8 Surprising Lessons on Money & Fulfillment from my 30th Year

What's up guys, welcome back to the podcast. I'm coming to you today from Spain and it is the last day of my 30th year. So we are in Madrid right now, um, for a trip to see family, friends. We have a wedding that we're going to, we're celebrating my birthday here. There's so much happening and it's been such a fun trip already and we're just getting started. But I wanted to sit down and record while I was here. I have like literally nothing on my calendar, pretty much no work to do for the entire time that we're here. But I brought my camera and my mic and all of my stuff, which I'm really proud of myself for doing because I usually am one to like not really bring my work stuff when I go on vacation. When I'm out of the office, I try to really be out of the office, but I did want to sit down and record a real-time episode because tomorrow is my birthday. By the time you're listening to this, it'll already be past, but I really wanted to sit down and do a kind of like reflective, just solo chat about some of the surprising lessons that I have learned in this past year. Obviously this was my 30th year. I think I think it's a big year for every woman when they turn 30. There's a lot of changes that start to happen. And so I just wanted to sit down and kind of reflect, even just for myself, you know, to really unpack and, and think about what are the biggest things that I learned this year, what came up for me in this journey, in this trip around the sun. And I love having these episodes as a little kind of archive for myself to be able to go back and see, you know, all the lessons that I've learned throughout the years and just how I've been growing and everything that I've been learning. And so I wanted to share that with you guys. So tomorrow is is going to be my 31st birthday, which I cannot believe. Jaime is taking me to a hotel in the center of Madrid. We're gonna like have dinner, go to the spa, hang out, stay, stay a night at the hotel. And then the next day we have the Kygo concert, which you guys know if you're listeners of the podcast. Not many things that I love more than a Kygo concert. We usually go to see Kygo in the summertime in Ibiza. But he's on a world tour right now and I looked up the dates and he was going to be playing in Madrid the week that we're here. So I was like, we have to go. It's so perfect. And it's the day after my birthday. So that's kind of the birthday plans. But yeah, I want to dive into these lessons that I've kind of uncovered from this year. I just did a little reflecting this morning as I was waking up in bed, kind of going back through, looking at my camera roll, like what happened this year? What are all the things that I accomplished that I did? What did I learn? What has the universe really been teaching me this year? And so I'm excited to share those with you. So let's dive in. Welcome to the Makeshift Happen podcast. I'm your host, Samantha Daly, entrepreneur, life coach, and your no BS bestie, here to bring you all things mindset, manifestation, and personal development. This podcast is designed to help you expand your mind and uplevel your life. So turn the volume up and roll the windows down if you're coming along for the ride. Let's go make shit happen. So the first lesson takes us all the way back to last December, and this is something that I've shared on the show before. I, I think the name of the episode was I Was Stolen From and Psychically Attacked, something like that. I didn't end up publishing the episode where I told the whole story of what happened until I think around February. But the incident happened last December, just shortly after my birthday. And that was, if you guys listen to the show, you'll know the story, but that was when Jaime and I invested in something and ended up, you know, it turned out to be not a great investment that we made. And we actually had all of our money that we put into this investment stolen from us. The FBI and the police were involved because there was such a large amount of money stolen that it became, you know, a criminal thing. We never got the money back. They never caught the people. So long story short, all of it was lost. But there were family members involved, other people that we love in our lives, um, that also lost money. Um, we personally, I think, were— we got around $70,000 stolen from us, but with our family members included, collectively it was hundreds of thousands of dollars. So this was a really, this was a really, really big thing. And I think the biggest lesson that I learned from this was really this idea that money is not going to save you until you save yourself. And what I mean by that is I think, you know, so many of us can get swept up in this idea that once I am making $10K months or once I have a six-figure salary or once I, whatever that thing is, that outcome that we're waiting for, that we're hoping to get to, once I get there, then I'll be able to relax, then I'll be able to take the vacation, then I'll be able to feel more free, then I'll be able to be more present for my kids, then I'll be able to whatever. It's like once I have this, then I'll be able to do that. And we do this a lot with money and it shows up in different ways at different stages of your journey. But I think, you know, what I learned from this of making this investment and really trusting this person to manage our money and then having it be stolen What I learned from that was like there was a part of me that still was waiting for that, like, other side of— on the other side of the, of the bridge, like what life would look like. It got really exciting the more that we thought about how much this money was going to compound and how much it was going to make for us and doing the numbers of, oh my gosh, this is going to turn into millions of dollars and blah, blah, blah. You do, you start to catch yourself in that mindset of like, once I have this, Oh my God, then we'll be able to have the wedding that we want and then we'll be able to do X, Y, and Z. Then we'll feel comfortable and financially ready to have kids. And then, you know, there's a lot of like freedom or like light at the end of the tunnel when imagining what that money was going to turn into. And I think it was, it was obviously really hard and it was obviously harder on my partner than it was for me because it was mainly his project, like his investment that he was working on. And so it was devastating for him. And there was a lot of feelings that came up for him around that, of being really ashamed, embarrassed, disappointed, angry. And I talked more about that in depth in that episode that I posted in February about, you know, being stolen from and then the psychic attacks and a lot of the, you know, heavier stuff that kind of happened for us at the end of last year. So December of 2023. But yeah, I think, you know, from that it was, it was ultimately a blessing in disguise. So it was really challenging, but it was a blessing in the sense that it solidified for me once again in a new way because we learn lessons and then we learn them again on a deeper level, right? It's like that spiral of healing where you're going deeper and deeper and you continue to learn similar lessons, but in new ways and more profound levels. And so that was another really important money lesson for me of, you know, no matter where you're at financially, there can always be that like shiny object or that dangling carrot that makes you— that kind of casts a spell over you and makes you fall into that habit of thinking, oh, once we have that, then I'll be happy, then I'll be free, then I'll whatever. Right? And so that was a huge, huge lesson for me in this year of my life of money's not going to save you until you save yourself. So all of the things that you think are going to be on the other side of that bridge, or once you have X amount of money, you have to start giving those things to yourself now. If you think that you're going to be more peaceful if you think you're going to be more present, if you think you're going to have more time, you have to choose to give yourself those things now. And that's the challenge, right, is we're never going to be relaxed and peaceful and free with money just because we have more of it. We have to actually learn how to pattern that into our lives now with the money that we have. You know, it's the same thing when people tell you, if you think that you're going to donate a bunch of money once you're a millionaire, but you're not donating, donating any money now, then that's probably not going to be the case because the same mindset is going to be programmed into your subconscious. That's what you're operating from now, thinking, I don't have enough to share, I don't have enough to give away. Then even when you have millions, it won't matter because you're going to have heightened expenses, larger responsibilities, more people depending on you, potentially, you know, employees, salaries, all kinds of things. And so there's still going to be that fear of I can't give that much away, I can't I can't afford to spend this. I can't afford to give in the way that I want to. And so you'll continue to perpetuate that pattern of like waiting to have more in order to give more. And so we hear this all the time, but it was, it was a really concrete version of me relearning that lesson of like, oh yeah, that's right. Everything that you think that money is going to give you, you have to figure out a way to give yourself that now at the level that you're at. You need to learn how to steward the money that you have in the, in the level and capacity that you have it now so that you can still be generous, so that you can still be free, so that you can spend quality time with family, so that you can be present, so that you can slow down when you need to. Like, all of that has to happen now where you are with what you have if you're wanting it to happen in the future when you have more money. Otherwise, we just continue to play that game of waiting and waiting and waiting. And then when I have more, when I have more, when I have more, then I'll be able to. And that will never actually arrive because we haven't trained ourselves to be able to do that. So that was a huge, huge learning lesson that was kind of reiterated in a really deep and painful way, obviously. But then, you know, we always can look back on our experiences and say, well, obviously that was horrible and I wouldn't want to go through it again. But like, I am grateful that I have this new perspective now. And to be honest, like, that was one of the biggest things that was the catalyst for me going more into like my soft CEO era and really realizing, oh, If I want more spaciousness in my life and in my calendar, and if I want to be able to slow down and if I want to be able to work less, money is not going to give that to me until I give that to myself. And so that was the start of this whole year of 2024 really being about the soft CEO era, which was, can I give myself everything that I've been desiring regardless of what it's going to do to my income? Because I'm no longer going to be a slave to money. I'm not going to continue to operate in this way of like, once I make more, just make more, just make more, just make more, and then I'll be able to, and then I'll be able to. No, if I want to slow down, if I want to rest, if I want to be softer, if I want to take more time off, if I want to do less launches, I'm going to do that shit now. And right. And then money has to respond to the frequency that I'm operating at. So that was a huge one. The second lesson was about the fact that nonsensical, you know, we all want this kind of like illogical life. We want the illogical results. We want this massive growth. We want all the abundance. We want to be happy. We want to be free. We want to have spaciousness and free time. We want all these things that a lot of times seem contradictory, but I do believe that we get to have all those things. And I also believe in, you know, being realistic with how that's going to look and how that's going to unfold over time. I don't think that we get to have all of it right away from day one. I definitely believe in putting your head down and hard work and, you know, putting in those hours and doing things that other people aren't willing to do in order to become exceptional at something. And then really having the freedom and the ability to be able to kind of lean back and go, wow, okay, now I have everything. But the point being, you know, we all want this sort of like illogical version of life that seems unattainable by most. And I do believe that it's possible. But this second lesson is about the idea that nonsensical or illogical levels of joy, wealth, and fulfillment are really only achieved by coexisting with fear and dancing with the voice of doubt over and over again. That is the only way that we are going to get the illogical results, that we're going to get the nonsensical wealth, joy, and fulfillment is if we are willing to coexist with the feelings of fear and continue to dance with that voice of doubt over and over and over again. Because in order to become exceptional, in order to have illogical results, in order to experience nonsensical joy, wealth, and fulfillment, you are going to come up against some fears, some uncomfortabilities. You're going to have to stretch yourself. You're going to have to meet your edges, right? And this lesson really solidified For me, in the spring when I was in Egypt and I was riding in this hot air balloon, it was probably 5 in the morning. We're in the middle of the desert. We're riding in these hot air balloons. We're watching the sunrise over these beautiful sacred tombs. And I mean, the views are just gorgeous. But it was also kind of a terrifying experience, right? And so I wrote this— I wrote this thing in my notes, and then I ended up actually posting it. On my Instagram, but I, I was kind of like recounting the exact moment in time, the experience of me realize, oh my God, like, I am so brave. And this bravery is the thing that has created the nonsensical joy, wealth, and fulfillment that I experience in my life. Not just the bravery for getting in this rickety basket and deciding to go up in a hot air balloon and being in Egypt in this time in the world where there's, you know, a war going on not so far away, just on the border of this country. Like, there were so many reasons why that moment was kind of scary. There were a lot of things to be scared about, but there was also so much to be in awe of. There was so much beauty, there was so much gratitude. And it was this moment like up in the sky where all of those feelings and emotions collided together and coexisted at the same exact time that I realized this is such a metaphor for life, right? Like we're always in that duality of like there's so much to be scared about, there's so much to be fearful of, there's so much doubt. There's so much horror and bad things happening in the world. And also, wow, look at the moon, look at the sun, look at how beautiful this is. Look at my child's face and their smile and these miracles and, and family and everything that I have. And, and we're always kind of living in this experience of holding everything all at once. And we get to choose bravery over and over again. We get to choose to walk through those moments of fear, to walk through those moments of doubt head on, right? To choose the things that other people aren't choosing because they're they're being controlled by their fear. But we walk with fear. We embrace fear. We dance with that voice of doubt. And in doing so, that is how we create those illogical results. And so what I wrote in this post was exactly what I was feeling and experiencing during that moment. And I wrote, you are so brave. He writes, I'm at dinner with the girls, laughing hysterically when I glance down at my phone to read his message. My laughter instantly turns to tears. Maybe I'm overcome with emotion because I've been running on 4 hours of sleep per night for the past 3 days. Or maybe it's because I feel this truth landing so firmly in my body. Yes, I am brave. I am so brave because I know it's the only way, the hidden key to reaching the fullest expression of who I'm capable of becoming. We don't achieve nonsensical joy, wealth, and fulfillment by making moves that make sense. We do it by meeting every edge with curiosity and saying yes to all the things that make no sense to anyone else but make perfect sense to us. By coexisting with fear and dancing with the voice of doubt. There's a million reasons not to be in Egypt right now. Conflict, war, danger, fear, money, time. There's a million reasons not to trust a random man whose intentions and training I have no knowledge of to operate a hot air balloon soaring at 3,000 feet above the desert terrain. I imagine the crash, the horror, the tragedy. My mind takes me all the way to the worst possible ending. And yet I'm floating weightless in awe. The golden sun emerges over the horizon and a faded, almost full moon still hangs in the sky. It's the most peaceful quiet I think I've ever heard. My mind tells me stories of chaos while my body is basking in sensations of joy and bliss. I laugh, I take photos, I say a prayer, I tell a joke. This moment is everything all at once. We land and I feel so grateful. I am brave. Not just for today, but for everything I've ever done that has led me to this moment. I've done this dance with fear 1,000 times before, and that's why I have what I have and I am who I am. The rich life you are craving is not coming soon. It is here now, waiting for you to become the true embodiment of the success that you seek. Okay, so I have something I think you're really gonna love, and your business is gonna love it even more. Do you want to steal the strategy I've been using to seduce premium buyers and sell out my offers on Instagram Stories? Chances are you're already posting, you're already making sales, but if your Instagram Stories aren't working as hard as you are, you're leaving money on the table. Sold Out Stories is gonna teach you exactly how to change that so that you can sell out any offer at any price point. And even high-caliber coaches miss this because selling on stories isn't about how much you post or how frequently you show up face to camera. 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It feels like truth resonating. And so I had to include that as one of these lessons from this year because that moment really solidified that. For me, you know, of like, it can be, it can be everything happening all at once. And yet we're floating and we're in gratitude. And, you know, we continue to move through life facing those fears and doubts head on. And that is how we create this result. That is how we become powerful women. That is how we become the type of people that get to lift others up and get to inspire and get to affect massive change and create these ripple effects throughout the world. That is the only way. The third lesson that I learned that really got solidified for me this year in my 30th year was that I really want to be a mom someday. And sometimes I wonder if you guys are sick of hearing me talk about this, because I feel like every time I have someone on the podcast who's a mom, I like ask them about their journey with like, you know, being an entrepreneur and going into motherhood and blah, blah, blah. But it's It's just been so present for me this whole past year, and I'm sure you've noticed that from listening to the podcast. But, and if you listen to the Egypt series, you know, the 3-part series that I did after Egypt about all the, all the things that transpired on that trip, which was— if you guys haven't listened to the Egypt series, go listen to it. There's so much in those 3 episodes. Like, man, that was probably one of my favorite things that I've recorded this year. And a lot of you sent sent so much incredible feedback about those episodes too, about just loving them, being enthralled and not being able to stop and going from 1 to 2 to 3. So, so many stories to be told in those episodes. But if you listened, you'll know that I was getting all the signs also when I was in Egypt, you know, with Goddess Hathor kind of being the goddess of fertility. And she was the goddess that was really waiting for me, um, to initiate me in Egypt. And the medicine man telling me that in a past life I was a priestess of Hathor I studied underneath her and, and then her coming through the clouds to me in a vision as we were meditating at the, at the, at the Great Sphinx, at the site of the Akashic Records. And I saw her like coming through the clouds and holding this swaddled baby and handing it to me. And then even like just recently, you know, when I went to that event in Miami and I told you guys about the tarot reader/psychic, some of you guys said it didn't sound like tarot. It sounded like it was, it was a psychic. And I totally agree. So she told me about, you know, how I'm going to have 3 children and all of their, you know, when they're going to come and how far apart they'll be and what they're, what they're going to be like when they're older and all those things. I just think, I just think that there's been a— oh, and I actually, now that I think about it, I had a, I had a psychic reading at the very start of the year too, and there was something in there about babies. And she was like, I don't know if this is actually going to be a conception and a pregnancy or if it's just going to be a lot more conversations and kind of starting to, to do some like family planning. But I totally forgot about that until now. There's just been so many things throughout this year that have reiterated to me and made it much more obvious that I really do want to become a mom. And I'm getting more and more excited about that journey. So we will see how that unfolds. I'm not trying yet. I'm not— I don't— I'm just going to put it kind of in God's hands, but not in the way of like like, you know, being irresponsible. We're not trying to have a baby, if you're wondering. But when the time is right, it'll be right. And I think that we will know. And if not, then we will rely on God creating accidents where accidents need to happen so that his plan, uh, can come to life. So that's kind of where we're at with that. But that was something that I also couldn't leave out because it was such a huge theme for me this year, you know, coming up in so many different ways. Just this idea of like motherhood and being excited for that chapter of life. Lesson number 4 is that leadership is a frequency, right? And I feel like I've stepped so much more into this in the past year. Every year, you know, we continue to grow as, as women, as business owners, and we get stronger in our leadership. But I really feel like my skills as a, as an embodied feminine leader have become a lot stronger in the past year. And I've learned so much that leadership truly is a frequency. You know, you don't have to necessarily say the right thing or the perfect thing in order to be considered an authority or to have people looking up to you or to have people wanting to follow your leadership. You just really have to move like an authority. You have to move like a leader, right? Because everyone, at least, you know, in the online space, like, wants to be an authority. And we talk about authority content and all these ways to create more authority, build more authority into your content, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Everyone wants that. But most people are not willing to actually move like an authority, right? To actually take risk like an authority figure, to be disliked like an authority figure, to hold the responsibility of an authority figure, and to firmly direct their business like an authority figure instead of outsourcing their power to everyone else and waiting for a coach to tell them exactly what to do or copying what the other successful people are doing. Most people want to have this authoritative energy and to have this frequency of leadership, but they're not willing to actually do what it takes. They're not willing to be embodied in that. And I think the moment that we start to get criticized or we receive some kind of hate or people are copying us, we get really in our heads about what this means. But if those things are not happening to you yet, then it means that you're not in leader frequency. Frequency, because once you're in leader frequency, you will be criticized, you will be disliked by some people, and you will be copied because people will see you as an example. People will see you as a, as a template, as a, as a version of success. And so of course, those things are going to start to happen to you, right? Being a leader in your space, whatever you do for work, it means that some people are going to love you while others are probably going to try to tear you down or copy your ideas. So when and if these things start happening to you, yes, it sucks. It's never fun. It's not comfortable. But it also means that you're really on the right track of stepping deeper into your own leadership. And being an authority, particularly online, I think is a lot less about what you're saying in your content. And it's really a lot more about who you're being, right? How are you moving behind the scenes? Who are you as an individual? What is your integrity like? How do you treat the people on your team? What are your in-person experiences like? What is the energy that your clients get from you when they're in your spaces, either virtually or in person? Right. Leadership is a frequency and it's a grounded, self-assured, confident, purposeful energy. And this is what makes people want to follow you. When you have this type of grounded, self-assured, confident, purposeful energy, people don't need to be convinced by your plan or your marketing. They are just ready to follow because they can feel it. They can feel that you're a leader. And this is something that is so, so important for business owners of all kinds to learn, because that's how we create movements, right? And that's ultimately— I mean, that's what I want to do. That's what I know all of my clients want to do. We're not here to just sell something random and make money. We're doing really purposeful work. We're selling from the heart. We want to make an impact. We want to change people's lives and we want to build these movements. You can't create a movement if you are not a leader, right? Every movement is spearheaded by a really strong and inspiring leader. And that is a frequency that we have to learn to operate at. So that is one of the main things that we kind of talk about and work through and start to develop and adopt inside of Top Tier Mastermind, which is my kind of high-level business mastermind, mastermind mind space that's going to be starting in January. So if you haven't applied yet and you're interested, if you want to work with me in close proximity and kind of be in this intimate high-level mastermind space, top tier is definitely going to be the space to be. I'm so excited. We're going to spend the whole year together. We're still going to have our in-person immersion event in Miami. And yeah, it's just one of my favorite spaces. And so this is one of the biggest lessons from this past year because because having run TopTier for— gosh, it's been— I think it's been a year and a half now. This is just even for me, it's gotten stronger and stronger. Obviously, this is one of our main themes and something that we teach inside of TopTier. But even for me, like leading that space and guiding that space and having multiple cohorts of women come through and doing all these different immersions and everything like that has really strengthened and solidified my own leadership. And I really, really enjoyed that process. And kind of going off of that, lesson number 5 is the fact that most often, like for the most part, for most people, most of the time, the biggest block in your business is really ultimately going to be you. People always think it's like a strategy or it's a funnel or some hack that they're missing, but it's not. It's you, right? And I, I think I told you guys about this. I went to an event in Miami this year and there was a psychologist on stage and she was talking about the attachment styles. And it just— it was like a lightbulb moment for me. It became so clear to me that being a secure CEO, right, securely attached, but in relation to not just your romantic partnerships but also your business, being securely attached in your business is probably the biggest success hack that there is. And it was like a lightbulb moment for me of like, oh my gosh, This is why. Hey, don't forget that every month we are picking a listener of the month to win $50 in cash just for showing love to the show. All you have to do is leave an epic review of the podcast on Apple Podcasts, screenshot the review before you hit submit, and DM that screenshot to us on Instagram @makeshifthappenpodcast. And that's it. I want to thank you for being such a loyal listener and show my appreciation by putting a little extra cash in your pocket. I know it's super easy not to do it, but every single rating and review seriously helps the show rank higher and reach new people, so we appreciate them more than you know. We'll announce the next winner at the end of the month and slide into your DMs if it's you, so keep an eye out and good luck. Love you guys, and thanks for supporting Makeshift Happen. This is why I have been able to get where I've gotten and achieve what I have, and it's something that I help so many of my clients with with, because I think when you work with a mentor, like, there's definitely this, this, um, you definitely kind of like start to absorb and adopt some of their energy and their confidence. It's like an osmosis, right, of like being in someone's energy who's really outspoken, confident, ambitious, um, like all of those traits. When you're around someone who's like that and moving in that way and leading in that way, after a while you start to go, hang on, I can, I can be confident too. Like, fuck yeah, you really like, it's almost like you borrow their belief in themselves and then you start to believe in them, in yourself more firmly. And I think this is one of the most beautiful parts of mentorship. This has happened for me, uh, working with my mentors. It happens for clients that work with me that, and I think that's also why you wanna be really careful with who you choose as a mentor and who you work with, because there is an energetic osmosis that happens where you kind of start to adopt some of their energies and some of their traits. And it's not like becoming a mini-me, but it is like you are who you spend the most time with, essentially, right? And who— what is the saying about like, you are the 5 people you spend the most time with? Yeah. So like, if you spend a lot of time with someone who's like wildly successful and has these really big expansive wealth beliefs and is super confident and is really grounded and and in control of their business and knows how to make decisions. And like, if you spend time with people like that, you are going to start to absorb some of that energy. And that's really, really helpful in business, but also just in life. Right? And so that light bulb went off for me at that event in Miami of like, oh my God, this is the hack. Like, this is the thing. This is what makes me and my clients so successful is that we have this grounded, purposeful, confident energy. Becoming a secure CEO is probably one of the most important things, one of the one of the best things that you could ever do for your business, because everyone thinks that the problem that they have is, like I said, some strategy that they're missing or a funnel that they haven't implemented or some kind of hack and some secret. Everyone thinks that they're beyond the kind of victim mentality when you get to a certain point in business, but you start to realize, hang on, a lot of people even who are like really successful, maybe they're running multi-six-figure, even seven-figure business, a lot of them are actually still in victimhood. A lot of them actually still have some of that like insidious kind of like victim mindset where they're thinking, oh, this next person, this next mentor, this next, next course is going to give me the secret that, you know, the missing thing that I haven't discovered yet. It's like finding a gem in the desert and it's good. You're going to rub the stone and a genie is going to come out and it's going to solve all your business problems. Like we think that we're beyond that. But if we really, really look at it and analyze it, a lot of us are still operating in that way. We think that it's something else outside of ourselves, some secret that we have to go and find that somebody else has that we don't know about. That's going to be the thing that fixes everything for us. But it's not. It's you. You are the block, right? It's your bullshit that you keep burying. It's the patterns that you're not breaking. It's the overthinking, the insecurity, the comparison, the fear of not enough people buying, the instability in your relationships behind the scenes, entertaining toxic dynamics with family members, not setting boundaries, trying to put on a brave face and your presenter hat when you're making content instead of just being your fucking self. It's constantly living in fight or flight, not learning how to heal your nervous system, not knowing how to stop working all the time or how to rest or how to take a weekend off. Or the opposite, not knowing how to get your ass in gear and get out of that like feminine chaos where you've been in, in floaty flitty twitty land for too long, right? Kind of flailing between this like hypermasculine and hyperfeminine. Outsourcing your power and continuing to buy, buy, buy, buy, buy from 12 different coaches. Because even though you don't think that you are, you're still in victim mode, kind of, right? Hoping that this next strategy, this next secret is going to save you. That is the block. The block is you. And I'm no exception to this, right? I can find myself sometimes being like, oh my gosh, if I do this, then that, then it'll fix this, or then my business will be— and then And then, but you always have to come back and go, okay, no, no, I got pulled into that mindset for a minute, but no, right? And reground. I think where the challenge comes in for a lot of people is they get pulled into that mindset and then they take action from that place. They get pulled into the comparison of, oh, all these people over here are doing this, or she did that, or they hired this person, or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Or look, look how fancy and big and cool that person's life looks. Okay, I'm going to hire that person because they must have the secret. And then they take action from that, that place. And I have a lot of friends that come to me and say, I really have to get it together with, you know, how— what I've been doing with my money. And I just— I've thrown money in so many different places and I overinvested in team or I spent, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars on mentors. And it was all from this place of like wanting them to fix things for me. And I didn't realize it until after. And so it's really about being able to regulate. And not that we're not going to get pulled into those mindsets or into comparison every once in a while, but like like not taking those impulsive actions from that place and actually centering yourself and making decisions from a really grounded space. When I go to invest in something, whether it's a system or a software or a new team member or a mentor or a mastermind or any of the, you know, various things that I invest in to make my life and my business better, I'm making sure that I am in a really grounded, centered energy and I am sure that this is the thing that I really want to do. It doesn't feel— the energy behind it isn't like needy of like, oh my God, this is going to fix something for me. It's pure desire. It's coming from pleasure. It's coming from a want. It's like, I would love to do this. This actually feels really beautiful and expansive and exciting to me. And it doesn't mean that investments never feel scary. They do. But there's a very big difference between feeling this energy of like neediness, of like, oh my God, if I just do this, then it's going to fix something for me or it's going to solve this problem, making impulsive decisions from that place is going to create even more problems in your business. And this is how a lot of coaches, especially because, you know, we're indoctrinated in the space to like invest, invest, invest, invest. And while investing in yourself is really important, I think that it needs to come from a grounded and regulated space because it's chronic. You know, the amount of people that have gone into debt or completely bankrupted their businesses because they invested from those impulsive spaces of, of feeling a little bit in victim mode, like someone was going to have this like secret superpower that was going to fix them. So this for me, like in this past year, I've seen this come up so many times for people in my circle, for friends, for peers. And it just— and then, and then at that event in Miami with that speaker talking about the attachment styles and applying that to business, it was just such a huge lightbulb moment and lesson for me of I was like, oh, that's right. Like having a secure attachment with your business is the biggest success hack. And that is why for most people, the biggest block in business is themselves. It's not a strategy or a hack or a funnel or ads or whatever else we think that it is. It's, it's us. And we have to be willing to do that work on ourselves if we want to continue to grow and evolve. Lesson number 6, that was a bit surprising, was when I kind of decided that being the breadwinner was overrated. So that was something that really solidified for me between like last, um, last year and this year of just like, oh, I guess I don't really want this. It's almost like when I thought that I wanted to be this like businesswoman living in Chicago and working in PR and being important in some way or another, doing something like that, I, I thought that's where I was gonna get significance from. And then realizing, oh my God, I guess I didn't ever even really want that. That was just something that I was trained to want. That was just something that I saw in society. It was the dream that was available, right? It was the dream that was most visible. It's what I saw in society. So I convinced myself, okay, yeah, that's what I want. And then it's this weird, like, disillusionment when you do something that you always thought that you wanted and then you realize, oh, I guess I, I guess I was programmed to want this, but like, it didn't really come from my soul wanting this thing. And so the same thing happened for me around this idea of like being the breadwinner in your partnership or in your household. I always thought that that was such a cool thing to achieve. Like, it felt so badass just as a woman to be like, you know, not just making your own money, but making a lot of your own money, making more than your partner or your husband or whatever. Like, that just seems so baller, you know? And then I did it and I was like, I don't really like this. Like, this is not really all that it's cracked up to be. And it's not about like, I'm wanting to earn less money. It was just really more about like the dynamic, especially in a heterosexual relationship where, you know, my partner is a man and he has primarily masculine energy. And I desire to be in my feminine energy in the relationship with this man and kind of realizing that there is there's a lot of like love and money are so connected. And we've always talked about that on this show. I think that's one of our— is that one of our most popular episodes? I don't know. But there's, there's a, there's an episode that so many people have listened to about like love and money. And I mean, they're connected in astrology. They're ruled by the same planet. Like it's— we know this, right? But it was another like a big aha realization for me of like, oh my gosh, yeah, a lot of our polarity with our partners can be influenced by the financial dynamics in a relationship, whether we want that to be be the case or not. I really believe that it simply just is. And so I don't dream of retiring my partner or having him come to work for me in my business. Um, I just realized that I don't like being the breadwinner, you know, because as an entrepreneur, like a lot of things already feel heavy as a woman. We already have to, uh, exercise a lot of our masculine energy in order to run a company and build a business and be strategic. Set up these systems and manage other people and all these things, let alone like if I were to add the pressure of now my company is the only source of income for our entire family, especially if we have kids one day, like, no thank you. Oh my goodness, that feels, that feels so full of pressure. My body rejects that whole idea. I don't like it at all. And I also really enjoy having separate work lives from my partner. I don't want to be his boss. I think I'm bossy enough as is. Like, I don't, I don't want to be more bossy towards him. I don't want to be— yeah, I don't know, that dynamic just weirds me out. I feel like that would totally fuck up our polarity if we were coworkers, even if I wasn't like his boss, if we were like partners or coworkers. I just think, I just think it would be not for us, right? I want to be, I want to be his lover. I want to be able to like soften into my feminine energy around him. I want to be taken care of. I don't, I don't want to be having to like direct him or be like, you know, business plans is what I need you to do. Like, it's just not for me. It's not for me. And also Jaime really naturally enjoys providing and he's really hungry for growth and success in his own career path, which, which I think is hot. And I would never want to be like, yeah, just come work for me. Me. So I just think the polarity is better this way. And, um, that's just me being honest of something that I really realized. And I mean, I think this idea of like retiring your husband is a really common goal among a lot of women in the coaching space. And I can definitely see why, like no hate to anyone who does that. And I think some people do it really well. And if it works for their dynamic, then that's incredible because they are able to then spend more time together. They don't neither partner has to, you know, ask for vacation days. There's so much more flexibility and freedom of working from home or working from anywhere, traveling whenever they want, right? Especially when it comes to like raising kids. That's a beautiful dynamic to have more freedom in terms of like managing your family and also liberating your partner potentially from a draining or highly demanding job that they hate. Like if you can do that by bringing them onto your team or into your company, that's awesome. I totally get it. Like, it makes sense. It just doesn't feel like something that I want to strive for personally. And maybe that's because we've both— Jaime and I have both already worked from home for years and spent lots of time together. But yeah, I just really like the idea of us doing our own things and thriving in our separate zones of genius and also getting to tell each other about what happened at work today. And every dinner conversation or every conversation period is not becoming about our business or like the strategy or the next goals. Which I think could easily happen because we already talk about my business a lot because it's a huge part of my life. It's a huge part of our life, right? But if he was also working in the business, I think, I think our lives would just turn into a giant conversation about business. I like missing each other when we have busy days apart, when he's off doing something or I'm on a trip or I'm going to an event or I'm hosting a retreat, or if I'm just like busy with clients all day and he's at the office or doing something else or showing houses or whatever he's doing, right? And I like seeing him grow in his own career path and to embark on different projects that I have no interest in, but I'm wildly inspired by. Like, I love seeing him do that stuff. And also being able to depend on someone to provide for us outside of the income of my business, that is relaxing to me. I love that idea of knowing that if I want to quit someday and become a homemaker and just make sourdough bread and raise babies, um, which I feel is so against my personality, I can't imagine that ever happening. But just to know in the back of your mind that that's like a possibility or that you have like a safety net of someone who's bringing in more income for the household besides what you're doing in your business, that really allows my feminine energy to like soften more and to thrive. So neither way is wrong. I'm just saying that like, this is what works best for us, for our polarity, our chemistry, our personalities, and overall, you know, this vision that we kind of have for our current season of life. And that's something that was really solidified for me this year. Lesson number 7 is that becoming financially abundant and getting everything that I wanted in life truly started with having the courage to choose me, even if it meant being poor. And this was something— I think I was having a conversation with my friend Shoshana. We were recording podcasts and we both kind of shared this sentiment of like the way that we created such abundance and built these businesses and movements out of what seemed like nothing was really because we had been choosing ourselves regardless of the consequences. You know, I got to where I am not by chasing money, but by chasing me. That's what I realized was like, wow, that's so true. Like I was— I would rather be be poor and happy and free than have the golden handcuffs of making a lot of money but being stuck in a cubicle or in a job that I hate. And, and of course, when I made that choice, I was young. I was 22 years old. I had no children depending on me. I did not have a mortgage. Like, I was so privileged in the sense that I learned that really early on of like, wow, wait, I need to choose myself. Because of course it does become more complicated the more that life goes on and the more responsibilities you acquire and children and all those things. They add complications for sure. But being 22 and really deciding like, I'm going to not take these job offers because I love this guy and I just want to see where my heart will take me. And I don't think I'm ready to sit in this cubicle and I don't really know what I want to do with my life yet. So I'm going to have the courage to say no to all of this, to everything that society and family and school and everything has been leading me towards, and go, you know what, I'm not ready for that yet. I don't know, I'm not sure that that's exactly what I want. So I'm gonna say no to all of it. I'm gonna pack my bags, I'm gonna move to Spain, I'm gonna teach English, I'm gonna make basically no money, I'm gonna struggle to make ends meet, but I'm gonna have the time of my life and I'm gonna discover something about myself. I chose me. I got here by chasing me, not by chasing money. And even when I started my, my business, it was really about doing something that was going to fill me with joy, doing something that was going to bring fulfillment. For so many of those early stages of my quote unquote business, I had no idea that it was going to become a business. I didn't know that the e-book that I was writing was going to turn into a course that I would later sell. I didn't know that what I was posting on Instagram or the things that I was blogging about were later going to be turned into these lessons that I could coach on. Like, I didn't know any of that. And I think that was the beauty of being really naive at that stage of my life, was that I wasn't like chasing an outcome or really like addicted to this idea of getting a certain result. And because I was just willing to chase myself and my own growth and my own happiness and what was going to fulfill my own heart's desires, regardless of what everyone else thought or what was the right thing to do or what was going to make me more money or whatever. Like all of that went in the bin and it was just like, what do I need? What do I want? What's going to fill me up? That is what created everything that I have now was chasing me rather than chasing money or chasing an outcome. And what a beautiful thing to recognize. You know, I think at the time, like I said, I was really young. I was in my early 20s. I was so naive. I didn't even know what I was doing. I didn't know that I was in the process of building a business or building a community, I was just throwing shit at the wall. I was just doing stuff because I like to. I started a newsletter because I wanted to write, because I wanted to talk to people, because I wanted to share. I started blogging because I wanted people to read what I had to say. That's it. The intentions were so pure. And I know it's, it's harder nowadays because we have so much perspective and the online space has evolved so much and we know how much potential there is with YouTube channels, with podcasts, with coaching, with all these different, you know, being a creator on social media. There's so many different opportunities now that we have an awareness that we can no longer turn off. Like, we can't go from knowing that those things are possible to then being completely naive so that we can then go in with pure intentions. But I do think that, um, this is still applicable today for a lot of people of just understanding that there are so many ways that your body is probably currently asking you to choose yourself. And for whatever reason, you are still rejecting that because you think that you need something else first. You think that something else has to be created before you can choose yourself and whatever that means for you, whether it's health or it's leaving a relationship or it's traveling more or it's moving to a different city or a different country, or like there's things that you want, there's things that you're your soul and your body is asking you for, that it's craving. And you keep putting it off and saying later, later, later, when the time is right, when there's more money, when I'm more comfortable, when it's better. And you get to choose yourself. And in choosing yourself, I can promise you that miracles and magic is going to be created in your life. Getting everything that I wanted in life came from having the courage to choose me even if it meant that there was going to be consequences, even if it meant that people weren't going to understand or they were going to judge me or I was going to be not supported or I wasn't going to make a lot of money. Like all of those things were on the table and I still said, I choose me, I choose me. And so I just think that that's a really, really huge key for creating success in your life is actually being willing to choose yourself regardless of what the consequences are that are attached to that. And that there's so many people that are unwilling that are not going back to one of our other lessons, that are not willing to dance with that voice of doubt and to coexist with that feeling of fear. But it became so clear for me this year, just like another big aha moment of like, wow, yeah, that really is how I got here. That really is how all of this has been created. And the same for so many of my clients, right? And so there's such magic in choosing yourself. So whatever that means for you, take that. That and do something about it. Okay. And my last and final lesson that I want to share with you guys is that life gets bigger when you do. You know, this is one of my main mantras to live bigger. But I really felt this so deeply this year when I was standing in Times Square in New York City, posing in front of a giant billboard with my podcast on it. I just thought, wow, this is like, this is the best example that I've ever felt of what it means to live bigger. And the reason why I say life gets bigger when you do is because I think so many of us are waiting for the world to give us permission to take up space or to be proud of our work or to love ourselves loudly. Like we're waiting for other people to be like, wow, you look really good for us to be like, oh my God, I look really good. We're waiting for the world to be like, oh my gosh, you know, your podcast changed my life or your work is so powerful for us to actually show up and take up a lot of space and be loud of like, yeah, my work is so fucking powerful, right? But we have to go first. We have to go first. You have to get bigger and then your life will respond. It's kind of like how people say you teach someone how to love you by the way that you treat yourself. And I also think that we teach the world how to perceive us with the way that we perceive ourselves. And that's all in our energy. So adopting a larger, more expansive idea of who you are, of what you bring to the table, of your worth, of what you're capable of, is where this all starts. Life gets bigger when you do. When your concept of self becomes bigger, then your life responds to that and your business gets bigger when your risks do right, which it follows the same thing. Like life gets bigger when you do. Okay, your business is going to get bigger when your risks get bigger, because that's a version of you expanding yourself. Most of us are working hard trying to go from the outside in when really the work that we need to be doing is from the inside out, right? The work that we really need to be doing is around expanding ourselves first, expanding your self-concept, expanding your identity, expanding what you believe that you're ready for, expanding your capacity for wealth, expanding your tolerance for risk, expanding your generosity like we talked about, expanding your comfort zone, expanding your idea of your own potential. It's time to go bigger because when you go bigger, life responds in accordance. So 2025 is right around the corner and I'm so excited for what's to come personally, professionally, with the podcast and with each and every one of you in this community. I just know that there's so much magic that's going to unfold for us, and I can't wait to see what that looks like. And I would just want to thank you guys for, you know, spending another year with me as I turn 31 tomorrow and continuing to grow with me each year. I mean, this podcast started in 2020 and it's about to be 2025, which is crazy. And we've published an episode, at least one episode every single week, sometimes more. We are now on YouTube. We've been doing video episodes for over a year, which is absolutely crazy. There's a lot more people working behind the scenes on this show. I have dreams this year of doing a lot more in-person recordings with guests and potentially even building a studio. Just so many projects in the work, but they are only possible because of you and your listenership and wanting to follow along on this journey with me. So I just wanted to take take this birthday episode to really thank you for riding with me and being on the path with me and continuing to tune in each week. It means more to me than you'll ever know. Your listens are what allow me to do the job that I've always dreamed of, and they're also what allow me to continue to, to do this work of helping so many other women change their lives and really build heart-centered businesses that are impacting so many people around the world in such a positive way. Just to see the ripple effect that this community, podcast, and all of the courses and programs, masterminds and everything, all of this that's been created from just me choosing myself and, you know, taking risks and dancing with the feelings of fear and coexisting with self-doubt and everything that we talked about today, like, wow, just to see everything that's been created from that. It. So inspiring. And I really feel so grateful and so lucky. So I wanted to share these lessons with you guys. Hopefully they inspire you to keep doing your work, to keep leaning in harder to what's on your heart and the value and the ripple effect that you want to bring to the world. We all have so much value to give, whether it's, you know, in a, in the format of a business or a podcast or even just the relationships with the people in your life. If you're a mom, you have an incredible impact, impact to make. With your children, and there's just so much. So thank you guys so much for tuning in. I love you all. If you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot, share it to your Instagram stories, tag me. I love seeing when you guys are listening to the podcast. Or if you know someone who might enjoy this episode, copy the link, send it to a friend in a message, and let them know you were thinking of them. I love you guys, and I can't wait to spend my 31st year with you once again every single week on Makeshift Happen. All right, you guys, we'll talk soon. Bye! Mwah!