Ep. 4: My (Unfiltered!) Story

And I just said, "God, I'm sorry. The deal's off. I can't do it." Welcome to The Prosperous Woman Podcast. I'm Claire Sellers, a business mentor and coach who is absolutely obsessed with helping you create the business of your dreams and your most prosperous life. Tune in for inspiring conversations with extraordinary women that will propel you towards becoming a prosperous woman. Hello and welcome to a very special episode of The Prosperous Woman. This is my unfiltered story. And honestly, I don't really know what I'm about to say. This is going to be a little bit of a different format from my other episodes, but I don't trust people who I don't know and whose stories I don't connect with. And I consider myself a storyteller. I love telling stories. And so I just wanna kind of give you a little bit of a, a little bit of a heroine's journey, if you will, because we all have that. We all have our own journey of, how we went from A to B to C to Z and back again to A, and then we went back to C. And sometimes it takes us around the world. I've done at least 3 Eat, Pray, Loves during my day. Probably I'm about to go on my 4th. Hopefully that'll end soon. But I just wanna kind of take you back to the beginning because I think it's so easy, and maybe this resonates with you, Like sometimes the path feels so blurry. Like sometimes you can't see why God or the universe or whatever put you in this situation or took this away or ended this relationship or brought you to this place or whatever it might be. Sometimes you just cannot see the dots connecting and I've had so many clients so many moments in my life where I have just been on my knees, God, I don't understand why I'm being taken here or why this is happening. But somehow, some way, at some point, I'm always able to see the dots connecting. And my business journey has been the greatest testament of that. And so I just want to have like kind of a little bit of a fireside chat here where I tell you a lot of the things that I wouldn't probably talk about, you know, on Instagram or in some of my other platforms, because I want you to know that I'm learning and growing with you. And I've been in so many of the situations and places that you have been in and that you might be experiencing in this moment. And so my hope in this episode is that maybe you just derive a little bit of hope, or maybe you just can connect with me in a way that maybe you haven't been able to before. So when I tell stories, I like to go all the way back to the beginning. And my upbringing, I was born in Atlanta, Georgia. And that is so important to me because I'm a Southern girl. And, you know, my parents really raised me with Southern values. And it, it's— Something that has been so important in my business journey because it's the way that I be, the way that I am has a warmth to it. And I've been told this over and over and over again that makes me a coach that a lot of people have been looking for because I have a way of connecting very quickly and it just comes naturally from my heart because I'm so I'm so insanely curious. And so I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and had a really wonderful childhood. Of course it wasn't perfect, but one of the things about my childhood that was so impactful through the lens of my business journey was my mother. And I hope to have her on the show at some point, but— Yeah. She didn't go to college and she was a bank teller. And I'm gonna let her tell this story one day 'cause she's much more funny and charming than me. But, you know, she didn't have a college degree. She was a bank teller. She was a single mom of my sister. And she went on vacation once and she had this idea. Mm-hmm. That all hotels should be run under the same software system. And I'm not gonna go into the details of her story because I want her to tell it, but she built a business that revolutionized the hospitality industry and she became the first woman inducted in the Hospitality Hall of Fame. I'm a third-generation entrepreneur. My dad was also an entrepreneur. He passed away when I was 21, which I'll get into, but— Yeah. You know, I just, I have these incredibly vivid memories of my childhood of watching my mom come home from work in these very fancy suits with her black briefcase and, you know, high stiletto heels. And I just remember looking at her and thinking like, she's got something going on here. Like she, there is a part of this woman that is so unstoppable. And I think that that instilled the energy and the vitality of entrepreneurship in me from such a young age. And it gave me permission to start businesses at as young as 8 years old. So I had my first business when I was 8 years old. It was a, I was selling very weird, cooking concoctions. Now, this wasn't a profitable business, I will say. My first profitable business was actually a jewelry company and it was called Coca Designs. And I would design jewelry and then I would host these huge trunk shows. So I did, you know, all the marketing, all the sales, sales, all the outreach. I did the pricing. I did, you know, the profit and loss. I mean, I was, I for sure made 5 figures in that business and I was 15 or 16 years old. My best friend and I did it together. And, you know, I remember when I got my first business card for that company and there was something inside something inside of me that was ignited. And I remember my sister is a, she owns a PR firm. And so she designed my business cards for me. And I remember they were mint green and olive green and Coca Design meant company with a cause because a portion of my proceeds went to support single women who were living in Haiti, which was an organization that I was involved with through my church and through my family. And my school actually. And I just remember like this concept of every business is just a production. And I remembered, you know, like I literally remember sitting on my bed and making these, I would make necklaces and earrings and like very intricate designs. And you know, we would have the trunk show coming up the next day day and I would have to oversee the catering. And I mean, my mom and dad made me do all of this on my own. They did not help me. They let me use our home, which I thank them for that. We also eventually started renting out and using other spaces. But I just, it was like something in me always had a natural ability to see any dream and just make it a reality. And as I grew up, theater became really like the centerfold of my life. And I think it's because I had this affinity for production, like for seeing a dream, give me a script. And I did a lot of stage management and production management in addition to acting, but— Yeah. I remember in high school, our director, he would ask me to be the stage manager for the show. And I just remember like getting the script and it was almost like I could see the entire thing from end to end within minutes. And it's so funny because the same thing happens the minute I have a conversation with a woman. I can identify where she is in her business journey and where she can, not only where she needs to go, but where it's— Yeah. Impossible for her to go. And so this was a theme that kept coming up for me over and over and over again in my life. And I went off, I graduated high school, I was the star of many of the plays, but I also thrived being in production. And so because of that, I decided, well, I'm going to go to New York City and study study theater. Like that was just, it wasn't an option. And I remember the moment I found out that I got into my college, I was on a plane actually on the way back from New York on vacation with my family. And I found out I got into this school and I just remember thinking like I had made it, like that was it. And this is when things get interesting because I moved to New York and I got in the room with all these people at this theater school who wanted it so bad, so much more than I ever could have. And I completely lost my confidence. And what happened is that I was far too proud and far too ashamed to have to ever tell anyone I made a mistake. I don't actually wanna study theater. And so I did what I knew to do, which was stick it out, see it through, follow it through. I ended up adding a business minor because of my mom. I knew I was good at business and I thought, hey, like when I come out of this, at least I'll have business, right? I ended up moving into directing because I thought, you know, I love the production piece and that felt less intimidating to me. And so for me, it was the dots of the theater piece that now, just now, you know, at almost 37, just now are connecting to me, for me, because I'm able to really see how, you know, just having this podcast and being able to, you know, conceptualize and produce this podcast. And the photo shoots that I do and the ideas that I come up with for my programs and running essentially a little TV show over on Instagram, like it all is so connected. And there was no right or wrong, good or bad about my choice to pursue theater in New York. I'm so grateful. And I'm gonna actually be talking about a lot of what I learned and how I use theater and my theater skills, not only in sales, but in business building and other episodes. But I just think it's really important for people to hear that no matter where you are in your path, it's the perfect place. You just might not be able to see it yet. And so the other reason that things got interesting is that I graduate. Mm-hmm. Unfortunately, my dad passed away when I was 21, about a month before my high school graduation. It was absolutely devastating. And that took me almost a decade, to be honest, to unravel and to heal from. And that too, it's like, why did my dad have to die right before I graduated high school? He had planned this huge party for me. Yeah. And he wasn't even gonna get to be there. And all my friends' dads were there. And why me? Why me? Why me? And now looking back, I can see it had to be that way because it shifted my entire family dynamic. And it gave an opportunity for my mom and my sisters and I to rise up and to come together as women in a way that was so powerful. Yeah. So necessary and so crucial. And so looking back, of course, losing a parent is, I think, one of the most devastating things that can happen to you, but I'm able to look back on that with a heart full of so much love and gratitude for the experience of losing my father because it broke my heart open and gave me the capacity to love and to care and to heal that I would've never had the opportunity had he not passed away. The other thing that, you know, his passing created was a shift in my family's economic situation. And so all of a sudden it was kind of like, all right, you know, we gotta make money, we gotta get a job. And unfortunately I graduated during the pandemic. I mean, not the pandemic, the recession. And there were not many jobs. And so I took a job, the only job I applied for so many jobs, I remember frantically applying and I applied for and got this job at a PR firm. And I remember on the first day they said, "You need to wear minimum 2-inch heels and we only wear skirts here." And I thought to myself, "What have I signed up for?" I'd never worked in PR. I had a degree in theater. Mm-hmm. Now I had worked in production and little known fact, actually you guys will love this. I was actually, I used to intern for the Oxygen Network and they ended up hiring me. This is, I don't know if I can say this on here, but I guess I can. So I was, if you guys know the Bad Girls Club, I was the online host of the Bad Girls Club. So I was in the chat room for all the live chats on the phone with the bad girls. Like talking to the bad girls as the fans in the chat were saying like, "Where'd she get that dress?" And I'd have to ask the bad girl and then put it on the chat. So I mean, I had all sorts of crazy internships and jobs and worked in TV and my dream was, and still is in many ways, to have my own TV show. I interned with Rachael Ray, I love her. And, you know, No productions were hiring for paid work post-recession. They just weren't. And I had to make money. Like I was on my own. And so I got hired at this PR firm. I have to wear 2-inch heels. I have to wear skirts. I'm like, "Oh my God." And that at the time, like, and this is right after my dad had passed away. And so at the time, you know, that— Yeah. Job almost broke me. I would cry on the way and I would cry on the way home calling my mom like, "I just don't think I can do it." And she was like, "You need to make it 6 months, 6 months." They were, I won't even tell y'all how little I was being paid because it was under $10 an hour. And I mean, it was just, It was the best thing that ever happened to me. Again, because I was basically thrown to the wolves. I remember one day the receptionist said, "Take the P-card and go get lunch for the team." And I was like, "Okay." I had to go to my computer and Google what a P-card was, a purchasing card, because I literally didn't know. I had never worked in like a business setting before. And I remember, you know, again, they were like, "You need to put together a budget for, you know, this thing that we're working on." I literally had never opened Excel before. And I remember the girl that was also kind of like the most junior, she was blonde, I can't remember her name, but I remember I was just sobbing tears with an Excel spreadsheet open because I just like, I couldn't figure out how to do a sum formula like to save my life because I went to theater school, we didn't use Excel in theater school. And I'm sitting there sobbing and she's like, "Are you okay?" And I'm like, "Yeah, I'm fine, I'm fine." But what that job taught me was to figure it out, to figure it out. And so that job, you know, and after 6 months it was mutually agreed upon that it was no longer a good fit. And so we went our separate ways, which is fine, But that job, again, I mean, it broke me down. I remember being 3:00 AM trying to teach myself all these systems and tools so that I could be there the next day and seem somewhat competent. It almost broke me. But now I know that that was the perfect first job for me. It was the perfect first job for me. And what happened next is I ended up working, falling into a friend of mine. I called her crying. I said— Hi. "I'm just so unhappy at this job." And she said, "Well, I know these guys that are starting a private school and I bet that they need help." And so I ended up being one of the first people hired to start an incredible education institution that I'm still incredibly passionate about today. And the gift of that job was that I basically learned how to build a business from scratch, a startup. And that was literally better than an MBA. And the founders had so much trust in me because I was one of the first people they hired. And the incredible mentors that I had there who, they taught me how to use Excel. They taught me how to build and manage multimillion-dollar budgets. They taught me how to be a leader. They taught me how to lead teams. And by the end, I was leading teams of hundreds of people managing multimillion-dollar budgets. And I was on the leadership team. I wasn't even 30 yet. And that was such a gift for me because I really cut my chops on business during that experience. But what happened, and this is where things get good. So I hope you guys buckle up if you're with me. So what happened during that, my time, I was there about 9 years and I'm so grateful for that experience. But over the course of that experience, there was this thing that was just eating at me. It was this voice, and maybe you know this voice too. It was a whisper. And the whisper was something like, "Claire, you're meant to do your own thing. What are you doing?" Mm-hmm. Claire, it's time to move on. Claire, you can do more than this. Like, Claire, people need you. And it just was this voice over and over and over again. And so what did I do? I said, you know what? I'm gonna go make more money. I'm gonna get a better job and I'm gonna make more money in a C-suite position. And so I made a deal with God. I said, God, if they give me $250,000 at this other company, I will leave and I will take the job. And I interviewed at this company that I got in with through a friend of a friend. And of course they said, "We want you and we're gonna give you more than you asked for and we're gonna give you a sign-on bonus." And my stomach dropped. I'll never forget being in the boardroom on Fifth Avenue in front of two very young, attractive men who were running this big company. And I was in my black suit dressed up just like my mom, 'cause I— Yeah. Basically dressed up just like her. And I remember saying, "Thank you so much. I will, you know, think about it and let you know." And I ran outta that building. I threw myself up against the brick wall of that building and I just said, "God, I'm sorry. The deal's off. I can't do it." I couldn't do it. The next day, a friend of mine said, Claire, I think you need to go to this coaching program. And I said, "Why? I don't want to be a coach." And she said, "Just go. It's going to help you get clarity on what your thing is." And I said, "Okay, fine. I'll go." So I sign up for this coaching program. I'm running late from work. It starts at noon. I walk in and there's a room full of people milling around the room and they're saying, "What is your dream?" And I froze. My stomach dropped again. I froze. I didn't have a dream. And this is where my purpose clicked for me in a way that I can't even, it's hard to actually put into words and I've never told it like this before, to be honest. I remember milling around the room and this very nice middle-aged man came up to me and said, "Hi, I'm Tom. What's your dream?" And all I could think of was to travel. Mm-hmm. I mean, I must have been white as a ghost. And then it was the next person and they said, "Hi, I'm Susie. What's your dream?" And I said, "To travel with a little more confidence." And then the next person and the next person. And after about 10 times of doing this with these random strangers who would soon become family, I was saying, "My dream is to travel the world." And over the course of the weekend, I created a vision that was so strong and so powerful that was rooted in me somehow finding a way to take my job and travel to all four corners of the earth and to get clarity on my purpose and to help other people do the same. It was like the most— I don't think I've ever had a lightning bolt clarity moment like that, but it was so clear and it was so potent. And I just knew that that was my next step. So I go home that night and lo and behold, because this is what happens, as I told you, When you're on the path of your purpose, the right people, places, and things will fall into your lap. I'm on Instagram and I see an ad for a program that says, "Take your job on the road and work remotely. We'll do the rest." And I thought, "Oh my God, this is it." I applied that night. And this is basically, you know, it's similar to Remote Year. The company is actually no longer in business, but it's similar to Remote Year. You pay them a fee, they organize your housing, your office, and you get to travel with the same community. I did this for over a year and during that time it wasn't all roses and butterflies at all, at all. But what I did is I convinced my company to let me work remotely and it was possible and it was aligned. And, you know, I was able to go all over the world to, you know, incredible places like Bali and— Bali. Australia and India. And I had this whole Eat, Pray, Love experience. I fell in love and everything in between. And what also happened is what I call, which happens in any hero's journey, it's the moment of surrender, the moment of, "God, I'm so lost." I was so lost. I thought, "Okay, I'm going to go around the world and my purpose is going to be clear and I'm going to understand." Yeah. I'm going to get it right. And what actually happened is I just got more confused. And so I'm sitting there in Bali of all places sobbing, "God, please help me." And it was at that point I got an email from someone named Helen House, who's going to be on this show. And she said, she had told me to email her when I was in Bali and she said— Hello. Email this person. And I emailed my first, who ended up becoming my first coach, Tracy. And I talk about Tracy all the time. And I remember when she told me how much it cost to work with her, it was $2,000. I almost fell outta my chair. And I said, "Can you give me a discount?" Now I had the money, but I didn't have me. And hiring her was the first time in my life that I actually chose me. In a way that shape-shifted the rest of my life. And I went on this journey around the world. I ended up making a travel TV show. I ended up starting a travel app. I started trying all these different things, having all these different conversations. And what I realized is that I was taking myself through a process that actually created purpose clarity. And I developed all these different tools and practices that became the foundation of my first one-on-one program. Mm-hmm. Called Freedom U, which I no longer offer, but many of you listening were probably a part of that. Because I realized that once I got the clarity on my thing, which was, I just wanna help people, I just wanna be a leader, which is what coaching is, how could I not help other women do the same? Like, how could I not? And it just, again, it was like I was back in that coaching room and the second piece started to click after working with this Coach, and actually taking action and trying new things, trying different things. And it took me putting myself out of my environment, trying new things, trying different things, and really understanding the power of choosing yourself and taking inspired action over and over and over again, because I had spent— Yeah. A decade in New York kind of doing a great job. I was making great money. I had a gorgeous apartment. I had beautiful clothes. I was dating. Nothing was broken, but I just felt, I didn't feel that sense of purpose and fulfillment that I knew was possible for me. And so I continued to travel and eventually ended up in Mexico. Wow. And I ended up in Mexico because my best friends from New York said, "Claire, we're going on vacation and we think you should come with us." And one of the things I teach my clients is to follow the opening. And this was probably, you know, not the first, but a big moment where I followed the opening coming to Mexico, you know, where I'm living at the moment. And, you know, I really learned very quickly the importance of feeling grounded and safe settled in a place when you're building your business. Because, you know, I had said, "Okay, I'm gonna start coaching. I'm gonna start a coaching business." And to be accepted into the certification program, I'm a certified ProActive coach, you have to have 6 paying clients. I needed to be grounded in one place in order to do that. And so my kind of next iteration of business growth really came into play when I settled down and settled into life in Mexico. And that's really where I put a stake in the ground and said, you know, I'm gonna build this business while I have an investor in my dream. And this is something I work with, you know, all of my girls inside the Dream Accelerator, which is my program for women that are just starting their business or have a desire to start a business, but don't know what that business is. Yeah. Is yet. And I love when women have an investor in their dream. And so, you know, I had a consulting job that was essentially my bread and butter. It covered all of my expenses. I didn't need my business to support me. And that I think was the biggest gift that I gave myself because I had an investor that, you know, I was working for, but I was, I've never once been in a place with my business of, I need clients, I need this to work. And I believe that's why I've continued to be so successful because I had that investor in the dream in those first, you know, 1 to 3 years. And so over the last 6 years, you know, I've been here in Mexico and my business has continued to uplevel and the type of woman that I work with has continued to shift. And, you know, I've coached women on purpose, I've done executive coaching, I've done corporate coaching, I've done dating coaching. I have worked with all types of women from all types of walks of life. And what I am going to be sharing with you in some of the more business content solo episodes that are coming soon is really the principles and practices and tools and frameworks and methods that I have identified as tried and true that have helped me build my business from literally zero to easy multi-six figures. And I say that with such humility and gratitude. I don't say it from a place of, "I'm a six-figure coach," because that's not my vibe. It's like, this business has built— been a labor of love. And yes, I don't work more than 20 hours a week because that is the lifestyle that I've chosen. Mm-hmm. And I don't believe that we're here to work. I think we're here to live. And I think that sharing these tools and frameworks with you in a way that, obviously I can't take you as deep as if you're in my programs, but in the podcast, I'm able to take you much deeper than you're able to read in 2,200 characters on Instagram. And so it has been a journey. It has been a winding road. Since I started It's Claire Sellers, you know, my coaching business. We're going on 8 years now. And I mean, my business is one of the greatest loves of my life. And, you know, I'm in relationship with my business and I trust my business. Why? Because I am my business. And that's the type of business that I love helping women build. And Again, going back to my Southern roots and going back to all the things I've shared with you during this kind of secret, secret, unfiltered look at my life, I could have never predicted that I would be here. Even last year, I could have never predicted that my business would be where it is today. And what I see I see for myself a year from now is probably fractional compared to where I actually will be. And that's just because that's how I choose to live my life. That's how I choose to invest in myself. This has not been a solo journey. I have had coaches and mentors and you name it, I've had it. I honestly, like most of my expenditary, if that's a word, income goes back into my business. It goes back into growing and nurturing my business because I believe in me. I'd rather spend my money on me than in the stock market or on fancy clothes. I love those too and I buy those too, but I love investing in myself because I have limitless ROI. And I hope that every word I'm saying here today, you're able to take in and feel as true for you, because you are always your safest asset. You are always your best investment. You are the only thing on this planet that literally has limitless ROI. Screw the stock market, screw crypto. It's you. It's you. It's you. And the sooner that you can start believing in that and feeling that, the faster you will actually start living a life that not only feels in alignment, but that's also prosperous. And so I hope just sharing my story with you today has given you a little bit of an inside look at kind of where I've come from, how I got to where I am, and also tell you that I'm here to support you. There's nothing more important to me in my life in this moment than elevating other women and helping other women understand and grow their own personal potential and power and deepen in their impact. Because one of my teachers, Jai Dev, always says, "If you have a mind, you have a mission." And so you have a mission on this earth and we are not here to build someone else's dream. That has been a through line throughout my entire life. It has been very Claire Sellers. And I'm just so passionate about helping you create the life and business of your dreams. And so I could go on and on, but I just want you to know a little bit more about who I am, my heart, what matters to me, my values. And I hope that by just kind of off the cuff sharing a little bit about my story, you feel closer to me and more connected to me because at the end of the day, That's what I want. That's what matters to me. I'm people first always. So I would love to hear what part of this episode resonated with you. I know so many of you have come from corporate backgrounds and you've made the transition to entrepreneur or maybe you're longing for that. And so send me a DM over on Instagram @itsclairesellers and just let me know what part of this episode really resonated with you. I would also love to hear in the comments, like just tell me what part resonated with you. And if you're listening to this and you're like, "I feel like she's the woman who gets me and could support me and walk this journey with me to my next level of evolution," there are two ways to plug in with me. The first is the Dream Accelerator. This is for any woman who either is in the very early stages of her business, is just thinking about starting a business, or has no clue what her business is, but knows that she has a business inside of her that's waiting to be born, the Dream Accelerator is the place for you to plug in with me. If you are a woman who has a business and you are looking to scale and grow and really be in a supportive and nurturing environment that's equal parts strategy, mindset, energetics, and also just like— Community. Love and community, then the Opulence Mastermind is the place for you. So those are the two places where I would love to plug in with you. And you can just shoot me a DM @itsclairesellers and we will find a home for you in my world. Thank you for listening today. It has been such a joy to share my story and I'm so excited to just keep going on this journey together on The Prosperous Woman. Bye. Thank you for tuning in to the Prosperous Woman Podcast. I am so grateful for your presence and for being a part of this community. Feel free to DM me @itsclairesellers on Instagram. I would love to connect with you and hear what resonated with you in this episode. Don't forget to subscribe to the show, and if you enjoyed what you heard today, leave a 5-star review. Your feedback means the means the world to me and helps me reach more incredible women just like you. And because I love to spoil you, just DM me a screenshot of your review on Instagram, and I'll send you my free Prosperity Activation Course as a thank you. It's my way of investing in you and your dreams. Thank you.