February 18, 2025 • 26 mins
In this inspiring episode, Tracie chats with Angela Wilson, who helps women tap into their inner courage and create the life they deserve. Angela shares her personal story of transformation, resilience, and how she made the bold decision to leave her corporate job and start her own business. This episode is packed with insights on overcoming self-doubt, embracing authenticity, and stepping into a life of passion and purpose.
✨ What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
- Angela’s journey from a toxic work environment to entrepreneurship
- How she learned to trust her own voice and stop dimming her light
- The importance of collaboration over competition
- How small, intentional steps can lead to exponential growth
- The impact of choosing yourself and showing up authentically
- The ripple effect of empowering others to do the same
🛠️ Actionable Tips from Angela Wilson:
- Start small: Don’t wait for the perfect moment to make a big leap. Take small, intentional steps towards your dreams.
- Choose yourself: It’s not selfish to prioritize your needs and desires. Your brilliance is needed in the world.
- Embrace collaboration: There's enough space for everyone to succeed. Collaborate and lift others up along the way.
- Redecorate your life: Sometimes a small change in your environment can ignite bigger transformations in your business and personal life.
- Keep the vision alive: Visualize where you want to be in the next 1, 5, or 10 years and take action every day to get there.
🎤 Memorable Quote:
“We are not here to play small. We are here to live completely authentically as us and shine our light so brilliantly.” – Angela Wilson
🔥 Bold Moment of the Episode:
Angela shares the moment she had while sitting in a plaza in Spain, where she realized her true calling was to step out of the background and into the forefront, helping women live their authentic, limitless lives.
📱 Connect with Angela Wilson:
Angela Wilson is a Champion for Women’s Courage, international best selling author, and international speaker. She is the Founder of Angela Unlimited, an organization that assists women to transform to a life of whole wealth, and to discover and step toward living their unlimited life. Angela uses her personal experience, where she learned to listen to the little voice that kept asking, “Isn’t there more to life than this?”. She found the courage to say “yes, there is”. And so can you.
Find Angela at https://www.thegather.community/AngelaWilson or follow her on social media for more inspiration and resources.
🚀 Join the Bold and Brilliant Podcast Community:
Become part of our community of women taking bold action! Join the conversation in our Gather Community Facebook group
🌟 Rate & Review:
If you enjoyed today’s episode, please leave a review and rate the Bold and Brilliant Podcast on your favorite platform. Your feedback helps us reach more women who are ready to step into their brilliance!
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Your host,
Tracie Root
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Audio Only - All Participan (00:01):
Are you ready to take bold action
and live a life of brilliance?
Welcome to the Bold andBrilliant Podcast where women
leaders share inspiring storiesabout daring decisions that
shape their businesses, theirlives, and their careers.
Today I'm with the fabulous andamazing Angela Wilson.
(00:23):
Angela assists women to tap intotheir inner courage.
She empowers them to startliving by their own story.
and the life they deserve andhave the money become a tool in
that life.
As we talk, you'll hear Angelashare one bold decision that has
created her path.
(00:43):
Of what was next, her story ofresilience, risk taking and
transformation will inspire,encourage and support your
personal and professional growthand peace.
Welcome Angela to the Bold andBrilliant Podcast.
Thanks Tracie.
I'm so glad you're here.
I'm so glad you're here too.
(01:05):
We have been doing this talkingon camera, working together for
Two years now, if you couldbelieve that was how long ago we
were on a cruise ship togetherand decided to cement this
relationship and take it to thenext level, which is really
supporting each other inbusiness.
You've helped me a ton.
(01:26):
You've been in The GatherCommunity as a creator for a
long time.
And I'm really thrilled that youcan be one of our early episodes
here on the Bold and BrilliantPodcast.
So thank you so much for beinghere.
My pleasure, my friend.
My pleasure.
tell the listeners who haven'thad a chance to know you yet, or
maybe just don't know some ofthe origin story.
(01:48):
Tell us a little bit about howyou became who you are.
That's, it's big story.
I know we only have, a fewminutes.
We don't have three hours, but Iknow, so we'll do the short
little snippet version.
I grew up in a small town incottage country in Ontario,
Canada.
And what does that mean when yousay cottage country?
(02:08):
What does that mean?
So cottage country.
So we have areas that onweekends people go to the
cottage.
Okay.
Yeah.
So it's, and it's a well knownarea.
Muskoka.
It's beautiful.
Absolutely breathtaking.
And that's where I grew up.
And, it's interesting because asa little kid, I was chatty.
I was really chatty, but I grewup in that time where little
(02:29):
girls were supposed to be seenand not heard.
So I got in trouble a lot fortalking.
And so what that actually did,though, is as I went through
school and heard more messagesabout It's not okay to be me
that I had to tamp myself down.
I had to make myself smaller allof those things and I really
took that on throughout my life.
I lost who I was and had myselfthinking that I wasn't as smart
(02:56):
as everybody else and I wasn'tas worthy as everybody else and
That I you know, I should justcompletely morph myself into
what everybody wanted me to beBecause me was not okay.
Which is completely wrong.
But that's the societalconstructs that I was in at that
time.
I did go through a very toxiclong term relationship that
(03:17):
ended abruptly and I didn't knowwho I was.
At that age, I was in my midforties and went, really, what
do I do now?
I started figuring out who I wasand really dove into, you know
what?
I do matter.
I have a voice.
So let's be out there.
(03:38):
And that's what brought me toassisting the women that I'm
here to assist.
It's so interesting that I thinkevery single one of us in this
Gen X generation, we all havethat same story that ingrained
people pleasing that listen toyour parents do what they say.
There was something about thegenerational.
(04:00):
Construct of how they wereraised and then therefore how we
were raised.
I think we're the firstgeneration to really rebel that
old messaging, and the folksthat are younger than us,
they've got the same thing, butlittle less than us, if you
study, The differences betweenboomer gen X, millennials, it's
(04:21):
really interesting to see theevolution of each generation and
how it's changed.
Now we wouldn't think of tellingsomeone that they have to be,
something other than themselves.
For me, everything iscollaboration because I don't
believe in competition at all.
There's more than enough for allof us.
And that's the way I live mylife.
(04:43):
Yeah, especially in business,there's obviously we think
competition.
A lot of people think of sportsand think of, things like that.
And of course, that's.
Necessary in a game.
Not everyone can always win.
Competition itself isn'tinherently bad, but the way that
we were taught to compete forattention to compete for love to
(05:04):
compete for now asentrepreneurs.
That we have to compete forclients or connections or
collaboration partners.
It's so false, competition hasits place, but not in our world
of business for sure.
So I love this.
And I also agree, of course,about the there's no
(05:26):
competition.
There's plenty enough asKaterina, our favorite gal would
say, there's enough pie foreveryone.
And as you, I know that I knowsome of your business story and
you're working for someone else,and then you became working for
yourself.
Was that something that you hadto overcome?
At that time, or had you alreadybegun that journey of I don't
(05:48):
need to worry about competitionlike what tell us about the
transformation from working fromsomeone else to working for
yourself and what you had to dodifferently, right?
When I was in corporate, I was acontroller at a manufacturing
organization.
And because I am a CPA as well.
I found I was just so unhappyall the time because it was the
same thing over and over again.
(06:10):
Unfortunately, that was a toxicspot.
Until you realize that you'reputting yourself in these
places, you don't know to keepyourself out of those places,
right?
Exactly.
So it makes sense that personalrelationship, business
relationship, that it would allline up until you change it.
Oh, absolutely.
And I went from there and it wasreally, so I, I left that job
(06:30):
going to more of a not forprofit type of a situation.
I just started thinking, I wantto do something different.
I don't want to do the samething.
And it just happened at thattime, a friend of mine reached
out to me and said, I juststarted as a COO at a
manufacturing company, and Ireally need your help.
I don't know what I'm doing.
(06:50):
I really need your help.
And I said, okay, that's fine.
That's awesome.
So I started helping him in theevenings.
I said, can you give me thesemany hours and he said,
absolutely.
I can.
That's how I started my firstbusiness, which was my
accounting practice.
I really wanted to niche down tobeing the finance director at
not for profit organizations inthe violence against women and
(07:12):
children youth sector.
And so I did that and then, wentthrough that life changing
moment that I mentioned before.
And went, is this still reallywhat I want to do?
At that point, I needed tosoldier on because I needed to
get myself in the right spot.
Then I went, this is not feedingmy soul anymore.
(07:34):
I really want to be out therehelping women to really live.
Their unlimited life, the lifethey desire, the life they
deserve, and to just be in thatlife and taking advantage of all
of the passion that they have.
And not staying where they thinkthey should stay.
(07:54):
Yeah.
Obviously one of my bigquestions that I ask everyone is
tell us about one bold decisionthat you made that changed
everything, it sounds like, youwere working in a business
sector that supported women,through structured, programs and
then you decided to head out onyour own instead of just helping
the programs exist, you wantedto help those women directly.
(08:16):
Am I right?
Is this right?
Yeah, basically.
So tell us about like you said,you have to get bills to pay.
We've got a life, to fund, butyou saw the opportunity and
maybe the desire inside you tomove into a more direct.
So tell us a little bit abouthow did that start?
(08:37):
What was the first thing thatyou decided to do when you were
on that fence between workingwith the nonprofit and leaving
it?
So really when I decided toscale back my accounting
business and really go intoAngela Unlimited.
It really came about because itjust kept coming to the
forefront that, I'm sitting in aback office somewhere.
(08:59):
I was doing great work.
I was making sure that, all thefunds got out onto the front
line so that the front lineworkers could do the work and
the women could get theassistance that they needed.
But I kept going, you know what,I think my voice needs to come
out.
In those days.
I would have never been doingthis.
That's for sure.
Because I didn't talk unless Iwas really talked to.
(09:20):
And then I just went, you knowwhat?
No, just a second.
Actually the seed for where I amnow came from a conversation in
a beautiful little plaza inSpain.
Where I said to my husband, Isaid, this thought keeps coming
to me.
And he said, tell me about it.
And that's where it got hatchedbecause I was like, you know
what?
No, this is what I'm here to do.
(09:41):
And really my overarching goalfor all of this and this touches
on what you were talking aboutbefore about the generations, is
I want to make sure That everylittle girl is educated, and
every little girl doesn't haveto go through any of the stuff
that we went through.
It's just, I want them to be 100percent their authentic selves
their whole lives, nevermorphing, never doubting, but
(10:03):
we've got to start somewhere.
And so I start here for thechange.
Oh, I love that.
Okay.
First of all, I can just imagineyou and Gord sitting in a plaza
in Spain.
A lot of us who've had that kindof, aha, it's time to do
something that I really careabout, that I'm really excited
about when we have that minute.
(10:24):
I can imagine it because for me,gather was a big one for that I
know how excited I was to talkabout it.
I know how obsessed I becameabout doing that work.
And I can hear that in yourvoice and picture him saying,
tell me all about it.
And you're just going and beingreally excited and passionate
(10:44):
about it.
I think that's one of the thingsthat happens to us when we make
this transition from where wewere to this, bold new path.
We get so excited about itbecause we know that the time is
right.
The idea matters to us.
We spend so much time in ourearly years doing things that
(11:04):
don't really matter that muchpersonally.
They matter in you have to havea job and we need to pay the
rent.
And like you said, you weredoing great work.
You were making the organizationbe able to do what they were
doing.
But you wanted to be doing it,too.
Absolutely.
And I think that is soimportant, Tracie, it's about
coming from that passion.
(11:26):
And it's about not squelchingthat passion anymore.
And really going after it andbringing it out to the world.
Because that's what we're hereto do.
We're not here to play small.
We're not here to dim our light.
We're not here for any of that.
We're here to live completelyauthentically as us.
And shine our light sobrilliantly.
And you know what?
Right now, my gosh.
We are all such unique,beautiful individuals the world
(11:48):
just needs our brilliance.
So let's just shine our lightsand be all that we're here to
be.
And forget about judgment,forget about fear, and just
really live from this beautifulspace inside you, where you're
choosing you and choosing whoyou want to be every single
minute of every day.
So as you were saying that I wasthinking about how it is like
(12:12):
all of us, we go through all ofthis.
And I'm wondering about thepotential of people who don't
spend 40 years not doing it or50 years not doing it or 60
years not doing it and howthings can be different on the
planet when the young adults,the 30 year olds really know who
(12:39):
they are and why they're doingwhat they're doing.
I just got goosebumps with thatbecause can you imagine
obviously we can only know thepeople that we know and see what
we see on media, but the fewpeople who are out there who are
young and standing up for whatthey believe and moving their.
Passion forward, whateverindustry they may be in that we
(13:00):
see them for those people arethe people that we admire the
most because they're notallowing judgment to get the
better of them.
I think that's what's going tohappen is that year over year,
those numbers will start togrow.
I've got teenagers, my oldest isa freshman in college and I see
(13:23):
it in that kid.
To just know what I know,believe what I believe, not that
they're not open to learning newthings, but like this matters,
these issues are what matter tome and I'm not going to squelch
my values in fear of someonethinking less of me because of
(13:44):
it.
And I'm really excited for theyounger generation to be able to
grow that and for us to be ableto be the mentors for that.
Because that's our role at thispoint to help them recognize
that they're doing it.
Keep going.
Absolutely.
And I think it has so much powerbehind it.
(14:04):
And, a lot of people don'trealize we impact people every
single day in our lives, youjust may not see it or you may
not recognize it.
But I find it such a rewardingunique thing when I talk to
somebody, that I haven't talkedto in maybe a couple of months
and they go, Oh my gosh,remember when you said such and
such?
And I was like, huh.
(14:24):
No, I don't always remember, butit's like that impact, right?
And you're going, wow, I didn'trealize.
And they're like, yeah, I'vebeen thinking about that every
conversation, this conversationthat you and I are having right
now, this is going to ripple outinto the world and it will have
an impact.
Each person that can hear themessage and that want to take it
in, right?
(14:45):
Because we all have a choice andit's that ripple effect.
It's beautiful.
It really is beautiful.
It's so good.
And it's interesting because, asyou were saying, people will
hear this and it will rippleout.
And of course we won't have anyidea.
What potential that has.
And that's one of theinteresting things about
podcasting.
I'm brand new.
You're my seventh episode, Lou,right?
(15:05):
I haven't even gotten to thepoint where people don't get
past 10.
I'm going to get past 10.
This is a mission.
But the idea of reaching peoplethat you've never met across the
entire planet, imagine how manypeople are on the planet and how
many women and girls.
Especially, we're here in theStates and Canada, imagine
places elsewhere on the planetwhere they need it even more
(15:26):
imagine what it's like there.
I can't even imagine.
And for someone whose entireculture is around them, not ever
even talking out loud in publicto then decide to say something
like that.
It's just it's beyond is what Isay.
(15:47):
Absolutely.
So we were talking aboutaffecting young people.
But really, we're working withpeople who are often our peers,
right?
Yes, we want the young people togrow into this amazing community
of older people, as we getolder, they'll get older and
then there'll be us and we'llbe, really old, but right now
(16:09):
we're working on our peers.
We'll be the elders at thatpoint.
Yes, we'll be the elders.
But, really, we're working withour peers, right?
I'm 56.
I'm not working with 20 yearolds.
That's just not my field.
We're talking about thoseripples, that trickle down,
we're trickling across to ourpeers and then hoping that they
will then trickle down.
(16:31):
Even though it's not ourdesigned intent, we're going to
teach you so you can teach yourYounger generation, it just
happens automatically.
So tell me like the things thatyour clients and your community
are the ways that they'rechanging.
Tell me a little bit aboutwhat's happened for them that
(16:51):
you can see how that's going tostart to change their
communities around them it'slike we said, those ripples I
like to say that each 1 of us is1 of the pebbles and we throw
them in the pond.
And we all make circles and allthose circles overlap.
So tell me about some of yourpebbles that are out there
making their own ripples.
I love the way that you've saidthat because it really is.
(17:13):
I work with mature womentypically over 45 we've gotten
to a point where.
We've stayed in places that weshouldn't necessarily have
stayed in or, we've done thejob, we've done this, we've done
that.
And now all of a sudden we'relike, Oh, what's next?
I think I'm meant for more thanthis.
And so that's the ladies that Iwork with and I just love it.
(17:33):
So a great client of mine shejust called me the other day and
she goes, Oh my gosh, Angela.
She said, you remember when weworked together and we did this
and I said, yeah.
And so what it was for her wasshe was so busy working in our
business.
She wasn't living your life.
It was nowhere in her life.
She was business.
That was it.
And so we started playing aroundwith, okay, what could things
(17:54):
look like differently?
The biggest thing was, is I lovethe women that I work, it's
about opening their minds tosomething more, right?
Because we get in there, get inour box.
Yep.
And it's okay.
Even though we may have otherthoughts, it's like that just
doesn't fit right now.
And so with this particularwoman the way we started with
her was her house.
She had completely let it go.
(18:16):
And she goes, I haven't doneanything to this house and I
don't know how long shecompletely redecorated her house
to make it a space that shewanted to live in.
That was her choice.
There wasn't any more hand medowns.
It was all her.
And then we transformed.
She had so much fun and realizedthat she loved beautiful things.
So from that, we then transformthat into our business as well.
(18:37):
How could you have this much funin your business?
Her business has grownsignificantly since working
together.
She just got nominated for WomenChanging the World.
Which is awesome.
One of her dreams was to betraveling more with work, but
also personal.
When I talked to her last week,she's Oh my gosh, Angela, I have
(18:57):
five trips booked between nowand the end of April.
And I was like, wow, this isawesome.
And it came from the fact thatshe opened up.
She opened that there could besomething more.
How can I do things differently?
And, that's one of these thingsfor me, for 2025, it's about how
can I do things differently?
I don't want to have the sameresults by the end of 2025 that
(19:20):
I had at the end of 2024.
And it's all about doing thingsdifferently and opening up to,
you know what, there's so muchmore out there and we're capable
of so much more.
We just need someone to walkbeside us.
So let's pause on the, what arewe imagining by the end of this
year?
Because I think many people weare very much in, we're doing
(19:44):
our day to day.
We've got the list of thingsthat need to be done today.
We've got the list of thingsthat need to be done next week.
I have a kid who's in highschool and what spring breaks
coming up the end of the year,we've got these plans.
What are we doing this summer?
It's all very narrow in relatedto what we have in our life
today.
So the opportunity for people tostop and imagine further out
(20:13):
what do you want for next year?
What do you want for two yearsfrom now?
Five years from now, 10 yearsfrom now, it's really hard.
It is.
Probably 10 years ago I finallywoke up in someone's workshop
that they were doing make your 5year plan kind of a workshop.
And I was just like, I can'teven imagine it.
(20:35):
And I realized 5 years fromthem, both my kids would be out
of high school and I was like,okay this is something I can
imagine right there.
There's enough of a milestone.
Them both being gone out of thishouse.
Okay, what does that life looklike?
But I think generally, it'sreally hard for people to
imagine that clearly to thensay, okay if that's true.
(21:00):
When that becomes true, what doI want to do with that have
those imagining moments andthose dreaming sessions I know
that you do that, because I'vedone that with you and it was
really great.
And that was, 2 years ago andeverything's moving in that path
(21:21):
still when you have a vision forwhat it is, you're really
excited about you actually wantto do the work to go after it
instead of being afraid orthinking that you can't or
deciding that you have to bewhat they want instead.
Absolutely.
(21:41):
And it really is, it's not abouttaking giant massive steps
because when we do that, whatends up happening is our ego
gets involved and all of asudden it protects us.
Instead of our comfort zonebeing like this wide, now it
goes this wide because we'relike, Ooh, and we shrink back
in.
But when we start taking smallintentional steps, our comfort
(22:01):
zone that started here.
Now gets bigger and biggerbecause our steps are not
linear, they're exponential.
That's exactly what I was goingto say, that as you did this, I
was thinking to myself, and it'snot linear.
So it might actually be threethis direction before you do
this direction, or whatever.
Absolutely.
It's so important to remember,we're still gonna have messy
days because we're humans andmess happens.
(22:25):
I love this analogy and I cameup with one when I was talking
with a client.
And it's because we were talkingalong and I went, picture it
like this.
I said, it's you're in ariverbed and you've got all the
big rocks.
And so the riverbed is like yourjourney and the rocks, you're
like jumping from rock to rockand you're having fun and you're
playing around.
And then you jump to a rock andyour foot falls in the water.
(22:45):
There you go.
In the water.
That's the messy bit.
But here's the thing.
You have a choice when you getto the messy.
You can either leave your footin the water and continually let
it be messy, or you can pull itout, shake it off and go dang, I
don't want that to happen again.
Let's move on to the next rock.
We have a choice here and we getto choose how we want to show up
(23:06):
in our lives.
We get to choose how we want tolive our lives.
We get to choose how to actuallycreate our lives because we are
creating our own lives.
Absolutely.
A hundred percent.
You can tell I'm a littlepassionate.
That's why we're here becausetwo years ago, the dream that I,
Talked about doing a podcast ispart of that progress and if it
(23:28):
weren't a place for people tobring their passionate
excitement to more people, thenit wouldn't be a step in the
right direction toward the dreamI had imagined two years ago.
Yeah, I'm thrilled that you'repassionate because that's what's
exciting and in fact, as youwere saying all those things,
I'm like, oh, this is going tobe the perfect soundbite to
(23:48):
promote the episode, it was veryexciting.
Okay I think it's time that westart to wrap things up.
I do want to ask.
So in the show notes, we'regoing to have your links and all
those things.
Tell people a little bit abouthow you specifically work with
clients.
I know I've mentioned that youhave clients that you've done
workshops that I've been at,that you have community.
So tell us some of the kind ofstructured ways that you work
(24:11):
with people.
Absolutely.
We offer group programs and wealso offer one on one coaching,
coaching, and we do some inperson retreats, which is always
fun.
I love those.
I love getting time to spend,and I love all the programs
because I just, I love beingable to really have women come
in and have that transformation.
(24:32):
We also do free workshops.
So definitely look us up andmake sure that you're checking
those out because those areawesome.
I just did one the other day andI had a lady that was like, I
never thought of it that way.
And she's that was an amazingbreakthrough.
And I was like, awesome.
Yay.
Cause I get so much out ofworking with the women that I
(24:52):
work with.
So yeah, reach out and let'shave a conversation.
Love it.
And you're in the Toronto,Canada area.
So for people who want to go toone of those in person things.
That's your zone.
Although retreats, people aremore than welcome to travel.
And and one of the things aboutwhat's fun about our business,
of course, is that because weget to travel for different
(25:15):
things, sometimes we end upcoming closer to you.
So even if Angela is very faraway from you, connect anyway,
because you never know when shemight be traveling toward you
magic happens.
You never know.
It sure does.
Never say never.
Alright, my friend.
Do you have a wrap up point thatyou want people to take with
them?
I think the biggest thing that Iwould say is, you don't have to
(25:37):
do any of this alone.
And that's what we're here tohelp with.
It really is about choosingyourself.
Deciding that you're important.
It's not selfish to chooseyourself.
That's what we're here to do isshine your light out because you
know what?
You are magnificent and theworld really needs you.
The world needs you so much.
(25:58):
They need your voice so Get itout there.
Get it out.
Yes.
I love it.
Angela, thank you so much forbeing here.
I appreciate you.
I'm all amped up and excited tokeep going towards my dreams.
And I know that our listenersare going to be feeling the same
way.
So thank you again for being apart of the podcast.
(26:19):
Oh, thank you so much for havingme.
It has been an absolute delightand I always love spending time
with you.
All right.
We'll see you soon.
Are you ready to take bold action
and live a life of brilliance?
Welcome to the Bold andBrilliant Podcast where women
leaders share inspiring storiesabout daring decisions that
shape their businesses, theirlives, and their careers.
Today I'm with the fabulous andamazing Angela Wilson.
(00:23):
Angela assists women to tap intotheir inner courage.
She empowers them to startliving by their own story.
and the life they deserve andhave the money become a tool in
that life.
As we talk, you'll hear Angelashare one bold decision that has
created her path.
(00:43):
Of what was next, her story ofresilience, risk taking and
transformation will inspire,encourage and support your
personal and professional growthand peace.
Welcome Angela to the Bold andBrilliant Podcast.
Thanks Tracie.
I'm so glad you're here.
I'm so glad you're here too.
(01:05):
We have been doing this talkingon camera, working together for
Two years now, if you couldbelieve that was how long ago we
were on a cruise ship togetherand decided to cement this
relationship and take it to thenext level, which is really
supporting each other inbusiness.
You've helped me a ton.
(01:26):
You've been in The GatherCommunity as a creator for a
long time.
And I'm really thrilled that youcan be one of our early episodes
here on the Bold and BrilliantPodcast.
So thank you so much for beinghere.
My pleasure, my friend.
My pleasure.
tell the listeners who haven'thad a chance to know you yet, or
maybe just don't know some ofthe origin story.
(01:48):
Tell us a little bit about howyou became who you are.
That's, it's big story.
I know we only have, a fewminutes.
We don't have three hours, but Iknow, so we'll do the short
little snippet version.
I grew up in a small town incottage country in Ontario,
Canada.
And what does that mean when yousay cottage country?
(02:08):
What does that mean?
So cottage country.
So we have areas that onweekends people go to the
cottage.
Okay.
Yeah.
So it's, and it's a well knownarea.
Muskoka.
It's beautiful.
Absolutely breathtaking.
And that's where I grew up.
And, it's interesting because asa little kid, I was chatty.
I was really chatty, but I grewup in that time where little
(02:29):
girls were supposed to be seenand not heard.
So I got in trouble a lot fortalking.
And so what that actually did,though, is as I went through
school and heard more messagesabout It's not okay to be me
that I had to tamp myself down.
I had to make myself smaller allof those things and I really
took that on throughout my life.
I lost who I was and had myselfthinking that I wasn't as smart
(02:56):
as everybody else and I wasn'tas worthy as everybody else and
That I you know, I should justcompletely morph myself into
what everybody wanted me to beBecause me was not okay.
Which is completely wrong.
But that's the societalconstructs that I was in at that
time.
I did go through a very toxiclong term relationship that
(03:17):
ended abruptly and I didn't knowwho I was.
At that age, I was in my midforties and went, really, what
do I do now?
I started figuring out who I wasand really dove into, you know
what?
I do matter.
I have a voice.
So let's be out there.
(03:38):
And that's what brought me toassisting the women that I'm
here to assist.
It's so interesting that I thinkevery single one of us in this
Gen X generation, we all havethat same story that ingrained
people pleasing that listen toyour parents do what they say.
There was something about thegenerational.
(04:00):
Construct of how they wereraised and then therefore how we
were raised.
I think we're the firstgeneration to really rebel that
old messaging, and the folksthat are younger than us,
they've got the same thing, butlittle less than us, if you
study, The differences betweenboomer gen X, millennials, it's
(04:21):
really interesting to see theevolution of each generation and
how it's changed.
Now we wouldn't think of tellingsomeone that they have to be,
something other than themselves.
For me, everything iscollaboration because I don't
believe in competition at all.
There's more than enough for allof us.
And that's the way I live mylife.
(04:43):
Yeah, especially in business,there's obviously we think
competition.
A lot of people think of sportsand think of, things like that.
And of course, that's.
Necessary in a game.
Not everyone can always win.
Competition itself isn'tinherently bad, but the way that
we were taught to compete forattention to compete for love to
(05:04):
compete for now asentrepreneurs.
That we have to compete forclients or connections or
collaboration partners.
It's so false, competition hasits place, but not in our world
of business for sure.
So I love this.
And I also agree, of course,about the there's no
(05:26):
competition.
There's plenty enough asKaterina, our favorite gal would
say, there's enough pie foreveryone.
And as you, I know that I knowsome of your business story and
you're working for someone else,and then you became working for
yourself.
Was that something that you hadto overcome?
At that time, or had you alreadybegun that journey of I don't
(05:48):
need to worry about competitionlike what tell us about the
transformation from working fromsomeone else to working for
yourself and what you had to dodifferently, right?
When I was in corporate, I was acontroller at a manufacturing
organization.
And because I am a CPA as well.
I found I was just so unhappyall the time because it was the
same thing over and over again.
(06:10):
Unfortunately, that was a toxicspot.
Until you realize that you'reputting yourself in these
places, you don't know to keepyourself out of those places,
right?
Exactly.
So it makes sense that personalrelationship, business
relationship, that it would allline up until you change it.
Oh, absolutely.
And I went from there and it wasreally, so I, I left that job
(06:30):
going to more of a not forprofit type of a situation.
I just started thinking, I wantto do something different.
I don't want to do the samething.
And it just happened at thattime, a friend of mine reached
out to me and said, I juststarted as a COO at a
manufacturing company, and Ireally need your help.
I don't know what I'm doing.
(06:50):
I really need your help.
And I said, okay, that's fine.
That's awesome.
So I started helping him in theevenings.
I said, can you give me thesemany hours and he said,
absolutely.
I can.
That's how I started my firstbusiness, which was my
accounting practice.
I really wanted to niche down tobeing the finance director at
not for profit organizations inthe violence against women and
(07:12):
children youth sector.
And so I did that and then, wentthrough that life changing
moment that I mentioned before.
And went, is this still reallywhat I want to do?
At that point, I needed tosoldier on because I needed to
get myself in the right spot.
Then I went, this is not feedingmy soul anymore.
(07:34):
I really want to be out therehelping women to really live.
Their unlimited life, the lifethey desire, the life they
deserve, and to just be in thatlife and taking advantage of all
of the passion that they have.
And not staying where they thinkthey should stay.
(07:54):
Yeah.
Obviously one of my bigquestions that I ask everyone is
tell us about one bold decisionthat you made that changed
everything, it sounds like, youwere working in a business
sector that supported women,through structured, programs and
then you decided to head out onyour own instead of just helping
the programs exist, you wantedto help those women directly.
(08:16):
Am I right?
Is this right?
Yeah, basically.
So tell us about like you said,you have to get bills to pay.
We've got a life, to fund, butyou saw the opportunity and
maybe the desire inside you tomove into a more direct.
So tell us a little bit abouthow did that start?
(08:37):
What was the first thing thatyou decided to do when you were
on that fence between workingwith the nonprofit and leaving
it?
So really when I decided toscale back my accounting
business and really go intoAngela Unlimited.
It really came about because itjust kept coming to the
forefront that, I'm sitting in aback office somewhere.
(08:59):
I was doing great work.
I was making sure that, all thefunds got out onto the front
line so that the front lineworkers could do the work and
the women could get theassistance that they needed.
But I kept going, you know what,I think my voice needs to come
out.
In those days.
I would have never been doingthis.
That's for sure.
Because I didn't talk unless Iwas really talked to.
(09:20):
And then I just went, you knowwhat?
No, just a second.
Actually the seed for where I amnow came from a conversation in
a beautiful little plaza inSpain.
Where I said to my husband, Isaid, this thought keeps coming
to me.
And he said, tell me about it.
And that's where it got hatchedbecause I was like, you know
what?
No, this is what I'm here to do.
(09:41):
And really my overarching goalfor all of this and this touches
on what you were talking aboutbefore about the generations, is
I want to make sure That everylittle girl is educated, and
every little girl doesn't haveto go through any of the stuff
that we went through.
It's just, I want them to be 100percent their authentic selves
their whole lives, nevermorphing, never doubting, but
(10:03):
we've got to start somewhere.
And so I start here for thechange.
Oh, I love that.
Okay.
First of all, I can just imagineyou and Gord sitting in a plaza
in Spain.
A lot of us who've had that kindof, aha, it's time to do
something that I really careabout, that I'm really excited
about when we have that minute.
(10:24):
I can imagine it because for me,gather was a big one for that I
know how excited I was to talkabout it.
I know how obsessed I becameabout doing that work.
And I can hear that in yourvoice and picture him saying,
tell me all about it.
And you're just going and beingreally excited and passionate
(10:44):
about it.
I think that's one of the thingsthat happens to us when we make
this transition from where wewere to this, bold new path.
We get so excited about itbecause we know that the time is
right.
The idea matters to us.
We spend so much time in ourearly years doing things that
(11:04):
don't really matter that muchpersonally.
They matter in you have to havea job and we need to pay the
rent.
And like you said, you weredoing great work.
You were making the organizationbe able to do what they were
doing.
But you wanted to be doing it,too.
Absolutely.
And I think that is soimportant, Tracie, it's about
coming from that passion.
(11:26):
And it's about not squelchingthat passion anymore.
And really going after it andbringing it out to the world.
Because that's what we're hereto do.
We're not here to play small.
We're not here to dim our light.
We're not here for any of that.
We're here to live completelyauthentically as us.
And shine our light sobrilliantly.
And you know what?
Right now, my gosh.
We are all such unique,beautiful individuals the world
(11:48):
just needs our brilliance.
So let's just shine our lightsand be all that we're here to
be.
And forget about judgment,forget about fear, and just
really live from this beautifulspace inside you, where you're
choosing you and choosing whoyou want to be every single
minute of every day.
So as you were saying that I wasthinking about how it is like
(12:12):
all of us, we go through all ofthis.
And I'm wondering about thepotential of people who don't
spend 40 years not doing it or50 years not doing it or 60
years not doing it and howthings can be different on the
planet when the young adults,the 30 year olds really know who
(12:39):
they are and why they're doingwhat they're doing.
I just got goosebumps with thatbecause can you imagine
obviously we can only know thepeople that we know and see what
we see on media, but the fewpeople who are out there who are
young and standing up for whatthey believe and moving their.
Passion forward, whateverindustry they may be in that we
(13:00):
see them for those people arethe people that we admire the
most because they're notallowing judgment to get the
better of them.
I think that's what's going tohappen is that year over year,
those numbers will start togrow.
I've got teenagers, my oldest isa freshman in college and I see
(13:23):
it in that kid.
To just know what I know,believe what I believe, not that
they're not open to learning newthings, but like this matters,
these issues are what matter tome and I'm not going to squelch
my values in fear of someonethinking less of me because of
(13:44):
it.
And I'm really excited for theyounger generation to be able to
grow that and for us to be ableto be the mentors for that.
Because that's our role at thispoint to help them recognize
that they're doing it.
Keep going.
Absolutely.
And I think it has so much powerbehind it.
(14:04):
And, a lot of people don'trealize we impact people every
single day in our lives, youjust may not see it or you may
not recognize it.
But I find it such a rewardingunique thing when I talk to
somebody, that I haven't talkedto in maybe a couple of months
and they go, Oh my gosh,remember when you said such and
such?
And I was like, huh.
(14:24):
No, I don't always remember, butit's like that impact, right?
And you're going, wow, I didn'trealize.
And they're like, yeah, I'vebeen thinking about that every
conversation, this conversationthat you and I are having right
now, this is going to ripple outinto the world and it will have
an impact.
Each person that can hear themessage and that want to take it
in, right?
(14:45):
Because we all have a choice andit's that ripple effect.
It's beautiful.
It really is beautiful.
It's so good.
And it's interesting because, asyou were saying, people will
hear this and it will rippleout.
And of course we won't have anyidea.
What potential that has.
And that's one of theinteresting things about
podcasting.
I'm brand new.
You're my seventh episode, Lou,right?
(15:05):
I haven't even gotten to thepoint where people don't get
past 10.
I'm going to get past 10.
This is a mission.
But the idea of reaching peoplethat you've never met across the
entire planet, imagine how manypeople are on the planet and how
many women and girls.
Especially, we're here in theStates and Canada, imagine
places elsewhere on the planetwhere they need it even more
(15:26):
imagine what it's like there.
I can't even imagine.
And for someone whose entireculture is around them, not ever
even talking out loud in publicto then decide to say something
like that.
It's just it's beyond is what Isay.
(15:47):
Absolutely.
So we were talking aboutaffecting young people.
But really, we're working withpeople who are often our peers,
right?
Yes, we want the young people togrow into this amazing community
of older people, as we getolder, they'll get older and
then there'll be us and we'llbe, really old, but right now
(16:09):
we're working on our peers.
We'll be the elders at thatpoint.
Yes, we'll be the elders.
But, really, we're working withour peers, right?
I'm 56.
I'm not working with 20 yearolds.
That's just not my field.
We're talking about thoseripples, that trickle down,
we're trickling across to ourpeers and then hoping that they
will then trickle down.
(16:31):
Even though it's not ourdesigned intent, we're going to
teach you so you can teach yourYounger generation, it just
happens automatically.
So tell me like the things thatyour clients and your community
are the ways that they'rechanging.
Tell me a little bit aboutwhat's happened for them that
(16:51):
you can see how that's going tostart to change their
communities around them it'slike we said, those ripples I
like to say that each 1 of us is1 of the pebbles and we throw
them in the pond.
And we all make circles and allthose circles overlap.
So tell me about some of yourpebbles that are out there
making their own ripples.
I love the way that you've saidthat because it really is.
(17:13):
I work with mature womentypically over 45 we've gotten
to a point where.
We've stayed in places that weshouldn't necessarily have
stayed in or, we've done thejob, we've done this, we've done
that.
And now all of a sudden we'relike, Oh, what's next?
I think I'm meant for more thanthis.
And so that's the ladies that Iwork with and I just love it.
(17:33):
So a great client of mine shejust called me the other day and
she goes, Oh my gosh, Angela.
She said, you remember when weworked together and we did this
and I said, yeah.
And so what it was for her wasshe was so busy working in our
business.
She wasn't living your life.
It was nowhere in her life.
She was business.
That was it.
And so we started playing aroundwith, okay, what could things
(17:54):
look like differently?
The biggest thing was, is I lovethe women that I work, it's
about opening their minds tosomething more, right?
Because we get in there, get inour box.
Yep.
And it's okay.
Even though we may have otherthoughts, it's like that just
doesn't fit right now.
And so with this particularwoman the way we started with
her was her house.
She had completely let it go.
(18:16):
And she goes, I haven't doneanything to this house and I
don't know how long shecompletely redecorated her house
to make it a space that shewanted to live in.
That was her choice.
There wasn't any more hand medowns.
It was all her.
And then we transformed.
She had so much fun and realizedthat she loved beautiful things.
So from that, we then transformthat into our business as well.
(18:37):
How could you have this much funin your business?
Her business has grownsignificantly since working
together.
She just got nominated for WomenChanging the World.
Which is awesome.
One of her dreams was to betraveling more with work, but
also personal.
When I talked to her last week,she's Oh my gosh, Angela, I have
(18:57):
five trips booked between nowand the end of April.
And I was like, wow, this isawesome.
And it came from the fact thatshe opened up.
She opened that there could besomething more.
How can I do things differently?
And, that's one of these thingsfor me, for 2025, it's about how
can I do things differently?
I don't want to have the sameresults by the end of 2025 that
(19:20):
I had at the end of 2024.
And it's all about doing thingsdifferently and opening up to,
you know what, there's so muchmore out there and we're capable
of so much more.
We just need someone to walkbeside us.
So let's pause on the, what arewe imagining by the end of this
year?
Because I think many people weare very much in, we're doing
(19:44):
our day to day.
We've got the list of thingsthat need to be done today.
We've got the list of thingsthat need to be done next week.
I have a kid who's in highschool and what spring breaks
coming up the end of the year,we've got these plans.
What are we doing this summer?
It's all very narrow in relatedto what we have in our life
today.
So the opportunity for people tostop and imagine further out
(20:13):
what do you want for next year?
What do you want for two yearsfrom now?
Five years from now, 10 yearsfrom now, it's really hard.
It is.
Probably 10 years ago I finallywoke up in someone's workshop
that they were doing make your 5year plan kind of a workshop.
And I was just like, I can'teven imagine it.
(20:35):
And I realized 5 years fromthem, both my kids would be out
of high school and I was like,okay this is something I can
imagine right there.
There's enough of a milestone.
Them both being gone out of thishouse.
Okay, what does that life looklike?
But I think generally, it'sreally hard for people to
imagine that clearly to thensay, okay if that's true.
(21:00):
When that becomes true, what doI want to do with that have
those imagining moments andthose dreaming sessions I know
that you do that, because I'vedone that with you and it was
really great.
And that was, 2 years ago andeverything's moving in that path
(21:21):
still when you have a vision forwhat it is, you're really
excited about you actually wantto do the work to go after it
instead of being afraid orthinking that you can't or
deciding that you have to bewhat they want instead.
Absolutely.
(21:41):
And it really is, it's not abouttaking giant massive steps
because when we do that, whatends up happening is our ego
gets involved and all of asudden it protects us.
Instead of our comfort zonebeing like this wide, now it
goes this wide because we'relike, Ooh, and we shrink back
in.
But when we start taking smallintentional steps, our comfort
(22:01):
zone that started here.
Now gets bigger and biggerbecause our steps are not
linear, they're exponential.
That's exactly what I was goingto say, that as you did this, I
was thinking to myself, and it'snot linear.
So it might actually be threethis direction before you do
this direction, or whatever.
Absolutely.
It's so important to remember,we're still gonna have messy
days because we're humans andmess happens.
(22:25):
I love this analogy and I cameup with one when I was talking
with a client.
And it's because we were talkingalong and I went, picture it
like this.
I said, it's you're in ariverbed and you've got all the
big rocks.
And so the riverbed is like yourjourney and the rocks, you're
like jumping from rock to rockand you're having fun and you're
playing around.
And then you jump to a rock andyour foot falls in the water.
(22:45):
There you go.
In the water.
That's the messy bit.
But here's the thing.
You have a choice when you getto the messy.
You can either leave your footin the water and continually let
it be messy, or you can pull itout, shake it off and go dang, I
don't want that to happen again.
Let's move on to the next rock.
We have a choice here and we getto choose how we want to show up
(23:06):
in our lives.
We get to choose how we want tolive our lives.
We get to choose how to actuallycreate our lives because we are
creating our own lives.
Absolutely.
A hundred percent.
You can tell I'm a littlepassionate.
That's why we're here becausetwo years ago, the dream that I,
Talked about doing a podcast ispart of that progress and if it
(23:28):
weren't a place for people tobring their passionate
excitement to more people, thenit wouldn't be a step in the
right direction toward the dreamI had imagined two years ago.
Yeah, I'm thrilled that you'repassionate because that's what's
exciting and in fact, as youwere saying all those things,
I'm like, oh, this is going tobe the perfect soundbite to
(23:48):
promote the episode, it was veryexciting.
Okay I think it's time that westart to wrap things up.
I do want to ask.
So in the show notes, we'regoing to have your links and all
those things.
Tell people a little bit abouthow you specifically work with
clients.
I know I've mentioned that youhave clients that you've done
workshops that I've been at,that you have community.
So tell us some of the kind ofstructured ways that you work
(24:11):
with people.
Absolutely.
We offer group programs and wealso offer one on one coaching,
coaching, and we do some inperson retreats, which is always
fun.
I love those.
I love getting time to spend,and I love all the programs
because I just, I love beingable to really have women come
in and have that transformation.
(24:32):
We also do free workshops.
So definitely look us up andmake sure that you're checking
those out because those areawesome.
I just did one the other day andI had a lady that was like, I
never thought of it that way.
And she's that was an amazingbreakthrough.
And I was like, awesome.
Yay.
Cause I get so much out ofworking with the women that I
(24:52):
work with.
So yeah, reach out and let'shave a conversation.
Love it.
And you're in the Toronto,Canada area.
So for people who want to go toone of those in person things.
That's your zone.
Although retreats, people aremore than welcome to travel.
And and one of the things aboutwhat's fun about our business,
of course, is that because weget to travel for different
(25:15):
things, sometimes we end upcoming closer to you.
So even if Angela is very faraway from you, connect anyway,
because you never know when shemight be traveling toward you
magic happens.
You never know.
It sure does.
Never say never.
Alright, my friend.
Do you have a wrap up point thatyou want people to take with
them?
I think the biggest thing that Iwould say is, you don't have to
(25:37):
do any of this alone.
And that's what we're here tohelp with.
It really is about choosingyourself.
Deciding that you're important.
It's not selfish to chooseyourself.
That's what we're here to do isshine your light out because you
know what?
You are magnificent and theworld really needs you.
The world needs you so much.
(25:58):
They need your voice so Get itout there.
Get it out.
Yes.
I love it.
Angela, thank you so much forbeing here.
I appreciate you.
I'm all amped up and excited tokeep going towards my dreams.
And I know that our listenersare going to be feeling the same
way.
So thank you again for being apart of the podcast.
(26:19):
Oh, thank you so much for havingme.
It has been an absolute delightand I always love spending time
with you.
All right.
We'll see you soon.
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