EP 126: Net Worth Starts With Self-Worth | Jessica Zweig

Welcome to Radical Responsibility, the podcast dedicated to ridding the world of blame and shame, where we explore the issues you care about from a unique perspective. 100% ownership for each and every circumstance we face in life, day in and day out. Hi. Welcome to this episode of the Radical Responsibility podcast. I'm your host, Fleet Maul, and I'm really excited today to share a conversation with you that I had with Jessica Swig. Welcome of Simply Be. Jessica is an amazing branding expert and consultant and entrepreneur who helps people really discover their authentic self and authentic voice and then build their personal brand around that. So we had a great conversation about just how do you do that? How do you let you know, all the things fall away that are not part of who we really are? All the expectations, other people's expectations, all the boxes we've been trying to squeeze ourselves into are lives. How do we let the sides of the box just fall away and really relax into just being who we really are and discovering our authentic self and our authentic voice? And a cool thing is that there's always an audience when we discover that authenticity. For every person on the planet when they discover that authentic voice, there is an audience for that voice. And I've been privileged to witness, you know, hundreds and hundreds of entrepreneurs who are being very successful in really small niches and just ordinary folks like you and me from all walks of life who have done the work to relax into, to discover their authentic voice and been able to build a successful brand and business around that. So Jessica Swag is really the expert that's going to guide us on that journey. So I really encourage you to give this one a listen. She's a really exciting person to have a conversation with.

Really excited to be here today with Jessica Swig. How are you today?

I'm wonderful. Great to be with you, Fleet.

Well, welcome to the summit. I'm really excited about our conversation today, so I'm going to tell our audience it's a little bit about you, and then we'll just jump right in.

Okay, Sounds great.

Jessica Sweig is an entrepreneur, personal branding expert, CEO and founder of her own personal branding agency, Simply Be, soon to be published author, podcaster, and women empowerer. I like that you created a word there. One who empowers women.

And her new book, Simply Be, is coming out February 16th. So that's really exciting.

Yep.

So wish you all the best with that book, and I am excited to read it myself. And we're going to cover a little bit of the territory your book covers today, but I'd like to start off with a passage that's on your website where you kind of introduce yourself. And so I'm going to read it first and then ask you a question. So here's the quote. Through most of my 20s, I struggled with body dysmorphia, romantic codependency, massively low self esteem, and thousands of dollars of credit card debt. It took a lot of therapy, deep spiritual journeys, self work, and most of all, self responsibility to finally realize I was out of alignment with my true self and that I didn't have to be everything to everyone. And in fact, doing that was robbing me of living my best life. So let's start here. How did you awaken to the power of self responsibility and find your way into the healing that you needed to do to get your life back on track and get your career on track?

Well, I think it was a series of things, you know, I think you.

There's always so much more to learn, right? The lessons are never done. And so, you know, I had a couple significant moments in my late 20s and early 30s where I would really call them forks in the road, breakdowns to breakthroughs. And one of them was a massive heartbreak in my late 20s with a man I was with for about five years. And I didn't really realize how codependent I was until that relationship ended. And that was really my Saturn return, like around the age of 28. They speak about that in astrology. And that was truly, I think, the very first time in my life that I learned to love myself, get to know myself, date myself, create my life on my own terms as just, just a woman in the world. And that really set me on a course of deep spiritual transformation and work. I mean, I learned in that experience. You know, I said this at one point, when your heart shatters, you know that deeply, it has to expand for you to feel the depth of that pain. It increased my capacity to feel. And so when I came up and through and out of that breakup, my heart had expanded and I was able to feel joy and music and laughter and life in a completely different way. And so that really taught me just so much about my own capacity to experience life to the fullest. And it was around that time I was also running a business and I had a partner I was working with for seven years and this big brand that I had built and I wrote my whole identity around it. And I ended up walking away after another one of those breakdowns to breakthroughs because I was out of alignment and I was constantly getting sick and I was operating from ego and toxic upset in every which direction. And so I had to empower myself to leave that business, which was in its own way, a breakup that was like cutting off my, my right arm because it was a piece of me, my business. If you're, as any entrepreneur would understand, it's not something you do, it is you right when you're running your own company. And so I walked away from my first company and that was, I think, one of one of the most significant, you know, breakdowns to breakthroughs. And so those are like the highlights, if you will. But I think that there have been, I know there have been many macro and micro moments of, to be honest, fleet mistakes and failing and, you know, just not always showing up as your highest self to learn, you know, how to, you know, grow and deal with things more effectively and with more consciousness and empowerment and self love and self respect and self awareness. And so that has been definitely a huge focus of my life. I mean, I am an entrepreneur. I run this, this great company. We talk about that. But I would say that the most significant part of my life is actually my spiritual relationship with Source and the universe. And it guides me every single moment of every single day. And that is really what I hope to blend, if you will, in my platform. And my message is how we can be conscious business people and really use our platforms, our personal brands to move the world forward in a positive direction. And I do believe that, you know, that is the work I'm here to do.

Wow. Well, both of those life events you described, the breakup of a long term relationship and then walking away from a company you had built or helped build with someone else. And those can be devastating events and you could have fallen into blame and bitterness and. And yet instead you, you somehow owned it and found your way into a deeper relationship with Source. And can you talk a little bit about that fork in the road? I mean, did you feel the pull at all to, you know, kind of go into more of that victim mindset and blaming, or did you just naturally not want to go there and found a way to empower yourself? Because I think that fork in the road is so pivotal for so many of us in our lives at various times.

Yeah, I mean, I think that you get to a point where something, you know, whether it's a relationship, whether it's a business.

Just because it's comfortable doesn't mean that it's right. And I feel that, you know, I actually had this really powerful conversation with a girl that I had coffee with randomly. This was years ago, right before I actually left my first business. And, and I was at coffee with her at Starbucks. And I was kind of bragging about my business and I was like, I can do Cheeky, my former company. I can do it in my sleep. I got it so down I could do it in my sleep. And she said to me, why do you want to be asleep? Don't you want to be awake, wide awake to your life? And I think that if I were really to look back honestly at that five year relationship that I was in, it was comfortable, it was all I knew, you know, and I was kind of sleepwalking through it. And as I was really growing as a person and like the relationship was this container. And it's like this business was this container. And you're like sitting inside of this, you know, container, almost envisioned as like a, like a box with paper and string. And then all of a sudden, like, you, you, you're busting out of the box because you just don't feel fit in it anymore. And you naturally have to then sort of burn down, you know, what, what you had to create something new. And it is painful. It is the most painful experience. Transformation, transformational work isn't easy. Like, if it was, everybody would sign up to do it. Like, be careful what you wish for when you say you want to do personal development work. Because it's not a cakewalk at all. It's probably the hardest path you'll ever run, but it is the most worthy. And I think that's really honestly why we're here, to evolve as a species, as a soul. And those experiences are meant for you. They don't happen to you, they happen for you. And it's really, really, really hard to believe that in the moment. You know, it's easy to say that in hindsight. It's easy to look back at like 2020 or, you know, losing a job or, you know, ending a relationship or someone quitting on your company, it's like it sucks in the moment, but you're like, if you can really, really stop and just take a deep breath and connect with your heart in that moment and allow yourself to feel the peace with it instead of resisting it, that is, that has been a huge, huge learning curve for me and a huge growth moment for me. Instead of wanting to fight and react and kind of succumb to the victim or the drama, you know, it's just really like taking a deep breath and allowing your body to of course, feel the feelings because it's going to take a while to process such significant events, but really reminding yourself in the moment, this is happening for my highest good. The universe is looking out for me, no matter how difficult this is. We can do hard things, as Glennon Doyle says. And I. I do. I truly believe that's what shifts us into who we're meant to become more than anything, our life's challenges. Not that. Not the. Not the wins. You know, it's really quite true.

Well, it's really beautifully expressed, and I think you're talking about something really important there, because personally, my own experience, I feel like life is continually calling us, or calling me to awaken, at any rate. And it's often through those incredible challenges that we're called to awaken. And, you know, the name of the summit is the best year of your life. And we're hoping to inspire people to claim this year is the best year of their lives. And I actually think that life is actually constantly knocking on the door saying, hey, this is going to be the best year of your life if we're willing to awaken to it. And it sounds like you kind of instinctually were ready to answer that call.

Yeah, for sure.

So at some point, you realized you had something to share with the world in terms of how you had started, I guess, kind of reinventing yourself after you let go of your previous business and you had the courage to launch another business and launch yourself and have it really be centered around you. I mean, you're basically putting yourself forward as the voice and the face of your business. I know you've built a beautiful team of amazing professionals. Now we'll talk more about that. But. But you're out there, you know, and it's a lot of vulnerability and stepping out in the world and saying, here I am. I'm. I'm Jessica's swag. And, you know, this is. I'm the business. Right. And. Yeah, so what. How did you find the courage to do that? Or maybe the clarity or the vision or what?

You know, it's funny, you know, no one's ever asked me that, Fleet. No one's ever even asked me that. I.

You know, I. I think very much so. It's just a natural expression of who I authentically am is to. I went to school for theater. I'm a double Leo. I always felt comfortable, like, on a stage, and. And yet I used to. I went to school for theater, and yet I kind of hated being an actor because I was always being forced to sort of be someone else. That I wasn't. And so becoming an entrepreneur and a CEO and a face of my own business, it was my opportunity to play the role of me, I guess, and have that be something that was in service of other people and meaningful to other people versus it just being to like stroke my ego. When I was acting or running my first company.

I also, I said this in my bio. I spent a long time, time of my life not feeling good enough, not feeling worthy, not feeling comfortable in my own skin and having done the work to really learn to like myself, like not even just love myself, like myself, you know, enough to put myself out there. And I'm no different than anybody else, right? Like, this is what I teach people. Like your story matters and it has the power to inspire people by virtue of the fact that it's just yours because no one has it. And there are 100% guaranteed people, probably many people who need your story. And I really believe that about others. Like I do believe that about every single person in the world. And I've witnessed my life change based on people who are courageous and willing to put themselves out there too, like Daniel Laporte and Brene Brown and Gabby Bernstein and Gary Vaynerchuk and all the people that I admire. You know.

Why not me? You know, why not you? Why not anybody? And so I really wanted to help people.

To do that. And my first business I ran for seven years was a digital marketing company. And I learned space of social and marketing really, really early on in my career and kind of became, you know, proficient in it to a degree, fluent in it. And yeah, I'm this, you know, pretty spiritual person and really love humanity and really wanted to bring more humanity into everything did. And so I sort of merged those two spaces to create Simply be. My, my expertise and background in digital marketing and my passion for people, hence a personal branding company, which we do very differently at Simply Be. And I kind of had to walk the talk, you know, I had to kind of own my own brand as face and founder of my business. And, you know, I realized that I had a personal brand by accident. I realized that after seven years of running my first company that I had an asset called my name, called my reputation. And if I did something really consciously and intentionally with it versus accidentally, what would that look like? And that was really the dawn of Simply Be in the book and all the things that you see today. So I'm really, I'm really quite, I'm really quite struck by that question. I just, I think that there's Been a lot of things that have gone into deciding, you know, to be the face of my business. It's a lot more layered, I think, than, than I even realized.

Well, you know, this is really, I think, important for audience and, you know, and in our country and a lot of the world today, one of the.

Best ways to succeed and to develop resources for yourself and your family is to start a business now. It's risky. A lot of businesses fail. It's not the only way you can have a success in all kinds of career, careers. But, but this idea of personal branding.

You know, I'm beginning to understand more and more how, how important it is to whatever we do, you know, wherever we're working, whether we're working a small company, a big corporation where we start our own company, we're all in business for ourselves. We, we have some value to bring to the world. And in many ways.

The fear that keeps us from stepping out, really offering who we are to the world is actually doing the world a disservice as well as us, because the world needs who we are, each and every one of us, in our gifts. Right? And so, you know, I think for some people, especially, you know, talking about, for those of us who have a lot of strong spiritual values and you know, we might think, a lot of people think, well, marketing, advertising, all that personal branding, it feels like self promoting, promotion. It doesn't feel spirit. You know, there's this whole hesitancy around that I think, I mean, there's a million reasons why maybe we don't step into our power and launch that business or change a career or ask for the new job or the promotion. But, but there's something about finding that self worth to, to step into that. And, and I wish you could talk more about that because that seems to really be part of the power of, of your approach with this idea of simply be.

Absolutely. So my book is called A no bullshit guide to increasing your self worth and your net worth by simply being yourself. And to be honest with you, Fleet, I don't really talk too much about finances at all in the book. It's kind of a misnomer because net worth can represent so many things to people. It can represent money in the bank. It can represent equity in your name and reputation. It can represent the depth of your platform. It can represent the depth of your joy and what you call abundance. Consider abundance. Like net worth is multifaceted, but it starts with self worth. And I think that.

There'S this question that I get a lot. It's like, who am I to put myself out there? Who am I to build a platform, call it my name. Who am I to be seen in the world as an expert? Who are you not to be? That's my response to that question. Who, who said, not you. And in fact, it has to be you. It's actually why you're here. And so before you get into the mechanics of your brand identity and your strategy and how you're going to build out your tactics and create all your content and pitch yourself to the media and all these things that, like, personal branding is known for, in my view, you've got to zoom way up, actually, way within. I'd rather say and believe, believe that what you have to say matters, that who you are is important. And that belief, that knowingness, that full body alignment, that trust in your own purpose, that is what actually makes it work. That's the magnetic piece to anyone that you might see out there building a successful platform. They decided that they were worth it first and are really, really trusting that every single day. And I just believe that that's really the work that I'm here to teach is, yeah, like, I can teach you how to write a beautiful blog and craft the perfect Instagram caption. And potentially how that works might not be relevant in 2029. Like, right. We've got, like, so much changing in the world of digital and I'm doing obviously my part in, like, navigating it, because it's my job, my company, but my real value, I believe, at simply BE is reminding people that they are the one. That's it. And that awakening and that moment of empowerment in like, that. Yes. That's actually what changes people's lives, like from a client perspective. Not perfect website. Even though I can help you build that. It's the. It's the. It's true. It's. It's the yes. You know, and when you say yes to yourself and you. You share that yes with the world, you give everyone else permission to say yes to themselves too. And that to me, is a world that I want to live in where people are fully awakened to their authenticity. And there's this whole spiel about authenticity being so overused. And my response to that is it should be. We should see authenticity everywhere. Let it be so overused because it's, it's where everyone is operating from and what a world that would be to see. So that's how we do, how we do it@simple EV.

Well, I want to, I want to ask you more about authenticity in A moment, but something you just said, I mean, I love what you said about saying yes to ourselves is actually, you know, supporting others and saying yes to themselves. And also that this just willing to step into your own power to put yourself out there in whatever form that takes.

It could actually be the entryway into further spiritual work, further personal development work. Because, you know, if you try to build a personal brand on top of unworthiness by pumping yourself up, it's going to crash and burn, obviously. But you know, to do the work, to feel good enough, to have enough self acceptance, self love, self compassion, feeling of your innate unconditional self worth, to then step into the world with competence, that really is the work of spiritual work and personal development. So I just love that, that these things actually are. Not only are they not separate, this could actually be a tremendous vehicle for personal growth. So I love that. So authenticity. Use the phrase unapologetic authenticity. So talk about that if you would.

So I mean, authenticity is a buzzword, has been for a while. And you know, I think there's a distinction between authenticity and unapologetic authenticity. And.

It'S an embodiment, you know, and I, and I don't know if I can swear on your thing, but it's like zero fucks given is what I call it. You know, you really have to know and be okay with the fact that not everyone is gonna like you. In fact.

You don't want everyone to like you. The more you that you are, the more you're gonna repel people. You just are. And at the same time, the more you're gonna attract and magnetize people who are at that same vibration and frequency, right? It's all energy. You know this. And so really, really understanding and doing the work to know who you are, but then build the confidence to shine and share who you are. And authenticity is not a. Is not a destination. I think is Brene Brown who said, like, it's the journey, right, of the daily practice of letting go of who we think we're supposed to be and embracing who we are. And in my view, the operative words in that quote are the daily practice of. It is a daily practice week. We, we grow and we become who we are in incremental, micro, gradual choices that we take on a daily basis and make decisions on a daily basis like who we're going to be and what we're going to choose to care about and how we're going to invest our energy and how we're going to show up. And authenticity is the embracing of that experience and really.

Allowing yourself to be flawed, allowing yourself to be totally imperfect and messy. And in fact, if you look at some of the most revered personal brands and thought leaders of our time, they are not perfect. They have had some real shadow and trauma and darkness in their life that they have had to persevere and are still persevering. And that sharing of that truth to me is, is what makes real authenticity exciting, is that integration. Like you can be Tony Robbins, you can have like this multi billion dollar company and help save all these people's lives and you know, give back a charity and billions of dollars, but you're still a human being at the end of the day. You're just a person. You know, remember that about every person that you idolize or like, who you hire as a healer. We're all just humans at the end of the day. And so I think really owning that as, as far as your message and your platform is concerned is really, really what I, I love to see and I think it's just the, I hope it's the future of where we're going as a society.

Well, that point you just made really points to the question you raised earlier. Why not me? Right. Because all the people that we admire out there that have done all these amazing things, they're ordinary human beings like us. And so why not me? And I love the way you were connecting Brene Brown's work around vulnerability with authenticity and. Yeah, absolutely. Beautiful. So you've got this company now with, I think you have about 12 people on your team. Yeah, about 12. And amazing professionals. You're working with high power clients, both individual clients and corporations. And so what's your secret to really? I mean, you've been in business since 2014, so that's seven years now. And you're successful and you're growing and you got your book coming out. So what. How do you keep it going and work with your team and get it all done? Because I think a lot of us maybe shy away from jumping in and creating something because we can't, we just kind of can't imagine being able to manage it all. Like we're trying to manage what we're doing right now and that's hard.

Yeah, I mean it's, it's, I think it's just growth begets growth. Right. So, you know, when I first started Simply Be, well, I started simply be in 2014 and then I restarted it in like 2016, 17, because I took a little birdwalk called a corporate job for two years and Then I came back and relaunched Simply be. And I was just me and I was a one woman show and I had a couple clients and, and then a couple clients became, you know, seven clients. And I had just enough money that I, or you know, work that I needed support, but not enough in real revenue to give someone like an amazing salary. I just brought on like an assistant and I think I paid her like $36,000 a year. And that now girl is my woman, is my creative director and runs a team of five people. And so I think it's just a leap of faith, one that you have to take that, you know, you might not have all the money in the world to hire someone, but you can sort of take it and trust that like it's an investment in your growth. Right? And so I just sort of did that in every. For most of my hiring and building my team, it's like I had just enough money to hire someone, but knowing that I would invest in that person, it would help me grow even more. And it kind of worked. It was, you know, I was right and, you know, really understanding how to build an org chart and really understanding like as you grow people, how do you structurally build an organization that isn't entirely flat? You know, I had it first a while like four or five people that all reported up to me, but that's not sustainable over time, especially as your team grows. So I built in hierarchy and I now only have a few people that report to me and then a few people report to each of them. And that's how, you know, I've, I've really learned that as a CEO, just how to really build a team in that way. And I think that it's all about finding, you know, the right people. It's, it's hard, like no one's ever going to love your business the way that you do. You know, people at the end of the day are, you know, it's a job and that's okay. And that has been a beautiful learning lesson for me of like, you know, I have a couple people on my staff that you know, are like the true ride or dies. Not that my, the rest of my staff isn't a ride or die, but, you know, everyone is following their own unique path. And I have a lot of young people and I know that they're not going to be with me, you know, forever. And so I think my, my number one priority is leading them is inspiring them is to give it, giving them something to believe in deeper than their paychecks. So that they show up and work really hard and you know, elevate with me as they elevate themselves. And that is a huge focus of mine as a leader, to really create a space where people can thrive. Culture is number one priority for me. It's like pretty much culture, sales, business development and then new product innovation and ideas. Like those are the three things I think any CEO should really be focused on. And then you have a staff to help you run the ship and letting go of control and like really trusting people. I mean that's still a journey that I'm on. Right. Because it's my business and it's like it's hard, but I learn and I grow every day. And I am just so grateful for the opportunity to be a leader. It's an honor and a privilege to be a leader and a true responsibility and has grown me as a person. In fact, I think leadership is one of the most profound tools in the personal development toolkit that you can take on. It's scary and vulnerable to be a leader, which is why it grows you so much.

Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. I think if you really want to live in a challenge, step into a leadership position, start your own business because you're just going to have challenges every single day of the year. And if you learn to thrive with that, it's really exciting and it's clear that you have. So I want to broaden this out to our topic which today's day of the summit is focused on financial health and well being and abundance and things, things like that. But I want to just a little more about personal branding. So we've been referencing that and I hope people have a sense of what it means. But could you say a little bit more about what you really mean about personal branding? Kind of at the innermost level of that, you have this idea of the personal brand hologram I think is a way, a tool you use in your work. But what does it mean universally for people to step into a personal brand? What is that really about?

So being your own brand means, I mean it means so many things, but at the end of the day it's about really extracting your unique value, what you do in the way that you do it, that no one else can, and putting words to that very simply and clearly, because branding is an exercise in clarity. Whether you're branding a product or a person. Right. We have to understand what it is, who it's for, how it's going to serve me within less than 30 seconds. Like that's Branding done well. And so, I mean that's, that's the polish and the, and the front face of what a brand can really do. But as we. How do we build that? Well, it's really coming. This hologram tool that I built, which is in my book, is really identifying four things and only four for the purposes of clarity, to really own as part of your message. And ideally those, those are topics or content buckets. I call them your brand pillars. And choosing what four pillars you're really going to own are, is the foundation to that clarity and that depth. Because ideally those four things are inclusive of what you do and what your professional expertise is and what you can talk about endlessly for the rest of your life if you had to when it comes to your craft. But who you, what you do isn't necessarily who you are. Who you are is more dynamic than what you do. And those things combined. You're doing this and you're beingness is really when you become that magnet, when you're willing to bring your humanity to your professional expertise and show up really, really real. That is where like the magic happens. And so we really work with our clients to find what are those four things? How do we tell a holistic 360 story that positions you as the person to hire, trust and spend money on while also being someone that is like likable and real and trustworthy and interesting and relatable. And so when you can really accomplish that into a very consistent platform, because I say if clarity is king, consistency is queen, you really have to stay the course. This is one of my biggest philosophies about personal branding and building your own. And it's, it's not that genius. In fact, it's opposite. But it's like you, I say this all the time. You are who you say you are over and over and over and over again. That's it. Come on the Internet in every which way, whether it's blogs, videos, Instagram, LinkedIn posts, emails, and talk about meditation. Talk about meditation in all the different ways in which that you talk about it. And you could talk about it a lot because it's one of the most likely your pillars, sort of branding, you know, Fleet. And in the after a certain point in time when you're that consistent with your specific humanity and point of view on that area of expertise, say that enough, you hit people on the Internet, you know, 7 times, 16 times, whatnot, you become the go to. Someone needs a meditation teacher. Oh, Fleet talks about that all the time. Someone sees a post on meditation. And it resonates with someone they know who needs a meditation coach. It's. It's how I built my personal branding business. I just got on the Internet, started talking about personal branding all the time, and all of a sudden I was like, the phone was ringing in my direction, not the other way around. And that's the power of, you know, what I would call organic outbound, excuse me, inbound marketing. And really taking pen to paper and whatever format you. You choose and adding value, not just making noise, but adding value and really creating a beautiful.

Platform of service. And I think you do that enough and come from that place, you're doing personal branding well and. Right.

Well, I'm just excited really to kind of transmit these ideas for our audience because, you know, our world is democratized so much with the digital universe that we're in today that, you know, I'm starting my own podcast. I guessed on a lot of podcasts and I've been investigating the whole podcast world and there's a million podcasts out there and they're all beautiful and wonderful and it's amazing when you look, it's all ordinary.

Extraordinary, ordinary people. Right. It's not like cookie cutter. This is what a successful person looks like. There is no cookie cutter anymore. People are really free, more than they ever have been before, to be themselves and, and step into the world and find an audience for themselves and. No, I mean, the podcast world is such an amazing example of that. And today we have this thing that it's kind of a weird off take on celebrity, you know, the cult of celebrity in our culture. But it's not necessarily because it comes out of the podcast world and other worlds today. This world of people who have a business simply by being in influencer. You know, I wanted to say a little bit about that because somehow they're willing to be authentically who they are and, and maybe even pretty eccentric or pretty weird in some way, but they find an audience and once they find an audience, people want. Want access to that audience.

Right, right, exactly. I mean, in my view, there's a very big distinction the world, the world of influencers. And the word influencer is become very multifaceted and can be extremely triggering for certain people and has a, you know, just kind of a loaded word these days. I believe that it. And commercialize. I mean, I think that the word and thrown around a lot and sort of ascribed to people who. I mean, I get called an influencer and I don't consider myself one. I don't. I think you can be influential, but an influencer, the influencer industry in my view are. And you know, my knowledge of this, of the space in which I exist. An influencer is someone who gets paid by brands to create content. That's it. Someone who gets paid to create video, to create images, to create reels, to create blogs. I mean, getting paid by brands to sponsor their content. And for the record, I know a lot of influencers a ton and they're my friends and they work so hard. They're some of the hardest working women I know because it actually to do branded content well and. Right. It takes so much time and thought and creativity that like, I don't have, like, that's why I don't do it, because I don't have time and I'm not that creative when it comes to like, telling the stories of brands on behalf of brands. Like, that's a very, very unique space. And I give a ton of credit to actual influencers who are in that industry. And that's their main mode of income. Income, right. That is how they make money. That is their revenue. And so, and I get it, like, I would, I follow influencers and I'll trust a recommendation of a product that someone I love on Instagram more than I will on, like a billboard. It's genius. It's. Of course it's working because people trust people. And that's why the world of personal branding and, and influencers kind of gets confusing. And I think that you have to have a strong personal brand if you're going to be an influencer. It's like kind of the number one thing content to really think about. But in my view, there's a distinction between thought leaders, people who really want to create a platform and monetize it in service of like, a lot of different things other than just to like, create great content online to inspire their audiences. That, that has, you know, that looks at social media as one piece of their platform and one piece of potentially their monetization model. But it's not the whole picture. They have books, they have courses, they do consulting, they teach, you know, workshops, whatever it might be. They, you know, they're on television. It's. There's so many different ways you build a thought leader platform and monetizing it holistically. Thinking about how can my influence help to leverage, you know, potentially more revenue opportunities with like, partnerships with brands? I mean, I've been sponsored, I've gotten content, I've worked with brands a few times that really aligned. Like, I worked with Audie I've worked with, like, I work with a really great brand on my podcast, Organifi. Like, those are brands that I believe in that align to my lifestyle and to what I believe my brand stands for. And, and that's really, I think, why it gets so muddled, because everyone's kind of looking at that space and dabbling in it as they should. But let's just not confuse people who do it full time with the people who are utilizing the power of just being influential to, you know, grow their revenue and reach more people.

Yeah. And success only comes with hard work. You know, that's always been true and will always be true, but that success has never been more accessible, I don't think, than today. There are just so many avenues, I guess, the barriers of entry into the marketplace for people. If you're willing to just put yourself out there, it's still going to take a lot of hard work and, and you may go through a lot of heartache and fall down four or five times and have to pick yourself up, but still it, you know, decades ago, you couldn't even have begun. You couldn't even have begun.

Exactly.

Now just about anybody with a cell phone can start a business. Right. And so it's an amazing time. We're alive.

And I just, I say that all the time. Yeah, yeah.

So, you know, today is about financial well being, financial health and abundance. And so I'm just curious about, and you mentioned before that, you know, net worth doesn't necessarily mean dollars in the bank. Net worth can have to do with a lot of things. And ultimately it has to do with happiness and life satisfaction and the felt experience that we're growing, the felt experience that we're contributing to life and all of that. And we do need to take care of ourselves and we want to take care of our families. And, you know, there's nothing wrong with developing some financial security or financial freedom. So I'm just wondering what you've learned about that and how you, you know, you talked about early on in your life getting out of credit card debt. And I'm just wondering about where you are today in terms of the sense of.

The mindset of abundance versus scarcity.

Being in that flow of creating wealth and giving away wealth and just that whole how do we work with money? Right. The big old dollar sign. It's really, for a lot of us, it seems like a burden or an energy or something scary. And for other people, it's just energy you work with. So what have you learned about that? What do you have to share.

Yeah. So it's so funny you asked that. I start my book that's coming out in February with the story of one of my most rock bottom moments, which is when I was 33 years old and was so broke and so much in debt that I couldn't even pay my own phone bill. And I had to drive to my parents house and the suburbs, you know, an hour away from where I lived and, and I never had had to do this before and asked my, my parents to help me pay my $250 at&t phone bill. And the shame and the.

Just, just, just guilt and like darkness and self loathing, you know, that came with that time in my life and the, the book sort and the drive to my parents house. And that's the preface. And then the afterward, the book ends with my drive home from my parents house and back to the city. And I will say I don't want to give too much away because I'd love for your audience to read the book, but I think that it was less about, okay, here's my financial plan and here's how I'm going to like save money to pay off my debt. And it was the choice and the recognition that despite what was in my bank account, I had value and that I had abundance. And there were things in my life I wasn't even looking at that made me feel so, so blessed. And it could be something as simple as working heat or the fact that I like to write in blue pens and I have dozens of them. Like there is abundance everywhere you look and in your own life. And if you really attune to that belief set and that vibration, I mean it sounds a little woo, but you, but you know, I know who I'm talking to. But it's true. Your, your ability for opportunity, at least this was my experience, begins to shift. And you aren't looking at your life like this anymore. You're looking at your life like this. And that was really an inflection point for me.

A couple weeks later I got a call from a friend who had a huge consulting gig and she needed help and she offered me $5,000 a month to come. I had no money, like zero. And it was the most money I had ever made in my life at that point. And I was like, I'll take it. But if I hadn't made that choice to believe that I was worthy in the first place, I wouldn't have been able to truly accept that offer. And I don't mean in my bank Account, I mean, in my soul. And that was really the beginning of the beginning. And how I just, I just am so in the vibration of abundance. Like, like, if I don't get a client, like, I might hustle a client. No, hustle people. But let's just say, like, I've got a client I've written a proposal for, and we're going back and forth, and they have all these questions, and then they ended up, they end up saying no, and then they're like, not going to invest. I, I don't, I don't get upset. I don't take it personally. I don't feel scarcity. I'm just like, okay, door closed, another one will open. And like, good luck. Genuinely bless this person for, for being interested. I got to know someone new and maybe they'll come back around, maybe not. I wish them well on their path. Like, genuinely, like, I genuinely, genuinely feel that I don't, I don't get all, like, huffy about it. And I think it's been that shift in just again, not really operating from scarcity. I think we can operate in scarcity in other ways. You know, scarcity of time, scarcity of, you know, like, growth and how far I'm, you know, how many books I might sell, I don't know. But, like, when it comes to money, I've had a real, A real shift, and I've done a lot of work on it. But I think that it really starts with just looking at your life through the lens of abundance and doing so actively.

And then, you know, you look at things just with so much gratitude and appreciation and respect, no matter what happens and where things go. I think that's. It's practice fleet, for sure. It's a practice.

It's absolutely a practice. And you've referenced it several times in our conversation. That ultimate abundance is that interconnection to the source that we all have, of course, willing to discover it and start to trust it. Right. So kind of in light of that, talking about practice, in describing your book that's coming out, you talk about the importance of leaning into our edges and discovering our edges and so forth. And you talk about doing that through.

Work, through travel, disconnection, movement, meditation, personal growth, silence, masterminds, which are trainings that people are familiar, familiar with that word. And so talk a little bit about that, about how you keep discovering your edges and how you keep that alive and growing for you.

Oh, I love that you asked. This is actually my favorite chapter, one of my favorite chapters in the book.

You Know your edge is anywhere you are uncomfortable. Just put it that way. You know, any space in which you exist outside of your comfort zone, you are in an edge. And that is really our only place we can grow because, you know, our comfort zone is that little box with the paper and the string, right? So for me, you know, It's. It's interesting. 2020, I wasn't able to travel, and that's really my. One of my number one edges is, like, I love doing adventurous stuff. I. I mean, the stuff that I've done is like, I'm. I'm a pretty wild, epic traveler. I'll, like, get in, you know, bareback on an elephant, down a ravine in Thailand, and I'll go into the Amazon and like, like canoe around like crocodiles. Like, I love that stuff, right? It really puts me outside my comfort zone, but I haven't been able to really do that, you know, I think one of my most favorite modalities, to be honest, is the. Is the work and support of coaches and therapists and healers. Your coaches and therapists aren't really supposed to keep you close, comfortable. They're supposed to push you and tell you the truth. And so that is definitely an investment that I continue to make in myself.

Meditation, obviously, it's like an ongoing practice, but to be in your own mind, with your own thoughts, and to just sit still is uncomfortable for most people, which is why it is an edge, you know, where you can learn and expand and feel so much outside of your own myopic view. And that's really, really what an edge is. So whatever that looks like to you, whoever is listening, I don't know your life or your preferences or what you're working with, but ask yourself, look around your life. Am I doing anything that's making me uncomfortable on a consistent basis? Am I working? Am I working hard to seek out things that make me uncomfortable? And if I'm not, then that's an opportunity for you to. To grow and to impart some practices that will make you that much, I believe, stronger, wiser, more conscious, more loving, more accepting, you know, of other people as much as yourself. And so that's one of the things I love about travel. It's just so humbling. Like, I talk about this in my book. One of the most profound moments of my life was my very first time I ever stepped foot in Asia. I've now been to Asia, like, 10 times. But the first time I went to Asia, stepped off the plane in Bangkok, and I was like, holy shit, I am so insignificant. Like this planet is so big, there are so many people. And like I'm in this city with millions and millions of people. And here I am, this like western white girl standing on a street corner watching all of this life go by, and I am no one. And it was life changing, you know, so some things like, as simple as that, if you become awake to what can be uncomfortable, what can be considered an edge, life can really, in my view, expand.

Wow. Well, this has been fabulous and thank you so much, Jessica, for being willing to really share who you are with our audience today. And I have one final question. So again, the name of our summit is the best year of your life. And so how are you going to 2021 is the best year of your life.

So I am a pretty type a person. I have a ton of issues with control and it's just, it's an Achilles heel. And so one of my words for 2021 is flow. To really just allow, allow, allow, allow for life to happen and to not resist it, to trust it, to surrender and release on a daily basis, a micro minute to minute basis. And I've just in the last few days since the year started, have been really tuning into that and I feel, I already feel infinitely calmer. So I, I really want to be in the flow and trust, trust, trust life.

Wonderful, wonderful. Well, I hope 2021 is a year of tremendous flow for you and exactly that way. And we all need that so much because, you know, 2020 was a very challenging year and, and you know, so much suffering in the world that, that, I mean, it just heartbreaking how much people have suffered. And it's been like any challenging situation, it's been a time of tremendous growth for many people, myself included. But it hasn't been a year of flow. I wouldn't call it a year of flow. So hopefully 2021, I think we could all use a lot more flow in our life. And yeah, thank you for calling that out. And please tell us the name of your book one more time.

It's called B Be Period. Yeah. And it's the sub line is a no bullshit guide to increasing your self worth and your net worth by simply being yourself.

Fabulous. Fabulous. Well, it comes out in February and I really hope everyone will check that out. Okay, well, this has been fun and great, Jessica, thank you so much.

Oh, I'm so grateful. Thank you for having me be a part of your event. Such an honor.

You be well and have a great year.

You too.

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