How Spirit Is Guiding a Mediumship Revolution | Sally Hawk & Sherry Abdou on VerySoul- EP 426

Brian Smith  0:00  
Close your eyes and imagine. What if the things in life that cause us the greatest pain, the things that bring us grief, are challenges, challenges designed to help us grow to ultimately become what we were always meant to be. We feel like we've been buried. But what if, like a seed. We've been planted, and having been planted, we grow to become a mighty tree. Now open your eyes. Open your eyes to this way of viewing life. Come with me as we explore your true, infinite, eternal nature. This is grief to growth, and I am your host. Brian Smith, hey everybody. I'm Brian. Thanks for joining me for another episode of grief to growth, and whether this is your first time listening or been walking this journey with us for a while, I want to welcome you to the show. The show is about navigating life's most difficult moments while seeking deeper understanding of who we are, why we're here and where we go when we leave this physical world. My mission is to give you hope, to offer healing insights and help you connect with an unseen world that continues to support us. Today, I'm welcoming back to grief, to growth, a very special guest. Her name is Sally hawk. Sally is the founder of very soul.com and this time, she's brought with or someone who lives and breathes the heart of very souls. Mission, Sherry, Abdu and Sherry is an evidential medium who's completed over 200 sessions on very soul, and we'll talk about what very soul is now. Sally joined me a couple years ago when fairy soul was just getting started, and now it's a thriving global movement with more than 2500 mediums across 50 countries and nearly 100,000 spirit communication shared. What makes very soul different is how it solves three huge problems that I see in the mediumship world, and that's finding a good medium, finding an affordable medium, and finding an available medium. And we'll dive into how Sally's personal loss transformed from corporate powerhouse to spiritual visionary and how very soul built with guidance from spirit has become a sanctuary for people seeking connection and healing. You're also going to hear from Sherry, whose spiritual gifts blossomed while caring for her dying father, and how the loss of her own child is deep in her mission to serve grieving parents as a caring listener with helping parents heal. Sherry brings not just skill, but a deeply personal understanding of grief and love that transcends that transcends his life. And together, we're going to explore how mediumship can support parents after loss, what real spiritual development looks like, and why ethical, heart centered communication with spirit is actually more needed than ever, ever. If you're curious about connecting with your loved ones, or you're wondering what to look for and trustworthy medium, this conversation will speak directly to your heart, and don't forget, if you'd like to be part of the community where these conversations continue, visit grief to growth. Com slash community after listening to this, and we can carry on the conversation there. So with that, I want to welcome Sally and Sherry to grief, to growth.

Sally Hawk  3:01  
Thank you so much, Brian. Really appreciate you having me back, and I'm glad we could bring sherry.

Sherry Abdou  3:07  
Thank you for having us. Happy to be here.

Brian Smith  3:10  
Yeah, I'm really happy to have both you, I would say, before I started, this is my only, my second three way interview, so we'll see how this goes. So I want to bounce it into both of you. But Sally, as I mentioned in the introduction, I've had you here before. We talked before very soul was kind of just ramping up. It was It was established. It was there. I saw the concept. I was so excited. I was glad to have you on tell us what very soul is and how it's changed as our first conversation.

Sally Hawk  3:36  
Yeah, absolutely. Well, so before I do that, I need to thank you, Brian, because you have been a supporter right from the very beginning, and I even hear you from time to time talking about very soul and other podcasts. So thank you for that. You understood the concept right from the beginning. The concept was to solve all of the problems that spirit was seeing. So the people on the other side saw an efficiency problem, and they saw an access problem. They want to get to their people. So you have Shayna on the other side. She wants to be able to reach you, and other children want to be able to reach their parents, and there's too many barriers in the way to get that done. So if you can imagine yourself as a person in spirit, what had to happen in the past was you had to first influence your person to try to get them to look for a medium, and then you had to try to help them navigate the jungle of finding a medium they could trust, much less affording, much less finding availability. It was a lot of influence that was required by spirit, a lot of energy on their part. Now what they've created is a global center that makes it very easy and and I can give you some examples later about how that works, but makes it very easy for them to find mediums who have been developed, who they can trust, and who they have access to, and that they can afford. And that's, you know, we are, we're can. Unity of mediums who take this very seriously and really want to help spirit make those communications. Yeah,

Brian Smith  5:06  
you know, I love the way you said that. You said it from the Spirit perspective, because we always think of it from our perspective. How do I find a medium stuff we don't think about like people in spirit, like, how do I get to my loved one on Earth? So I love the way you kind of flipped that whole thing, and you brought with you Sherry today. So tell us why. Why sherry?

Sally Hawk  5:25  
So Sherry, she she has the total perspective of what's happening here. She's experienced great loss. She's, you know, experienced that loss before she knew she had the mediumship skills. She found her mediumship skills, and she is a super developer, so or I want to call her a super user of very soul in terms of having just really buckle down and use everything that we offer in terms of practice, space, coaching, and all the different capabilities to move through the process very quickly and develop her skills. Sherry, like you said, she's done over 200 sessions in less than a year, and that's phenomenal. That takes a huge amount of commitment, but I've watched her develop, and it's just phenomenal. So I really wanted her to be here to talk about what that experience was like and and share more with others.

Brian Smith  6:15  
And Sherry, I want to bring you in now and before I ask you about you and your journey and everything when, when someone has a child in spirit, I want you to talk about your child. So tell us about about your child.

Sherry Abdou  6:27  
Thank you. Thank you for having me and thanking thank you for allowing me to talk about Gabriel. In 2010 I was pregnant with my third child, and I was not able to complete the pregnancy, and Gabriel passed almost at my second trimester, and it was my first real touch with grief. I actually didn't know I was in grief. I had mental fog. I was sad. I no longer wanted to work out or go outside for walks, all of my normal was just dialed down. I even went to my doctor and said, I feel like someone unplugged me and here I supposed to be so excited. My oldest was getting ready for college. I had all her dorm room things set up. The pregnancy was a surprise, but welcomed, but I was just lifeless. I was absolutely lifeless, and I didn't know what was happening. I had no no concentration. And anytime I would bring up the miscarriage, it would be shut down by very meaningful people, but they would say things like, you already have two kids, you're older, you didn't even meet the baby. And, oh, Brian, I mean, my heart, a mother's heart, just crumbles at that. So I learned quickly to not speak about the miscarriage. But still, you know, six months, eight months, I'm still at that just very low energy, not knowing if something's wrong with me. I actually told my husband, maybe something's the matter with me, and, you know, we don't even know. And a good friend of ours, who's a nurse, he went and spoke to her, and she said she's in grief. Her wife's in grief. And so that journey began for me, then when I at least had language around what I was feeling, because I I wasn't really touched by it on that level before, right,

Brian Smith  8:31  
right, yeah. And then did that lead to your development of your mediumship availability?

Sherry Abdou  8:36  
No, no. It wasn't until 2016 my father was his health was declining. I went to help with his end of life, care with my brother and my mom, and things changed. Things changed even during just his care, very vivid dreams. I mean vivid dreams where I would see my father in the dream, maybe in his 30s, dark hair, darker mustache, very odd clothes, maybe in the 70s. Was my dad was a sharp dresser, but not in my dream, and I would see him in the room, in his bedroom where I was helping to care for him under hospice care, and in the dream, it was almost like it was an overlay, like he was in the room, but not of the room. And I knew, I don't know how I knew, but I knew I was being given a glimpse of what dad was doing as we were caring for him, he was thriving. He looked healthy. He wasn't riddled with cancer. But I didn't make the full connection. It was bits and pieces like that that kept dripping in, gently, from spirit, very gently. Wow.

Brian Smith  9:56  
Okay, and so Sally. Be back to what very soul is for people that don't know, and I've talked about it so much I take for granted. So let's just go back to the beginning, the basics of like, what is very soul? How is it different? And how did you develop it? So

Sally Hawk  10:15  
very soul is a community of mediums from all around the world who start off by practicing together. And that sounds simple, but we've got a lot of time zones. We've got a lot of languages to navigate, and we've we created a very efficient way to help make good use of mediums time. It seems silly, but prior to very soul, mediums were operating back in the, I don't know, 16th century or something. You know, there was very little technology used, and very little efficiency of any kind. Hard to imagine that compared to the times of Uber, right, and Instacart. So basically, very soul just brings it all up to speed and makes it very efficient for mediums to practice. But then also provides different programs where they can continue to take on more challenging scenarios, and that helps them develop. As you know, Brian, very soul, was not designed by me. It was designed by spirit and handed to me in a request to build this. So even while we're building it and we're still building parts of it, those in Spirit still stay very involved, and they have lots of advice, and they continue to surprise me in terms of all the things that they have considered. But the main thing that I want to point out is that the intention is to get to make this accessible to clients, so that those in Spirit can reach their people. And so part of our program is we offer free sessions. We offer a free session to anyone in need through something called our donated program, and that's one of our levels of mediumship training. But those mediums are very skilled, and many of them are already professional outside of very soul, but in our program, they're still doing donated ratings. And then mediums can also become professionals with us, where they can start taking payments, but that, that free program is a really important part of what we do.

Brian Smith  12:28  
Yeah, that's, that is a great thing. And when we, as we talk about this, I think we have to kind of keep in mind two perspectives. At least for me, I've referred mediums to you guys, mediums who are saying, I don't know how to get started. I don't I don't know how to market myself, etc. And I refer clients to you guys, clients that say I can't find a medium and I can, or again, back to I can't find a medium who I can trust, who's affordable and who is available. Because, you know, you might get two of those three, but it's hard to get all three at the same time. So that's those are problems that I see it's solving, and I love, again, you're giving credit to spirit for designing, because I just think it's, it's ingenious, and I don't see anything else like it where it's a great marketplace that that for mediums, again, they can put themselves on there. There's also grace for great place for people to go. So whenever anyone asks me, you know who you recommend, I'll give them a list of my favorite meetings. But I'm also like go to very soul, because it's just, it's fantastic.

Sally Hawk  13:30  
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, and there's, there's a number of different things built into the system, into their designs, that are just brilliant, that some of which I understood from the beginning what that was going to do, but some of which I didn't, and now I've watched it play out for you know, we've been up and running for about three years, and it's just fantastic what what they're accomplishing. So, you know, simple things like, how do they match practice partners up? Because they ask for a specific algorithm to match practice partners. How do they match clients with mediums? They had asked for an algorithm to do that as well, and it's very clever to watch what happens in those matches, because there are both great experiences for the clients that occur, but there are also important development experiences that happen for the mediums at the same time, and healing experiences for the mediums, so things like that. There's so many layers to what's going on. It's a little bit hard to put into words.

Brian Smith  14:30  
Yeah, there's, there's a lot going on behind the scenes. And after having talked to you, I know that. I know about that. So let's talk again, from meeting perspective for you, Sherry, what is it that made you decide that you wanted to join very soul.

Sherry Abdou  14:43  
I had a friend that I had taken classes with, and I had taken every class with every respected medium mentorship practices for years. And this friend was actually a scientist, a retired scientist, that said to me, I. You need to be on very soul. You need to practice there. And I didn't do it. I was busy. And then she contacted me again and said, You don't understand. You're going to practice with other mediums. It's global. You're going to meet the nicest people I'm having the best time. So I thought it's going to be complicated. Wasn't complicated. It was so easy. Everything was easy. Once I got on the site, everything was done for me. And I'm not a tech person, so the fact that my calendar was set up without any concern, the scheduling, the time zone, all of these things and so very soul for me took me out of the classroom and into a program where I can practice with other mediums at my level together to enhance our skills, and we supported each other. And then after that, it takes you, you know, into another step of maybe giving readings to what they call starter clients, and that's friends and family of mediums. And then the mediumship I found changed was very different than the practice. Something changed spirit steps in. And Sally had told me that, and she said, you know you will grow. You will grow, and you do in many ways. So it really took me out of the classroom. It gave me the experience to be with the very heart centered platform. Sally doesn't like to take any credit, but she is the backbone of this platform, and she's been guided to have the most amazing team work with her. And it takes a lot, it takes a lot to have it running at that caliber and that standard. And she expects a lot of her mediums, you have to have integrity, ethics come from a heart centered place, or, you know, you'll be asked to leave.

Brian Smith  17:03  
Yeah. So when you talk about practice, you're saying you would sit with other mediums and you would read each other.

Sherry Abdou  17:09  
Yeah, you sit with other mediums and you read with each other at a beginning level, an intermediate level, an advanced level, and then you're able, when comfortable, to step up a little bit more to work with these starter clients. And you know, Assuming all goes well and you feel comfortable, you know, you'll go up a little bit more, and it changes again, because then when you get to the donated session, everything changed for me. Then, like everything changed at that moment, I have such a reverence for this work, and I tell Sally, it's really a pinch me moment, because I cannot believe I'm being given the privilege to sit and have be witness to the connection that's being made for someone that might come to that donated session that's never had a reading. They come in with all sorts of nerves, maybe because of their perception of TV, or maybe they think it's going to be strange. But most of the mediums are professionals. They they were professionals, or they're currently professionals, and they've been able to hone these skills that we all have, we just happen to really work at honing them. But things you know changed and are evolving for me. But it's the 2000 mediums, you know, 2500 mediums before me that set the foundation for me to be able to come in and follow their integrity and follow their lead. So it's been a privilege.

Brian Smith  18:44  
Yeah, and I will tell you as someone who, I have a lot of friends who are medium and I work with a lot of solopreneurs that are, you know, trying to set stuff up. And mediums typically are not great at business. We're usually really good at one thing and not so great at other things. Mediums typically aren't great at, you know, business. And I've set people up on, you know, calendaring software, accountability or or acuity, and trying to build a website, and all those things. And very soul takes care of all that for you, and you can still have that and be on very soul. And it's, you know, because I know Sally, you're not about like, we're not gonna let mediums, quote, compete. You can still do your own thing, but if you're not, if you don't want to have that, some people might look Don't even worry about building a website or trying to do a calendaring system. Let these guys handle it for you.

Sally Hawk  19:32  
Yeah, and there's, there's a couple other things I would just add into what Sherry said and what you just said, Brian. One is when you, when you're thinking about the practices, this isn't just sitting with the same people over and over and this is, this is a huge advantage that we have to what most experiences mediums have experienced from the past. Some grow up in their mediumship. You know, even 10 years ago didn't. Have access to the global diversity of practice partners that we expose these mediums to, and what that means is you have to be even more open to the things that people in spirit are trying to tell you, to the words you use, to how you make sure you're phrasing things correctly, because it's very easy to have miscommunications when you're working with people who grew up in a different culture or a different socio economic situation, etc, etc. So that is layered in all the way from the practices through each one of those programs, the diversity of experience is what makes the mediums develop so fast. What helps the mediums develop so fast, that's interesting.

Brian Smith  20:41  
I hadn't really thought about that. But again, I've worked with a lot of mediums who are developing and they'll they'll go to they'll take a class from one instructor, and then they'll go to another medium and take a class there. And so you've got a small group of people in your in your circle, in your class, or whatever, maybe 500 people, and you're practicing on each other, but they're people that you've known, because you're sitting there, you know, with them the whole time. So this gives you a totally different experience, I would assume, yeah, yeah,

Sally Hawk  21:06  
it's a you know, think of it this way. We did some market research at the very beginning of contemplating very soul, and what we found is that the typical mediumship client is a middle aged, white woman who has extra money, and there's all sorts of reasons why, all sorts of barriers to connections and knowledge, and, you know, income, all sorts of things, right? Once you break that down and you say, okay, that's not our target audience. Our target audience is anyone who needs this connection, anyone who needs to know that their loved ones are still there and supporting them. That is a much, much broader range that you need to learn to operate in. And so spirit has done this beautiful job of easing mediums into that in a way that you know you could tell from what Shayna was saying. You know, at every stage, even though we warn the mediums, okay, there's going to be a new set of learnings, and it's going to be a little bit painful, maybe sometimes, you know, just understand it's learnings, it's learnings, but it's just a brilliant construct that helps mediums find a whole new level of openness and availability. Yeah,

Brian Smith  22:20  
absolutely. And, and you're right, when it comes to, like, the the typical person that goes to a medium there, there's, it's a very, fairly narrow slice of the demographic. And again, like you said, there are lots of barriers. There's there's cultural there's sometimes there's religious barriers, and there's, certainly there's money, because, you know, there are mediums out there that charge $800 reading, $700 reading, etc, which is not a not everybody can afford. And people think, well, if they're more expensive, they must be better. And I want the best.

Sally Hawk  22:55  
Yeah, that's absolutely not true. Absolutely I want to just break that right from the beginning, absolutely not true. I've tried myself before. I knew that I had mediumship skills. I tried some of the most expensive mediums and was often disappointed. Some mediums who are feeling competitive in their marketing will purposefully bump their prices up to create that perception. Yeah, some mediums will also purposefully fill their calendars up to create the perception of being fully booked and then come back to you with a last minute opening. Now I'm not saying this is the general way that mediums work. I'm not trying to throw anyone under the bus. All I'm saying is, let's be transparent. Let's be available. We're here to serve, to help with these communications. And every single person, every single person, deserves to know these connections. Yeah, and you know, we don't want to preach that to anyone. We don't want to tell them what to believe. It's their journey, but we do want to make the experiences available.

Brian Smith  24:04  
Completely agree with you, and when I when it comes to mediumship, I always say, you know, it's, it's like any other industry there, there are, there are bad mediums, there are decent mediums, there are good mediums, they're great mediums. And there are frauds. I mean, it doesn't mean that all mediums are frauds. There's certainly not, but there are, there are frauds, and there are people that are unethical in that field, and they give, they bring down the reputation of everybody else. And this is what I was saying when we first got started. I think very soul, I know very soul, solves so many of these problems, because I don't have to worry. Is this person ethical? Because you've taken care of that this person are they trained because they don't even get on, they can't even put themselves out there as a paid medium until they are reach a certain level of proficiency, right?

Sally Hawk  24:52  
Right? That's exactly right. And the level of proficiency has to be proven in so many ways from so many different angles. There is not a more thorough process for ensuring capability? Yeah, and

Brian Smith  25:06  
I know there are a couple people out there, and I'm actually very I'm associated with one who certifies mediums, but there, as far as I know, there are no official standards, at least in the US of like you go to this board and you have this thing. So even when you see someone who's certified now, you've got to trust the person who's certifying them. And when it comes to very sold again, and I want to be you can be as transparent as you like when it comes to because people are going to say, Okay, well, how are they? How are they making money? Because I know some of these certification programs, you just pay them money and they'll put you in the directory. Yeah,

Sally Hawk  25:40  
it's unfortunate, but that's that's right, yeah. How are we making money? Is that? Is that a question? Yeah, yes, we're not. We're not. We're trusting spirit right now that there will be opportunities to make the platform self funding. So we are set up as a for profit company, but we're set up as a benefit company, public benefit company, that allows us to stay focused on our mission instead of on profits, and that way, we can continue to do the work the way spirit designed and the way spirit requested, and we're just doing it all with complete trust that It will become self funding at some point.

Brian Smith  26:21  
Yeah, well, I think that's, that's fantastic. And, you know, we live in a world where we have to, we have to provide. But people might be thinking, you know, as a medium, it's like, well, how much is this training going to cost me, or how much of my, how much of my, what I charge is are they going to take? Yeah,

Sally Hawk  26:37  
we don't take anything. The mediums get 100% of what they charge. They decide their prices. We don't interfere with their pricing, and we don't charge mediums anything for using the platform. It's completely free, but we do hold them to high, high standards in terms of ethics and in terms of being responsible, in terms of how they operate. And yeah, so it's a place not every medium wants to be a part of an operation like very soul. It's a place for people who are serious about this work for the right reasons, and that's how we turn out such highly skilled and highly compassionate mediums.

Brian Smith  27:19  
Yeah. And I can say again, it's gonna sound like I'm pumping this up, but I am. I'm a big believer. That's why you guys are on here. So I asked you to come back Sally, because I do refer so many people to very soul, and I have, I've heard nothing negative from anybody. I've had a couple of readings from your mediums. I've actually formed some relationships with one of them, or formed a relationship with one of them, that we do some things together. She's fantastic. And I just got her like randomly when I when I came to the site. So my experience has been really good. And I love the fact that this removes barriers for again, for the medium. So that's why I'm glad we have Sherry on here to talk about from her perspective, but also for people that are looking for that. So Sherry, you've done, I guess sounds like over 200 sessions and a year, is that right? Yeah, that's a lot. So what's that experience been like for you?

Sherry Abdou  28:15  
There is this sense of urgency within me, but it's calm. It's the only way I can explain it. I couldn't even believe that it was that many readings. But just going back to certification and that topic real quickly, I know that there are certifications out there that may allow you to do five readings or six readings, Sally has you doing many more readings, many more practices. So the beauty of that for the medium is you're learning to hone your skill. You're learning discernment. You are learning to be fully present in circumstances that are outside of you. Someone can be someone was in a sauna trying to get a reading to get away from her children. You can be in a situation. Someone was in a fast food restaurant, someone's in the car, you just learn to deal with different things, and it's wonderful, because it does help you grow. And my experience has just been tremendous. I continue to take classes, I continue to learn and understand about grief. I love being a caring listener for helping parents heal, and I think all of those factors I'm been a caregiver to my mother for eight years, all of those factors come into play. Spirit had a greater plan. That I don't think I fully understood until I was at the helping parents heal Conference this past August, last summer, listening and you were one of the speakers, listening to all the wonderful speakers, and I was walking with two of my friends to another talk, and it dawned on me in that moment that, oh, my goodness, the eight years that I've cared for my mom and watched complicated, prolonged grief in her not titles that I love, but maybe ones that people will understand, taught me how to hold space and have the capacity and the compassion to sit with someone that may repeat themselves 10 times, that may have guilt, that may have shame, you know, that may have a lot of stories around the event of their child passing, their spouse, their parent, especially when it comes to passing by suicide or fentanyl poisoning and those topics. So everything prepared me, you know, everything prepared me and continues to prepare me, because I understand that this is just the beginning. Just the beginning. This comes with tremendous responsibility, so I will be a forever learner to bring the best version of myself to this platform and to helping parents heal.

Brian Smith  31:27  
Yeah, awesome. Just as you were talking Sally, I don't know if you saw there was an orb that went across the screen. I

Unknown Speaker  31:33  
saw it. Yeah, people

Sherry Abdou  31:34  
tell me that all the time. I've yet to see it. When I give readings, they're like, there's orbs,

Brian Smith  31:40  
because I'm a skeptic, and I've seen people say, Oh, that's something. That's dust or something when they go up, that's why we're like, I know it's not dust. And it went like this across the screen.

Sally Hawk  31:50  
Sherry's got a very special energy, a very one of the things she was just talking about Brian, I just want to add on is about resilience. One of the things that spirit gave me right from the beginning was build resilience in the mediums, build resilience. And so I tell the mediums at different stages, I tell them different parts of it, but when they're going into the working with the general public part, I explained to them this part is going to help you learn how to do sessions in the middle of a football field while the football game is going on. You know, there are, there are these, these funny traditions and mediumship that we've carried forward over the years. And it kind of puts boundaries around, like you have to be in a quiet place and you have to be alone, and you have to be, and you have to be, and you have to be, you know, all these rules and those, those things do help somebody who's learning mediumship. And they can be necessary for certain mediums given their development level, but you can develop past that. I mean, obviously you can develop past that, or nobody could ever do platform work.

Brian Smith  33:02  
So it's, it's, I'll let you continue about but it's really interesting. You said that, because when I talk to people about getting readings, I give them all those rules I'm like, because, you know, don't, don't be inebriated, don't be in your car, don't, you know, be in a quiet place, be by yourself. And it's interesting, you know could, but when you branch out to the general public, and people are going to stumble across the site, maybe they've never had a reading before, and they're like, there's reading schedule for two o'clock and they happen to be at Panera, they might say, I'll just do it on the phone. Yeah,

Sally Hawk  33:34  
well, in every client, they click boxes, if you've been through our process, so you know, you click a box saying, I'll be alone. I'll be in a quiet place. I won't be distracted, yada yada yada. And yet, they show up the way they show up. And the mediums know that if they're ever uncomfortable with the situation, they can just end that session early. You know, if a client is, you know, in a situation where the medium just doesn't feel capable, but it does, over time, help the mediums become even better at what they do. And then when a client shows up in a quiet space with no distractions, their sessions are even just that much better because of how well trained that medium is.

Brian Smith  34:15  
Yeah, yeah. So from a client perspective, if it's someone who's never had a reading before, never been the very soul and they come to the site, what do they expect? How do they what's the process for a first time person coming?

Sally Hawk  34:26  
Yeah, so I think the most important thing that people need to know is we will not ask you for a credit card. That's probably the biggest concern, and I completely understand it, because so many websites that you go to, you have to spin a wheel to get a discount, or you have to, you know, you can get a free one, but you have to sign up for a subscription that's going to automatically start using your credit card. We don't do any of that. You know, part of the directions from spirit was to keep this thing scam free. So we don't even, we don't even do a lot of marketing. Uh, because of that, so we ask for simple information, just so we know how to send them their appointment information. So we have to have an email and we want to be able to send you a text reminder, and then the the client gets to choose between a donated session for somebody in need or a professional session, if they can afford to pay, if they choose a professional session, they can go in and look at the mediums and read their profiles and read their reviews and make their choice. If they choose a, what we call a donated session, then they go into the spirit match program. So they get a tiny bit of training. They do the check boxes that I said of all the things they agree to, and then they pick a date and time and and the spirit algorithm matches them to a medium. They receive a zoom link with an appointment, an appointment by email, and then they'll receive reminders, and then they simply have to show up on time and have their wonderful experience with their medium.

Brian Smith  36:05  
Now, I went to the site recently, um, we talked earlier before we got started after my after my friend passed away, and I was thinking about scheduling a session, and I realized there's a lot of mediums on there now. So what is for a person coming they might feel a little bit overwhelmed when it comes to choosing a medium. What? What do you suggest? And there's different mediums, different price points. So how does a person navigate that?

Sally Hawk  36:29  
Yeah, I think, I think don't try to be too logical about it. Is my advice is your loved ones, in spirit, are trying to point you in a direction, because you're paying we need to give you a choice. You know, I think spirit would rather make the choice, and they can make that choice through you, if you let them. So see who you're drawn towards. For instance, the professional mediums are are juggled every time somebody taps that screen. So, okay, I was wondering. Yeah, so the people toward the top of that screen at that time are probably people that spirits trying to get you to Okay, so you can make your choice however you want. But I would say, do not ignore your intuition.

Brian Smith  37:17  
Yeah, I love that. And you know, it's funny because I've said the same thing. I have a I have a list of trusted mediums I give when people ask, because I get asked so often, and then people say, Well, how do I choose between them? I'm like, use your intuition now as a very logical engineer, left brain person. That's kind of hard for me, but I think that's the best way to do it, because you can't go by price, for example. And we've already, we've already, we've already touched on this. There is this perception because we think if something's more expensive, it must be better. Therefore mediums charge more, they must be better. We've already, we've already touched on that. And it's my experience has been the same as yours. I've some, some very, not well known mediums that aren't charging much can be fantastic. And I've seen people who charge a lot of money that were really disappointing,

Sally Hawk  38:06  
yeah, yeah, it's unfortunate, but comes with the territory. So,

Brian Smith  38:12  
yeah, yeah. Well, I think it's true of you know, I can say it's mediums are hopefully mediums are in this because it's a calling, not a business, but there are some people that are in it because it's a business. And I love, you know, sharing thing is not and I think I know shares an example of one of your mediums. It's a, you can tell this is a calling. This is a this is a passion. This is a serve in the community and share. I want to go back to something you were saying earlier that might surprise people. You talked about development. I'm still taking classes. Okay, well, you've been doing readings for, you know, years now. You've done over 200 the last year. And people might say, well, I thought this was a gift. It just, it just kind of comes and why would you need to take classes?

Sherry Abdou  38:53  
So, yes, it does feel to some people that it's a gift. I've learned it's a calling, it's a skill no one's really gifted. We'd like to think we are. It's a skill we all have it. We all have intuition. When I began to open up in 2016 I didn't know I was opening up. My communication with my father was so clear. It was so clear, and I didn't understand why my brother and my mom were having such a hard time, because I spoke to him and he answered. And this happened for about a year and a half, almost two years, but very strongly for a year and a half. A lot of direction, a lot of details, undeniable stuff, then came, you know, four years later, I learned about Suzanne Giesemann, took a class, and it was only to connect with my dad that was my only interest. And then, as I progressed in taking the classes and honing in some of these skills, what I was learning. From the classes and the mentorship like Gordon Smith's mentorship, it wasn't about mediumship, it was about your own spiritual growth. I have friends that would take these mentorship programs with me, and I would get up at 7am for Gordon Smith on a Sunday, that was the dedication.

Brian Smith  40:24  
And they for people that are listening, yes,

Sherry Abdou  40:25  
in the UK, a very respected and kind gentleman, they would say, we're not getting tools. Where are the tools? You know, I want the name, I want the date. That's what I want. And I realized that's not why we're taking this he's breaking down the barriers that we hold ourselves back with and the reason I continue to take classes, especially in grief. I'm currently enrolled in David Kessler's grief educator certification, because there's a responsibility that comes with us, and after the session is over, sometimes you you may receive an email someone is desperate. And it's not that another mediumship reading is going to help. It's that grief, you know, assistance that's going to help. So the classes are from my own personal growth. I know that spirit is developing me. You know, going back to what you had said, as far as suggesting to friends or clients on how to prepare for a reading, well, I was one of those developing mediums that love to light the candle, love doing my meditation. I had my system down. Spirit knocks that right out. There are distractions. You are placed in positions of hearing things that you've never heard before, and you need to be respectful and hold space for that and understand that Sherry's world is very limited and narrow. There's an expansive world out there and circumstances and different grief and different loss. So I will continue to take classes, because respectfully I need to. I need to keep growing as a person, and I know spirit has my back to grow as a medium, but I need to step up and and continue on my end as well. So that's why

Brian Smith  42:31  
so and this is for either one of you, what are some perceptions about mediumship that you would like to change with very soul or personally, what are some? What are some of the things that you'd like to change about the perceptions of mediumship?

Sally Hawk  42:45  
Well, I'll start with one, and I think Sherry touched on a little bit, but I think in this perception issue even exists with some mediums. I think we forget that it is about us being an instrument, and to be the best instrument, we have to almost not be there when it occurs. I'm not saying that very eloquently, but the very best mediumship happens without the personality of Sally, without the personality of sherry, it happens when we can almost just melt away. And that takes a lot of self work to be able to allow that. We talk a lot about allowing a spirit to use us, but it takes many, many years and many, many experiences to really fully understand what does that mean? Now, what could you guys relate to that you could relate to the moment that you first learned about your child's passing, that moment there's no ego in you, right? You are at you know, you're stripped on the floor. You're stripped. Yeah, right, right. And that is where a medium needs to be able to purposefully take themselves to, to that place where you're just stripped of your ego and all of the things that you would normally be thinking about and worrying about and wondering about, and I hope I get a good review, or I hope that all the things you have to just be able to put, or put all that aside, that is the hardest part of mediumship. So I don't know. Sherry, what else? What else do you think I

Sherry Abdou  44:34  
love everything that you said? Sally, what I would love is that they know that they're, we're able, as mediums, to connect with their loved one because they're there, they're in the session. They're I'm not connecting to their loved one because I have some magic power. We all have these abilities. But what I like to share with them, because I used to get frustrated early on hearing that i. Well, we all have these abilities. You can do that, but tell me how, because it's it's, tell me how then, because it's not happening. And for example, you know, something really simple that Maureen Hancock, who's a medium, had showed an exercise on helping parents heal, on how to feel the energy of a loved one. And I like to leave people with that, that I feel want, that, you know, so they can feel it, but I encourage them to learn how to connect with their person. It's just a softer way. It's very subtle. You know, we expect things. When I would feel my father's hand pressing up against my back, it was in my mind's eye that I knew it was his hand, but it was that energy, that increased energy, that I knew it was my dad's hand. And so I wish someone knew that. Oh, okay, so it's that feeling, it's that extra charge, or it's that feather like touch to my face, or it's that thought drop that comes in, out of nowhere, that's my loved one, and it's that discernment, because you don't want people to depend on you. I actually came to Sally because someone wanted to make more appointments with me. I don't want them reliant on me. I want them to have the tools to do it themselves, and not think like I have this power or any other medium, because we don't, you know, but to tell them how, you know, to tell them how

Sally Hawk  46:45  
connection? No, no. I was going to ask you, what do you think are some of the perceptions about mediums that we should be talking to? Because you, you experience this all the time with, um,

Brian Smith  46:58  
well, you know, it's interesting. They're, they're kind of all over the place. I mean, the first one that comes to mind is people think that, you know, mediumship is just a big racket, and it's all, you know, they're all frauds. And I think, again, you guys take away a lot of that, because people might think, Okay, well, they can look me up and, you know, etc, you're getting a minimal amount of information from people that you can get going forward. And it's always it's really funny to me. I kind of smile when people say that because of like, those are usually people who haven't had a medium reading. If you've had a good medium reading, it blows that open. And I'm thinking about my friend who she lost her husband, and she was a total materialist, and she came to me and said, I want to prove myself once and for all, this isn't real. So give me the best medium, you know, and I'm going to send you to her, or you're going to, I'm going to go to her, and I'm going to give her fake, you know, information. But long story short, she's, she's still a very good friend of mine, and she's actually really good friends with the media in my center too. They became like, Best Buddies because she was, like, she was blown away. So that's, that's one thing you can do. But then, then there's the know that they're all about the money, you know, they're all, they're all, they all charge $700 a session. They all charge $800 and that's not true. This is just the people that happen to be seeing. You know, we talked about this, the fact if you pay more, then you're going to get a better reading. You know, we know that's not true. So again, I think not. I think I know you guys have addressed a lot of those issues. You know? I love the fact that you the mediums, I know that these I'm going to see are already pre qualified, to some extent, right? As opposed to just somebody out of phone bar or someone who went to a weekend seminar and took a mediumship class and says, Well, now I'm a medium. I'm going to charge 200 bucks for readings.

Sally Hawk  48:45  
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And if you think about any of the certification programs that happen, you know, in a class, or they happen over a few days, or whatever, like mediums have to have with us, they have to be able to perform at that level even better over months, they have to be able to show consistency as well and in terms of evidence. And this is really important. It's like we're not just looking for any evidence. We're looking for compelling, unknowable evidence. That's the standard we hold ourselves to, unknowable evidence, and we often hear back from clients, and I'll put this right in their feedback that we publish on our Facebook site. By the way, they'll say she told me something only my husband and I knew my husband and I knew there's no way she could have known that, that those are the moments, right? But can I talk to one other thing that I think is really important? I just don't want to miss getting this in, yeah, please. And that is, there are these different aspects of mediumship, you know, there is the evidential portion, and there's the ability to do that. There's the approachability of the medium you know. Can you, do you feel a compassionate person sitting across from you, or do you feel like somebody's, you know, standing apart from you and just rattling off evidence? There's also this aspect of emotion ability. So call it emote ability. I don't think it's a real word, but, but I use it. It's the ability to have, first of all, you have to have a high emotional quotient, so you have to have a good perception of other people's emotions, and an ability to control and manage your own emotions in the moment, and then as a medium to allow spirits emotions to flow through you and to be able to share those in a motive way that helps the client more fully experience their person. Those are the sessions when you have a medium who's great with evidence, who's highly compassionate and who has that emote ability. Those are the sessions where clients will tell us, I felt him there, I felt her there. Yeah, those are the that's that's gold, that's where we want to be. I think

Brian Smith  51:14  
you said that perfectly. And again, I've worked with a lot of mediums in different capacities, and people have done, you know, been trained by different things, and I know the British have a particular way of doing mediumship. Some of them are very particular about the way they do it, and they're like just, just evidence, name, rank and serial number, and that the evidence is important. But also people want to feel that connection. When I feel a connection with the medium, they want to know the medium cares and the message is important too. And I've seen mediums do one or the other some, some will just give you, oh, your grandmother really loves you. Your father is really proud of you, stuff like that, which is that gives mediums a bad name, because anybody can say that. So you've got to be for me when I and then I've been a test center many times I have to feel the balance, because I've had some that will just like, I'll be sitting here taking notes, and they're just running down facts, and I'm just writing facts. And at the end of that reading, I'm like, I didn't feel like anything that didn't that didn't change my life. But when someone says, Oh, I feel your daughter here and and they give me something specific about her, and they tell me about her personality, that's when I really feel that connection. Yeah,

Sally Hawk  52:20  
the difference is in the mission, right? If your mission is just to prove life after death, then evidence, right? But that's not our mission. Our mission is to help you hear from your loved one and to help you have a meaningful interaction with your loved ones, so that you know they're there, so that you can start building your own connections. Yeah,

Brian Smith  52:43  
I love you said that, and this is why I want to have you on because I want people to understand that it's not just about that. I mean, proving it is great, and that's important, but it's not, it's not the only thing.

Sherry Abdou  52:55  
Add something really quick to that, just really quick, something that I've found very new for me that I love is when a loved one shares something that happens later and it's out of left field, yeah. And for those developing mediums, we know when we get that, there's some nerves with it, because, you know you have to say it, because you know it's, you know, evidence, but it can throw the reading, especially if it's really from left field. And I'll give a very, very quick example. I was in a session with a guest from very soul, a father whose son passed a lot of emotions, a lot of evidence he could feel his son. We were both very touched by the session. Before the session closes, as I'm saying goodbye to him, his son shows me a floating guitar, a floating electric guitar. I mention it to the Father, and you can see his energy diminished. His son didn't play the electric guitar, and so I reassured him, don't discount everything that's come through. Just look, look for that could be on a card, it could be in a magazine, it could have his name next to a guitar. Just be open to it. But don't let that connection go away because of that close the session. The next day, this gentleman emails me and says to me, you are not going to believe this. I am working with an AI app for writing. He's a writer, and he said, an image, and bless him, he screenshotted it for me, which touched my heart. An image of an electric guitar was on the app, and he said, This is a writing app. There's no images. There are no images. And he couldn't believe it, but that Brian, oh, that is why we do this, because forget what I brought, what came through from his son, from my mouth to him. And. It's that evidence later that, Hey, Dad, I got you. I'm here. Yeah, you know, that's huge. So those are the, those are the moments that just make your heart melt. Yeah, as you said, that

Brian Smith  55:11  
reminded me of a story I had a reading with a medium. I won't say her name right now, but she's, she's famous, and she said something about, like, she saw something was going to happen, and I'm like, that's never going to happen. She said, I see you flying to a conference, you know, speaking from behind a podium, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, okay, don't like to travel. I hate flying. I had never spoken in person at that time or anything. I only did things through zoom, and then, like it was a year and a half or two years later, I was speaking at the helping parents heal conference, the first one in Arizona, and I was on my way back. I was on the plane, long story, crazy events happened. The Wi Fi wasn't working, so I decided to listen to something on my phone, and that reading happened to come up. And I was like, let me just listen to this reading again, because it was, it wasn't, it was on my phone. I started listening to and I remember that she had said this was going to happen. And I'm like, What are the chances? First of all, it did happen, and then I happened to listen to it when I was on the plane on the way back, and I had, I had no memory that she had even given me that information. So that's something that, like, you can't make that up, and, you know, and she didn't guess it, because nobody ever would

Sherry Abdou  56:19  
have, yeah, yeah. Love those moments. Love those moments,

Sally Hawk  56:23  
yeah, they find so many ways to let us know. They find so many ways to let us know. It's just, it's beautiful, yeah? And we hear 1000s of stories like this. That's, that's the amazing thing about the platform too, is we've got all this proof. We've got all of this, you know, feedback from so many people who have been through these experiences to show how their experiences went and how they knew, yeah, that's an amazing thing. And I wanted

Brian Smith  56:51  
to ask you about that Sally, because I went to very soul.com as I said, a couple weeks ago, and then I went again today, but getting ready for this. But I think you sent me a link to specials, dot very soul.com, and that that looks a little bit different. So I saw, when I saw that, I saw all the Instagram or Tiktok posts or whatever, all the evidence on it. So when people are going to the site, which, where should they go? Yeah,

Sally Hawk  57:17  
good question. So we are. We're behind on updating our our web. So our website is about three and a half years old now. So the landing page that you went to is what we use when we're going out social media, via social media, to find what we call outreach clients, people who otherwise wouldn't typically be searching for mediums, okay? So that that specials page is the easiest entry point, I think, but they could either go to very soul.com it's, it's, you know, it's fine. They can go in and book an appointment. We're working on improving the website, though, so that they can learn more about us more quickly, just like the landing page.

Brian Smith  58:03  
Yeah? Well, I just want to tell you this. Maybe I should have told you when we're on the air, but I love the landing page because I just, I happen to hit it, and I'm like, because I thought, as a person coming here, if I don't know, I like that social proof you've got there, yeah, and with all the readings that you guys and all the stories that you have, it's really great to get that out there. So we're coming to the end of our time, but I know you had some pretty specific goals for very soul when we talked a couple of years ago. Tell me where you are relative to those goals, and where do you see things going in the next year or two? Yeah. So,

Sally Hawk  58:35  
so numerically. So I'm a numbers person. I'm a mathematician, actuary by background. You know that, right? So I'm all about the numbers too. Mathematically, we wanted to be at a million sessions by the end of 2026 we're just under 100,000 right now, but we're on a very fast ramp. So I don't know if we'll hit a million or not, but what I do know is will have made significant impact in terms of sharing these experiences so many people. You know, the most important thing that we're trying to establish is to help people know that they can trust us and that there is a lot of structure and standards and, you know, statistics and things that are going on behind the scenes that help ensure that these are really good practitioners and that they can be trusted. That's the most important thing. We're just trying to establish the brand that way and help make sure that people know what's happening inside very sold. Yeah,

Brian Smith  59:39  
absolutely. Well, I can tell you, I, you know, I keep saying over and over again, but I really mean it. I am so impressed by, you know, what you've done, the platform you've given again, I refer developing mediums to you guys. I refer clients to you guys. I think it's a great place to bring the two together. It's a place where people can go and. They can know that I'm getting a vetted medium that's not going to charge me an arm and a leg, and who was actually going to be available? Because there's some people that I don't even recommend because you can't get to them, and some people I don't recommend because they charge you know too much. And this is a nice sweet spot. It's a great place for a very low risk thing, right? Because you don't want to go out and have your first reading be you spent $800 on something, and then you get really disappointed. So, you know, it's this? Is this? I'm a low risk kind of person, so, like, I like the fact that this is low this is low risk.

Sally Hawk  1:00:35  
Yeah, yeah, yeah. My very first reading, Brian, after I had a significant loss before I knew it was a medium. My very first reading was $50 $50 it was by a medium who had no certifications, had only had some training, and she she helped me for over two and a half hours. Yeah, the first part of it was on hour 15. She just kept going, going, going, going. She had so many details. It was so good. And then she rescheduled more time with me and didn't charge me for it. And I realized that number one, that's what's that's what service looks like, right? She was really wanted my friend to be able to tell me everything she wanted to tell me about her death, because there were some very important details there that needed to be dealt with, but she was doing it for all the right reasons, and she was this incredible instrument. She was just this incredible instrument. So it taught me a lot, right from the very beginning, about what's possible and how many of the the traps around mediumship just aren't necessary. And, you know, obviously Spirit put that right in their designs too. Yeah, exactly.

Brian Smith  1:01:51  
Sherry, anything that I didn't ask you that I should have?

Sherry Abdou  1:01:57  
No no. I mean, we can sit here for another hour. I think we're both so passionate about this topic. And the only thing I would add is any parent or anyone who has just recently had someone transition that may see us as joyful and and very bright as we speak about the topic. Don't mistake that for the reverence we hold for what you're going through. We're very passionate about this work. So just to make a distinction that we understand we've had loss, we understand grief, and you know, just just wanted to make that distinction.

Brian Smith  1:02:43  
Yeah, that's a really good point. I always try to remember to do that too, because for me, it's been, it'll be 10 years in June since my daughter passed. So I want to be mindful people that are in that early grief who might be thinking, you know, I'm never going to get back to to joy or passion again. And I want to let people know that that is possible, but we have to also honor you know where we are today. So appreciate you sharing that. I want to thank you guys, both for for being here this afternoon, when thank you for what you're doing with with very soul. So we've said it 1000 times, but it's very soul.com. So V, E, R, Y, if you have any doubts, if you're listening to this, you've never had a mediumship reading. It's a great place to get started. If you have had a reading and you need another reading, it's a great place to find somebody who's trusted to do that again. So that, I want to say thank you guys, and have a great afternoon. Thank you,

Sherry Abdou  1:03:36  
Brian, thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai