want to say conversation because haven't you talked enough? I know I have. Haven't you asked enough? Haven't you pleaded enough, prayed enough? You've done enough. The issue, you keep talking because you aren't seeing what you want, so you think you have to just keep asking for it. Spirit and universe are not hard of hearing. So you notice I say that I'm standing in the room waiting for the speakers to turn on so I can listen better. Because as soon as I get a message, I'm out the blocks.
Aleya Harris [00:34:29]:
It could be one word, but I do what I need to do to make sure that the speakers are constantly connected.
Christie Osborne [00:34:37]:
When was the first time you heard everything in surround sound? Bring us back to that time when the speakers first turned on for you.
Aleya Harris [00:34:47]:
It was when I was baptized. I was in a black church and I don't attend traditional church anymore, but me and Jesus, big kick it. We the homies. I'm a big fan. I'm a big fan. But I was in church and I wanted to get baptized. I believe it was 2005, so I was like an adult, like in my twenty s, and I was like, okay, I'm going to give my life to Jesus. I went, my mom was there, my boyfriend at the time was there.
Aleya Harris [00:35:17]:
This is a full dunk. Not like a little. Let me just pour some on your head. They had like a tub inside the room. They dunked me in and I remember being like, whoa, this water is cold. And they dunked me in and I came out and they took me. I remember her name. She was considered a prophetess.
Aleya Harris [00:35:39]:
That was her title in the church. And she took me around to the side of the stage, like into this room. It was me and another girl. And she said, now is your time to open up to God. Now is your time to open up to God. Let God speak out of you. And they were trying to see if I had any spiritual gifts and if I could speak in tongues. And lo and behold, I just started saying, sha sha sha sha sha sha sha sha sha sha sha sha.
Aleya Harris [00:36:10]:
And I was shaking and convulsing and withering. And then I just started full on busting out, speaking in tongues. And if anybody's ever had a real moment, I'm thinking about black people on this podcast. If anybody has had a real moment speaking in tongues, just going to let that there, you know that you can. Well, how I've experienced it and how others have, you hear yourself, but then you also are separate from the channeling of the speaking. So I'm sitting there inside my own head, looking at myself like, what the heck is going on? This is crazy and scary. And also just felt amazing because you can feel the weight of spirit fall on you. And I remember being like, whoa, what was that? What was that? And then I felt super bad because there were two of us in that room.
Aleya Harris [00:37:02]:
There's another girl in there, and there was another prophetess in there with her, and she was trying to get her to speak, and she couldn't. She kept saying, it's okay, baby. Everyone has different gifts. And I still remember this girl's face. She was so sad. And I wish that I could do something, but I didn't know what to do. I didn't even know what had just happened to me. Now I could probably help.
Aleya Harris [00:37:29]:
And I remember then the next day, I was in the kitchen, and I was getting some grapes, because I had the grapes in my right hand, and my hand started shaking, and the grapes started falling out from between my fingers, and I had this flash of different beings, of light, and I started speaking in tongues again and shaking. And I remember being put down to my knees in the middle of my kitchen. And so that was when I first realized that something was up with me. You had a vision. Yeah, we can call it that. And I had moments where I developed it in between and moments when I didn't. And then once I got a little bit more serious about developing it, that's when it really just kind of opened up to me on the ability to connect a little bit more readily. But it's kind of like working out.
Aleya Harris [00:38:38]:
Like, if you stop working out, you get fluffy, and so you can get spiritually fluffy, too. It doesn't mean that it's impossible for you to have that rock hard ab again, or it's impossible to ever have that type of connection again. But it's a little harder when you don't work it out. Does that answer your question?
Christie Osborne [00:39:00]:
Yeah. If you went back to that time that that other person who had to be consoled for not having any kind of talent or gifts, which is probably not true, but we'll just leave that aside for a minute. If you could go back to that moment, what would you say to that person?
Aleya Harris [00:39:24]:
I would ask questions, and I'd probably guide them through a process. Like close your eyes. What do you see? What do you feel? Where's your body? Warm? Cold? What are the words described? When you close your eyes, what are you seeing? What are you feeling? Because I've always talked, you all have heard me say this on this podcast before. I was a kid who got in trouble in elementary school for whispering because I did not know how to do it. So it doesn't surprise me one bit that my talents are vocal. Doesn't surprise me. But this lady, this girl was shy. I had known her around the church, but I had never actually spoken to her.
Aleya Harris [00:40:11]:
And she probably had a very different gift. But they wanted the showy and the flashy ones. It's about unearthing what are you being led to in the moment, even if it's quiet and still doesn't mean that it's not a gift. It just means that it's not going to show up in the same way that my gift does. I've worked with teachers and healers that can heal people by touching them. I've seen it happen. And I'm not talking about the old pastors on tv trying to bless you with the holy water that you can buy for 999. I'm talking about true healing in the Amazon in Los Angeles.
Aleya Harris [00:40:51]:
I've seen it. I've seen true healing take place. And I remember because I'm type a. It doesn't matter if it's type a spiritual stuff or type a marketing stuff. I'm type a just regardless. And so I remember being like, I should be able to do that. How do I do that? Why can't I do that? Yeah, sure, I might be able to channel your grandma, but why can't I heal you with my hands? Right? And so the gift comparison happens no matter what your gift is. And then that's when you start to lose your gift, the more you compare, because that's not what it's supposed to be for.
Aleya Harris [00:41:27]:
You should think of it more as opposed to you trying to be like the ultimate superhero. You just like being on the Avengers team. So every Avenger has a different gift, but we're all helping out and we're working together, that kind of thing.
Christie Osborne [00:41:44]:
Was that lesson easy for you to learn or difficult?
Aleya Harris [00:41:48]:
No, it was not easy to learn because I've always been told that I should be. Not directly, but I should be able to do and be anything and everything in the most perfect way possible. So once I discovered that there were other ways to connect with God, I wanted to do them all. Another thing that I experienced, too, that was kind of driving this, in addition to the perfection was a lot of times. And if this is you having your first kind of more spiritual experience and you feel like this, just know that it's perfectly normal and you're not alone. You start to have a feeling of missing. Um, like your lover, mother, brother died all at once. And it's a sadness I'm missing.
Aleya Harris [00:42:40]:
I miss you. I miss you. And I started having that feeling, and nothing, no one in the physical, nothing had happened. And I couldn't figure out who or what I was missing, but I would be crying and crying and just had this feeling of missing. And my spiritual teacher at the time said, because you're remembering, you're missing. Because you're remembering. You're remembering what it felt like to not have a separation between you and spirit and in a physical body, between you and the person in front of you. And it's only a small remembrance.
Aleya Harris [00:43:19]:
But that's why you can't stay in that same spiritual mode all the time, because it consumes people. Because there's no way there have been people that have committed suicide that have gone down a spiritual path because the missing gets too great.
Christie Osborne [00:43:39]:
And also their guru tells them that they can get a restart.
Aleya Harris [00:43:43]:
Yeah, well, we're not even going to do that.
Christie Osborne [00:43:46]:
We will not go down that road.
Aleya Harris [00:43:48]:
Yeah.
Christie Osborne [00:43:48]:
If you know, you know, you know.
Aleya Harris [00:43:51]:
But that missingness, that was the hardest part of developing my gifts. The rest of it felt kind of like Avengers training. Like, the more you do it, then you fine tune, then you listen, and you develop, and you go, and then you just open. And you have to realize when you're not supposed to be trying, you're supposed to be receptive. And it's almost like a game. It's kind of fun. But the hardest part was realizing that I was missing trying then to learn all of the other spiritual gifts and be the ultimate Avenger, to see if those would somehow get me closer to my relationship with God. And that's not how it works.
Christie Osborne [00:44:32]:
I find something that's very interesting about you, and I'm going to go back to my experience with you on the speaker circuit, not just because of spark the stage, which I think is a great program. We've talked a little bit about how it's structured, but also because I think how you show up naturally as a speaker really embodies some of the deeper philosophies that you have in the ways that you guide people through their own process. When people come up to me and ask about speaking, how do you get on stage? And I'm often looking for what's motivating them, and there's plenty of folks that are just motivated by ego, and that's fine. Like, listen, we will not lie to you. It feels good to be up there and get all that attention, right? Like, we both like it. It feels great. It's not the only reason why we do it, but it feels great. One of the things that differentiates you from not all speakers, but many speakers I see is that when those in between session times happen and somebody comes running up to you in the hallway and says, aleya, aleya, aleya, you address them and look at them and listen to them like they are the only and the most important person in your world.
Christie Osborne [00:46:12]:
And I've always been struck by how much you value relationships of all kinds, passing relationships, long term relationships, deep relationships, shallow relationships. You're up for a lot of it. What are some of the most powerful lessons that you have learned from your weaker relationships, those passing relationships, those conference relationships, not your big friendships, not your marriage, not your mama. What are some of the things that people who you've only met for a few minutes and might not never see again. What are some of the lessons that they've given you in your life?
Aleya Harris [00:46:57]:
One, that words matter. There are a lot of times when people come up to me and they pull out what I just have as a passing phrase. And I said, this was the most important thing that you said in your presentation. So every word that comes out of my mouth when I'm on that stage matters because people are hearing things and they're there in the room for a different reason, even though everyone always thinks, oh, I'm here for the marketing talk, or I'm here for the storytelling talk, or I'm here for whatever. Everyone's really there for a different reason that they might not even be aware of. From those passing relationships, I'm reminded that I matter, even if it was just for a moment. I've had a lot of time to feel unworthy in my life. Right? It started with my father and him always choosing whoever he was dating at the time over me and his other family that he had developed.
Aleya Harris [00:47:55]:
And now it doesn't even exist over me. And no matter how cute or smart or whatever I was, I was not as important. I didn't matter. And it's just nice to have someone come to me and tell me that I touched them and I helped them, and I matter, and what I did mattered, because people see you on stage for 45 minutes, an hour, but that's not it. It took me hours to put together those words some days and to work on the craft of being on that stage. Years. That's why I charged so much, because I didn't just come up one day and say, you know what I want to do? I want to be a speaker. This is my first time on stage, and if that is the case, the first time I did that, it was for zilchin zero 99, because I knew that that was where I was at, but I'm no longer there.
Aleya Harris [00:48:52]:
And so when someone comes up to me and says, this was cool, or even when they say, like, I had someone come to me, I used tylenol as an example in one of my presentations, and someone's like, oh, you remember tylenol? Had that whole fiasco? Maybe don't use tylenol in your next presentation. Thank you. I do remember that. I didn't think that was a big deal, but I appreciate that you were paying enough attention to come up to me and tell me that that mattered to you. Thank you. So all of it. I appreciate all of it. The other lessons that I learned from the people that come up to me is I've never been you guys, if you've listened, know that I was Stevie Wonder's private chef.
Aleya Harris [00:49:36]:
I've worked with Bruce Willis. I've worked with the Hilfiger family. I've never been particularly starstruck, but people come up to me, starstruck, and it makes me giggle because, yes, think that I'm great and wonderful, but I am just like they are. It's just that I feel like they come up because they've seen me so many times or heard me so many times. I was the one on the big stage. I must be. I don't know, somehow more important. And the lesson that I learned from that is, one, I'm not.
Aleya Harris [00:50:10]:
So there's that I should probably finish that thought. Two, I can talk to anybody because people are walking up to me, starstruck, which means that I can walk and talk to anybody. And the people that are willing to have that relationship, no matter what their title is or who they are, those are my kind of people. But the vulnerability that it takes when you do still feel like you're talking to someone who is cooler than you, for whatever reason, I always appreciate that. And I have such warmth towards those people because it took a lot of bravery and courage to come up and talk to the chick that just got off stage who, when you get off stage, you almost feel like your skin is glowing. Right. And I'm aware that I am in that moment where my skin is glowing and I'm brighter and larger than life. And for someone to come up and talk to me is very humbling, because that bravery, often, even if they're the most timid person, that bravery that they had is more than I had to use on that stage, because I'm not scared of the stage, but there's no intimidation there.
Aleya Harris [00:51:15]:
But for them to do that is a humbling experience, and I appreciate it every time.
Christie Osborne [00:51:23]:
I want to change gears a little bit, because one thing that I've seen happen, and I'm wondering the backstory behind this. Right. One thing I have seen happen with you again, is the more authentically you show up. For my own sake, not your sake, not your brand, but my personal little tickle. I also want to use a variety of words, and one word that comes to mind is more transparent and more relaxed. So one of the things that I've seen happen with your relationship with other people, especially other black women, is you made a decision at a very specific point in your life to go natural. And if people can't see me, I'm a white woman. So as a white woman, I don't have a lot of intimate knowledge or understanding about black women's relationship to their hair, other than what's available on the Internet.
Christie Osborne [00:52:36]:
Right. If you know, you know, I don't know. And I was struck by the fact that a lot of black women were coming up to you and not just complimenting you. Right. But thanking you and saying, I think I'm going to go natural. I think I'm going to go natural. What made you decide to go natural?
Aleya Harris [00:52:56]:
It was one moment. I do not remember this woman's name, but she came up to me, and she said, we can do that. She was so wrapped up in the conversation about hair in her head. She didn't introduce herself. She didn't say anything else. That was the first thing that she said, we can do that. To which I said, what did I just do? That was so salacious that she's asking if she could do that on the stage. I said, did my boob fall out? What the heck is happening? And then she just pointed.
Aleya Harris [00:53:28]:
I could tell. It was almost like she couldn't really form the sentences yet because she was still, like, in shock of what she just saw. And she just kind of pointed at my head. She goes, your hair. And what was happening was that what happens for a lot of black women and a lot of black people is that we've been told that everything about us is unprofessional. Our hair, the way we talk, our skin, the way we walk, our everything. And she had just had an experience with an incredibly bright, sexy, just gorgeous black woman on stage, intelligent, who was wearing natural hair. And it did not compute for her.
Aleya Harris [00:54:08]:
It went against all of her programming. And for me, the only reason I was natural on that stage that particular day was because I couldn't get in to see my hairstylist and get my hair pressed. I wasn't trying to make a statement or anything. It was literally just happened to be that day. I had to wear my hair natural because my hairstylist was booked, but I had to get up on stage, so I made the best of it. That's where we were at. And I heard her, and I said, you could absolutely do that. We can do whatever we want to.
Aleya Harris [00:54:41]:
We're black women. Don't we always? Don't we always have the firsts? Don't we always have the strength? Don't we always have the beauty? Aren't we always the ones that they love to hate? Aren't we always the ones that they envy and then they berate all at the same time? We can do whatever the hell we want to do because I decided I'm making the rules.
Christie Osborne [00:55:03]:
What brought you to that moment? Because I did a little bit of an Internet deep dive, and I also know.
Aleya Harris [00:55:09]:
Let me pause when she said that she did an Internet deep dive. She stalked me like she was telling me many times over bugs. She was like, I didn't know you did this from 20 years ago. I was like, what? Oh, yeah.
Christie Osborne [00:55:28]:
So what did you find in this culinary royalty? I was on the wayback machine on your. Oh, what is your middle name? It's alayadesnay. Alayadesnay.com, wayback machine, google, and all sorts of different maiden names and stuff like that. I'm completely doxxing you on your own podcast. I'm so sorry. Bleep it all out. But I want to unpack this a little bit more because as you become oprah big, right. I think that there is a real danger, not necessarily your responsibility, but maybe in some ways of people thinking that you sprung into the world fully formed saying, like, we can do what we want.
Christie Osborne [00:56:21]:
And when I look back, you've always been glamorous and beautiful, for sure. But when I look back, I remember when I first met, you were beautiful when you would straighten your hair, but you straightened your hair for a very long time. You had a very close friend telling you, oh, you better keep your hair straight or nobody's going to take you seriously and you're not going to be professional. So I'm wondering, between that experience and this decision that you couldn't get in to see your hair, girl, so you're going to go up on stage, not putting your hair in a bun, not smoothing it down.
Aleya Harris [00:57:02]:
That's true. You decided to.
Christie Osborne [00:57:05]:
You did? Yeah. What made you feel like, I'm going to let that requirement go?
Aleya Harris [00:57:17]:
I think part of it was that friend that you mentioned. I was in my breakaway period from that friend. She's the only friend that I have ever had to break up with. You float away from friends, you might float back, but I had to actually break up with her like a girlfriend. So I was in that process, and I was feeling particularly rebellious. And I also think that there was, at the same time, this kind of spiritual awakening process happening for me. Right when I decided to wear my own hair, I was already sloughing away the layers of everybody else's expectations. And so it just was the right time.
Aleya Harris [00:58:05]:
Like any outward manifestation, there's an inward work that has to happen first. So the inner work that was happening was me deciding what I wanted and what I didn't want at the time. I was, I believe, still working full time for a corporate company. I believe so. And that particular corporate company was all white. Let's stop there. And then mostly white, bald men from Europe. And they were not cool, quirky, white bald men from Europe.
Aleya Harris [00:58:44]:
They were like blue IBM suits. And I just was also pulling away from that. I didn't want anything to do with that. That wasn't me. I was in the process of finding my identity and finding who I was. My mom, because my mom, for my curly girls out there has, like, three a curls, like, perfect little ringlets, soft. There's no real effort put there. Right? She doesn't have to.
Aleya Harris [00:59:16]:
It just goes at her head. Gorgeous. Mine is like three c. So for her, it was like, whoa. And I was tenderheaded, and I have a lot of hair, so it was like a herculean effort, and I get it. Right. So she relaxed my hair probably when I was, like, eight or nine. And I wore a relaxer in my hair until I was 22.
Aleya Harris [00:59:45]:
So I actually didn't even know what my hair texture looked like for the majority of all of my youth because I relaxed it. And then I started just going natural, but still pressing it, but not relaxing it, but pressing it. And then slowly using flexi rods and slowly developing more into myself where then I unearthed who I was. And I feel like if you could probably see how comfortable I am with myself by what my hair looked like in that picture, how far back it was, right? But it was an unfolding experience that happened of me just being like, I want to see what this is. And I slowly stopped caring what everybody else thought about it.
Christie Osborne [01:00:35]:
What were you willing to give up in order to be yourself in that moment?
Aleya Harris [01:00:42]:
This feeling of being in a cage. There was also this feeling of hitting a wall repeatedly, like I was trying so big. I didn't have the words Oprah big back then, but I had a feeling of wanting to grow and be bigger than I was and how I was doing it. And where I was doing it was so not where I needed to be to move forward, that I was having to give that up. But it's kind of like, it's much easier to give up something. I'm sorry. It's much easier to receive than to give up. Right? But in order to receive, I had to give it up.
Aleya Harris [01:01:26]:
And so I had to give up the banging of the head against the wall. I had to give up my identity as a corporate person. I had to give up my identity attached to my job. I had to give up a lot of what I thought was perfect. I had to give up superficial. I had to give up a lot of the things that I had cultivated as an external, personal brand image up until that point that I thought was what was going to carry me to being successful, when really it was going to carry me to being mediocre.
Christie Osborne [01:01:56]:
You're speaking in hindsight with the insight and the wisdom of that journey. What I want to get at is that when we make really scary.
Aleya Harris [01:02:13]:
Just.
Christie Osborne [01:02:14]:
Scary decisions to show up as ourselves, there's this moment where we're assessing the risk, right? We're thinking, you know what? Even if this goes sideways and this goes down in the worst possible way, I'm going to show up anyway.
Aleya Harris [01:02:30]:
Yeah.
Christie Osborne [01:02:30]:
What was that moment like for you? What was going through your head?
Aleya Harris [01:02:34]:
I would love to tell you that that existed, but I don't really think that it did because I think that I was too overwhelmed with the rest of my life. So some of that I got to get credit to spirit. Sometimes I think spirit keeps me busy and distracted. Like, look here over at these shiny objects. While we'd make this grandiose change on the side in the background. Don't pay attention. Everything's okay. Everything's okay.
Aleya Harris [01:03:01]:
So it's almost like how I thought it was happening. It was just kind of happening because I was so busy picking up balls in other areas. So, like I said, I just got on the stage because I was like, I got to fly there. I got to do this. I got, I'll shoot my hair, right? And then that happened. And then I was like, well, what if I didn't? Well, I want to be rebellious against this friend anyways. Well, now I make the decision. This is just how I wear my hair now.
Aleya Harris [01:03:23]:
And then it became the next journey and my authenticity journey about how else was I going to show up? And I almost feel like God fooled me into being on this journey by distracting me like I do my toddler. Could be. Sometimes it's maybe good to look at the distractions or not just keep being distracted, knowing you're being distracted. And maybe it'll hurt less because sometimes I can be stubborn. I wouldn't move unless God made it incredibly uncomfortable or distracted me to the point that I was moving. Anyways, I didn't notice.
Christie Osborne [01:04:04]:
I know we're coming up on the hour. Mark, is there anything that I should have asked you?
Aleya Harris [01:04:10]:
No. I think that you asked really good questions. I think that one of the things that I want people to know, as we are at our hundredth episode, is that this podcast almost didn't make it to this point because I kept looking at numbers and stats and saying, what's the point? I'm not drawing in 500,000 views per episode, and I'm not Joe Rogan. So what? What's the point?
Christie Osborne [01:04:44]:
Oh, thank God you're not Joe Rogan. That guy's trash. You can keep that in.
Aleya Harris [01:04:49]:
True story. But I kept going because every time I was going to stop, one of you, dear listener, would email me, would call me, say, thank you. Thanks for this. Thanks for teaching me this. Thanks for talking about this. Thanks for helping me through this. And I just want to say thank you to all of the listeners who have listened, however small or large the group is, because although we've talked on this episode about me having the gift of this voice and using it, it's really easy to hide your gifts and to not show up with your gifts if you don't feel like your gifts are appreciated. And so the little bit of thank you and the little bit of making me feel valued and valuable and useful has really gone a lot to getting us to this 100 episode point.
Aleya Harris [01:05:58]:
So I am very grateful for you not only listening, so we got to 100, but also you along the way giving validity to my own voice and so I could explore it in even greater and grander ways.
Christie Osborne [01:06:12]:
I got one last question for you.
Aleya Harris [01:06:14]:
Okay.
Christie Osborne [01:06:17]:
Who should play you in the movie about your life once you're over big?
Aleya Harris [01:06:23]:
Obviously someone very attractive. Who should play me? I don't know if I have a good actress in mind because I don't do very well with names of actresses. Oh, I know who I'd want to have play me. I'm going to butcher her name. Yara Shahidi. Is that her how you pronounce? She's the girl from grownish. First of all, she's dropped dead gorgeous. Second of all, she has a realism, realistic piece about her, an authentic piece about her, and also changeable nature developing, growing piece about her.
Aleya Harris [01:07:03]:
So that's who I think I'd want to have play me.
Christie Osborne [01:07:07]:
Aleya Harris, thank you for inviting me on your podcast to interview you for your 100th episode.
Aleya Harris [01:07:13]:
Thank you for being here for interviewing me and for asking such great questions and doing all of that research. I appreciate it. Well, my friends, this is an episode of the Flourishing Entrepreneur podcast. And this is Aleya Harris, the interviewee, wishing you lots of love, light, and abundance. Bye for now.
Yuliya Patsay [01:07:37]:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Flourishing entrepreneur podcast with Aleya Harris. Vibing with what you hear. Leave a five star review to spread the love and be sure to click subscribe. We wish you love, light, and abundance. See you next time. Fight.
