012. How to Avoid Burnout & Be Aligned All The Way to $1M with Sarah Stokes

Welcome. I am marketing expert and business coach Melissa Kellogg Lueck, and this is the Doing Business Like a Woman podcast, where we are exploring and teaching you how women are reinventing the way business is done and money is made to help you create greater impact and financial freedom one business at a time.

Okay.

Welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to have with me today Mrs. Sarah Stokes. I know that's a very formal introduction. Sorry.

Okay.

But the lovely Sarah Stokes, who I met through. We are fellow members of the Polka Dot Powerhouse, which is a women's networking group, and she reached out to me, but I was kind of always having a. I don't know what we call it in the world of women, but like, my own bromance with you online.

Like.

Watching you online, and you're so beautiful, and just, like, reading your story and your posts, I. It's always been so inspiring. And I knew that we were polka dots together, but then you reached out to me for a connect, and I was like, oh, my gosh, there's, like, a celebrity that wants to meet with me. Wow.

Well, I felt the same about you. I was like, I love this woman, and I don't even know her.

And then we just happened to meet in person, too, in October. We were both in Minneapolis, and so that was super fun to get to sit down and have lunch and just get to take in your energy and be in your presence, and it was just so inspiring to me. I'm like, sarah is the woman I want to be when I grow up someday.

Oh, my gosh. That is so fun. Thank you. Oh, yeah.

It's so fun to get to have you here. So I would love it if you would just introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your story. I love your story and how you got started, which, you know, is a little intimidating because you were in broadcast as a reporter and journalist. And so now here I am, you know, interviewing you, and so it's like, oh, boy, I hope my interview skills are up to snuff. But anyway, we're just here chatting as girlfriends on a snowy Friday, so.

Yes, exactly.

So, yeah, just tell us your story.

Thank you. Well, thanks for this opportunity, truly. I was having a. What do you call it? Girl crush on you online, too, and I'm like, she's in at least three of my spheres, and I need to meet her because she's showing up in my life for a reason. So thank you. Thank you for this chance to speak with you today. And I've been enjoying your podcast as well. So Good for you for bringing more information to women because we all desire that, that feeling that we're understood and that we are not alone on this island we call business. Because wow, it really can feel like that sometimes. So to rewind a little bit, a little bit about me. I did have a career 1.0 in TV news. So I was a reporter anchor all around the Midwest. So from Iowa to North Dakota to Minnesota to Missouri twice. And then I landed in Wisconsin. So shortly after I got to Missouri, actually the first person to let me in the door at our Missouri TV station in Springfield was my future husband. And he said he knew he was going to marry me from the first time he saw me, which is a sign of his confidence because I was with my longtime boyfriend who was about to propose to me. So that was a fun. That's another day for another story for another day. But my husband and I were co anchors in Springfield, got married, I got a job in Wisconsin and they said, well, we're not letting him go across the street to the competitors. So we ended up both getting hired at the NBC station. And and so for 17 years we did this TV Life. And about the time our son turned 2, we had this handy technology at the daycare that was a webcam where you could watch your kiddos, which is a blessing and a curse, right? You can see them if you miss them. But then what started happening was he would really struggle around bedtime and our daughter was a baby and she would, you know, I would go and nurse her to sleep so I didn't have much guilt, right? Like she's down for the night, everything's okay. Then I go back to the TV station, finish the other two newscasts. But our two year old was really struggling at bedtime and it got to the point where, you know, you love your career and I loved my career. But I knew in my heart if I didn't make the right move for them for the long run that it wouldn't go well. So we did the pros and cons list. Who's going to leave? I was still the food source for one of them. So I got the ok, I guess I'm leaving tv. And I was happy to because as the universe does, it supports us when we make a powerful decision. And that has shown up many times in my business life. So let's bookmark that for a point. Truly, when we make powerful decisions, we are rewarded. And I made a power. I am getting goosebumps. I made a powerful decision and it just so happened that my Friend Shannon, who also is the founder of Polkadot Powerhouse, had a magazine, a women's magazine in our area, and we had gotten to know each other through it. She said, you know, I need to sell the magazine so I can focus on Polka Dot Powerhouse and would you like to buy it? And I'm like, wow, what a perfect segue out of journalism. I can write. I know the area, I love the ladies. You know, I'm heart centered for our success as women. And it was just a perfect transition. I had no idea I was launching Headfirst into an app. I did not have a clue about publishing. I was like, yes, I can take pictures. I connect with people well. Then I became a graphic designer, a salesperson, a distributor of magazines, a delivery driver. It was insane. But it got me home with the kids. I also made a fatal mistake of thinking, I don't need daycare anymore, which was hilarious. So I had a two year old and a baby while trying to make ends meet with this magazine. And we did. We got, I mean, hustle culture was real for me at that point. It was survival. I would run to the bank with five dollars. If I got a check for five bucks, I would run to the bank. It was that tight. And six months in, my husband's like, I really want to go home too. I miss our kids. I miss you at night. So we got double crazy and left all of the security behind of the patient.

Oh, no.

And he came home to work too. And that's when Stokes heard ZOG was born. That's our marketing agency. I asked for the biggest amount of money I'd ever asked for from a new client. Our first client, which eight years later is still a client, which is so fun. And it was enough of a contract to make it so that we weren't going to starve and our kids were not going to start, so God bless them. But we had the magazine and then a marketing agency. Brand new marketing agency. So ta da. Running two businesses, two kids under three at that point, and working together, which thankfully we had done for a long time. So fast forward through the growth of the agency. I knew the magazine and the agency were competing for my attention, so we sold the magazine. I made a powerful decision. Again, I said, I know I can sell this magazine for what I have built it to be. We grew it to seven times its size. Wow. And yeah, that was an effort, right? It had brand power, it had advertising power. And so I started just putting the feelers out, found a buyer, a wonderful woman who was going to Take both full time employees with her. And so that was a blessing. So I did sell it for exactly the penny to the penny. What I said I would. And my husband's like, you're never going to get that. I'm like, watch me. So that's another point, ladies, is when you line up with what you want and you decide again. That power of decision has played such a big role. I will never forget sitting in the parking lot of the attorney's office, signing the papers for the magazine sale, holding that check for the exact amount I declared I would sell it for. And that taught me an important lesson. So I'm mixing my biography in with some tips here. It taught me that I can choose my destiny because he told me, my husband, who is a wonderful man, but he is the most cynical man you'll ever meet. He's also, he was the investigative crime reporter. So that.

Makes sense.

And that's how he shows up in our life. So he's like, you're never gonna get that. Prove it, blah, you know, And I'm. And that actually fuels me. So that's another point. We can use our doubters as fuel because we can either get super disappointed and feel bad for ourselves, which, not going to lie. I had several bags of Cheetos during this time by myself. Not the snack sized Cheetos either, the big ones. Because of course I had doubts. Of course I didn't know if I could. I'd never sold a business before, right? Meanwhile, I'm running it and trying to keep my cool so that my employees didn't leave. Trying to be honest and open and so many things, right. But I made a decision and I let the doubt become fuel for that. So that showed me I can actually choose my destiny. I can line up with it and get exactly what I want. And so that was like, okay, race is on. Our agency kept growing. Once I made that decision, then we had created multiple millions, gotten many, many bigger clients, really scaled up and provided a service that didn't exist. Probably because the business model is extremely difficult. As you know, full service marketing is int. And it takes a lot of team and it takes a lot of excellence. And so I was building that in the hard way. I was building it through true grit and just overworking. So I got a lot of support along the way. I started my own healing journey, right? So this is another big key of what I want to help women with is I started getting help for myself. The business was becoming this machine that was getting traction. But I could smell burnout coming from a mile away. I had experienced it with the magazine to the point of hallucinating at night. I mean, I was not sleeping, I was not eating. They're just, I was trying to do too much. And with the agency, I'm like, I'm not going to do that again. I now know what alignment feels like. So I started getting tons of healing, like spiritual healing. I started learning what I could from people who were farther along than me. I started really actually practicing what I was learning and taking extreme care of myself. And joy started to roll in. And even when the money was crazy or it was super scary, when we leveled up, at least that joy was there every single morning. Like I was in full gratitude for my life. So that is where the Juicy Good life comes in. Several years ago, I looked around for other people who had done what I was doing to show me how to do the next thing. Because as we grow in revenue and we grow our team and we grow our bandwidth for receiving abundance, there is a whole new problem set that comes along that you pray for in the early days, right? And then you look around, you're like, well, who helps us now? There's a lot of tips and tools for like the first year or whatever. And I looked around like, well, who the heck helps me if I don't want to be the CEO? What if I want to have multiple businesses at once that all do well, that aren't considered, you know, hobbies or side gigs? Like, what if I want to not work six months out of the year? I started having these questions and it felt wrong and bad because I should want to do all these things in my business. And I just stopped wanting to because I knew what was coming and I knew how to serve on a higher level. And that took a lot of spaciousness in my calendar. So when I didn't find what I was looking for, I created it. And it's called the Juicy Good Life. And it is, I say it's how to scale with sanity because I want us as women to have joy, to have a really kick butt business, have it thriving. Because that's when I believe we change the world. So I want to uplift women who have an impact they want to make. And it doesn't mean we're all Mother Teresa or Gandhi doing amazing, like peaceful world sized stuff. It's that attorney who helps make divorce better for people. It's that financial advisor who is like, I wanted to start a charitable jewelry campaign arm of my financial practice. And so the Juicy Good life was Born three years ago, Stokes Herzog is our agency. It's still going. And I did hire that CEO finally. My dream of five years came true this summer. So that is kind of present day and I know it takes a while to get through that. Sorry to burn up all that time. It is just such a fascinating path and full of struggle and full of really cool stuff. And here I am today, still working on myself more than anything else. And that is the true success recipe, I believe is when we work on ourselves to keep feeling aligned, then the rest of it starts to click into place in a lot easier way. And then a lot of coaching, too. Getting a lot of coaching.

Yeah. Right.

Stay in this place. Right?

Yeah. I love that because I think one of my greatest lessons this year in my own growth and my own growing my own business has been learning the importance of my relationship with myself. And you know, hearing you talk about powerful decision making and you know, even when those closest to you, like your husband's like, no way that's going to happen and you're like, I'm going to make it happen anyway, like, where does that come from? That, like radical self support and that relationship that you have with yourself? Talk about that some.

Well, we're going to now dive into Sara therapy because I'm not going to do that to your listeners. What it truly comes from, and that's part of the deep healing I'm doing, is it comes from needing to be self sufficient as a kid in a lot of ways, right? Like, I had wonderful parents doing their best, but in many ways I was growing up way faster than I ever anticipated. I had a powerful mom, business owner, Right. But she was really doing it herself, literally making everything in her store herself too. So I didn't have the model of getting help. And they are the hardest working people I know. But there was no like. And this is how you outsource. My mom had some helpers in the store and my dad ended up being a manager of other people in his career eventually. But I just learned you just dig in and do it right. And so I think that's where the power of decision comes from. Now I know you got to get help after the decision or in the process of making a decision. I never now am without a coach or two or three.

Right.

Truly. Because I know how easy it is to fall into my old patterns. But the decision part comes from deep faith. It comes from faith in myself that I know. I know that I can rely on me for sure. And that's where that old Childhood stuff comes up. But let's be honest, we all bring it to our business. So we can't ignore the stuff that shaped us and served us really well. When we need to really kind of pause is when that same stuff that shaped us and serves us really well can also be weaponized against ourselves. Right? When I feel like I am an island, I need to remember, oh no, that's just little Sarah talking, right? That's little Sarah saying, well, I better make a plan because I don't know what's going on here. Well, that decision making now has been backed up by so much evidence. Whether it's a decision you made in ninth grade to go out for basketball, and it served you really well just to keep watching that evidence that it's, it's serving you, it's working for you. That's what helps overcome the doubters, the people in the cheap seats. Or when our husbands don't believe because their belief isn't there yet, they don't need to. And I'm walking proof of that. My husband said, same with the Juicy Good Life. So there was probably a three year gap between selling magazine and me creating the Juicy Good Life. And he's like, well, it's not a real business. Now he has seen me create what the masculine world culture would say is a real business, like a boss, right? And he still defaulted to, well, the Juicy Good Life. That's like not a business, right? Like oh, oh no, it is. Now it took me two years to get to his level of acceptance of what is a real business. And might I say that yesterday we sat with our CEO who said, well, Sarah, I don't know if you realize this, but the Juicy Good Life in 2021 had a 997% growth rate. Holy. Holy is right. And I gotta say, my salty wife self looked across the table with her total crossed arms and all the salt and I am like, really? Huh? Pretty good for not a real business. So I got to tell you, it keeps popping up. And if it's not a husband, it's ourselves who doesn't buy it, right? If it's not that, then it's a really non ideal client. If it's. So we keep getting opportunities to learn this lesson, to believe in your decision. And as long as we keep fueling our own souls and our own like, relationship with ourselves like you're talking about, that's what builds the resilience to keep choosing that same decision that you know came from your soul. And that's so important to me. And hopefully gives a permission slip to anybody else who needed to hear that today.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And that critic, wherever it's coming from, if it's coming from our husband or our mother or even inside ourself, they're never going to go away. Like, there's always going to be a critic there somewhere. But we have to build that trust in ourselves and trust that we make right decisions and not spend that time double, you know, doubting and second guessing and questioning, but just make the decision and then make it right. Like, go for it.

Make it right. Yeah. And we are going to doubt. I mean, you and I both know and we're coaches, right? We know the mind trash, as you call it, shows up. I just got off a coaching call where I talked to my coach again about me choosing alignment in my calendar again and again. And it just shows up in a new outfit, right? Shall we say, like here is that. Here is that alignment showing up. But the doubt for real is going to show up in our minds, in our people, and we just have to not be scared of that doubt and to really have evidence logs. So this is a thing I learned from my coach where she's like, sarah, I really need you to start journaling on evidence that you are supported or whatever. Fill in the blank for whatever you guys need listening. So the doubt comes up. The inner critic is always present and she might be quiet on really good days, but then on one, you know, one thing can trigger us. So I go back to that evidence log in my journal and it's so helpful. So helpful. Because they don't always come in the big giant check. Right? That evidence doesn't come in big packages all the time or in 997% growth. Like, I don't want to skew people's minds on how that evidence shows up. It sometimes shows up in. I got right. I got one nice comment on my post or a friend said, wow, you really helped me today. And we just need to keep building the evidence that whatever our mind is saying, it might be lying to us. And so here's the evidence that I am really moving to the right place in my life. And I gotta be honest, that's the work of the lifetime. Right There is to is to not that let that inner critic win all the time. Yeah, sometimes it's going to. Sometimes we're knee deep in Cheetos and that's okay as long as we don't stay there and abandon our dreams. Because you all create what you desire for a reason. Like you are here On a mission from the divine, whatever that means to you. And if I were to give up on the juicy good life because my husband said three years ago that's not a real business, so many women's lives would not be positively impacted. And so no matter what business you have, just think about the positive impact you've had because you did show up despite the doubt. That helps every day.

Yeah, that's such a great point. That is really the key of it, I think is really turning your focus back to your why, into those that you are serving. Right?

Yes.

That will get you through all the doubt and, and not that the doubts ever going to go away, but that will get you out of the bag of Cheetos and go and make that phone call or write that post or show up in whatever way your people need you.

Yes, right. Because your clients wouldn't have had the results they've had without them saying yes in a brave way. And you saying yes in a brave way and all of us doing that together every day and re choosing it. Re choosing to show up redeciding when it feels too hard that okay, I'm giving myself five minutes of Cheetos and then the rest of the day I'm going to show up and serve. I am not endorsed by Cheetos, by the way. Everyone. Maybe you should be.

Get your husband on that.

Not probably an affiliate thing that I should align with because my thighs are like, no, no, Sarah, no, no. Why aren't you throwing out? And then I was knee deep in a bag of spinach. No, it's always Cheetos. Why.

Inside you? The cheetahs are wanted. So something I hear from women I talk to all the time is that they want, they have this beautiful vision and this dream inside of them, but there's this hesitation to go for it because of what they will have to sacrifice in the process. And so I know you talk about alignment and this has been a big journey for you, but how did you even have the audacity to believe that you could have a million dollar business and an aligned life and joy and kids and a husband? Don't we have to give all that up and sell our souls to the devil if we want to have a million dollar business?

Yes. And there was part of me long ago when I hit my first $10,000 month when I was a magazine all do it herselfer I was like, I was in such awe. My brain blew open that day. I'm like, oh my gosh. I remember calling my husband and he was still on TV at the time. And I'm like, dude, I just made $10,000 this month. And he said, well, why isn't it in the bank? He was not a business owner yet. Everyone asterisk, asterisk. But we know, right? Expenses. But it increased my capacity to believe, okay? I absolutely saw what burnout did, and that sucked. So I did it the hard way. So then I had this belief about the abundance amount, right? So you're saying million dollar business. How do we get to that belief? You stretch your brain kind of a little bit over time. It is almost like when you need that when you are in yoga for the first time, you are not as stretchy as if you have done it for three years. So I built it with that first milestone, like, aha, OK, I can make $10,000 a month. And then I was like, well, what else can I do? So I just stretched it a little at a time. So it wasn't like going from zero to a million. It was over years of stretching my brain. So my belief stretched. Then I had evidence, right? So it's a cycle of like, stretch your belief a little bit farther than you think you can and then remind yourself of the evidence, get tons of support, keep stretching your brain, look around for others who are showing you what's possible. That's the other thing. I looked to others and I was like, that's possible. I'll never forget there was a speaker that came to one of our networking groups and she was like, oh, I'll have my personal assistant do that. I'm like, what is this sorcery of a personal assistant? I had never heard of it because I was in, you know, a windowless newsroom for 17 years. I did not know there was such a thing. Like that sounds fantastic. So at some point I got a personal assistant because somebody showed me what's possible. I knew there were women making a million dollars a year who actually posted pictures of vacations, like, huh? But now you do the work of your beliefs along the way a lot. So you not only stretch your belief on what you can do, you have to stretch your belief on old crap, right? Like, excuse my crap language. The belief growing up as a kid was rich people are terrible humans. So I had to work on that belief while I was stretching my belief because I'm like, well, I know that's not true because now I have friends who are making a lot more money than I've ever had access to and they're wonderful. So I had to check my limiting beliefs. Stretch My own beliefs get tons of support, build the evidence and keep doing it incrementally up the ladder. Now, now I'm at a point where I've practiced that for a long time. I've got plenty of evidence, right? So I no longer don't believe it's possible. I still have to manage my mind. But now I'm like, well, I'm pretty, I'm pretty sure I can kind of play with the universe here a little bit and get even more like abundance attracting. So for those of you who are like, where is she going? I am also full woo spiritual because it really works for my business and me. My kids are like, you are the most joyful person we know, mom. And guess what? I am. I am the most joyful person I know too. You know why? Because I have a really good relationship with magic and miracles and abundance. And so I am like, well, what would happen if I went from a thousand dollar offer? I did my strategic like planning and I went to a $33,000 offer. So this is my true leap. This last year I used to sell a $1,000 offer. That was so, so you know why? Because I was still trying to treat juicy good life as not my main source of income. I was still hanging on to other people's thoughts about, well, the marketing agency is the real revenue driver. And I'm like, but I feel like at some point I'm going to turn that on its head and Juicy is going to actually be the main revenue driver. I didn't tell anybody that because I really didn't want to hear the thoughts from others. Yeah, what would happen if I gave women what they really, really want? Because I was watching the signs of life. That's a marketing tip, right? Like what do they actually buy? They were buying coaching, masterminds and marketing from us. I'm like, gee, I wonder what would happen if I just combined all the things that they actually want and charged what was an aligned price for me. And I did that. That is where the 997% growth comes from. I stopped like really struggling and trying to like over deliver on a thousand dollar product. Five, six years of really practicing to stretch that belief, get that support right, manage my mind, take care of myself. I could build that place where I truly believe anything is possible. We can create whatever the heck we want because I've done it. I'm living a juicier good life than I've ever lived before. And I work 15 hours a week now.

I know.

And you know what I want to slap myself sometimes because I don't even celebrate it. You know why? Because the mindset. So I'm working on that every day. Like, I don't stop long enough to celebrate it. So that's my own. That's my own work for 2022. But truly, it's that practice of stretching. So now I need to practice again. I need to stretch a little bit more on my celebration of that. I believe that I can actually marinate in this goodness and not keep moving to the next thing without stopping and integrating it. So you can see there's a progression. And I want to just remind everybody I've been doing this eight years. Eight years of business. Like this month, just the other day I celebrated it. So it wasn't overnight. However, I believe when you're aligned, it can be. If you want it to be. Yeah, yeah.

So what are you stretching yourself to believe now?

Ooh. Okay. So I am co creating. And I say co creating because I know I'm not alone. I am co creating my house that matches my soul. Yeah. My dream is that I will pay cash for the lake home that I want to construct where I'm sitting. So I'm sitting in our lake home. Part one. Manifestation is complete. But the house is like a great cabin, not a great full time place. Right. Like, I don't even have a closet. But I love where we are. And so I'm like, okay, what would it be like if I created enough cash to pay in full for the construction of my dream home here? So that's what I'm pulling down now. And now I've said it out loud to all you guys. I'm holding myself accountable. My throat's like, okay, that's a lot of money. I know it is. But guess what? It's just energy. Right? It's energy exchange. If Sarah does all the things she just told you about, she'll create this too. And she won't speak in third person anymore. I'm sorry. So there it is. That's my next big hairy, audacious goal, as they call them. And that. That's. That's going to be a fun alignment experience. Yeah. So it's exciting and terrifying and I. I'm sure we'll be talking from my dream house someday soon.

That'd be awesome.

Yes. Yeah. So big.

Share with us, like, a couple of your favorite thoughts that you practice or beliefs that you practice along the way that were very generative to you.

Boy. And I changed these very often. The one I'm playing with right now is the more fun I have, the more money I make. And I want everyone to understand money is not my driver. And I'm not saying that because I'm afraid of money. I just know we talk a lot about money because it's what gets us to listen to a podcast, take a course, hire a coach. Right? Like, we are all driven by the creation of it, the. The receiving of it, and I love that. But the more fun I have, the more money I make, because money, to me, is just more freedom. And that seems like what we're all after in this crazy thing we call business. I want it off the table for my life. I want to just stop chasing it. So I would like to create a. And I know I can do that right now with exactly the amount of money I have. Right. It's just a belief and a thought. I think it would be really fun to just have so much money in the account that I don't ever even put it on a goal sheet anymore. Like, that would be really fun for me. Okay. So the more fun I have, the more money I make. The other thoughts that have served me really well is I am held, and I am aligned. And held helps me not feel alone in those times when you just don't feel. Feel like. Like you can even ask anybody for help, because, you know, that's one of my main problems. And I know a lot of women, too, are like, well, I should be able to do this. Well, yeah, but we're not an island. And then I am in. I am in alignment. And that is a daily practice. It's not a destination, unfortunately, which my brain wants it to be so badly. My brain wants it to be like, well, you've done your. Your planner, and you've. You've created your intentional schedule. So you're there, you're aligned. Congratulations.

Congratulations.

And it's off. And then I'm triggered by something and out of alignment, and then I don't do what I say I'm going to do, and then I'm out of alignment. And. And so I'm learning. It's a practice.

So how do you define alignment? Like, what does that mean to you?

So alignment, in the way that I use it is that my actions line up with what I value. Values drive a lot, and that's something that's been extremely helpful in business for me. It helps me make decisions. You know, those powerful decisions we talked about. So if you know your top three personal values, they might be different than the ones you created for your business, but I Bet if you look at them side by side, they're really similar. So love, growth and gratitude are my top three. Three. So when I'm not in the love mode, then I'm out of alignment. When I'm not in growth mode of myself or helping other people grow, I'm out of alignment. If I'm shrinking, you know, that's Sarah, out of alignment and gratitude. Just like I said, I'm having some difficulty really celebrating this incredible year and this incredible eight years. Well, that's me out of alignment, which is why I'm probably getting little pokes from the universe like, hey, Sarah, this is maybe why your leads have dried up today. Or what? You know, you get little shoves when you're out of alignment and that shows up in an illness, it shows up in a fight you're going to just for no reason have with your spouse, you're getting mad at your kids. So I know I'm in alignment when I'm in my values and I'm matching my actions to my values. Yeah.

So what was that process like for you to come to that point? Because, you know, we've seen different snapshots of your journey where you are in the magazine, you're working like a dog, you are trying to make ends meet. And I would venture to say there was a little bit of out of alignment there.

Tons of it. Tons of it, yeah.

So what was that transition like to coming to this place where you're working 15 hours a week, you're like multimillion dollar business and you're existing in alignment? Like, how did that transition happen? I mean, I'm sure it's a journey of years and years, but it is.

But you know what? It happened for me bumping my nose a lot. It happened through, you know, those points of. So burning out with the magazine. I then hired my first life coach when I was so fried I didn't even know who I was anymore. She did simple things like say, well, what do you want? I'm like, no one's ever asked me that. It's these major concepts and my mind. Remember when I said my mind, my belief stretching. What do you actually want? I'm like, and it took me three days to do that homework. Three days. I was so gone from myself. And you know what I came up with? I wanted to go to a movie by myself. And now I had toddlers and a business and working with my husband now in scarcity mode, no paycheck, which amplifies a marriage to the nth degree.

Right.

And so going to a movie by myself, I almost didn't do it. You know what I almost did? I almost went to Target to go grocery shopping. And had I not had that accountability, which is a testament to the power of getting coached, I wouldn't have done it. I would have gone to flippin Target and done grocery shopping and been so mad at the world really. So it comes from bumping my nose and then asking for support. Bumping my nose, asking for support, Bumping my nose, asking for support. It came in lessons like non ideal clients who would just like make life miserable for us in our agency. It came in those lessons. It came in lessons of why did I gain 30 pounds, you know, Cheetos maybe. Anyone? Right. It came in lessons that felt bad. And sadly we operate off of that until we finally receive the blessing of allowing ourselves to not have to wait till we have to learn the hard way or get that two by four from the universe. It came in migraines, you know, and I'm like, okay, stop. Timeout, Sarah. Something is telling you it is time to do something different. So thankfully I was getting wisdom imparted from coaches or, you know, that wonderful personal growth book that I would read voraciously. And it was like, okay, I don't have to live in suffering. And that's what I'm hearing from all the fabulously evolved humans. They're like, we're now moving into a point where we don't learn from suffering anymore. We learn from joy. I'm like, wow, what a concept. That is not the construct of American culture at this point, but we're getting there. So I was in the bump your nose, ask for help, right? Then learn. Bump your nose a little bit less the next time. Learn. And I just don't want us to do that anymore. Like, can you and I have this discussion and save somebody from a migraine? That'd be great. Save somebody from yelling at their kids because they're actually mad at this situation over here and they aren't in alignment. That'd be great. This is how we can learn now is you don't have to suffer to have that alignment check, you know?

Yeah. So it's listening to those cues and really having that awareness. And I think something that I've been thinking a lot about is the journey of making money and how, how we take with us from, you know, zero dollars all the way to a million dollars. We're still the same. We are still the same human, right?

Yes.

And so many of the lessons that we have to learn to get there. I mean, I think like we think that, okay, once I have a million dollar business, you know, all of my problems will be solved, you know, you know, I, I'll know exactly what I'm supposed to be doing and it's all going to be so easy and all my, you know, basically all my problems will be solved. But the problem with that is we take the same brain with us the whole way along. So, you know, we think that the issues that we're having now with our business and self doubt and, you know, second guessing will be gone by that point. But you are our example from the future. Is that true?

You take wherever you go, there you are. Which is why working on ourselves is the biggest number one asset we can have in anything we're building. It is so true. If you and I can work on our capacity to watch our thoughts, to not buy into the inner critic that is the biggest asset of any revenue level. Because I can tell you, because I've been at the lady with the negative bank account in business, right to the lady with, oh my gosh, we've made how many millions so far? You know, and same Sarah, same Sarah patterns. Same, same. I help women now who have similar revenue amounts and guess what they're after. It's not the next million. It's joy. It's all the stuff we want when we start. And we truly do think this magic amount of money in the bank will help us get there. And it is truly all about alignment and joy in our own selves, that relationship with self like you talked about. And then let me tell you, the money rolls in much faster and you can actually enjoy it. And you don't build this big machine of a business that feels like a cage. And then the aloneness gets even bigger because God forbid you be unhappy at a million dollar business level, right? People might understand us having struggle if we're in overdraft town, which no shame in that. Everybody, we've like, let's have some.

We've all been there.

Oh my gosh, I don't even want to count how many times, right? I was seeing negatives on my app, all right? And it is so true. It is like we will draw it in faster. We will actually enjoy it. And we won't build ourselves a beautiful cage that feels even more alone if we stay in that path of knowing ourselves, really loving who the heck it is. We are the not enoughness plague that seems to impact all of us. It gets just even bigger at a million dollars because then you have More eyeballs looking at you. You've got payroll probably you've got a lot of stuff that you could then feel in a big way. Not enough. And I go through that too. Right. I go through that too, where it's like, oh my gosh. And I'm just learning now to just relax more into it or get out of that bumped nose cycle faster and get back into the Sarah who knows who she is. Because I think at a soul level, we all know that we are perfectly made. We just forget when we start looking outside ourselves all the time, when we start comparing, that is when we don't feel perfectly made and that we are not enough. Right.

Yeah.

And I just realized today with my own coach, I am like, I am still back to the same pattern of I am not celebrating this wonderful stuff that has happened because I am so afraid of somebody thinking I am no longer a good person. So. And it's at a really deep subconscious level because I logically know I'm a great person. Right.

Yeah.

But like, I don't even feel comfy talking about it. So I'm just forcing myself to talk about the great stuff that's happening because I remember somebody else had to show me what was possible too. Yeah. And so. And to also be very real about it. Like be very real about it. I am constantly having to remind myself that if I relax and stay in alignment, everything works out for me. Yeah.

So those are decisions that we can make at every level.

And.

Yeah. So then running a business, even if you're at a $10,000 level with that same joy and alignment that you can feel that now and you. If we're practiced in it at a lower level, once we get to that million dollar level, then the money, because it gets to be a point. Right. Where the money just doesn't matter.

Like, Right.

Whether it's a million or 10 million or whatever million, it's not the money that's going to give you the joy or the stability or the safety or the freedom. Like you choose to be that.

Yeah.

At whatever level you are.

It's so true. We can weaponize a $5,000 business against ourselves just like we can weaponize a million dollar business against ourselves. Like, why am I not happier right now? I should be happy. I have $5,000 more than I did last year. You know, we. It's a choice every day to say, I'm going to be really excited about this because the whole point of why we probably created a business was to experience the joy of it. The freedom of It. And then we literally are the meanest bosses we've ever had. We are then our own meanest. Like, we maybe you left somebody that you're like, this is not how it's done. And then we become that to ourselves, like, silently every day. Not enough, not enough. Not enough. You didn't do this. Why haven't you done this yet? We would never work for someone that just constantly hounded us.

I know. Right?

Here we are doing it. Yeah. So to really, like, if we can just do a call to action for everyone listening is. What if you just got really, really excited about what you have created, even if it's not in the bank and it's just literally out in the world because you made a powerful decision and that showed somebody else what was possible. You will never even know what a wonderful impact you've had on the people watching. And eventually, when we choose that enough, it shows up in the bank, it shows up in our kids, shows up in our marriages, and it shows up in our own bodies. Right. That's the stuff. Because really, if we're not liking our lives, what the heck are we doing this for?

Right?

Yeah. So I just wish for everyone that we would give ourselves a little more credit and grace sometimes.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So I want to know, I'm going to put you on the spot here. How are you going to celebrate your success?

What a good coach you are? Well, I think I'm. I think saying it out loud to you and whomever is listening now and in the future feels really good. Because the only place that showed up until this point was on a whiteboard in our conference room. I think I'm going to. I'm going to tell my kids. I'm going to tell my kids because I want their brains to stretch. I want them to see what's possible, too, and not that they have to be business owners. They can do whatever they want. I think that's a way I can celebrate because, oh, gosh, now I'm gonna cry. I thought I'd make it through a whole thing without crying. The whole reason we launched into this thing is because of them. And so to see it come full circle and celebrate with them is a pretty magical thing for me because I'm not a, like, buying anything now. It just feels like it's going to clutter up my already tiny fort. But, you know, I will celebrate by saying it out loud more. And really, that's how I think I will soak in it. I think telling my clients, too, because they literally hire me to Help them see what's possible for them, Right? So I think the communication of it, because the temptation for my inner critic is to say, don't say it out loud. Because what if you don't repeat it, right? Or what if somebody's like, oh, I thought she was getting snotty dumb, right? Like, so dumb. But that I'm working on it. So I think just owning it out loud is my celebration. I love that.

That's so good. And I think that taking action on it in a tangible way is really what imprints it on your soul. Imprints it on, like, your physical muscle memory almost, right? So that you can then. Now you know how to create. To create that. So right. Then it just goes back to what you were saying about that next stretch. Like, you start stretching from there.

Yes. Ooh, thank you. Yes. I love that. I'm like, yes, coach, you got it.

Okay, so as we wrap up, I want to hear how. I want the audience to hear how you work with women, how you work with your clients, and all the awesome things that you have coming up and planned.

Oh, thank you. So, yes, my. My true passion, my true alignment is I like to help women who have considered themselves like, they've already hit a lot of their goals, and now they're like, okay, what do I do? A lot of the women I work with are on their 2.0 of even business. Like, they've built something, and then they found inside of this business that real impact they want to make moving forward. So they've done it right. Like, maybe the old school way. They've built this awesome business, and inside that business, they're like, but really, I want to help them do this now, and that's that world impact that I'm talking about. So I help women truly find their joy, pinpoint those patterns that keep holding us back. Like, I have identified many of my own today. But those patterns are the key, I believe, to their next level of receiving a juicy, good life. So they've hit certain levels. They don't. They're the go to in their circles, and they are like, well, who do I go to? You know how we often help the people we were just a couple years ago, Here we are. And I create this community of them as well, because we feel alone a lot when we hit certain levels, and we don't have a lot of people to identify with. So I create that community through this mastermind. I coach them one on one, and then we add in the done for you marketing arm, and that just kind of amplifies it. But truly, I'm here to help her find joy in this success. Because I know when we are filled up with joy and our businesses are thriving, that is when we have the bandwidth to keep changing the world in our own way. And I love seeing well resourced women go out and just crush it in their lives. I want their families to feel the joy of what mom has created. And if she is not a mom, I want her community to feel it right? And so that is the ripple I am here to support. And it is a pretty dang big honor and almost overwhelmingly when I say it out loud. But the best feedback I ever get is that this has been the best year of my life. And they may come for the business solutions, but really it is the soul and saying yes to that alignment and having somebody else say, guess what? You can have exactly what you want. Let's go help you receive it. Because it is not like they can't make it happen. It is just that success intolerance. Sometimes we think we're allowed to have. Just like me, right? Saying I want a beautiful lake home. And I'm worried about like an old guy in a boat driving by someday saying, mmm, they really ruined it. Should be a rustic cabin. Why did they build that? Right. So silly. But I want all of us to say yes to whatever it is our juicy good life looks like and then just go and have a really good time.

Yeah, that's awesome. Well, I thank you so much for just continuing to show up and be such a great example of what's possible. And I know that you are one of these women that lives what she preaches. I mean, obviously you're not perfect, but you really do walk the talk and have that aligned life. And I mean, it just shines through in all of your work. And. And before I let you go, where are the best places to keep up with you? So we can all be watching your work, which is amazing.

So the Juicy Good Life on any of your social media favorite channels, we're all over the place. I hang out mostly on Facebook. That seems to be where my customers are as well. And the website that probably serves people the most is Joyful Biz dot com. So it's B I Z, like short for business Joyful biz dot com. But we also have Juicy Good life dot com too. So, yeah, I'd love to connect with anybody anywhere. Thank you, Melissa, for this opportunity. Definitely. If you are listening to her and she has touched you in the way that she's touched me, make sure you reach out for her support because I know she's an incredible, incredible coach and can help you hit your goals and get into that alignment we all crave so much too.

Thank you so much. This has been so fun, such a great conversation. I really appreciate your time.

Thank you.

If you like this podcast and want to take this work deeper, I invite you to coach with me one on one. It all starts with a conversation. Let's get on a call together and I'd love to to learn more about you and your business and together we can identify what is standing in the way of creating the business and life you envision. And then we'll create a plan to get you there. So visit my website@melissamkellog.com and find a spot on my calendar. I look forward to seeing you.

Sam.