Sue Wilhite 00:00

This is the Sweet Sound of Success with Sue Wilhite, Profit Attraction Master. Aeriol Ascher is an international bestselling author, speaker, holistic educator, producer and show host. Her podcast, Healing Body, Mind and Soul is the proud recipient of two 26th Annual Communicator Awards of Distinction for feature series, and feature host from the Academy of Interactive Virtual Arts. Aeriol has a passion for helping holistic leaders show up, speak up and stand out. 

Welcome Aeriol! So, glad to have you on my show.

Aeriol Ascher 00:55

I am super excited to be here today with you, Sue. I love everything that you do and everything that you're up to. I'm an instant yes for being on your show.

Sue Wilhite 01:11

Yeah, well, and I'll retroactively say thank you for having me on your show twice.

Aeriol Ascher 01:16

I'm going to do again too. I want to continue working with you always, Sue. I love what you're up to in the world. I so believe and I'm in alignment with your work, definitely.

Sue Wilhite 01:31

Well, thank you. Back at you. You're awesome. You're amazing.

Aeriol Ascher 01:38

Yeah. Let's collect some more amazing people.

Sue Wilhite 01:45

So, you had to start being amazing somewhere. So, before you were amazing...

Aeriol Ascher 01:56

We don't have that long, Sue. You told me this was a quick interview.

Sue Wilhite 02:06

What got you started? What were you doing before you started all of this amazing world changing stuff that you do?

Aeriol Ascher 02:16

It's a great question and I could go back really far, Sue. In fact, I think I will take that opportunity. I was going through some stuff in probably my Saturn return kind of era in my 20s, kind of thing going on and it was when I was younger. I was working as a waitress. You can just think of me as a singing waitress. I was a singing waitress. I was really involved in theater and lots of shows and actually inside, I felt very lost and hollow.
I felt the path I was on wasn't making a difference and I was trying to be of service, because once I heard that that was something that I was supposed to check out, and I freaking could not serve one more cup of iced tea. I was really good at it because I was Miss Personality and I was a multitasker. I was very good at it and I kept getting promoted to restaurant management and I'm like, good Lord, they're going to try to keep me here and I would quit. I'm so sorry. If there are any servers listening, bless your heart. I always tip so well and I was good at it. 
I became a trainer. I trained for a very big chain in California and I'm like, oh my God. Something happened in my life. It was not related to work. It was something else but I just had this moment where I was so depressed because of some relationship drama that was going on and I'm like, I can't see myself motivating young, college, waiters and waitresses the rest of my life, I just can't do it. 

Sue Wilhite 04:20

Is that all there is to life? Is that all there is? 

Aeriol Ascher 04:24

I actually called Suicide Prevention, Sue. I called a Suicide Prevention hotline. No, I was not suicidal. I want to tell you but I've always been deeply philosophical, so deeply spiritual-filled, my family can't figure it out, I couldn't figure out what was going on. I'm like, singing waitress is not going to be my highest good and I'm like, I don't know how to be of service and they're like, what's wrong with you? What are you talking about? How can you help people? They're like, are you suicidal? What's going on? I'm like, I don't know, maybe I am. I don't know. I really need help and I don't know where to turn. 

I had a miraculous moment where a newspaper ad popped out to me. This is before the internet, and I found somebody who was a hypnotherapy teacher and I signed on with him, studied with him and he's like, good Lord, you're gifted. My wife has a psychic reading service. I'm sure you can go work for her. I mean, really, it was a changing point in my life. I began hanging around with psychics, coaches, and holistic healers. It was a miraculous turning point in my life. 

So, when you asked me where did I start? I was a singing waitress. Sue, next time I tell the story, I'll tell it better. But nobody has ever asked me that question. I was a singing waitress and just absolutely depressed, totally depressed. I had fun and everybody thought I was having fun. But I was always in this push energy and it wasn't really an alignment with this deeply philosophical and spiritual part of my nature that needed nourishing. So, I fell upon great people, and I learned to be an entrepreneur. 

Actually, I didn't know how to market “hypnotherapist.” I didn't understand. I became a hypnotherapist and NLP [practitioner] and I didn't even know what it was. Do you know what I mean? I'm like, I don't know how to communicate this modality. I didn't even know the word modality at that point. I had to educate myself, let alone and I knew I was a teacher deep in my heart. I knew I was a teacher. I have to educate myself. So, I became a massage therapist. I went into the body, and always had this sort of philosophical and spiritual psychic bent to everything. So, my first business and my first encounter with being an entrepreneur was my healing practice, which I think I called it, Touch of Elegance Massage in Campbell, California.

Sue Wilhite 07:36

Right, and you won awards for that. 

Aeriol Ascher 07:40

Not that one, Sue but thank you for the memory. That was my baby practice. But yes, I did evolve my business over the years. I continued to educate myself as a practitioner, I did so much personal development work. I continued in the art, sometimes I teach public speaking, music. So, I still got to be there. But I was still an entrepreneur in the healing arts and that's what kept my work grounded.

Sue Wilhite 08:13

So, would you say that that newspaper ad for hypnotherapy training was your call to action?

Aeriol Ascher 08:22

Yes, I would say that that was a call to action for me.

Sue Wilhite 08:27

And just launched you into this whole new realm, whole new way of being and got you going to where you are today, still award winning, and we'll get to that in a moment. You've talked about some of the things that were challenges in the ordinary beginning and this is what we see a lot is that there's a lot of internal conflict before the call to action. Because there's stuff going on, it's like you want to break out of the chrysalis, you want to get out of the egg. You want to go out there into the world, and it's just not happening and that really is, I think, the first challenge that people come up against is how to break into that and you got some supporting but what were some of the other challenges that you ran into that you got to, Joseph Campbell calls them slaying the horrible monsters and I won't be quite that violent.

Aeriol Ascher 09:42

I won't get my broadsword out for [inaudible], in my stage days, I did like to do some stage combat.

Sue Wilhite 09:52

So, what were some of the challenges that you ran into?

Aeriol Ascher 10:00

Well, there was a huge challenge, Sue, because I had this desire for success and to be seen, and I had this spiritual inkling that my ego couldn't be driving the bus. So, I couldn't just be, out there. I mean, it had to be in alignment. But I think the big foible was that I had no business skills, Sue. I was an artist. Now, I had done a lot of teaching. So, I had high organizational skills, because I had had to do a little grant writing, I had to do stuff in my performing art genre, where I had to oversee large projects. So, I had kind of this production skill thing in my pocket. Remember that my bachelor's degree was in Theater Arts. So, I had project organization, marketing, all this, I got business. I was like, what the heck? So that was, and some personal development stuff, because of some traumatic emotional wounding from my youth. So, the foibles were emotional things from my youth that and just business skill training that you have to get out there to learn it. Luckily, I'm a hands-on kind of person. So, it worked great.

Sue Wilhite 11:45

Wow. I think that that's one of the biggest things people who feel this call to be of service, don't necessarily feel the call to get their MBA. Those things just don't go in parallel. It's not, they don't go, wow, I think I want to become this person who really heals people, who does hypnotherapy, who does Reiki or does interview. The first thing I need to do is go to Harvard and get my MBA, or even Berkeley.

Aeriol Ascher 12:25

It crossed my radar even after my award winning, massage therapy practice, Sue, I still was like, maybe I should go and get an MBA. I mean, I really actually thought that and thank goodness, somebody said Aeriol, you have invested. Every asset that I have was into my personal development and my education. I wanted to be better at what I did and to understand. Thanks for letting me talk about all my weird quirks on your show, Sue.

Sue Wilhite 13:06

Oh, that's what I do. That's what good interviews do. It's got the wierd quirk. Otherwise, it'd be boring. But it would never be boring with you, Aeriol.

Aeriol Ascher 13:17

I don't think this one will be boring.

Sue Wilhite 13:19

No. So, who were some of the allies or the helpers or the mentors? What I say is the people who let you find that you had wings it's not that they gave you wings. By the way, those things that are sticking out of your shoulders, those are wings and you've got them and you can fly. Go for it. Who are those people for you?

Aeriol Ascher 13:59

They weren't business people. They were teachers in other ways. I had a profound meeting. I was doing readings at the Whole Life Expo once, and I had developed a software program that we were doing soul path readings and it was this big thing. I had a whole group of people that hypnotherapist had gone on. The community that was created around that I did, we did a lot of business ventures together and I had a lot of fun in business wise and growing what was possible in that group. I was at a Whole Life Expo doing readings and we had developed this computer program that, basically I developed an app too early. So, I had a programmer friend that I hired to do it because I saw that he could do it and he and I worked that out that he could do it and so we developed this program that gave you your numerology tarot cards, etc. Long story, sorry about that. But I met somebody that day at a reading and I just clicked with her, loved her and her reading was so interesting because all of a sudden, I felt like I was reading for myself. It was a weird moment like time stopped and really, it was a freebie reading that went along with her printout or whatever. So, it was just like, five minutes, but it seemed like five hours and maybe a month later, two months later, maybe even a year later, I'm not really sure about this time because I was speaking but I'm just setting up the story of where this person comes in. I am seeking another teacher and my teacher says Aeriol, you got to get out of town, you're stressed out, you're a workaholic. I'm like, oh, okay, and he goes, my friend just bought this place in Mount Shasta. If you can go check out her bed and breakfast. She says that she needs to help her so she'll let you stay. So, this was a rent-free kind of live in the apartment and there were waterfalls, like the one behind me around that I could go through in Mount Shasta. So, I drove up there and I knock on the door and I've got my backpack and I'm ready to work because I've been a waitress and so I have all of this experience and it's the lady that I gave the Tarot reading too and she's all, oh my God, it's you and I said, oh my God, it's you. She helped me out at that time in my life. So, that was one person. So, she was just a friend and teacher and what's funny is she still kind of doesn't even really get how much of a teacher she is. She still to this day calls me for advice and everything and I'm thinking she's my teacher, why is she calling. So, she was one person that was really pivoting just because she was a friend and just because of the soul connection at a time when I didn't feel really connected, that was something that was happening a lot still in my life. So, she was pivotal and I've got a couple of really good business coaches that have helped me out too. Well, I don't know, even all of them kind of came in clandestine, kind of wonderful and beautiful ways when I was paying attention and someone I wasn't.

Sue Wilhite 17:57

Sometimes that happen.

Aeriol Ascher 17:57

I've had a couple of really good business coaches and I currently am working with this excellent publisher who has been such a gentle force in my life and I've had some coaches that were all show and sparklers and really out there and everything. But my publisher has helped me ground everything and write and publish and I've gotten a lot done since I started working with her, I must say,

Sue Wilhite 18:33

Yeah. Well, let's say two books have already come out?

Aeriol Ascher 18:37

Yeah, three books. Actually, three now.

Sue Wilhite 18:39

Three books which came out and one in the hopper.

Aeriol Ascher 18:42

One in the hopper. I'm done when I'm compiling. So, that is a new thing that I'm taking on. I've already participated as an author in three coauthor books, and it's super fun and for me, if you were listening closely to the rest of the interview, I like that community, it's important to me because in parts of my reality, it's not there. So, I like to participate in group things and keep together in groups.

Sue Wilhite 19:16

Yeah, and that's so important. I mean, as entrepreneurs, as helpers as service people, we need people around us to support us.

Aeriol Ascher 19:28

I am a total lone wolf one, two. Just how the personality developed, I got to be a real lone wolf, one, two, so I need to make a conscious effort to have community and I love these coauthor projects. They're super exciting, and breathtaking to see what all the authors do and how everybody synthesizes, it's very exciting,

Sue Wilhite 19:54

It's great stuff, getting work out into the world and having in the broad audience, just take it on and love it. It's great stuff.

Aeriol Ascher 20:07

It is super juicy. 

Sue Wilhite 20:09

Yeah. So, Aeriol, well, let me rephrase this. In Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey, one of the things he talks about is the hero returning home and the hero returns home, so to speak and the hero has changed, he or she is now different and the village or the homestead or whatever, the apartment, they're not necessarily as changed, because they haven't had the same transformational experience and one of the things that I see frequently, and we see it and kind of microcosm, for instance, and Aeriol, I know you've experienced this, you go to personal development workshops, right? You go to these weekend things, three-day things, five-day things, and you get all juiced up, and you're all ready to go and you've got these incredible insights, and you're just going for it and you come back home, and everybody looks at you sideways. What are you talking about? No, we're not going to do these extra slices, or no, when are you going to get a real job? What are you thinking? How has that been for you? Have you had that experience, first off?

Aeriol Ascher 21:38

Oh, my gosh. So, I have such a good story here. So, when I was 17, and knew everything, I so wish I was as smart as I was when I was 17 only, my mom came home from a Landmark [program], [at that time] it was called EST. My mom came home, like she had become an EST tool and I wasn't too happy about that. I think that some of the learnings weren't completely absorbed properly, and they were projected upon me. So, I was very resistant to the Landmark [training] and everything and I did it all. Now I will say and I love and I recommend it for a lot of my clients. But you have to understand, I have this philosophical and spiritual and I'm an empath. There were a couple of layers about how the Landmark education stuff was presented that didn't jive with me because I'm heart centered and not head centered. 

So, I had experience to it and then people tried to get me into it and I was all, hell no and now I've done the whole thing and everything, but I had seen it when I was that rebellious age and when my indigo child was really like, her bullshit detector was really going out the door, and I was a little bit rebellious and I'm like, I won't do it. It's the age and it's also the personality. I got my money's worth out of the 80s, let's just say that. I enjoyed that. Anyway, so to tell you about the personal development thing, I mean, I do. I thought my mother had lost her mind and I have had the experience where I have gone. 

Later on, I invited my uncle, my mother's brother, because there is a long-standing family feud and my mother won't speak to her brother and vice versa. So, I have very, very little contact with that side of the family and I invited him to an event and while he was supposed to be in the other room listening to a presentation, he busts into the room that I was in and he says, oh my god, I can't believe that you invited me to this BS and I mean, just really made a scene and like 300 people in the room, and I was like, ugh. So, they asked him to leave. He wanted to come in there to say goodbye to me. So, he left and everything. That's fine. He called my mom; you're going to love this one. This is a punch line moment. So, he called my mom the next day and said Aeriol's joined a cult and she said, well, nonsense. Aeriol hasn't joined a cult. Aeriol would start a cult. 

That tells you the opposing sides that were growing up that was going on in my house and she thought that was great. I was like, I don't know what to think about it.

Sue Wilhite 25:14

Right. Yeah. That's the biggest thing that we get to deal with is you've joined a cult, or you're crazy. I get that all the time. It's like, how can you deal with the uncertainty? I go, how can you deal with the uncertainty? 

Aeriol Ascher 25:38

It's funny to me.

Sue Wilhite 25:42

There are no certainties. Hello, 2020. 

Aeriol Ascher 25:48

Yeah, worst purchase ever, 2020 gave me.

Sue Wilhite 25:51

Did you get your pack of 2020 apocalypse bingo cards? We've been checking them off. The last one that I just read, I just have to insert this as a funny, that's officials in Florida are now warning that alligators have been eating the meth that people have been flushing down the toilet.

Aeriol Ascher 26:23

You think the alligators are jacked up on meth! That is freaking hilarious, Sue. Oh, my God. The comedian [inaudible]

Sue Wilhite 26:36

It was something about super aggressive alligators predicted in Florida. Okay, that's clickbait. I've got to go look.

Aeriol Ascher 26:49

That's crazy alligators. I'm in, click, click. That's so funny. What a weird one.

Sue Wilhite 27:00

Life is uncertain. You would never, ever have thought that alligator could be scooped by that. 

Aeriol Ascher 27:07

I used to have that fear, though that there were alligators in the sewers. We lived in Santa Fe. So, I was told it was in New York. I was told that New York had all the weird plumbing problems like the alligators and the boa constrictors and stuff like that. So, luckily, it was never in San Jose, or they would have had some pretty serious medical problems for me.

Sue Wilhite 27:08

In Francisco, we did have those stories. In San Francisco that some boa constrictors or some critters escaped from the zoo and got down on the sewers and they were living down there and that was the story that was going around in my schools when I was growing up. 

Aeriol Ascher 27:49

Terrifying. 

Sue Wilhite 27:50

Yeah, and let me tell you San Francisco in the 60s and 70s, any critter in the sewers then, you talk about meth crazed alligators, nothing to what they would have been on LSD!

Aeriol Ascher 28:09

I hope you're not caught in LSD boa constrictor. Wow. I was born just at the tail end of the 60s. So, that wasn't really mine, but I'm a product of it, obviously.

Sue Wilhite 28:30

Right. So, let's talk about some of your accomplishments, Aeriol. You've got three books that are international bestsellers. So, name them in order here?

Aeriol Ascher 28:47

Oh, yes, I did the Experts and Influencers Leadership edition and that's awesome. That one was an accident. I wrote about leadership. I'm all hmm, I'll try this. So, I wrote about leadership, and it became a best seller in three countries. 

Sue Wilhite 29:10

There you go. 

Aeriol Ascher 29:11

I'm all, well, if I would have known that I enjoyed writing, if I would have known that I would have tried a little bit harder.

Sue Wilhite 29:20

Yeah, you've got your second one.

Aeriol Ascher 29:22

Yeah. I did do two chapters in a book called The Animal Legacies and this one is really my heart. It is really about how I pulled myself out of a deep depression. My chapter is about how I pulled myself out of a deep depression, and anxiety, that kind of thing. It runs in my family. But my dog had died and this is a book about how to connect with nature, how to heal yourself with nature, and using animal spirits and it's got a beautiful Oracle Deck, The Animal Legacy Wisdom Deck that's associated with it, and I have to two chapters in that book. My third book, just came out last week, and it is Experts and Influencers; the Women's Empowerment edition and that ended up being a best seller in seven countries. The Animal Legacies was a bestseller only in three countries.

Aeriol Ascher 30:23

It's delightful, and not for my success, but because now that gift is in the hands of so many and I was strategic. I picked the Animal Legacies book to participate in, because that represents my healing work, and intuition, and connecting with nature, this kind of thing; and as a speaker, I speak about leadership and women's empowerment. So, I picked these projects in order to lead into, and to have tools ,to lead into my entrepreneurial sales fountains.

Sue Wilhite 31:06

Yes, yes, exactly. They're fabulous books, people. The links will be in the description of the show and you should check them out. Because there's a reason that they're best sellers in multiple countries.

Aeriol Ascher 31:23

I'm not the only author in those. I mean, there was some like really cool people, and I'm like, really, I'm a big shot. There’re some very knowledgeable and very successful people that I just had the good fortune to partner with.

Sue Wilhite 31:48

Yeah, and that's the name of the game, isn't it, Aeriol? I mean, you talk about creating community. You want to get into a circle of people who match your ideals, who maybe know, I don't want to call it more, but they know things differently than you do. So, you can all put it together and create something that really is of service to the world. Because that's what you're all about, right?

Aeriol Ascher 32:24

Absolutely. I actually tell people all the time, I love being the dumbest person in the room. Are you kidding me? I love that. It's okay with me. 

Sue Wilhite 32:38

Just be a sponge.

Aeriol Ascher 32:38

Yeah, I am so fascinated to feed my soul and to connect with people and hear what they're up to and just to support people in connecting to their own divinity, Sue. 

Sue Wilhite 32:57

That's what your award-winning podcast is about too, right?

Aeriol Ascher 33:03

Yes.

Sue Wilhite 33:05

I mean, you are so consistent within your service, of all of these things are all about being of service.

Aeriol Ascher 33:19

Yes, it took a lot of massaging, with my massage practice, it took a lot of massaging and really figuring out what my offerings were and how to present it. The stuff gets real when you put the pen to the page. I tell everybody, it gets real because people, I've noticed that now working with other authors too, first time authors are interesting, they're insecure, because they know they're going to put themselves out there and I've had the good fortune to work on my compiling project and to sort of be the midwife for them. Just push the send button, honey. Just send it over. We're going to help you. Just come on, let it go.

Sue Wilhite 34:14

Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Aeriol for being on my show. It has been such a delight. Such a pleasure and I just love everything that you're doing. I am so delighted that a mutual friend introduced us all those years ago and I hope we get to have you back someday. 

Aeriol Ascher 34:41

Absolutely. 

Sue Wilhite 34:41

More of the story.

Aeriol Ascher 34:43

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Sue, if anybody wants a free chapter out of one of those books, can I just say it out loud before I leave?

Sue Wilhite 34:53

Absolutely. Put it in the description here. 

Aeriol Ascher 34:56

Sure. So, then they don't have to search all over. I would love If you would all go buy it on Amazon, that's really awesome. But let me give you a couple just freebies just because that's the kind of person I am and you can go to askAeriol.com and there's a couple of links there where you can just download a couple free PDFs, and some samples from the books and everything if you just want to get started.

Sue Wilhite 35:27

Yay. Thank you. Thank you on behalf of my audience to get your wonderful work out in the world. 

Aeriol Ascher 35:37

Fantastic. 

Sue Wilhite 35:38

All right. So, thank you, bless you and thank you, audience for watching the Sweet Sound of Success. 

What are your dreams for your business? You know what drives me crazy, really smart business owners denying their talents because they've been taught it has to be hard, because they've been taught that they don't deserve their gifts, that they're not worth anything. They've been taught that their gender means they can't express their genius. I'm Sue Wilhite, and I want you to have access to your genius. I want you to go out and rock the world with your genius. So, I created the Call-to-Action coaching program. It's all about getting to the heart of you, and what you've got to share with the world to make a profitable business that thrives and allows you to make a difference in the world. 

Click the link to sign up for the Call-to-Action coaching program today. 

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