You Don't Need a Guru

Danielle is the founder of The Thought Card, which is all about affording travel, paying off debt, and building wealth. Who doesn’t need a little help in one of those areas?

The focus of her site and podcast are all about sharing financial tips and tricks (plus real life examples and transparency) in order to help people make better decisions. She got her start by ripping off the Bandaid and sharing openly about her experience with debt, starting with student loans ($63,000…the struggle is real!). Rather than pretending them away, she opened up and found an audience who identified with the struggle.

Once she realized her actual student loan dollar amount, plus the per-day interest she was paying back, Danielle got motivated to pay her debt down and STOP the vicious cycle. A huge part of this? Learning to be honest with yourself.

Rather than burying your head in the sand, or trying to keep up with what everyone else is doing, Danielle recommends facing your reality and making the hard decisions. For her, that meant choosing to live with her mom instead of in a more fun (and spendy) downtown apartment. It wasn’t permanent, but it was a sacrifice that helped her make up huge ground with her debt repayment.

Another great idea - in the midst of debt payoff, think about what’s going to happen beyond the debt. Danielle wanted to become a home owner, so she paired a savings program along with her debt repayment goals. This helped her build on her short term goals, make huge headway on debt payoffs, AND be ready to start house hunting once her loans were paid off. That’s huge!

Don’t forget to celebrate your wins and notice your progress - it may feel like a slow journey, but you’re making progress every day!

Listen in to learn more Danielle, The Thought Card, and her great financial advice!

You can find Danielle on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Check out her book, an amazing Iceland travel guide.

What does she do?

Todays guest, Sarah Boxx, is a coach and consultant.

Who she is?

A person who loves finding solutions, and discovering innovative ways of helping people achieve the goals they are pursuing.

Sarah also considers herself to be a matchmaker at heart, which she attributes to her love for helping things fit together. She loves introducing people to other people, ideas, or collaborations that will help them take the next step forward.

I love what Sarah shares about lifting others up - “It has never come back that I have been diminished by that.”

Clarity around values and beliefs are a huge part of Sarah’s philosophy. She describes the resistance and dread she feels when she’s going against her values, and her expectation that will always be able to make hard choices in order to realign with what she knows she needs to do.

Sometimes that means changing directions or switching things up, and that’s okay!

When change is needed, it’s never too late to readjust! Look for ways to get over the gap between what you KNOW you need to do and where you actually are.

Listen in to the full interview to hear the full interview!

You can find Sarah on her website, https://www.sarahboxx.com/, as well as LinkedIn and Facebook. Her podcast is No Labels No Limits.

Angelina’s passion is to help others grow as they work through struggles that they’re experiencing. Having experienced a great deal of pain in her own life, she’s filled with empathy and provides a listening ear to those who simply need to be heard.

Angelina has struggled with diagnosed anorexia and bulimia, and has had a long struggle with feeling inadequate and “less than”. She dealt with depression, which worsened after discovering she was both pregnant and miscarrying in the same day.

As she’s worked through her own hurts, pains, and losses, she’s been inspired to help others do the same.

She recognizes that unhealthy coping mechanisms, such as drinking excess alcohol, were hurting her. Once this sank in, she took action to start creating change within herself. Rather than focus solely on external factors, she dug deep and recognized the power she has to control her own thoughts and feelings.

I love what she shares about reading books by people she wanted to emulate, and trying out the practices they were implementing in their own life. She found that journaling and gratitude were powerful tools in her own life, and has continued to use them in ways that work in her own life.

Reminder: you shouldn’t have to force it. If someone’s practices don’t make sense for who you are as a person, move on!

Mindfulness and self-awareness are powerful ways Angelina makes sure she is putting her time and energy into using tools that empower and encourage her!

At the end of the day, she reminds us that we are responsible for our own happiness.

Don’t be afraid to take charge of your life and STOP stagnating!

I recently released a NEW course: The Entrepreneur’s Story Creation Guide. The inspiration came after I read Kim Hudson’s book, The Virgin’s Promise, which is about 13 archetypal stages seen in literature and film. As I thought about the stages, I realized that they all felt really familiar in MY life — they essentially told my story as an entrepreneur!

Intrigued, I set out to see if I could modify the stages and apply them to any entrepreneurs journey. AND…I think I can! (Curious? Grab the course and see if you can too!)

Kim does a wonderful job sharing about her journey of creating the 13 stages, or archetypes, in her book, the Virgin's Promise. For that reason, I recorded my own reading of the book's preface so you can hear her words and journey. (Find it here.)

Did "virgin" make your head tilt? I know, I know...it's not my favorite image either! Don't get hung up on that thought! It's not about actually being a virgin. It's about owning yourself and the light within. Hang with me and it will all come together.*

Please remember that, in the same way the Hero's Journey is meant to transcend gender and apply to an overall archetypal pattern, the Virgin's Promise is an overall archetypal pattern that can be applied to the inward journey of growth and self-enlightenment of any person.

You can find Rebecca Balcarcel (and her award winning YA book) on her site.

I mentioned grad school (woohoo!). I'll be attending Saybrook University, starting in January.

Want the Virgin's Promise book? I'd be honored if you used my affiliate link:

https://www.amazon.com/Virgins-Promise-Feminine-Spiritual-Awakening/dp/1932907726?SubscriptionId=AKIAIA3UEVTLIG7AIKFA&tag=08380f-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1932907726

Justina Ford, identifies herself as a Jesus lover, veteran spouse, and homeschool mom. She is also a Christian Energy Healer and Intuitive Business Coach who helps multi-passionate momprenuers clear limiting beliefs and walk fully in their calling to create. 

On a practical level, that looks like helping these entrepreneurs with their brand message, structure of their services, and content creation.

Justina left a master’s program to follow her makeup industry passion, which paved the way for her entrance into coaching. She found that doing hair and makeup really provided her an inroad to connecting with women - she loved building their confidence and transforming them outwardly, but also saw the opportunity for more inner work and growth.

After becoming successful in the makeup industry, Justina started coaching women who specifically wanted to join the industry. It didn’t take long before she realized that what she was teaching would apply to many women and many fields. She started branching out and teaching on a wider scale.

The intuitive part of her coaching is a way of bringing in a deeper spiritual aspect, as well as to ensure that her clients aren’t just following the business or entrepreneurial path they think they are “supposed” to be on.

Justina believes in getting to the root of issues; rather than trying to slap a strategy on or try to push past issues, she encourages women to slow down and really deal with their internal struggles and the actual root of the issue. She uses energy clearing and EFT tapping, among other tools.

As her Christian faith is an important part of her life and work, Justina has worked through how she can incorporate various faith elements and healing elements in a way that feels authentic and holistic. If you’ve struggled with how your faith connects with your work, you’ll appreciate her thoughts here!

As a wife, mom, homeschooling teacher, and entrepreneurs, Justina shares that she chooses to put her faith and family ahead of her business. She’s never wanted to feel she has to prioritize work over the things she considers most important in life, especially now that she is her own boss. Having worked in the public sector, she understands the guilt and shame that can come from having to prioritize family over coworkers and job duties. She did not want to go back to that!

Her final advice? Your thoughts can lead you to either success or failure. Mindset really is everything!

During the interview, Justina suggests checking out www.splankna.com. You can also find her on Facebook.

Julie is an amazing, certified yoga teacher and mother of two. She got her start in the brick and mortar world of gyms, and slowly transitioned to the online world of training and teaching.

She enjoys yoga (of course!), as well as tennis and reading.

Julie has experienced anxiety, weight loss, and mindset shifts on her journey. She shares that in her life, anxiety and weight have gone hand in hand. Ever since her early teens, Julie has dealt with anxiety. She explains that it felt like a light switch flipped and everything was suddenly “heightened”. This feels like such an accurate description to me!

It took years to piece together the connection between eating, anxiety, and everything else going on. Julie attributes therapy, mediation, and yoga as having had a huge healing effect in her life.

In fact, it was after her first yoga class that she finally experienced a quiet mind - no more mind chatter!

It was as if the elephant on her chest was gone, and she experienced the first taste of what it could be to have her anxiety lift.
This is also when she started to see her true self, with so much less negativity and judgment.

Although yoga was initially something she pursue primarily for physical fitness, it didn’t take long for her to realize that yoga was about so much more than just exertion. The feeling she had after completing an aerobic class was really different than the feeling she had after completing a yoga class.

As an entrepreneur, Julie shares a bit about her journey with undercharging and over-giving, as well as the burn out that results from that.

Learning to value her skills, education, and talent allowed her to begin charging in a way that honored both herself and her clients. She reminds us to value ourselves and our gifts - balance is vital when it comes to business and life!

Another note: self-care doesn’t have to be about hours in the spa. Waking up and doing 5 minutes of yoga, or taking some deep breaths and setting an intention for your day, can be powerful acts of self-care too. If you feel like you’re constantly running on a treadmill -- try slowing down. You can choose to do that!

Hit the slow down button, recenter yourself, and give yourself some space to breathe and check in. It only takes a few glimpses to realize that you NEED those moments for yourself.

Share also shares that the more she uses her strengths and gets to know who she is, the closer the gets to who she really is. I love the idea of moving TOWARDS yourself on your journey to growth, rather than trying to reinvent a bigger, better version of yourself. Instead of escaping yourself, you’re becoming yourself. It’s a beautiful thing!

FUN THING: Julie is providing a guided meditation and worksheet for a course I’ll be launching next month, called In The Midst! If you enjoy writing, want to tap into your story, and think Julie is pretty amazing — come check it out!

Molika shares about her journey from India to Chicago as an immigrant and spouse.

She considers the process to have been a journey of leaving behind the old and walking into the new, which she describes as a transformation. 

After her marriage, she left a thriving career as a patent licensing associate in India to accompany her husband to the US. Once here, she gained her second masters degree and re-entered the field of patenting. In addition, she started a support group specifically for immigrant spouses.

The support group came about as Molika was writing a memoir. She found she kept meeting other immigrant spouses, and she wanted to find a way to serve them. In the course of considering how she could stay connected with and support these women, she asked herself:

• How can I do something bigger than me?
• How can I leave a legacy?

As a result, her online group was born!

She addresses feelings of loneliness, uncertainty, and more - all of which she says are quite common ways for accompanying spouses to feel. Due to visa constraints (or even just feelings of failure), many spouses find themselves unable to work in their previous career fields. Living in the shadow of their pasts with no clear picture of the future, it can become overwhelming to create a new path.

Immigration opens up new worlds...but it can also shatter confidence and self-concepts.

Immigrants should see themselves as brave warriors, heroes exploring new frontiers. Too often, however, they shrink back out of worry and fear. Molika encourages these women to use their immigration as a catalyst for growth and transformation.

Molika has started incorporating gratitude, affirmations, and journaling into her daily life. She reports that even these small practices can lead to great changes in your daily life and future.

She urges us to remember the humanity of everyone, and to respond to one another with empathy and compassion.

You can find Molika's Facebook group at www.facebook.com/groups/ImmigrantSpousesRewriteYourStory/

Veronica’s background is in public health, and she shares some great information about self-advocacy. I loved her thoughts on empowering women to be leaders in their health care, and definitely want my own medical experiences to be empowering.

At the end of the day, you’re the one who knows your body the best. You’re the only one who can speak to your symptoms, your needs, and your truth. Rather then shutting down, you can speak up. Self-advocacy is about using your voice and seeking help in healthy, proactive ways.

We ended up circling back to the idea of much of our medical problems being connected to systemic failures (this is the 3rd podcast episode this has come up on!), and it made me wonder what WE can do to have a positive impact on the system.

What are your thoughts?

Veronica also shares about her love for all things essential oils (plus some of the science behind where oils came from and why they work). In the course of learning about oils, we touch on the importance of ethical sourcing, pricing, and use of products, both personally and globally.

One encouragement to entrepreneurial listeners is to continually pursue personal development - after all, if you aren’t growing, how will your business?

You can find Veronica on Instagram at www.instagram.com/withherroots or on her site, www.veronicasek.com.

Heather shares that when things get crazy, she often has a desire to control things (don’t we all!). Like many of us, she’s worked to end those patterns of control in her life.

Part of Heather’s journey involved the inward process of moving from a victim mindset towards a courageous, empowered mindset. She dealt with a lot of anger and impulsivity as a young child, and felt she was “set apart” in a negative way. As a result, she walked around with a chip on her shoulder, carrying a burden of angst and frustration with her.

Rejection, abandonment, ridicule, and pain felt normal.

Transformation came in a variety of ways - joining the Navy, breaking free from the constraints of other people’s expectations, and having the the freedom of a new identity all helped.

They also created a new issue: striving. Heather might have been able to drop the chip, but ended up picking up the need to prove her worth to others

Eventually, she’s processed through that too. Life is always a journey, and not all of her growth as been achieved gracefully. Peeling through layers of hurt, pain, and past issues took time and effort. Being willing to face into what had been and choosing to work forward through those issues was instrumental in resolving and redeeming the past. It also required her to engage with other’s in her life, sharing her story and also learning more about their own perspectives and roles.

She identifies her ability to start TALKINg as something hugely essential in her journey. Processing through things and shedding light on them was so important, as opposed to hiding in the shadows or silencing her voice.

As emotional beings, we sometimes struggle to move from our current reality into something new or different. By choosing to live courageously, we can start to experience more freedom in our lives.

Rather than finding ways to blame others for our pain or pasts, there are ways to reenter the experience, settle what you can settle, and move on to healing and wholeness.

Remember - you’re not alone in this!

You can find Heather on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and on her website.

Karen is a National Board Certified Health Coach and founder of Rebalanced Wellbeing, where she works with busy women who risk chronic health conditions by putting their own needs last.

She believes we all deserve to have time and energy to dedicate towards our own needs, passions, and desires.

The big idea? You can have a family and career without sacrificing your own wellbeing and health.

If you know what it’s like to just push through, make it happen, and not provide self-care, then this is for you!

Karen calls herself a “thriver of divorce”, is a mom and step-mom, and is also a survivor of Lyme disease. Stress, fatigue, and overwhelm are no strangers in her life!

Part of her journey involves the realization that she was doing everything for everyone, and that she wasn’t good at asking for help. She came to see that serving her family was how she showed her love, but that it had turned into an unhealthy situation because she couldn’t show herself love or care when she was doing so much for everyone else.

Karen shares that she seeks to find a balance between mental, physical, and emotional energy. Her mental energy tends to be highest, and is a tremendous asset, while her physical energy needs the most TLC to stay charged up. She advocates for self-awareness, and recommends honoring your need to stop, to rest, and to communicate with your family and loved ones about tuning in to your own body and being honest about your limitations.

Asking for help is necessary, and trusting that it will be provided help you truly rest.

It’s okay to realize that you’re doing the best you can, and you can allow that to be enough. It may not be what you imagined, it may not be what you expected, but if it’s your best - it is enough.

You can find Karen at her website, rebalancewellbeing.com.