Episode Summary

Renee Carbone Fleming grew up on the second floor of a tenement house, sharing a pullout sofa in the living room with her sister, in a home where the expected trajectory was secretarial school, a pension, a social security check, and a slow death. Her biological father committed suicide when she was six or seven. Her mother remarried. The family scraped. Nobody had money, so nobody talked about it in a healthy way, and by the time Renee was a young woman earning her first real income, money managed her before she could manage it. Bankruptcy at nineteen or twenty years old. No college degree. Just grit, and a growing fire that had nowhere good to go yet.

She channeled that fire into corporate sales, built a real career through sheer outwork-everyone determination, fell in love, built a marriage, became a stay-at-home mom by choice, then discovered in the quiet of that season that she had slowly stopped being a person. She was everyone's everything except her own. When the marriage ended after seventeen years, she was over forty, had two daughters aged twelve and nine, and an ex-husband who genuinely did not think she could tie her shoes without him. She wrote two words on post-it notes and stuck them everywhere. On the mirror. On the car. In the office. Watch me.

Those two words became a business philosophy, then a book, then a brand. The W is withdraw from explanation. A is act before approval. T is take up space publicly. C is commit without consensus. H is hold a vision when no one else does. That is how she built over thirteen million dollars in retail sales through the organizations she has led. That is how a sparkle queen from a tenement house in the northeast ended up on the Nasdaq billboard in Times Square, on Fox, NBC, CBS, CW, and Telemundo, and named Top Empowerment Coach of the Year in twenty twenty-five by the International Association of Top Professionals.

Underneath all of that is a mother navigating estrangement from her youngest daughter for three years and counting, pouring into her oldest the only way she knows how, showing her what it looks like to keep going anyway. This is not a polished story. It is a real one. And it is still being written.

This episode is for any woman over forty who has been sitting at her kitchen table wondering if it is too late. It is not. This is what fifty-six looks like when you refuse to accept anyone else's definition of it.

In This Episode, You'll Discover:

1. How Renee traced the origins of her money problems to a childhood with no financial modeling, how earning money for the first time without any framework led to bankruptcy at nineteen or twenty, and what she had to unlearn before she could build real wealth
2. What she gave up when she became a stay-at-home mom, why justifying her existence through PTO and volunteering was the clearest sign she had lost herself, and how a dance mom side hustle selling Swarovski crystals accidentally became the beginning of an empire
3. Where Watch Me actually came from, the ex-husband who did not believe in her, the post-it notes everywhere, and how those two words broke down into a five-part business philosophy that she now teaches through her book, brand, and coaching
4. The divorce's real cost, not the assets but the friendships that evaporated, the loneliness of suddenly being one person instead of two in every social circle, and the choice she made between victimhood and reinvention
5. The estrangement from her youngest daughter, three years of silence, no big fight and no clear reason, and how Renee arrived at a place of honoring her daughter's journey without pretending it does not hurt
6. How Renee's miracle morning works in exact practical detail, the Keurig by the bedside, the gratitude before she gets up, the frequency audio, and the voice memo future life script she recorded herself and listens to every single morning before her feet hit the floor
7. Why Renee does not ask for permission or approval before she builds something new, what the Watch Me acronym actually means in practice, and the specific trap of asking the people closest to you whether your vision is a good idea
8. What Renee is building next, the trademark process, the wine brand, the twenty-million-dollar exit goal, the Napa Valley experience, and why she is putting all of it on the table publicly because that is how manifestation actually works

Key Takeaways:

1. Watch Me Is Not a Comeback Line. It Is an Operating System. Withdraw from explanation. Act before approval. Take up space publicly. Commit without consensus. Hold a vision when no one else does. Every element of how Renee built her business traces back to those two words on a post-it note. The anger was the seed. The system is what grew from it.
2. Do Not Ask the People Who Cannot See the Vision to Validate It. Your mother does not know how to open a podcast app. Your ex does not believe you can tie your shoes. The people around you are looking through the lens of who you were, not who you are becoming. Do not ask them for permission. Just build. They will have questions when they see it working.
3. The Future Life Script Is the Most Underrated Tool in the Arsenal. Renee recorded herself on her phone's voice memo describing her life in present tense as if she had already achieved everything she wants, every smell, every client, every vacation, every dollar. She listens to it every morning before she gets out of bed. She says on the worst days it is the thing that puts her back together. This is not woo. It is active reprogramming.
4. The Divorce Did Not Take the Assets. It Took the Identity. Renee is clear about what the real cost was. Not the things. The people who disappeared. The loneliness of being one where there used to be two. The story she had to stop telling herself. That grief is real and it is often invisible. Naming it is how you stop pretending it is not there.
5. Grit Is Showing Up In Spite Of. Not because you feel ready. Not because the anxiety is gone. Not because the estrangement has resolved or the finances are clean or the vision is fully formed. Grit is showing up in spite of all of it. Every day you show up when you do not want to is a vote for the future version of yourself.
6. Put the Goal Out Loud. Renee said she is going to sell Badass Queen for twenty million dollars. She said it on a podcast in front of whoever is listening. That is intentional. The more you say it, the more your brain believes it is already in motion. The more your network hears it, the more they are consciously and unconsciously moving you toward it.
7. Multiple Streams of Income Are Not Optional. They Are the Strategy. Renee has network marketing, a personal branding agency, a coaching program, merchandise, clothing, wine, events, and a book. She calls it plan A through G. Every stream lives under the Badass Queen umbrella. None of it is random. It is all part of building an IP business with a real exit value.
8. It Does Not Matter Your Age. It Does Not Matter Your Experience. Fifty-six is a PhD in life. Passion. Hot desire. You can build an extra stream of income at any age, from any starting point, with the right personal brand and enough willingness to be seen. The women who watch the Golden Girls and think that is their future have it wrong. Renee is the proof.

Timestamps:

• [00:00] Karl introduces Renee Carbone Fleming: founder of Badass Queen, Sparkle Queens brand, host of Unapologetically Badass podcast, author of Watch Me, top empowerment coach, thirteen million in sales, Times S...