Productivity Hacks, 4-day Work Week & Speaking at A&F Headquarters

What's up guys. Welcome back to the podcast. Today we are just chilling. It's me and you. It's a bit of a cloudy day here in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I am currently sipping on a cup of lavender chamomile tea, and let me tell you, it is delicious. And we're just gonna have a relaxed little chit-chat about what I've been getting up to this month, both personally and professionally. Changes, travels, updates, all the things. I'm gonna share with you some of my recent productivity hacks that are helping me reduce distraction and stick to my time boundaries more. How and why I'm dropping down to a 4-day work week, a recap of my recent speaking gig at Abercrombie Fitch world headquarters, and more. So if you're here for the inside scoop and all the behind the scenes action, stick around and keep listening. All right, let's get into it. Mm, that is good tea. Welcome to the Makeshift Happen podcast. I'm your host, Samantha Daley. 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 shift happen. The month of June was a pretty big month, but we got to start at the top. So the first major highlight of the month of June was obviously the Top Tier Immersion. This happened the very first weekend of June. All of the ladies from Top Tier 2.0 came to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. They joined me in my house, and then I took them to some of my favorite restaurants around the city, on the water, on the canal, near the beach. And then we stayed at a beautiful hotel on the beach for 2 nights, and we did some masterminding sessions. We did some yoga on the beach. We did some breathwork. We did some visualization. We did some— oh, we had conversation cards. We were, we were going all the places. We were going deep. We did a photo shoot. We did content creation. We just had so much fun. It was such a blast. It's always so rewarding and fun to get to meet my clients in person, and it's just like another level of connection that I think a lot of us are craving, especially in entrepreneurship. We spend so much time building these these online relationships. And I think you can get really close with people in the digital space, but it just takes it to a whole different level when you're able to meet in person and actually hug and touch each other and have these experiences and go deep and cry and laugh. And it was just amazing. We had the best time. We had so much fun at our dinners. We were laughing so hard. The one night I was— I literally almost wet myself, and there was full-on tears coming out of my face. And then there were other times where we were like really going deep and processing, and people were releasing things and crying, and it's just, it's so rewarding to exist in a space with other like-minded women who, where we can show up with that complexity of showing all of our sides, right? And how multifaceted we are. And we can go from business to personal to trauma to manifestation to money to future plans to having babies to like all the things. So it's just always such a fun time to get to meet my clients in person, especially having them come to my my home where I live and show them my favorite places and just share this beautiful place and my beach and everything that I love about it here with them. So that was an amazing way to kick off the month of June. Absolutely. And something that happened like right off the back of that was we went directly into the presale and then subsequently the launch for the next intake of Top Tier Mastermind. And this is something new. I've, um, never done it in this way before. And I, I switched up a lot of things about this launch actually. Like I really just launched in a way that I never had. There were so many things that were new and different and did not follow the formula that I normally do. And it didn't follow the formula that I normally teach my clients. Like it was just something that I wanted to experiment with and it made it fun because when you're in business, especially, you know, as an entrepreneur, like you have to be ready to constantly innovate and try new things. And I think that's also part of leadership is is like being the person that's like, okay, I know we have this system and it's working, but like, what about if we deviate and try something else? Like, might that work even better? Like, you're not going to find the next best solution by just doing the things the same way all the time. So it was fun for me to challenge myself and to also just play and explore and trial and error for my own business, but then to also get to take what I learned from that and then be able to pass that back to my clients. So this time around for our Top Tier 3.0, like, I got way better results, attracted the dreamiest clients for this next upcoming round. And it also felt like the easiest, most stress-free, like no-pressure launch that I've had in a really long time. So I'm excited to share more about those strategies and what I implemented inside of Top Tier itself with the women who joined, which is another thing that I love about that space is just getting to really like peel back the layers and show the behind the scenes of my business and what I'm doing and trying and what's working and, you know, numbers and launches and all those things. I think that's something that really helps other entrepreneurs business owners grow is to actually see how people are doing things. So I won't be the only one that's sharing that. Everyone in the mastermind will also be sharing what's working for them, their tools, their areas of expertise, and there's going to be opportunities to skillshare and things like that. So I'm really, really excited about this next round. We also changed top tier from being a 4-month mastermind to a 6-month mastermind. So we're just going to get to go even deeper with each other. The relationships are going to become even closer, more intimate. There's more high-level support. It's just I'm so, so, so excited for it. And then we'll have another immersion towards the end of the year, which is going to be epic once again. So yeah, I'm really excited for that. I also wanted to share with you guys some things that I'm implementing personally to get more lasered in, in my like focus and reduce distractions, just kind of increase productivity and improve my own time boundaries. So I've talked about this a couple of times before, but I'll bring it up again because I find it really useful. There's a book called The Four Tendencies. By Gretchen Rubin. And there's also a quiz online where you can find out what your tendency is if you don't want to read the whole book, but you want to read about like your specific type. And what I know is that I am an obliger. And so I'm really good at upholding standards or expectations or time boundaries when other people are attached to them. So if someone is waiting for me or if I have booked a class and I have to be there at a certain time, I will be. However, I'm not as good as upholding my own personal expectations of like, I want to be at the gym by 8:00 AM. I'm not the best at that. I will probably still find a way to make it, but I'll be late or I'll like move it around or like something. So I think self-awareness is key in business and in life. And so something that I know about myself is that I'm— that's like a challenge for me sometimes is actually respecting my own time boundaries. And when I say I'm gonna do this from 8:00 to 9:00 AM, not getting distracted of something else. And then being like, oh shit, I didn't do that thing that I said that I was gonna do, so now I have to find time for it later because I disrespected that time boundary. So that's something that I've been working on personally, and here's kind of like where I'm at with that and what I have found has been helpful lately, just in case this is valuable for anyone else that also feels like, yeah, I, I often get distracted or I set aside time to do a task, but then I get pulled into something else, or there's always something that like pops up that feels more urgent. And so I go do that and then. I'm not actually following the flow of how I had originally planned my day to be. That's always been quite a challenge for me, I would say, in entrepreneurship, because there's always like random things that are coming up that you didn't think of. And sometimes, you know, things are actually urgent and then other times they are just perceived as being urgent. So there's a lot going on there in terms of like, are we actually, do we have the structure in place that's gonna help us avoid this issue? And do we have the awareness? To understand what is actually urgent and, and what's not and how we can get around that. So anyways, all of that to say, here are some things that I've been doing lately that I find have been really helpful. So I started time blocking my recurring tasks that tend to pull me away from whatever I was meant to be doing, because there are certain things that I do all the time in my business, but they're never really on the calendar. These, these are things like client messaging. Like, I have private clients and they have Telegram access with me. And so there could be messages at any time of the day, any day. And so that's something that's going on all the time, but it's not necessarily like in my calendar or blocked in my day. So client messaging, same thing with like mastermind chats, group chats, my email inbox. I'm not blocking time for that, but it's something that has to be looked at. Emails need to be answered. Slack messages with my team. Obviously there's a lot of moving parts and there's, you know, people between like our video team, my OBM, my assistant, like we're all working together on certain projects or things need approvals or something came up or whatever. And so that's always a possibility that there's could be messages or things that are popping up that need my attention, but it's not really blocked into my day. And so those tend to be these things that are recurring tasks. They're happening over and over and over again, but they're not actually ever accounted for in my schedule. They're not ever time blocked for. And so naturally, that means that those things are pulling me away from other tasks that I had said that I was meant to be doing. I'm like, okay, from 10 to 11:00 AM, I'm gonna be working on this, but then a Slack message pops up and then I'm approving a video with the video team and then I'm replying to a client in Telegram and then I'm, you know, answering DMs or whatever. And it's like those things actually need their own place to live. I need to block time for them so that when they pop up, I feel like, okay, I'll get back to that later, but I know that I'm not gonna forget. Because that's the thing. And I know a lot of people will be able to relate to this. Like, if I see a message or I read an email or I open a text and I don't answer immediately, see you never. Like, you're not getting a response from me because I will fucking forget. And so I live with this constant fear of like, I'm going to forget about this, so I need to just do it now. But the problem with that is that it makes every task feel urgent, and every task cannot be urgent or else you're never going to be able to stick to the things that you said that you wanted to do when you wanted to do them. So how do we get around that? This is my idea. This is the concept that I came up with. I don't think I, I don't think this is like any like crazy invention, but this is just what has, what occurred to me and what has been working for me is to actually put those things into scheduled time blocks in my calendar. And so what I've done is I've scheduled 2 times a day, these like messaging blocks where I am supposed to be looking at Telegram messages and replying to team messages in Slack. So there's one that's like early in the morning, and then there's one that's like kind of like capping out towards the end of my day in the afternoon. So there's 2 time slots in my day where I know from my calendar, I'm gonna get reminded. Go answer your client messages and go answer your team messages from Slack. So that during the day, when those things are popping up, I don't feel the urgency of like, oh my God, I have to answer it. Else I'm going to forget. I'm not going to forget now because there's a designated time block for it later in the day that when I look at the calendar, I'm going to be reminded, oh yeah, I have some messages. Let me go reply to them. So I have that scheduled in twice a day, once at the start of the day, and then once kind of at the end of the day. And then I have, emails, like clearing my email inbox scheduled in twice a week. So I'm not someone who's in my emails every day, mostly because most of our emails that come through about the business go to our team email, not like my personal email. But there's some emails in my personal that— I mean, it's my personal, but my work, my work personal. Does that make sense? Whatever, you get the point. There are certain emails that will be in there, like things from my accountant and stuff like that. Like, that's obviously not going to my team. That's going to me. So I don't need to be in like aggressively in my email inbox like every single day, but I do think it's helpful to have 2 solid time blocks per week where I go into my inbox and make sure if there's any emails that need my attention, just clearing things, um, deleting things, unsubscribing from things, just like getting it down to essentially zero. And then I do that twice a week and that has been helpful and that's been working. And then I make sure that I schedule my workouts with my personal trainer at the start of the week. Whether you have a trainer or not, like scheduling your workouts is a great idea. But again, me being an obliger, I'm way more likely to show up for the gym when I know that I have someone there waiting for me. I'm like, shit, shit, shit. Like I can't miss this. Like I have to be there. So it forces me to go and I love having a trainer. It's been really helpful for me this year. That's something that I started at the start of the year and I've really been enjoying it because it pushes me to do things in the gym that I normally wouldn't do by myself. It pushes me to up my weights. It pushes me to really follow and stick to a program, to probably work out harder and a little bit longer than I normally would if I were just on my own. And it really helps me stay consistent. So I schedule those workouts with my trainer at the start of the week. So I know when we're getting in, um, lifting sessions together. And then I have also started to block time for lunch and walking the dog. So Jaime used to work from home with me all the time, but now he's really working in the office or in the brokerage a lot. So he's not really here. And so unfortunately, I really relied on him because he's— he is someone who functions like clockwork. Like, his body is like, okay, it's lunchtime, so I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna eat something. And he takes the dog out for a walk at the same time every single day. I'm way more of like a kind of scatterbrained, like, go-with-the-flow type person where I'll— if I get in the flow of something, I will literally lose track of time and I'll be like, oh my gosh, It's 4:30 PM. I haven't eaten anything. Oh, where's the dog? Is he okay? So I— this might sound like neurotic to some people, but I literally have to like schedule in time for my lunch and walking the dog, or else I will literally forget, or I'll get caught up and just like lose track of time. So I have to know now, since I'm left alone, I have to be responsible. I have to be an adult, which means I need to babysit myself and my brain a little bit of like, okay, don't forget, you need 30 minutes to go for a walk and you need like 30 minutes to an hour to have lunch. So I block that in. And then I've also recently decided that I'm gonna be dropping down to a 4-day work week. So as I record this, this is my second week of doing so. So I'll give you an update later on once I'm like kind of more into it. I'm interested to see how this feels for me because I've heard that some people really love it and that I've also heard that some people actually decide that they don't like it that much and they would rather do 5 days a week because trying to crunch everything into 4 days for some people feels like more pressure, and they would rather be able to like spread some of those tasks into Friday, even if it's like a half day on Friday. So I don't know, we'll see how I go with it. It just kind of feels really in alignment with my soft CEO era, and with summer coming up, it just kind of feels like the vibe. So I'm taking Fridays off for the foreseeable future. We'll see how it goes. I just put in my Google Calendar like out of office repeating forever until further notice that I'm not available for anything on Fridays. And then we notified all of my clients that I won't be doing like client messaging or calls of any kinds on Fridays, which I didn't do calls on Fridays before anyway. So not that much is really changing. I used to record some podcasts on Fridays, but we're really just gonna consolidate and do that on Wednesdays. And then my client days are really like, uh, client and mastermind days are Tuesdays and Thursdays. Monday is mainly like content team. CEO Day stuff. So that's kind of the split that I'm working with, and I'm excited to see how it plays out and if it helps me feel more spacious, if it helps me feel more alive, if it helps me feel like I'm living in my life more, or if it makes me feel like my work week is now actually shittier because I feel so much pressure and I have to get so much done within 4 days. So I don't know, it'll be interesting to see how that goes, but I, I'm hoping that it turns out obviously better. So So that's another thing that I'm doing. I'm also adapting my content creation goals to really like fit the season that I'm in. So for the last, like, well, I guess really from, for all of 2023, for sure, I was posting pretty much like solidly 4 to 5 times per week, sometimes more, sometimes a little bit less, but that was always my goal was like 4 to 5 solid posts per week. And I was really intense with my content creation schedule. I think I talked about it on the show before. I used to do like a Friday-Monday split where I would create all of my ideals and scripts and captions and stuff on Fridays. And then I would execute, film, and put everything together on Mondays. Uh, but that was like a lot of time and that doesn't work anymore now that I'm not working on Fridays. So the content creation window has shrunk. It's gotten smaller. And so has the output that I'm shooting for. So rather than 5 solid posts a week, I'm really shooting for like 3 nowadays. I'm also doing less talking videos and stories and just kind of doing more like photo posts and stories with text on top because you get people to hold down their thumb, read the text. It increases the amount of time that they're watching the story, which tells the algorithm that your story is interesting, which can help increase your story views. I'm also letting my stories fully expire and not posting to them every day. So, you know, stories expire after 24 hours. But there were like probably years at a time where my stories never expired, meaning like there was always something in my stories. So it just kind of depends on what season you're in in business. But at least right now for me, it makes more sense to be a little bit more— I don't wanna say like elusive, like it's not like it's this strategy of like, ooh, you don't know what I'm doing. It's really just more like I don't have time to basically be be talking on my stories all day, every day. Like, the business has grown, responsibilities has grown, team has grown. Like, that's just not— it's just not really like a fit anymore. And also, if you guys listen to the episode with Brock Johnson at the start of the year, all about like what's working on Instagram in 2024, these were a lot of the things that he was sharing with us from an expert who talks with Meta and who knows what's going on and spends most of his, you know, professional life studying what is actually working on social and helping people grow. So I took a page out of his book, I took his recommendations, and in a lot of ways. And I decided like, I'm gonna post less talking videos on stories and I'm gonna let my stories fully expire and spend days where I'm not actually posting in them. So that's something that's kind of changed and shifted with content creation. Another tip, this is not new. I've done this for years, but it's something that came up on a recent, uh, call with the Abundant and Ambitious Mastermind girls is using your Google Calendar as your to-do list. So sometimes I just, to-do list. Oh, and this actually came up too with my videographer Kirsten when we were traveling to Columbus. We were talking about like schedules and how we operate our days and like what typical weeks look like and stuff. And I was showing her my thing and she was like, oh, you like put your tasks in your Google Calendar. And I'm like, yeah, do you not do that? Like, that is such a life hack. I don't know. Everyone obviously is going to have their own system of what works for them. But if you've never tried that, use your Google Calendar as your to-do list because the benefits of doing that is you have one thing to look at for the whole day. Cause I know a lot of people have, their calls or appointments in something like a Google Calendar. So that's where they look to see when they have calls, but then they'll have like tasks or to-dos somewhere else. I need to see all of that, of what I'm supposed to do in a day in one area. It needs to be in one place. I just need to be able to see the whole day. What am I meant to be doing at this time? Because I can get easily distracted. And so it's super simple for me to just pull up my Google Calendar and be like, what the fuck am I supposed to be doing and how much time do I have until the next meeting or appointment or client call that I'm supposed to be on. So that's helpful, like seeing it visually all in one spot. And it also helps you become a lot more realistic with your to-dos, because if you're still making to-do lists, you're probably putting way too much shit on there because you're not actually accounting for how much time those tasks are going to take you. So you're just sitting down and going, hmm, what do I want to get done today? A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K. 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Another sold out her event in under 6 hours with just 8 strategic story slides. No sales calls, no paid ads, just the right frameworks. You'll walk away knowing how to sequence for desire, transition into your offer seamlessly, and sell daily without ever feeling salesy. Easily. You already know your offer's incredible, so now it's just time for your stories to sell it like it is. Grab Sold Out Stories today and turn 10 slides or less into your highest converting content. Let's make your next story your most profitable one yet. Click the link in the show notes below and I'll see you inside. And then it never happens and you feel defeated and then things just keep getting moved over to the next day and the next day and the next day. Whereas if you actually use your Google Calendar as because a to-do list, you can visually see, okay, this task, I need to write an email newsletter that is gonna take me 60 minutes. You can actually put that in, in a 60-minute time block and see, oh, that means I'll only have 15 minutes or 30 minutes between that and my next call. Is it realistic to put another task in there or do I wanna give myself a little break? Do I wanna go for a quick walk? Do I wanna get a snack? Like you can just way more easily and realistically plan out what you're gonna be able to fit. Into a day when you're blocking in your Google Calendar versus just using a freaking aspirational to-do list. It also allows you to leave for some needed white space and make sure that, you know, you're not like, I would say, don't put things like so back to back to back to back to back to where your whole day from like morning to evening is just like time blocks back to back, because we know things don't always go to plan. A call might go over a little bit. Or a task might take you a little bit longer than expected. And so leaving some white space between things can be helpful just in case the timing of something is not totally accurate and it goes over, or you get distracted by something, or there is an urgent task that pops up and you need to do that right away. Or maybe you like get off of a call and rather than going right into your next thing that's supposed to be like creative, your brain's not totally there yet. You're like, oh, I have like 15 to 30 minutes of of, of a white space, I'm gonna go get a snack, I'm gonna walk around, I'm gonna check my phone, whatever you need to do to kind of like reset yourself before you go into that next task where you're trying to be focused again. So use your Google Calendar as your to-do list. It'll change your life, I promise. And then the last thing there is I will make sure that I have my most mentally demanding tasks at the start of the day rather than in the middle of the day or at the end of the day. Obviously everyone's energy is different, but you've got to find what works for you. I really find that I have the most mental clarity, energy, and creativity at the start of the day. I think that's true for a lot of people, so I'll make sure that the most mentally demanding tasks are really at the start of the day and not towards the end. Okay, so let's talk about my recent speaking engagement at Abercrombie Fitch global headquarters. This was really fun. I got to go back to Columbus, Ohio, which is where I actually went to school because I went to Ohio State University. So always a fun excuse to go to Columbus, but this time it was extra special because it was my first paid corporate speaking gig. So it was a, a big moment. It was really exciting. I was invited by the A&F team to come speak because of the podcast, which is really cool. And it just reminded me like why playing the long game in business is so important because there's this invisible ROI of the things that you are continuously, selflessly pouring into week after week for years upon years with no compensation. Like, the podcast is something that I've been doing since 2020, every single week. We, we don't do seasons. We've never taken a break. We don't miss episodes, and we have rarely ever had paid ad placements or like any kind of compensation for the podcast. The podcast really just costs us money. The whole production, the video team. You know, now doing YouTube Shorts, like getting all the clips and my team doing the editing of the audio episodes and uploading and show notes and all of that. Like, it really is just a cost to the business. Obviously there's a return on that investment infinitely, but it's not going to happen right away. And I think that's something that people forget when they go into these projects that seem like, oh, but that's not going to make me money for a while. They avoid those types of things. But the long game strategies and those things ultimately I feel are the things that are going to get you the furthest. And there's not a lot of people that are willing to like have that much consistency and that much hunger and devotion to something to get to the point where you're actually seeing the return on it. So obviously over the years, you know, the podcast has brought me tens of thousands of dollars in client acquisitions because people listen to the show, they feel really connected, it helps nurture them, they feel more excited about the idea of working with me. They feel more connected to the, the way that I do business, the way that I teach, my mindsets, my energy, all of those things. It's also brought me exciting opportunities like this speaking gig with ANF. It has increased my visibility within other people's audiences from doing swaps and going on other people's shows and things like that. And then it's also brought me new industry friends and connections, which is so priceless. And you know, you can get a lot farther when you're in the right spaces and you know the right people. So there's so much there, there is a lot of invisible return on the investment of pouring into something like a podcast or a YouTube channel or some form of like long-form content that requires a lot of your time and attention and energy and editing and dedication. And it feels like, oh my gosh, like, is this even worth it? Is it working? Like, I'm just spending so much money and resources and time and, and stuff on this. Is it taking me anywhere? So it's really, really rewarding when you are playing the long game in business and then you see those returns and you're like, wow, like, yeah, I wouldn't have gotten this opportunity without pouring into this for the past 4 years. So that was a really cool moment that someone on their team is an avid listener of the show, really loves the podcast, thought of me at that, thought that I would be a great guest speaker and wanted to bring me on board and and, you know, was able to kind of work with us to make that happen. So we flew to Columbus. I flew with my videographer Kirsten, who shoots a lot of my like behind-the-scenes video content whenever we're doing a photo shoot or a rebrand of some kind, or when we're doing like the top-tier immersions. Um, she's always there filming. And so I had her come with me. So we flew last Wednesday to Columbus and then the talk was on Thursday morning at their headquarters. So Kirsten actually recorded the whole talk, and I think we'll be able to post it at some point. And then we also filmed a little vlog of the whole trip and the whole experience, so that will definitely go up on my YouTube as soon as it's edited and done and ready. So that's exciting. Um, and so Wednesday night when we got there, we just basically had enough time to like go out to dinner and then go to sleep. So that's really all we did. We went to the Restoration Hardware rooftop in Columbus at the Easton Town Center, which is a really cool like outdoor mall complex place in Columbus. And it was really nice. It's such a good vibe. There's beautiful chandeliers everywhere. This like gorgeous fountain, you know, it's at like a Restoration Hardware store, like the bougie furniture store. So it's Everything is beautiful. And then you just go up to the rooftop and they have this like really aesthetically pleasing restaurant, really good food. I got filet mignon, we got truffle fries, burrata with toasted sourdough and grilled peppers, this lemon garlic broccolini, and then salted caramel ice cream. Like, the meal was chef's kiss, so freaking delicious. It was like over $200, but I was like, hashtag worth it. That was so good, and then I puked the whole thing. 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 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. Puked it all up before bed. I was like, wow, I'm actually really depressed because that steak was so good. Like, it was so sad. I don't know what happened. I, I think I like ate a little too much. The, the truffle fries were like really, really seasoned. Like, there was a lot of spices on there. It was very intense. And, um, I started to get like a nervous tummy. Like, I was definitely feeling a little bit anxious because my talk was the next morning. And I don't know, things just started gurgling I was like, oh God. And then I went to the bathroom. I thought I was just gonna go to the bathroom. I was like, I think I'm about to puke right now. And I just puked the whole dinner. So that was depressing, disappointing. But luckily I was fine and I was able to sleep. And then woke up the next day, felt great, ate breakfast, went over to A&F, and everything was, everything was smooth sailing from there. But threw me for a little loop, didn't it? So we arrived at, uh, Abercrombie on Thursday morning, and they first kind of took us around for a tour of their campus. Us, which is really fun. They have like a really spread out campus. It's kind of in this like, um, I don't want to say like country, but like you're, you're not in the middle of like a city. You know how like headquarters and places are normally like in kind of in the middle of nowhere essentially? It's not far from stuff, but it's also not like in the downtown area of a city. So you drive in, it's like this long windy road, there's like forest and trees everywhere. They said sometimes there's like deer crossing through, like to give you vibe of like where it is. It feels like you're going to like a cabin or something. It's very like rustic vibes, Adirondack, like kind of like farmhouse. I don't know, that's, that's the vibe it's giving. And their campus is really spread out, so there's a bunch of buildings all in like these different areas. And then they have Razor scooters, like the legit silver Razor scooters that we all used to ride if you're a '90s kid or 2000s kid. That's how they get around from building to building on their campus. So you just see people like like racing around on Razor scooters to get to like different buildings of the, of the campus, which is funny. So we did a little tour of the campus and we saw a lot of the behind the scenes of the marketing and all the different kind of moving parts that are involved in that. We got to go into the styling closets where they style all the outfits, and those girls in there, I was like, you guys have the coolest job. Like, you're literally just in a closet with like mood boards and just making outfits. Closets, and that's what you're getting paid to do for a living. Like, there are so many people that would die for that job. So we went into the styling closets. We also watched some models who were shooting for the website. They were doing like different jeans and stuff and just shooting pictures for the website, which was fun to kind of peek in on and get to see the behind-the-scenes action of that. And then I would say kind of the highlight of the tour was when we got to go into the archive room, which is essentially this this just collection of historical items that really honor the brand's long history from 1892 until now. I think a lot of people don't realize that Abercrombie is a really, really old brand. Like, they've been around for a really long time. And so we got to see some really cool artifacts from over the years and all of the different evolutions of the brand of Abercrombie and Fitch. Like, there was World War I and World War II uniforms that they used to make. Like things that soldiers literally wore to war were made by Abercrombie Fitch. They also used to do a lot of hunting gear. And so there was like guns and hunting stuff and skis and snowshoes. We saw these amazing vintage trench coats from a collaboration that Abercrombie did a long, long time ago with Burberry. Oh my God, iconic. I was like, "Can I buy this?" Like, this is priceless. This is gorgeous. This is amazing. There was like women's wear from the '50s, like skirts and tops and things that like housewives would wear in the '50s. I don't know. And then there was a John F. Kennedy, like the U.S. president, his slacks. He had this pair of Abercrombie pants that he was seen wearing, and they had those there like in a case. And then, um, a cropped leather jacket that Amelia Earhart wore. They had a signed guitar from Paul McCartney from one of the last Beatles concerts where they performed at an old A&F building, I think. And then he kind of the guitar. Maybe that was like late '90s, early 2000s that that happened. They had these vintage American flags that Abercrombie used to make. Um, Abercrombie at one point had a whole dog line. This is like way, way, way like super old, like vintage, but they used to make, you know, collars and leashes and, um, toys and, and carriers, like luxury carriers for dogs and all this kind of stuff. I'm like, they need to bring that back actually. I think people I would totally buy dog stuff from Abercrombie nowadays. And then of course they had the iconic moose head hanging in there from the stores in the, the early 2000s that we all remember when we were kids and Abercrombie was like all the rage. So it was really fun to get to see all of this stuff that maybe a lot of people don't know about the history of Abercrombie and just kind of see its, yeah, origins and all of its evolutions It was wild. So then we stopped for a little like lavender iced tea in their cafe. They have this huge beautiful fireplace in the cafeteria area that they, they actually— it's like a wood fireplace. They fill it with wood and they light it in the wintertime. So it's like this cozy like cabin vibe that they have while they're eating in there, which was cool. We saw the gym. They have a really dope gym there for their employees. That's pretty massive and really nice. It's got like all new equipment. I was kind of jealous, like, wow, that's nice. It's free for all their employees. And then, um, we went into the room where I was gonna speak. We got set up, we did camera and sound check, and then I gave my talk. I spoke for about an hour and their quarterly theme that they were working with that quarter was personal growth and career development. So I created a talk about manifesting your top tier life and career.. And that was really fun. And it was really, I don't know, it was just rewarding to kind of get to talk to people in the corporate space about manifestation. I think it was so cool when the team reached out and they were like, we really want you to talk about manifestation. I was like, wow. Obviously it's been a huge part of my life and my journey personally. And we talk about it a lot in the, you know, personal growth space and in the coaching space, but it's not a topic I think that's like hot in, in corporate at all. So it felt really progressive and cool that they really wanted me to talk about that and bring some of those tools. So we talked a lot about like mindset, shifting your identity, changing your thoughts, manifesting your dream life, having the courage to step outside of your comfort zone, try new things, take risks, make big moves, all of that kind of stuff. And, and there were some people that came up to me afterwards and they were like, it really motivated me to do, to make X change in my life, or to pursue this goal that I, that I've had for a long time but I've forgotten about, or to get back to this personal practice of mine. So it felt cool to see in person how just, you know, sharing that information and talking about something was really going to start to spark some action within people's lives. And so after that, we had a lunch that they prepared for us, and that was really nice. We got to talk to the team that had invited us there, and it was just a nice kind of like wind down after the event. And then after that, we were back on a flight to Miami, and that was kind of it. So I wanted to share that in preparation for this event I, I actually had one really hard day where I was, I was feeling a bit emotional, to be honest. And I think that there was a lot happening at once. It— there was, you know, I was hormonal and I also was really busy that week. But I was at the gym one morning and I was trying to get this workout in, but I knew that I had so much to do and I had needed to prep for this talk and like deadlines were coming up. And I'm also in this launch for Top Tier, and there's just like a lot of moving parts. And I think I was getting messages from my team also about like things that were missing or like stuff that needed approved for the podcast. And there was something that had fallen through the cracks and gotten forgotten. And I just like— it was a perfect storm of things where I was like, oh my gosh, I am feeling like I don't have the capacity to hold all of this right now. And so I got through like 4 machines at the gym, and then I just had to leave because I was like, I'm I can feel that I just need to cry right now and I don't want to be down bad crying at the gym. So I left and I went into the car and I just like played my— this is my go-to. If you know that you need to cry, but you kind of like need to get yourself there just to have the release, you need to have a playlist of sad songs. My playlist is called Ugly Cry and I play it and like Like it works every time. If you're feeling on the edge, if you're feeling on the verge, if you know you need a good cry, a good release, you need to create a playlist like this for yourself where as soon as you turn it on, it just really helps you get to the point of releasing all of the emotions and letting go. So I sat in the car for like 25 minutes and I just like let it all out, let it all go. I needed it so much. Because I think it was mostly like feeling like this, um, there was this weight or this pressure on me because I felt like there was a lack of time. Like there was so much that I wanted to do or needed to do, and there was these deadlines. And I also wanted to take care of myself. I wanted to be working out consistently. I wanted to be eating meals. I wanted to be getting 10K steps and going for my walks. But as I was looking at my day, I was like, oh my God, I literally cannot even finish this workout. Out because A, I feel like I'm gonna burst into tears, and B, I have so much shit to do that I, I like don't have time to be here. But then it was frustration of like, but I want to be here because I, I want to make space for this and I want to be doing this for myself. And so then it was just all of that where I was like, ah, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't. So between like in my trips to Egypt, Turkey, New York City, then having my clients here for the Top Tier immersion, and then launching the next round of Top Tier, like all of that happened within like a timeframe and all of the other work that I'm doing every single week between, you know, podcast content, emails, clients, masterminds, all of that. I just felt like I didn't have the spaciousness that I would have liked to really take care of myself to the best of my ability and also make sure that I was preparing my talk so that it was something that I was really, really proud of. It was those two things. It was like everything else had its place besides taking care of myself at an elite level and like blocking all of this extra time to excessively prepare so that I felt really solid and really good about my talk. And there was a little bit of imposter syndrome that came up as I, as I was preparing for it too. I'm not gonna lie because I have never worked in a corporate company. So I started getting in my head and being like, who am I to talk to these people? Like they're, they're gonna be like, what are you doing here? Like you don't even know our lives. You don't know our struggles and challenges. Just whatever. And obviously that wasn't the case, because I was really there to share about my personal story, my journey, the things that I know to be true, the things that I am so solid in personally that have helped create success and joy and fulfillment in my life. It wasn't— it didn't need to be about like how to be a good corporate employee at all. But you know how the mind works. It's like, oh my God, like, who are you, blah blah blah, to do this? Do they even care about my personal story? Like, why are you talking about this? Like, no one cares that you like moved to Spain. Like, ah, get to the point. Like, that was kind of like inner critic that was like coming out and trying to throw me off. And then I was making my slides and I was like, oh my gosh, am I using too many pictures? Like, does this seem narcissistic? Like, or, or maybe, maybe there's not enough pictures and they're going to be bored. Like, it's just so funny how when you do something new that you don't have tons of experience with, every tiny decision feels like the biggest question mark. And you're like, oh my God. And you're just like stuck at every single thing, but it's not that big of a deal. And you just can't overthink things. You've just gotta like go for it. You just gotta like blow through the, what feels like blocks and just fucking go for it. So I did get over it and, uh, I did, I, I stayed true to myself. I stayed really authentic in how I wanted to do my talk and present. I didn't try to morph to fit a box. I didn't try to become like someone who's in corporate so that I would fit in with them. I was really just like, I need to be fully myself. I want the branding to be totally me. I'm gonna share the images that I want to share. I'm gonna do it in my design that I do for my clients and everything. Like, I just want it to be really, really me. I'm gonna talk about my stories in my way, in my voice, and that's why they fucking hired me. That's why they brought me here, because they listen to the show, they, they know me, they know my story, they love it, and they want me to bring that. They don't want me to bring a different version. They want me to bring the authentic, true, real version of me. So I just have to like stay in that and be confident and be solid. So I called my dad, which helps because I just talked to him because he does work in corporate and he's hired speakers and stuff for his company before. And he was like, you got this, like, it's gonna be great, I love it. I kind of showed him my slides and my overall like idea and theme and and he made me feel really good about it. And then I also called my friend Sam and I was like, girl, I just need you to hype me up. Tell me I'm gonna fucking nail it. Um, and that just like really helped ground me and get me excited the day before I went and traveled to Columbus. And I rehearsed a lot. So to be totally transparent, like I definitely rehearsed. I didn't just like show up and fucking wing it. That's not my style when I'm doing something brand new. I think the more experience I get with it, the more I'll be able to just like show up and and do it however. Like, that's kind of how I am with podcasting. I can just sit down with a mic and start talking and freeball it. Um, when I show up to client calls, I'm not like obsessive of like, okay, I need to have my notes and what are we going to talk about? And what's, what am I, what are we going to go over? And what's the objectives? Like, it's way more free-flowing the more that you feel so confident in something that you just don't need that intense backup plan or like the sturdiness of structure behind you. So I do think that I'll get to a place where I'm way more free-flowing with it, but I I just wanted to rehearse so that I felt solid. I didn't wanna have any other variables in my way of feeling like I could get up there and give the people what they needed and what they wanted me to give them. Like, I just wanted, I really wanted to come from a place of service of like, I really just hope that this inspires someone. I hope that it helps them create some sort of action in their lives, that these people are moved to change something or to believe in themselves more deeply or to take bigger action. And I was really just focused on the audience and wanting to give them everything that I had so that they felt some sort of impact and they created some sort of change in their life from it. So I think that also helps when you remove the focus from me, me, me of like, how am I going to look and what are they going to think of me and what am I going to wear and what is— and it's like, no, let's, let's think about them. You know, who is the one person in the room that's showing up that day and they feel really defeated or they feel kind of lost or they're lacking clarity or they, they've just been in a season where they don't feel super inspired, and how can I talk to that one person and light them up? How can I light a fire within their soul so that they feel excited about life? They feel hopeful about the future. That's all I wanted to do. And when you focus on the impact and the service rather than focusing on yourself and what you're gonna get from it and how you're gonna look doing it, it makes it a lot easier to break through some of those boundaries. So rehearsing just helped me. Feel like anchored in knowing like, okay, I know what I'm talking about. I've practiced this a lot. What I did was I recorded myself with, with voice notes, like on my phone. So I would set up my slides. I would practice standing up, cause I'm going to be standing up as I'm giving the talk. So kind of simulating the talk as much as possible. So the slides are kind of like behind you. I just like propped my laptop up on a dresser in my bedroom and then it would kind of stand next to it and in front of it a little bit. So that I could practice talking without like staring back at the screen the entire time. And I had to rehearse it a couple of times so that it was really smooth and that I felt like comfortable and not needing to look the entire time. But recording the voice notes helped because I could listen back and I could tell where I was rambling a little bit or where I wanted to cut something short or where I said something where I was like, oh, that was like really good. I want to remember that for next time. And I could like write it down and make note of it and try to rehearse it again so that it was that way. And then once I had like a really good take, like from start to finish, like a really solid draft where I was like, I would be happy if that was my talk that I gave in person. Then I just listened to that draft over and over again. I would listen to it like as much as possible. I would listen to it on walks. I would listen to it while I was waking up in the morning. I would listen to it before going to bed. And maybe that's like, seems psychotic to some people, but it just, I knew that that was gonna help me like drill it into my subconscious so that it felt so natural and easy and it was really ingrained in my memory and I didn't have to like struggle or worry or stress. So I'm really proud of myself. I did something new. I said yes to an opportunity that felt stretchy and I worked through the nerves and the emotions and I beat all of my excuses and conquered it, which is the definition of growth. So I'm celebrating myself and patting myself on the back. It feels really good to do stuff like this because The more that you grow in business and in life, the more comfortable you just become with like that level. Like you've stretched your comfort zone many, many times, but like now you have a new comfort zone. The comfort zone just gets, keeps expanding and getting bigger. And so you can forget what that beginner's fear feels like. And I want to continue to push myself and be an example of the ideals that I talk about all the time, you know, bravery, courage, massive action. Not waiting until you feel ready, making moves that are bigger than what you feel you're capable of at that moment in time, being willing to mess up at something new, choosing confidence over fear, putting yourself out there, advocating for what you believe in, sharing your voice and your values to add more people to your mission in the world. Like, doing that feels good because it means I'm an embodiment of the things that I'm teaching and that I'm asking you to do. How can I ask you to do these things if I'm just like sitting in my comfort zone of like, yes, I've stretched myself before, but like now I'm just cozy again. And I think a lot of people are in that place, especially in business. I see so many entrepreneurs, like they've invested in themselves many times over. They've, you know, done whatever. And so they're like, they're just cruising. And it's like, there is always more. There's always more. No matter what you've done, no matter how big you've gone, there is always more. And I think that was, you know, a lot of the inspiration behind creating a space like TopTier. You know, it's like you're— I always say with TopTier, it's like your comfy era in business is over. Like, you are a person that has expanded yourself a lot. You've put yourself in scary positions. You've taken the risks. You've invested in yourself. Yes, you've stretched your comfort zone. And now you've gotten comfortable and it's time to get uncomfortable again. It's time to put yourself in a space that's going to stretch you once again, that's going to get you into those conversations that are lighting a fire, that are making you feel excited, where you're like, oh my gosh, okay, I have a whole new vision. Like this next big thing that's happening for my business. I want to add star power and impact and like expand my brand and grow in these ways. Like you are not going to feel that way. You're not going to get that inspiration if you were just doing the same shit that you've always done day after day and you're like, yep, I'm doing this launch again, doing this program again. If you're just on that wheel of doing everything in the same way and having the same conversations with your same circle of people, like, you got to get in, you got to get into a new energy, you got to get into a new environment, and you got to connect with new people. That is the shit that's going to inspire you to take your brand, your business, your impact, everything to the next level. And I think what I learned also from this experience of, you know, giving this talk at ANF and feeling like those nerves and imposter syndrome and a little that, of that other like kind of overwhelm and all the things that came up for me in the lead-up, and then doing it anyways and feeling like I knocked it out of the park was like, impact is always going to be more important and it's always going to win over my own discomfort. Like, it wasn't— the easy choice would have been when they initially pitched me to speak to their team, the easy choice would have been to be like, yeah, let's, let's do it virtual. Because I can sit in my spare bedroom office all day long staring at my computer on Zoom and go through some— like, I can do that in my fucking sleep. That's what I do all the time for live masterclasses and all of that. That is so easy. So I, I said, no, let's do it in person because I wanted to be uncomfortable. I wanted to grow. I wanted to do something new. And I, and I think that's just hopefully as a reminder for you, whatever that looks like with your life, your business, whatever. Don't wait until someone else tries to force you out of the comfort zone and push you to grow. Why don't you be the person that chooses to stretch? Why don't you be the person that raises your hand first and says, sign me up, I want to do the scary thing. I want to do the thing that I don't feel ready for. Put me in, coach. Get me in the room. I want to join the mastermind. I want to do that talk. I want to come in person. Let me speak to your people. Be that person. For me, it's just like, I'm here to inspire change in as many people's lives as possible and really create this like army of joy. That was something that came to me when I was thinking about this. I'm like, army of joy, army of joy. That is what I want to build in this world. And that's why this idea of impact and service and traveling there and going in person, because people are just going to have so much more of a, um, um, there's going to be more impact. It's going to land with them more when you're talking to them face to face than through a Zoom screen. And I have this idea, this vision, this mission of like creating this army of joy. The more people that wake up every day feeling joyful and passionate, who are doing meaningful work and helping and uplifting others, building real wealth for themselves and their families and their communities, the more of that that we have, the better off the world be. And that is my part that I can play, is helping women build and create something like that. And I may have just one small corner of the internet where, you know, nobody knows my name except for the people in my community that listen to the podcast or follow me on Instagram, but, but the mission is mighty nonetheless. And you guys are part of it. So thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing. Listening. Thank you for following and engaging on socials. Thank you for writing reviews of the podcast, for leaving comments on Instagram, or for sharing the podcast or my content with other people. It all helps. And that's part of the big mission is like to build, to build this army of joy. Like how many people can we impact in the world so that more and more people are waking up feeling happy and joyful and passionate and purposeful and abundant. Present every single day. The world gets better when more people are like that. All right, you guys, I think that's all. I think that's it for this recap of June. I'm really excited going into July, but I also cannot believe that we are halfway through 2024. Like, that's blowing my mind. I also am starting to work with two new coaches in July, which is going to be fun and exciting. Hashtag always growing. So stay tuned on Instagram and the podcast for updates on what I'm getting up to in life and business, because we are going to season of, of smooth expansion, right? We're stretching and growing, but in the soft CEO way, while also prioritizing our time and spaciousness and overall well-being. So also, don't forget the podcast is now on YouTube. Besides these recap episodes— these ones are audio only— but all other episodes are available in full video format on YouTube. Please, please, please go subscribe if you haven't yet, and you are a video content girly, you can watch all the there. The handle is the same as it is on Instagram, so it's just @samanthadaily on YouTube. All right, you guys, we'll talk to you next week. I love you, and let's go make the second half of this year even better than the first. Let's fucking go. All right, bye!