Five Questions That Can Really Change Your Perspective

Crystal Vilkaitis: I’m going to share some of my answers. And to be honest, that feels a little scary, a little vulnerable because I will be sharing things with you today that rarely anyone in my life knows that I have desires to do. And, some of the stuff, you’ve heard it before, you know it, but some of it you don’t. So I’m going to be very open and honest and uncorked on CU today.

Are you ready to open up and talk about all things business? I’m Crystal Vilkaitis, a curious entrepreneur who loves talking about business, especially over a glass of wine. I started Crystal Uncorked to share open and honest conversations about my journey and talk to other entrepreneurs about their experiences.

We pull back the curtain and talk about the highs and the lows. Wine isn’t required, but is recommended. This is Crystal Uncorked.

In this episode of Crystal Uncorked, we are talking about five questions that can completely give you this a-ha insight, spotlight, the things that are really meaningful to you, and give you a different type of perspective on where you’re being pulled, what you would really want to do and give you an opportunity to look at those things and then measure them against your current life and maybe draw some conclusions, maybe make some changes, maybe add in some goals that are more aligned with where you want to be, and what you want to do.

I am so excited to talk about these five questions. And not only am I going to give you these five questions, 

Crystal Vilkaitis: I’m going to share some of my answers to them. And to be honest, that feels a little scary, a little vulnerable because, I will be sharing things with you today that rarely anyone in my life knows that I have desires to do. And, some of the stuff, you’ve heard it before, you know it, but some of it you don’t. So I’m going to be very open and honest and uncorked on CU today.

I have no wine in this episode because I am batch recording and it’s all in the morning. I really needed to get these episodes done in the morning. I kept pushing it off at the end of the day, I was just so tired. So, No wine today, not even coffee, good old trusty water. But I am thrilled that you are here. 

Before we dive into these five questions. I want to give you a little wedding update. On a previous episode of CU I mentioned that I’m getting married in 2024 in September, I thought it would be fun to just include some of the updates because as I travel around and see a lot of people at conferences and markets and shows, they’re asking like, what are the updates?

So maybe you’re wanting to know too, maybe you’re not, but we are finding some really fun and cool things. The one thing that is a new update, that I’m really excited about is, I was scrolling on TikTok and I saw this woman talk about wedding favors and like wedding gifts that you give your guests.

So when your guests go to weddings, there’s often a thing that they can take home. That maybe has the date of the wedding, maybe it has the bride and groom’s name on it, and it’s like a keepsake that you can take home. This TikToker was saying how people don’t like that.

Typically, people don’t like that because then it’s stuff with your date on it. It’s not a special date necessarily to them. , I can agree with this because Dustin and I like to move a lot, or at least I like to move and he’s always up for it, and I don’t like having stuff. We’re definitely minimalists and we just don’t like having a lot of things.

So, what her suggestion was, which was brilliant, was to have a photographer there to do portraits for your guests and the guests can get the digital files. So everybody’s dressed up, you know, how often do people really dress up? And so this is just an opportunity for them to look great for it to be captured.

Sometimes you have these photos at weddings, but you’re not actually posing, it’s like all the B roll kind of shots and stuff. So I texted my friend Christina, who is my photographer here in Loveland, Colorado, and I was like, what do you think about this? Would you do it? or whatever?

And She’s totally doing it for me, as a wedding gift, which is insanely generous of her because, she is one of the most phenomenal portrait photographers. I would say in the world but definitely in Colorado. She’s insanely talented and I talked about her a couple of weeks ago on my show.

If you’ve seen you know, follow me on social, you’ve seen what she’s done. I always get so many compliments and she said, yes, she’s going to do these portraits for us at the wedding. So. Everybody else can get all these compliments. It’ll look great. And We’re going to be at this outdoor venue. I really hope we have great weather because it’s going to be a great backdrop for everybody. And Then basically at the cocktail reception, there’s just going to be this area for people to go through and get their headshots, and then online they can go and download them and get them. So I love that idea for a wedding favor. So that’s really the only kind of wedding update that we have.

We still haven’t sent save the dates, which is terrible. Hopefully, we get that done within a week or two. ‘ Cause we have a lot of people traveling, but otherwise, that’s a big new thing that got added. 

So I just want to give another plug to Christina because she is so talented. I’ve used her for lifestyle shots, headshots, family portraits with my dogs and Dustin. We’ve gone to different business locations to get that type of content. When I say lifestyle, I mean, kind of like that social media content. And so if you’re in Colorado, I highly recommend that you reach out to her. She does free consultations, go to Photocg.co. And if you’re not in Colorado, she’s willing to travel to your business too. So, check her out. I love her. She’s phenomenal. Tell her that you found her through CU and you’ll get something special if you decide to work with her. 

Now, let’s talk about these five questions because they’re pretty fascinating.

I got these questions from Lindsay Schwartz, her podcast, Powerhouse Women. I had the opportunity of seeing Lindsay speak live at the beginning, I think it was March of this year. In Arizona, she was a guest speaker at my mastermind meeting. My mastermind is Super Connectors with Jen Gottlieb and Chris Winfield.

And they brought Lindsay on, Lindsay talked about building a community. And she’s just built this Powerhouse Women Community, has done such a phenomenal job. I love her content. Her conferences look super cool and fun. I just feel like she’s, you know, I subscribe and listen to a lot of podcasts.

She’s somebody who I feel like just always adds a lot of value. You know there’s podcasts where sometimes you’re like, Oh, I don’t know if I got much out of that. And something I really strive for, and I hope that you feel that here. I also feel that from Lindsay’s show. So I want to give credit where credit is due.

Let’s talk about these questions; and then, like I said, I’m going to share some of my answers with you. So you will want to, you can listen to this. When I first listened to this, I was on my walk, but then I went back and wrote out the questions and listened to it again. So if you are not moving, driving, walking, anything like that, you might want to grab some paper so you can write these down.

 Then I really recommend for me, I took a solid 90 minutes to answer these questions. I just was in it but block at least 30 minutes, maybe an hour, to spend some time really thinking about and answering these questions, and then they’re gonna create a lot of thoughts for you afterwards. If you’re anything like me, there’s been a lot of thoughts since I’ve answered these questions.

The first one is, and I’ll read these twice. If nothing were bad or wrong, and no one would be upset with you, what would you want? I’ll read it again. If nothing were bad or wrong and no one would be upset with you, what would you want? Hoo, that’s a big one. It almost takes off any kind of pressure of people being like, Oh, why are you doing that? Or I can’t believe that. Or you’re totally changing or blah, blah, blah. You’re doing what? You’re going where? You’re seeing who? Like all those things, right? Takes out the pressure. 

So some of mine. Immediately, I wrote down travel and write. I have had such a desire and I just see this vision of me sitting on like a rooftop. It’s like white buildings. I feel like it’s Greece, sitting on a rooftop with a table, music, coffee, fruit. And I have this view of the water, which I would assume is the Mediterranean, and I’m just writing books. I think that these are mostly non-fiction and I’m just writing. It’s like I’m just in the flow and I’m just writing and I’m just writing and I’m just writing and I’m traveling and I’m writing.

I want to go to other places, not just Greece, but I just see myself in all these different locations writing. So that’s what I would do. That’s a big one. I would also create… And hopefully I’m going to do this sooner than later. Hopefully I do all these things. A recording studio. Right now, and I always get a lot of compliments on my setup here.

I have a great camera and great lighting, but I’m recording in my house, in my office that doesn’t even have doors. I have like curtains as doors. I’m in the center of the house. I’m right next to the kitchen and the garage and I can hear everything. There’s just no privacy getting ready for doing these recordings this morning, I said to Dustin, like, he’s out in the living room, just sitting there with his coffee and I’m like, I’m going to record now. I wish you weren’t here. Like, I Do. Okay. I can talk to myself, you know, and record it and know that he’s listening. But sometimes it just feels a little awkward and I would just love to go into a studio, close the door, there’s no dog distractions. There’s no distractions, noises, doorbell, nothing. And for it to be elevated, like I just really want an elevated look. I want those two chairs with the mic that comes around and I want to be able to sit down with people in person and I want it to be branded. I want one side to be CU, one side to be Rooted.

So it’s like we just shift, we just turn the camera. So it’s like we have two different studios to film those shows. So that’s a big one. And then also I would reach out to production companies to try to get a talk show. That is something that I feel like a lot of people know about me. I’ve always wanted my own talk show since I was in high school, I saw the first episode of Ellen when Jennifer Aniston was on and I was in high school, I think or first year of college.

I was a teenager and there was just something inside of me that was like, Oh my gosh. You have to have a show. Like I, I cried watching her and I grew up watching Oprah and so I always was like I want to have a blend of Oprah where there’s deep conversations and serious conversations and then giveaways and fun stuff to like with the people.

And Then Ellen has comedy and you know, fun guests and does some fun games and she likes to scare people and stuff. So, like, Finding my thing, but kind of have a blend of those. I’ve wanted this since I was in high school. And just a fun little story to tell you. In 2019. I got tickets to Ellen, I had applied several times and then finally I got tickets to Ellen.

And there’s a really funny story about this that Janelle and I talk about on Crystal Uncorked. Janelle. Oh man, I don’t remember the episode number, but if you just go to crystal uncorked. com and search for Janelle. You’ll hear that episode and actually it was a fan favorite, but she was the first person I saw when I got the email that I’m going to Ellen and I freaked out. I was crying. I was at a business conference crying because I’m going to Ellen. And, She was the first person and we had this whole mix up. She thought I said, I’m going to LA and she was like, Oh, she’s so surprised. I was living in San Diego. So she’s like, wow. Like really surprised that I said I was going to LA and I was crying and so excited about it and like shaking and later she learned, Oh Ellen, like the show.

So that was really funny. It’s funny to hear her tell the story. So I go to Ellen. Dustin, and my friend Hope and I go and we’re sitting in the garage before you walk across the street to go into the studio and they announce who the guest is. Guess who the fucking guest is? Jennifer Aniston like, talk about alignment.

It was amazing and just being every aspect of being at that show. And I have to tell you something really fun. I visualized, I really believe in manifestation and visualization and I’ll have these visions like my writing on a rooftop in Greece overlooking the Mediterranean. I have these visions, I can’t even explain, and when I was getting ready for Ellen leading up, I had this vision of me dancing on her stage.

If you watched Ellen, you know that they’ll have like guests dance before the show or on commercial breaks on the actual stage, like on that wood stage there. So I kept telling myself, when you get to dance on that stage, remember to look up and take that moment in. I just knew it was going to happen.

So we get there, they’re warming up the audience, they’re over on the left side, they pull somebody down to dance. Then they come over the middle, nobody’s raising their hand to dance and I’m over on the right raising my hand to dance and he pulls me up to dance and I went down on the floor and I put my hands up, and I remember, I looked up and I did this whole circle around and I was, I felt larger than life, and I just danced. At conferences, business conferences. Sometimes they’ll put music on to like raise the energy. And I like really want to bust a move, but I’m shy. I care what people think. So I don’t, but I always just want to, Oh, at Ellen was not shy at all.

This girl seized the opportunity. Not only did I do that she filmed a show, Jennifer Aniston was there. We’re on this commercial break, they’re going to film another show, so that we’re on the break again, and they did a dance off this side versus this side. So the one girl danced over here, she did great on the stairs. Then over here, nobody was raising their hands. So I fucking raised my hand I’ll dance. I got chosen for the dance off. And my song, by the way, was, I like big butts and I cannot lie. And I can really shake it. And I like got down on the stairs. Oh my God, it was so fun.

And so the audience votes who wins, I won the dance off. It was so fun, and actually it was like two people on the left, two people on the right, and I beat the person on the right. I ended up giving him, the prize was a shirt from Ellen, I gave him my shirt because I already got a shirt from my stage time.

So Anyways, that was a longer tangent than I planned. I’ll be quicker with these other questions, but I was on a call last week with my mastermind and I got the opportunity to talk to an Emmy award winning producer. He worked on red table talk, got the Emmy for that show with Jada Pickett Smith.

I asked him and I said, I have this big vision of having my own show. And here’s what I see. It’s in New York city filmed in front of a live studio audience, like it’s an actual legit, national syndicated show with a live audience. I asked, what’s the path? What advice would you have for me to make that happen? And he said, for you, he’s like in the 20 seconds that I know you, and you ask this question, you have a lot of charisma. And I feel like a lot of people would give you a show. What you need to do is reach out to production companies. And, even if it’s a no right now, store their information, follow up in a year, build your network.

I think you can make this happen. And just having his belief in me felt incredible and then I feel like, okay, production companies. Now I just basically have to look those up and send out a video and, and send it. 

So Those are my answers to that number one question. Nothing was wrong. Nothing was bad. You could just do it. Those are the things. Now, hopefully in question number one. You’re already thinking, well, why am I not doing it now? That was what I started asking. So then I started kind of journaling after I answered these, I then went on and journaled about those answers and why aren’t you doing it now and how can you make this happen and all of that. So I hope that you do that too, because that was really helpful for me. 

Okay, here’s the next question. If you knew you had one year left, what would you want to do, experience, or accomplish? If you knew you had one year left, what would you want to do, experience, or accomplish? I teared up on my walk when I heard this. The thought of only one year, it really puts life into perspective. The shit that we worry about, that we complain about, the pressure, the stress, and like how we spend our time if we only had one year, that really changes your thoughts, the perspective, and that was a big one for me. 

So my answers, I had a lot of answers to this.

I had a lot of things I wanted to accomplish in a year. Maybe that’s the Enneagram three achiever. Here’s a couple of them. It would go to Greece and write. And that book for me, I’m very pulled to help women find their self worth be self sufficient. I have a personal story of why this is so meaningful to me that’s connected to my mom. I’m not necessarily ready to share yet but I have talked to her and said, I want to write a book and kind of talk about you and your story and are you okay with that?

And she’s very open. She’s an open book. And so that’s great. I really have this pull to help women be self sufficient, get them out of bad situations, have them find their self worth, stand on their own two feet and, get what they are deserving of, and they’re very deserving. And so I would write that kind of manifesto to women, whatever that would be called, that would be where I’d focus the book writing energy and do that in Greece and have that vision come to life.

 I also. Many years ago, I was at a business conference, and I won’t take you through this whole story, but I had this pull to start a nonprofit to help women get out of abusive relationships. I started like the research and started the paperwork for the 501c3. I was like 22, 23, I was pretty young and I just didn’t put the effort into that.

There was a lot of effort that needed to be put into that. I didn’t have the capital at all, so I would have needed to get loans and grants. I did research how you get grants and loans. I think I even applied for a couple, but it just, it was so much work and I also was working actually, I didn’t have my social media company yet, so I didn’t make it happen, but it’s something that I’ve always wanted.

So if I was like, this is it, I’m going to die soon. I would write that book and then I would start a nonprofit and I would fund it. I would give several hundreds of thousands of dollars to get this going and started and write the bylaws and everything that it stands for in the mission and have Dustin and somebody like help run this thing and ideally really build it into something that I would share what the vision is and have them hopefully bring that to life. And I got really emotional writing that. I feel a little emotional just even saying it right now because, you know, that feels really far away. That feels so, it’s so different than what I do today. And that doesn’t mean that you can’t add it on.

 So that was mine. The other thing, well, again, there was a million, not a million, but there were a lot of things that I answered for this question that I would do. 

Another thing I would do is I would try my damnedest to buy the Peyser farm. There is a property in upstate New York, where Dustin grew up and there’s the Peyser cemetery. His ancestors are buried there. There’s headstones. Nobody knows who owns the cemetery. And then there’s the farm where his grandpa and grandma originally bought the house and had the land. And then his grandpa and grandma sold to this woman who to this day still lives there. We’ve been in contact with her.

Mostly Dustin has saying we want to buy this, seven acres. The road is called Peyser Hill. Like it’s just legacy and just connection to your roots. I know he really wants that. So I would do everything. I’ve got my dying wish, I would make this woman sell me her house.

That would be such a huge gift that I could leave for my babies for Dustin. 

Okay. Question number three, what would you do if with 100 percent certainty you would not fail? What would you do if, with 100 percent certainty, you would not fail? For me, this was easy. My show. I’d do my talk show. Contact those producers, get that show in works. I would also do stand up, and I think I would do some stand up on the show, but I would also do stand up in comedy clubs. I’ve talked about that on the show, on Crystal Uncorked, how it’s a desire of mine.

And I would sing. I would take voice lessons. I need lessons. And then I would sing. I might sing on my show. I might sing at an open mic night, but I definitely would sing at karaoke, and my goal would be to have a standing ovation at karaoke. I just love singing and love performing while singing. So I would love to have this beautiful singing voice. Then I would also do a TED talk and ideally it would be like a TED talk, not a TEDx, but I am so open to TEDx either of them. But man, if I could just be like, boom, let’s make these things happen and I’m not going to fail. It’s like surefire. You’re in, you’re doing it. I would love to do those things. 

Okay. Question number four. What is something, when you see others doing it, that it triggers envy or jealousy? What is something, when you see others doing it, that it triggers envy or jealousy? Lindsay, on her show, was talking about how, when we feel those, like if we’re scrolling on social media, and we feel this oh, I wish I was doing that, or oh, I’m so jealous, or you feel FOMO, or all those kinds of feelings, that is an indication that you want that thing too.

So getting really clear, on why you want it, what it is and what you’re wanting, and then try to make those things happen. And so for me, when I see podcasters or TV show hosts or journalists interviewing certain celebrities or artists or business owners. I’ll feel that like, Oh, I wish that was me.

I want to do that. So interviews is a big one. Arena speaking, like when I saw Mel Robbins, she had this story or something. Maybe it’s in her speaker reel, like walking up on stage in an arena. And I think it held like 5, 000 people. That sounds terrifying and electrifying and something that I feel like oh, I fucking would love to do that. I guess I actually put Ted Talks here. I read it for number three, but I guess it could go for three or four. When I see people, it really should be on four. When I see people doing Ted Talks, I feel like ahh, I really wanna to do a Ted Talk, but what would I talk about?

You know, There’s so many different things and I just haven’t spent the time to get really clear on what is my Ted Talk and I think that it just hasn’t come to me yet. Like that content isn’t here yet, but it will. So those were a few of my things. The other thing for me is when I see some of these internet marketers, online coaches, like Jen Gottlieb, who’s my mentor.

When I see her and her business entrepreneur friends together on social media, at a resort or spa or retreat, and they’re doing like a girls weekend talking about business and just connecting with each other. I totally feel that envy there as well, because I do have some business owner friends, but unfortunately, like we don’t really make a lot of time for each other and we don’t go to a new location and get out of our environment into new environment and brainstorm and dissect and connect and, when those women are like powerhouses, like Lindsay Schwartz a powerhouse podcast, like when those women are just like really doing next level things and on bigger stages, bigger levels of success monetarily. And you know, the coverage, the press that they’re getting like, I have that kind of desire for that too. And I want to be in the room with those ladies to learn from them, to have their eyeballs on my business. And then I want my eyeballs on theirs.

I think that’d be just so fun to help them if I can, in what they’re trying to build or blocks that they have or anything like that. So those are my answers for four. 

Here’s our final and fifth question. Unicorn brainstorming, Lindsay talked about how she learned about this this unicorn brainstorming at a Lululemon retreat or conference, something like that. And basically it was talking about how kids think so big. There’s no limitation when we’re a child. And so the child might say, Oh, wouldn’t it be cool if I had a unicorn? Like they just don’t hold themselves back. It’s that wouldn’t it be cool if statement is unicorn brainstorming. The goal here is that you’re not like shutting it down. Like, Oh, but that could never happen because unicorns don’t exist. That could never happen because I don’t have this money. I don’t have that. I don’t have this. Like for me, I could look at my talk show and be like, Oh that could never happen because I’m not trained. I have no training, you know, in interviewing.

I’m not a journalist. I’m not pretty enough. I’m not skinny enough. I’m not rich enough. I don’t, I don’t have a big enough following. That’s a big one for me. I’m like, You know, that’s a big thing for publishers and I’m sure, anybody looking to have a host of a show, they want you to have a big audience.

I could shut it down and be like I don’t have a big enough audience. So I could never have a show or I could never get my book published by, a big publishing house. No, we’re not doing that here. Not with the unicorn brainstorming, anything could happen. Unicorns exist. My show is easy. It exists.

Everything just exists. So we start this with, wouldn’t it be cool if, and you are just thinking. Big. Maybe there’s a celebrity, like I have celebrities that I want to interview. And maybe whether they’re on this platform or my show what is the really big thing? Do not hold yourself back.

I want you to write down. I want you to ask yourself this or something bigger. sometimes people say this or something better. That’s also a great question to ask, but this or something bigger. Better, bolder, go there, wouldn’t it be cool if now for me I had a lot of things here. I’ll read this whole thing.

Wouldn’t it be cool if I had a live audience talk show films in both New York and LA. That was unique and different and fun and meaningful and continuously wins awards. Wouldn’t that be cool? I just, I love award winning and I love watching people win awards too. I always cry. So I want award winning talk show.

Wouldn’t it be cool if my book was in the hands of millions of women and collectively has helped thousands of women rebuild, put themselves first and become self sufficient? I think that’d be pretty cool. Wouldn’t it be cool if I had a beautiful and powerful singing voice? If I had a setup like Don Miller with land, gorgeous home, an event center.

I talked about this in an earlier episode of Crystal Uncorked in September. I had the opportunity to go to Donald Miller’s house. He’s an author. He’s going to be speaking at my conference Evolve and go to crystalmediaco.com/evolve to see speaker lineup and get your super early bird pricing tickets, which expired December 31st, 2023.

But I went there for writer’s workshop and Don has the coolest property. I am somebody who loves property. I’m always on Zillow every single day, I’m on Zillow. When we travel, I love going to like the neighborhoods and seeing how the houses look. Oh my gosh, he lives in I think it’s called Brentwood just outside of Nashville. And I’m driving, looking at these properties like, holy shit, where am I? I mean, These mansions with the land and they’re gorgeous. And I pull up to Don’s house, which is just so beautiful. And then you go past the house and you go up the hill and it’s called Goose Hill. Up there is this event space and they have this amazing like stripped big bulb lights that you can see as you’re driving up the hill so it just looks like so fun and inviting and inspiring. Then you go up and that, that is an event space that they have up there where they do these retreats. They host speakers and artists and it’s also a guest house. They can have events there with their family and friends. Don’s office is there.

Don’s recording studio is there. I don’t know if it’s a full on studio, but he records there. That is so a dream. And I love it. Cause then he can just walk down the hill to his house where he also has a pool. I would love to have a property like that. Wouldn’t it be cool to have a property like that for me, ooh, that would be so awesome. 

So those are your five questions. All right. These are powerful. Take the time to do it. Think about them. Come back to them. I’m sure in our first go at it, you’re going to forget about things. That’s why I love journaling in the morning because then I put those thoughts out there into the universe and then I’m driving that day and I think about, Oh, I’d also do this or that would also be cool.

Or if I was going to die, that would so be a priority. Or if a email comes in or a phone call or something happens. And you normally are like so stressed or so mad about it, but you just answer that question if I was going to die in a year. So if I was going to die in a year, would I get mad about this email? Would I even care? Like it just, it can roll off of our back a little bit easier. It can be a little bit less stressful and that pressure. 

So I hope that you take action on this episode. I hope you answer these five questions. As always, I would love to hear from you. You can DM me. You can post on social, do a screenshot of this episode if you found it helpful and encourage your people to listen and to do these five questions too.

I’d love to know One of your big ahas that you had, or one of your big visions. What would you do? I just love hearing from my listeners, the best way to do that is DM me on Instagram. I’m Crystal Vilkaitis. I Hope that you found these questions as helpful as I did.

See you. Have a great rest of your week. Thanks. Bye.