The Lit Up Life with Debbie Heiser

Surround yourself with the right people, and what felt impossible starts to look normal. In this episode, I share why I believe community is the new currency, why relational capital matters more now that information is everywhere, and how to tell whether your circle is expanding you or keeping you comfortable.

• The difference between a safe community and a comfortable one, and why only one helps you grow

• The question I ask about who says your name when you're not in the room

• Why we sometimes stay small to keep belonging, and what to do when a friendship stops expanding you

Listen with someone in mind, and send it their way when you're done.

Check out the full episode page: https://thelituplife.com/post/community-new-currency-women-building-businesses

WAYS TO GO DEEPER

Join the BuildHER Community, my monthly space for women building without burnout: https://thelituplife.com/buildher

Free Embodied CEO Masterclass: https://thelituplife.com/ceo

Follow along on Instagram: https://instagram.com/the_lituplife

Prefer video? The Lit Up Life Podcast is on YouTube.

Most business owners tell their brand story wrong by making themselves the hero of it. Kris Jones, founder of Red Door Stories and co-author of StoryBrand Your Coaching Business with Donald Miller, breaks down how to tell your brand story so your client is the hero and you are the guide. She has shaped messaging for Nike, Adidas, and Jeff Bezos, and she now does it for coaches and consultants.

- Why the founder's story you love telling is not the one that grows your business - What a childhood where she was not allowed to speak at the table taught Kris about being visible - The question to ask yourself before you add one more marketing platform

If your message changes every time you say it out loud, start here.

Check out the full episode page: https://thelituplife.com/post/how-to-tell-your-brand-story-kris-jones

Meet Kris Jones:

Kris is the founder of Red Door Stories and co-author of StoryBrand Your Coaching Business with Donald Miller. Early in her career she shaped stories for brands like Nike and Adidas and for clients including Jeff Bezos. Today she works with coaches, consultants, and service providers to find the one story only they can tell and turn it into a message their whole business can run on.

Connect with Kris: get her free toolkit, The Five StoryBrand Soundbites That Bring You More Clients, at https://www.reddoorstories.com/free-resources and follow her on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/reddoorstory

WAYS TO GO DEEPER

Join the BuildHER Community, my monthly space for women building without burnout: https://thelituplife.com/buildher

Free Embodied CEO Masterclass: https://thelituplife.com/ceo

Follow along on Instagram: https://instagram.com/the_lituplife

Prefer video? The Lit Up Life Podcast is on YouTube.

High achievers can't rest because rest got filed as a reward, and the work is never done.

Sometimes burnout doesn't look like collapsing on the floor. Sometimes it looks like being highly functional and not very present, getting everything finished and feeling almost nothing from it. I cover what that state costs you, and why rest works better as a resource than as something you have to earn.

• The difference between devotion and proving, and why one of them never knows when it's done
• Who you are when you're not producing, and why that question makes most high achievers squirm
• The version of self-care nobody calls self-care, because it looks like operations

Take the pause before your body picks it for you.

Check out the full episode page: https://thelituplife.com/post/why-high-achievers-cant-rest

WAYS TO GO DEEPER

Join the BuildHER Community, my monthly space for women building without burnout: https://thelituplife.com/buildher

Free Embodied CEO Masterclass: https://thelituplife.com/ceo

Follow along on Instagram: https://instagram.com/the_lituplife

Prefer video? The Lit Up Life Podcast is on YouTube.

At 66, Pat Hicks answered a phone call and found out that his father was not his father.

Pat is the author of My Name Is a Lie and Other Truths, and our conversation gets into what rebuilding your identity after a family secret asks of you when the foundation was poured before you could remember any of it.

• What Pat found in the poems his mother chose not to burn

• The reason his brother suspected the truth for decades and never said a word

• Why Pat points to erasure, rather than the lie itself, as the real wound

The truth changed every answer he had ever given about himself, and he will tell you it still ends somewhere good.

Check out the full episode page: https://thelituplife.com/post/discovering-a-family-secret-at-66

Meet Pat Hicks

Pat is the author of My Name Is a Lie and Other Truths, a memoir that begins with a late life revelation and opens into something far more universal. After discovering in his 60s that the story of his origins was not what he had been told, he had to reconstruct both the truth and himself. His writing sits with what we inherit emotionally, what it means to be seen, and why our imperfections are the making of a human being rather than a flaw.

Order My Name Is a Lie and Other Truths, including signed copies, at https://pat-hicks-books.myshopify.com/

WAYS TO GO DEEPER

Join the BuildHER Community, my monthly space for women building without burnout: https://thelituplife.com/buildher

Free Embodied CEO Masterclass: https://thelituplife.com/ceo

Follow along on Instagram: https://instagram.com/the_lituplife

Prefer video? The Lit Up Life Podcast is on YouTube.

Here are the 12 guiding principles I run my business and my relationships on.

I learned them from two mentors here in Sandpoint, and they are the backbone of how I hold a coaching practice, a podcast, retreats, a university class, and a full life without leaking energy everywhere. They work as a daily practice, and I return to them imperfectly.

• The one word in principle number one that decides how much of other people's lives you carry

• Why the question you ask after a launch flops usually sends you somewhere useless

• What to do with the thing you are not ready to forgive yet

Pick one, practice it on purpose, and notice what shifts.

Check out the full episode page: https://thelituplife.com/post/12-guiding-principles-women-in-business

WAYS TO GO DEEPER

Join the BuildHER Community, my monthly space for women building without burnout: https://thelituplife.com/buildher

Free Embodied CEO Masterclass: https://thelituplife.com/ceo

Follow along on Instagram: https://instagram.com/the_lituplife

Prefer video? The Lit Up Life Podcast is on YouTube. https://bit.ly/leadyourlifepodcastyoutube

We've been sold the same story for years. Eat less, move more, and your weight will take care of itself. But if that formula worked, most of us wouldn't still be stuck. In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Meghan Garcia-Webb, a physician board certified in internal medicine, lifestyle medicine, and obesity medicine, to talk about what health actually means and why the all-or-nothing approach was never built for how we really live.

We get into my own health scare, the moment I decided to try a GLP-1 medication, and what nobody tells you about the mental noise around food until it's finally quiet. Dr. Meghan brings the clinical side, I bring the lived experience, and together we unpack what's really going on underneath the number on the scale.

Here's what we cover:

• The real reason "calories in, calories out" keeps failing so many people, and what actually works instead

• What food noise is, and why most of us have no idea how much of it we're carrying until it stops

• What to watch for if you're considering a GLP-1, and the one thing that matters more than the scale

If you've ever felt like you were doing everything "right" and still not getting anywhere, this conversation is for you.

Check out the full episode page: https://thelituplife.com/post/healthy-is-easier-than-you-think-weight-loss-food-noise

Meet Dr. Meghan Garcia-Webb

Meghan Garcia-Webb, MD is triple board-certified in internal medicine, lifestyle medicine, and obesity medicine. She produces a weekly YouTube series, "Weight Medicine with Dr. Meghan MD," and provides weight loss coaching to help people fix the One Big Thing blocking their weight loss. Her innovative private practice (www.weightmedicinemd.com) combines concierge weight medicine with life coaching, and she is also an internist at an academic medical center in Boston, MA.

Dr. Garcia-Webb has been featured in GQ, Time, Business Insider, Newsweek, The New York Post, and Men's Health, as well as on NBC and Fox News.

Website: www.weightmedicinemd.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@WeightMedicinewithDrMeghanMD/videos

Helpful Links 👉 Join the BuildHER Community: https://thelituplife.com/buildher 📅 FREE Embodied CEO Masterclass: https://thelituplife.com/attraction ❤️ Follow on Instagram: https://instagram.com/the_lituplife

🎧 Listen to The Lit Up Life Podcast Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/leadyourlifepodcastapple Spotify: https://bit.ly/leadyourlifepodcastspotify YouTube: https://bit.ly/leadyourlifepodcastyoutube

Saying yes to opportunities you haven't planned for is where the best moments of your life actually happen. Not the milestones. The moments.

On the Fourth of July, my friend Nicole and I drove a 1960s golf cart straight into a parade we weren't part of. No permission, no plan, just a "what if" and a "let's do it." What happened next changed how I think about my calendar, my business, and every opportunity I've been too scheduled to notice.

Here's what I get into:

• The real reason we chase certainty when we say we want freedom, and what it costs us

• A moment from that Fourth of July that shows exactly how opportunity actually shows up (hint: it never looks like opportunity)

• The one skill most entrepreneurs skip that would tell them whether they're hearing intuition or just fear

If you've been waiting for permission to say yes to something that isn't on the plan, this one's for you.

Check out the full episode page:

https://thelituplife.com/post/saying-yes-to-opportunities-you-didnt-plan-for

Helpful Links 👉 Join the BuildHER Community: https://thelituplife.com/buildher 📅 FREE Embodied CEO Masterclass: https://thelituplife.com/attraction ❤️ Follow on Instagram: https://instagram.com/the_lituplife

🎧 Listen to The Lit Up Life Podcast Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/leadyourlifepodcastapple Spotify: https://bit.ly/leadyourlifepodcastspotify YouTube: https://bit.ly/leadyourlifepodcastyoutube

A full calendar, color coded and perfectly blocked, looks like proof you're on top of things. Erin Treacy taught me why that's not the whole story.

Erin spent a decade running a family restaurant business after years in TV news, and she's seen burnout from every angle, including her own. We talk about why the productivity tools we've all been handed don't actually deliver what they promise, and what she wishes she'd recognized in her own body long before she did.

Key takeaways:

• The "art project" most of us mistake for time management, and why it's quietly working against you

• A physical warning sign of burnout that gets dismissed as normal for women, until it isn't

• The two minute ritual Erin uses before she even starts her car, and what it unlocks

If you've ever felt busy but not effective, this one's for you.

Check out the full episode page:

https://thelituplife.com/post/stop-managing-time-and-start-managing-your-energy-with-erin-treacy

Meet Erin Treacy

Erin Treacy is a leadership coach, consultant, and small business owner who believes people first leadership is not soft, it is smart business. She works with leaders who are trying to balance team needs, business goals, and the weight of doing it all, helping them create stronger workplaces where people and performance can grow together.

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/coacherintreacy

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/coacherintreacy/

Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/erin-treacy/

Helpful Links 👉 Join the BuildHER Community: https://thelituplife.com/buildher 📅 FREE Embodied CEO Masterclass: https://thelituplife.com/attraction ❤️ Follow on Instagram: https://instagram.com/the_lituplife

🎧 Listen to The Lit Up Life Podcast Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/leadyourlifepodcastapple Spotify: https://bit.ly/leadyourlifepodcastspotify YouTube: https://bit.ly/leadyourlifepodcastyoutub

Complacency isn't laziness. That's the reframe Marty Hofmann brings to this conversation, and it changes everything about how you look at the drift that's been quietly settling into your life.

Marty is an entrepreneur, real estate investor, and host of the Kill Complacency podcast. He grew up on a farm in Iowa, spent years as a youth pastor in Montana, and built a multi-six-figure business shearing alpacas before pivoting to real estate and eventually becoming a writer and speaker on intentional living. His path is unconventional, but his message is clear: comfort is not the enemy of a good life. Drift is.

In this conversation, we get into what complacency actually looks like in real life, including in marriage, in business, and in the quiet spaces where you've stopped asking who you want to be. Marty shares the wake-up calls that forced him to get honest with himself, and the framework he uses to reverse engineer the legacy he actually wants to leave.

In this episode:

• Why complacency feels so comfortable until it doesn't, and how to catch the drift before it costs you something you can't get back

• The one exercise Marty recommends for anyone who feels stuck or off-course

• How Marty structures intentionality across every area of his life, and why "fun" was the last category he added

If you've been sensing that you're going through the motions in any area of your life, this conversation is worth your full attention.

Check out the full episode page:

https://thelituplife.com/post/how-to-stop-being-complacent-and-build-an-intentional-life-marty-hofmann

Meet Marty Hofmann

Marty Hofmann is a real estate investor, speaker, podcast host, and father of six who believes showing up beats talent and consistency beats intensity. Rooted in faith and unapologetically direct, he challenges people to reject complacency and live with intention. Over the past decade, he has built a $16 million real estate portfolio and leads the Kill Complacency movement—helping others build lives anchored in faith, family, and purpose.

https://www.instagram.com/martyhofmann1/

https://www.facebook.com/martyhofmann1

https://www.killcomplacency.com/

Helpful Links 👉 Join the BuildHER Community: https://thelituplife.com/buildher 📅 FREE Embodied CEO Masterclass: https://thelituplife.com/attraction ❤️ Follow on Instagram: https://instagram.com/the_lituplife

🎧 Listen to The Lit Up Life Podcast Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/leadyourlifepodcastapple Spotify: https://bit.ly/leadyourlifepodcastspotify YouTube: https://bit.ly/leadyourlifepodcastyoutube

Clarity is one of the most powerful wealth tools you have, and almost nobody teaches it that way. In this episode, I break down exactly why clarity is so hard to access, what it's actually costing you when you stay in confusion, and how to start using clarity as the leadership and financial frequency it really is.

We tend to think of clarity as a nice-to-have, something that comes after we figure everything out. But clarity is what gets you there. It's what calms your nervous system, sharpens your decisions, aligns your marketing, and lets you lead from a place of real authority instead of constant adjustment.

Here's what I cover:

• The surprising reason high achievers struggle most with clarity, and why it has nothing to do with not knowing what you want

• What your brain is actually doing when you stay in confusion, and how that pattern is costing you more than you think

• How clarity functions as a wealth frequency in your business, from pricing to decisions to the clients you attract

Clarity isn't just a mindset shift. It's a leadership frequency, a wealth frequency, and a soul frequency. When you claim it, everything moves.

Check out the full episode page:

https://thelituplife.com/post/why-clarity-boosts-your-income-confidence-and-leadership

Helpful Links 👉 Join the BuildHER Community: https://thelituplife.com/buildher 📅 FREE Embodied CEO Masterclass: https://thelituplife.com/attraction ❤️ Follow on Instagram: https://instagram.com/the_lituplife

🎧 Listen to The Lit Up Life Podcast Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/leadyourlifepodcastapple Spotify: https://bit.ly/leadyourlifepodcastspotify YouTube: https://bit.ly/leadyourlifepodcastyoutube