54: The Power of Puke and Possibility - Mooch, Mel and 90DAYCEO

Hello, friends, and welcome to Grief Guts and Green Smoothies. I am your host, Melissa Dugalecki, and I am so excited to be here with you all to chat about ways in which we can all get through different adversities, challenges, and loss and how getting outside of our comfort zone and maybe having a green smoothie or two can help us do so. We will cover different topics ranging from interviews to recipes to sharing my own stories of my grief journey and the loss of my daughter, Layden. And I'm honored to be able to share her light in hopes of helping you spread yours. Now, let's dive in. All right, everybody, we are off roading this week. I am so excited. If you are curious at all about how I've turned life coaching work into, you know, my life work. Right. My business or move or 90 day CEO and taken my personal experiences and turn them into professional opportunities, this is for you. And we are teaming up with 90 Days CEO. The podcast today, 90 Days CEO is the business that Mooch and I started. And I want to let you know that we started it. A big part of our grief journeys. I honestly believe that I met Mooch from Layden. I believe that it was meant to be and that Laydon led me to Mooch. If you don't know who Mooch is and you're tuning in, go back and listen to the episodes where I interview her. Listen to our story. It's, I think, the most downloaded episodes because it's really special and it's really unique. And the truth is that every year for my birthday, my brother Timmy takes me out for dinner and for drinks, and that's what we do instead of presents. Two years ago, it was just over. Well, almost two and a half years ago. I was really struggling with my grief journey. I just had a lot of change going on. I was feeling a lot of pain, and I know myself well enough to know when that's happening and that going out for dinner and drinks isn't going to serve me well. So I love to go out for dinner and drinks, but when I'm really struggling, that's not what I need. So I developed the skill of identifying that and I trusted my brother to communicate that and said, you know, Tim, I'm having a hard time. Do you think, like, would you ever go to a boot camp class with me? Like, could we do that? Like, that felt fun. I was going to this boot camp that my friend had brought me to. It's called Barry's Boot Camp. And it was really a place of kind of Release for me and positivity. And my brother said, sure, sure, I'll do that. I haven't done that in forever. But, you know, for your birthday. Now, mind you, it was January of 2018 when this happened, and my birthday was in August of 2017. This is how long it took us to coordinate a time, but we did it. And normally I would go to morning classes at a location closer to where I lived, but my brother doesn't have a car, and, you know, he had plans the night before. So we went to the latest class possible. And in the city near him, I had never been. And lo and behold, Mooch was the instructor. And Mooch was instructing Berries. It was a great class and so good and so challenging that in just a few minutes in my brother Timmy, trying to keep up with me, went running out of the room to vomit. And this is how much. And I first met because after the class, I apologized to her because I know it's distracting. She laughed and asked if my boyfriend was okay. I said, oh, my goodness, it's my younger brother. We laughed, we talked a little bit more, and then, thanks to Instagram, we connected. It wasn't for a couple of months that we actually got together for a coffee. I wanted to learn more about her story. I was doing the action stuff that I actually coach people to do when they are looking to change careers. And I was sitting with as many people as I could to learn and to research. And Mooch is one of those people. And for me, of 70 people I sat with, Mooch was the one where I was like, ah, something's here. There's definitely something energetically here. And maybe it's because of our grief journeys. Mooch lost her dad to als. I lost Leiden to Neck. Or maybe it was just because of the way that we want to use our time and our energy is just so in alignment. But after that coffee, we ended up getting margarita like a month later and said, hey, let's build a business. Let's combine our niches and our specialties and let's build something and see what we can do from there. We built move, and from move, we built 90 days CEO, where we are teaching people how to take their personal passions and experiences and create a meaningful, impactful business. Now, this does integrate into my grief story because I believe that it was actually from me honoring the pain of my grief when so many times we try and force things. I was honoring the pain of my grief. I was being honest with my teammates about it. I was employing the strategies I Teach you all with having plans A, B, C, D, and E. It was through doing all these things that I ended up in that class, ended up meeting Mooch, and my life forever changed. And so I just want to share, honor your grief, honor your challenges, honor your stories, and see what transpires when you do. Because that's flow. That's alignment. Flow. Isn't everything always being great and pleasant. It's just energy flowing where it needs to, right? Very similar to the law of acceptance that Esther Hicks talks a lot about. So today, I am so proud and excited to share with you the very first episode of 90 Day CEO. Now you can go follow that podcast. We have a new one that drops every Monday, so you could hear my voice twice a week if you want now. But that one's going to be all about business building strategies. A lot of these strategies relate to life right now. The day, the infamous day that my brother puked was January 27, 2018, and our podcast launched January 27, 2020. And I believe, you know, things coming full circle like that can really remind us we don't know the power of puke. Right? But really, more importantly, we don't know the power of what honoring and trusting and being open to what we're feeling and needing and allowing ourselves to meet those needs. We don't know what lies ahead. And when we detach from trying to know and control, we might find something way better. Because I'll be honest, if I had even tried to control or predict or design what I'm doing, I would never have thought anything nearly as wonderful and amazing as what I'm doing was possible. So don't limit yourself. Don't try to control, lean into discomfort. And I hope this episode inspires you to consider what's possible for you personally and professionally. Two years ago today, everything changed.

Every single thing. It was the barf that was heard.

Around the world, literally. Because we do work with people internationally who all know about my brother's infamous.

Puke hangover, which taught us two really, really important things. Not only gave us this lifestyle that we now live, the businesses that we run, the amazing team. It really taught us two things.

Yeah. And that's the power of possibility and the power of processes. We both, in our own lives, were seeing the possibility of what we wanted to do. I was transitioning from a role in education or looking into that to life coaching. And I was really interested in holistic health and things I was feeling called to, that had deep meaning to me. And Mooch had transitioned from her job in the tech industry into the health and fitness industry, because that was something really deep, meaningful, and passionate for her. And from my brother's puke, conversation ensued. And like a month or so later, we had chatted over Instagram, and another month later, met for coffee. And then another month later, I think, went out and had some tequila. And it was that night we were like, hey, do you want to combine what we're doing and start a business? Like, take everything you're doing, take everything I'm doing. Let's put it together and we. Cheers.

Yep. Something. Something's trending there.

Something's trending there. And. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think one of the things we always look back on as business owners now is that sequence of events. It was, you know, over a couple months. We met right after Cinco de Mayo, and we sat in a coffee shop, you know, thinking that we would meet, or juice shop, rather, thinking we would meet for like an hour and think about these ideas that we came up with with over margaritas. Four hours, five hours later, we had built out a business plan. Fast forward to June 1st. We launched our first program. And we're not telling this, you know, for any, like, pat on the back or like, you're amazing. Like, we're telling you this because it's so possible.

It's so possible. And, you know, that's one of the first things that we really want to talk to you about, is what's possible for you. Like, we put limitations on ourselves, and it's something we've learned to stop doing. And, you know, from training your mindset right, to when you have those thoughts of, like, I could never, or using the law of traction to not focus on what you don't want, but to really dive into this place of possibility and envisioning and allowing yourself to envision the impact and the life that you really want to live.

Yeah. And I think it's scary for our society and our community because it is. It's like, we always just want to know what's next. And possibility is almost like letting go of, you know, those reins of, like, I need to know what's next. I need to know what I'm doing. It's like, you know, when you're growing up, it's like, oh, you're graduating high school. Where are you going to college? Oh, you're. Now you're in college, it's like, oh, where are you going to work? Where's your job? Oh, you're dating someone when you're getting married. Oh, when you have kids. Like, it's just the always constant, what's next? And I think for us and what we learned, not only through our grief journey, but now our business journey, is like, letting go of those ties to expectations.

I love that. I just envision, like, a life checklist, like, check, check, check, check. But then so many people are checking things off and they are not really aligned or they don't even know if they love it or if they enjoy it. And so we want to inspire and encourage and stand with you. Right. Stand shoulder to shoulder with you and help you look out and see what's possible.

It's almost opening your eyes to different milestones, Milestones that, you know, society might not be familiar with. Like, building a business is so different than, like, working a 9 to 5. Right. We both did it, and it just. It's, like, so amazing to see what's possible.

And with that, though, we want to be really honest. Like, you know, it's not just about possibilities. So say you get over that first hump of, like, breaking free of the shackles of that life checklist, Right. And you get through, like, that fear of allowing yourself to envision something that you can't quite comprehend. I think a lot of people find the courage to do that, but then kind of dangle out there or just dip their toes in because they haven't enlisted the processes. Because it's not just the vision, it's also the action. Right. It's the workflow, it's the learning, it's the systems and structures.

Yeah. And that's something that totally changed our business, I think, even from the outside looking in. We get so many people that are like, oh, can you have lunch in the middle of the day? Like, can you, you know, you have all this free time now. What are you gonna do with it? And I think it's so powerful to really reflect on even what we've created from a process standpoint of, like, implementing different meetings and coming up with structures and things that have allowed us to really build an actual business and not just like something that is basically running our lives. Yeah.

And then for those of you who are listening, who are curious about that, I mean, when we look at processes of a business, there are, you know, five aspects of a business, Right. Sales, marketing. I think everyone's aware of those product. Once people start thinking about that. But then finance and operations, right? How is your workflow? Maybe, are you getting a va? Are you outsourcing? Where are you organizing things? How are we scaling? And those are the things that for us, changed everything as much. Said, like when we first started, we saw the possibility and like, we did okay, like we were making a few thousand dollars, it was fine. But it was when we combined possibility and, you know, could throw another P in here of passion, right? Puke, puke. All the P's, right?

Puke.

Passion, possibility, processes. We love alliteration. But once we combined all of these P's, right. With processes, everything changed, right? That's when we built a six figure business in five months. Just under half a million dollars in just under a year. And we've got big dreams going forward because it's not about the financial income, it's about the impact. And what we want to see is like, what impact is possible. And I think that's huge. I mean, we'll get into other episodes about, you know, being okay with valuing the service that you provide. Right? It's got to be an energy exchange, otherwise it's charity work or enab. But for us, it's not about that. The number, the figure is a reflection of the impact and that's what we dream of.

Yeah, yeah. And it's, you know, what propelled another P word, what propelled us to like, really start looking at what else can we do in this business? What else can we create? Because, you know, if you're sitting there thinking, like, there's something bigger for me, there's something I want more, like I can, you know, I give so much and I do so much and it's not being reflected in a financial standpoint and maybe like, not even like a number sign, but like your finances and the way you budget and allocate, like, that could be also your time, right? And where you're spending your time, where you're spending your energy. And so if you're sitting there thinking like, holy crap, I'm on the edge of something, like, we're just pushing you and encouraging you to go, go.

And it's scary. We're not gonna say it's not scary, but it's also worth it. You know, it's so worth it. And you don't have to do it all at once, right? You don't have to. I think a lot of people think they have to pick. Like we talk with a lot of people who maybe sell product online or who wanna leave their 9 to 5 career or maybe our teachers and they wanna leave that. And you don't have to pick one or the other. That is the beauty of what are we in 2020, right? It's the beauty of it, like you can run your business from your phone, from your laptop, as you build it. We like to use the word. And. And so it's just slowly growing. And then when we started, Mooch and I, between, you know, classes and clients, we were both working our other jobs, like, 40, 50 hours a week.

Yep.

Right, Mooch?

Yeah. And it's, you know, it doesn't have to be either or, like Melissa said. I think it gets to a point where, you know, you, again, start to, like, cut some of those ties to see, like, again, what else is possible. Right. But it's definitely an and thing. You see that a lot.

And so really thinking about, like, what is it that is gonna take you to that next level? Like, is it starting with possibility? Like, what can you do? What can you dream of? What can you visually. Don't limit yourself, or have you got that? And you want to dive into the processes. Right. And how are you doing that? How are we setting actionable steps? Like, what are we doing to move forward for you? Whether it's your personal life, right. This envision or your professional?

And if you know us, which most of you at this point, episode one, you might. Hi, Mom. Mom, is that you? We always want to give you guys action steps and takeaways from every single thing that we have learned and coach and promote. And so we are giving you three action steps to go through this week to help move that process forward.

First one, we want you to reach out to five people that are doing something you want to do, you want to learn more about. This is important. When Mooch and I had that first coffee, I think I had reached out to you, and I was. She had made the transition. You know, she knew there was something bigger, but she had made that initial, really tough transition, and I hadn't done it completely yet. And I sat with 70 people. 70 people in the course of a couple of months to really understand, like, do I want to run a juice bar? Do I want to own a yoga studio? And it was through researching that I was able to become way more clear on what I wanted. And it was. When Mooch and I sat and talked, it was like, wow, not only do we share a vision, like, the energy was really there. So we're only asking you to reach out to five.

Yeah, I think I did, like, 82 or something. But just to Melissa's point, it's like, if you're scrolling through Instagram and you're finding yourself, like, wow. Even if it's not in an industry that you like, if you're Inspired by something. Right. I had reached out to people that weren't really even in the fitness industry. They were business owners, they were financial planner. Like, I had reached out to so many people just because I was inspired by them. So, like, that's another take you could pursue on that is like. Like Melissa said, we're asking for five people. Just go try it. Put yourself out there. See what comes back. Trust the universe on it, and you might be surprised.

All right, action step number two. We want you to DM us on Instagram 90dayceo for a copy of our Career Clarity ebook. Now, this is if you're serious about exploring change. And this could be for possibility or processes, because this is gonna open you up to what's possible, and it's also gonna give you some steps deeper than this, some action steps on really beginning to create a business that you love or making a career change.

You know, we coach this in our program, but we've also had a lot of people who are working, you know, corporate jobs that just want clarity inside that career. I think it's really amazing to see what they come up with and what they learn about themselves. So if, yeah, if you're interested, like, slide on over, we'll send it to you for sure. The next one, I think something that we truly believe in and something that got us started is just, like, allow yourself to be open and to think and vision and dream about what's actually possible. Earlier in the episode, we were talking about kind of like these milestones, but, like, get those out of your head. Get that checklist, get that control, you know, that control side of you out of your head. And just like, allow yourself to, like, float and dream.

Yeah. And when you do that, let's integrate the law of attraction here. And instead of writing out like, I want to or I desire or I'm going to, let's write in the present tense. So I am running a business that I love. I am making meaningful impact. I am generating income that is supporting me and my family. Like, whatever it may be, let's write it in the present tense. And like Mooch said, no limits. Like, just go. Let that pen or that keyboard, like, just go for it. Yeah, do a little bonus one.

I think we need one.

We've been feeling inspired throughout this to just kind of like, we don't script right. We just kind of off road. And in the celebration of where we started, we're going to bring it full circle with a bonus action.

Let's do it. If you have gotten this far and you're still listening again. Hey, mom, we want you. This is a big bonus step, and we're gonna know if you do it.

Reach out Tim T I M Dugalecki. That's D L U G O L E C K I. I didn't spell it out a thousand times.

We'll put it in this. We'll put it in the show notes, too.

Reach out to Timmy and message him and just thank him for his puke. Showing you what's possible because it's a message we want to spread. And by you doing that, it's going to bring a little lightness to all of this. If you're really uncomfortable, you can message it to us and we'll forward it along to him. But go for it. Because, honestly, beyond it, we want you to get out of your comfort zone.

Yeah.

Because if you're going to build a business, right, and if you're going to make massive change, you got to get out of your comfort zone. And so this is kind of a fun little way where we want you to have a little process to see what's possible to get out of that comfort zone. Because when you do all those things together, change is inevitable.

And who knows, maybe he could be one of your five people. Maybe you want to be someone who barfs in a class and is now the board of directors for a business. I don't know.

Who knows? You gotta pick. All right, everyone, thank you so much.

We are pumped to be here, pumped to be sharing so much more with you. Welcome to week one. Stay tuned for next Monday. We'll be right here.

All right. If you didn't believe me before, do you now believe in the power of puke? Pretty amazing. I'm so grateful that I had coaches and people supporting me to learn to honor my grief. I'm so grateful that I trusted my intuition enough to know that my quote unquote tradition of drinks and dinner with my brother wasn't going to serve me well. And I talk a lot about traditions, and traditions can often be a place where we force things. That's why we can get so anxious around the holidays. So if you haven't listened to that episode and that thought resonates with you, go check out the Truth of Traditions episode. I think you'll really like it. I hope that you found some valuable takeaways from mine and much's story and our chat. Most importantly, I hope that sharing allows you to shine and share in a way that best supports you and your goals in your life. Because that is my ultimate goal. To spread my daughter Laden's light, to shine it out there and to do so in a way that supports you. So thank you all so much. See you next time.