March 18, 2026 • 48 mins
What drove you to build your business in your twenties and thirties — survival, scarcity, proving something, keeping up — probably isn't what's meant to drive you now. But dismantling the identity you spent a decade constructing? That's a different kind of work entirely.
In this rich, honest conversation, Bri sits down with two longtime friends and fellow entrepreneurs — undergarment educator and media personality Kimmay Caldwell, and strategic consultant and TEDx speaker Sarah Khan — to talk about what it really looks like to shed a business identity you've outgrown, grieve what you built, and rebuild from the woman you're becoming rather than the one who started it all.
In this episode, you'll learn:
Be sure to subscribe to get every episode of Big Goal Energy delivered straight to your device, and please leave a rating and review. If you have any questions you'd like covered on a future episode, you can email us info@briseeley.com.
In this rich, honest conversation, Bri sits down with two longtime friends and fellow entrepreneurs — undergarment educator and media personality Kimmay Caldwell, and strategic consultant and TEDx speaker Sarah Khan — to talk about what it really looks like to shed a business identity you've outgrown, grieve what you built, and rebuild from the woman you're becoming rather than the one who started it all.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- Why the fuel that launched your first business may be the very thing holding your next one back
- How Kimmay went from 12 revenue streams to 2.5 — and why that's progress, not retreat
- The belief that shaped Sarah's entire career: I'm only as good as I can make other people look — and how she dismantled it
- What the girl boss era actually got wrong about building a sustainable business
- The question that reoriented Bri's entire next chapter: What kind of business would the woman I'm becoming build?
- What each woman is committed to never doing again — and what success must include now
Be sure to subscribe to get every episode of Big Goal Energy delivered straight to your device, and please leave a rating and review. If you have any questions you'd like covered on a future episode, you can email us info@briseeley.com.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You were never meant for a small life. You have
bold ideas, audacious dreams and visions that keep you up
at night. But the truth is big goals don't come
with step by step instructions, and success doesn't come from
doing more. It comes from becoming more. Welcome to Big
Goal Energy, a podcast for high achieving women who are
done shrinking, striving, and second guessing and are ready to
(00:24):
defy reality in pursuit of the life they actually want.
I'm your hostess, free sealy, goal architect, subconscious strategist, and
your permission slip to want what you want. Join me
as we go beyond the service level success to explore
the mindset, identity, and inner work required to bring your biggest,
most delulu goals to life. This is your space to
(00:47):
be seen, to be expanded, and to remember that you
are not alone on this journey. Let's get into it.
Hello everyone, Welcome back to Big Goal Energy. I am
so blessed to be here with two incredible women that
I get to call friends and I get to call colleagues,
and that I have known for a hot second like
(01:09):
I don't even it's been at least five years, if
not more. I've gotten to know them in all of
our previous iterations of business. We just listened to be
on a call a week ago, and all three of
us are like, what drove us to create the businesses
we created in our twenties and thirties is not what's
now driving us in business in our forties and fifties,
(01:31):
and so like, what does that look like and what's
changed and how are we navigating that process? And I
was like, oh my god, this is going to be
such a good conversation. So I'm gonna let Sarah and
kim May both introduce themselves to you. If you've been
a listener for a while, you've seen Sarah on a
previous episode. But I'm going to let them both introduce themselves,
(01:51):
and I've asked each of them to also share what
is the thing that really drove you to building your
previous versions of business? Kimmy, do you want to kick
us off?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Hooray?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Was I also on a previous version of this show.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
I think it was a different show, which is so
funny because as I was just saying the name of
the show, I almost had a theme of my previous show,
and I was like.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Wow, girl, get this change. If you make in your
business all the time. I think it's what we do.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
So hooray.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
So my name is Kimy, my company is Hoay Kimay.
Really the umbrella company is called Horay Media, and I
am an undergarment educator, So I teach people how to
choose what to wear over their heart every day and
how to use bras and undergarments as a tool of
self love and confidence and body acceptance. But really like
the business side of things is that I work mostly
(02:40):
with brands to wear and share their product to those folks.
And then I also teach bra fitting to global people
around the world, how to fit with accuracy and empathy.
I do that through photo shoots with no airbrushing whatsoever, all.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Over the world.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I also do wel television, so if y'all watch Daytime Timevision,
you might have seen me. I've been on The Today
Show eight times, Rachel Ray, I was on ten times
up in Canada. Hey, I was on The Maryland Dennis
thirteen times, and now on The Good Stuff a couple
of times. So I love, love, love what I call
preaching the bra gospel to everybody, because nobody knows how
(03:16):
to wear bra.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Nobody was taught this.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
If I can help people find comfort and confidence in
this really sacred part of the body, I think then
we're going to have a better world in the end.
So that's what I do. The original form of my
business I started in technically, I formed my LLC in
twenty fourteen, kind of similar to you, Bree. My business
has taken on many forms in this time. The very
first version of my business was actually a very behind
(03:39):
the scenes job. I was doing marketing for brands like
bra brands, and mostly the ones that I was like,
you don't want to be like Victoria's Secret. You don't
want to be the brand that's like, look at this,
you want to look like her? Buy a brownlect No.
I wanted to help brands that were like, actually, who
you are is amazing. You look great, not the point,
but let's help you feel comfortable and confident inside your body,
and this undergarment can help you do that. I kind
(04:01):
of started from a place of panic because I had
no customers and just needed something, and I knew I
could do that. I was doing my previous job and
was really successful at it, really quickly held a lot
of great clients and realized real quick, oh, I'm not
a behind the scenes person. That right away was why
I changed and I became this more public facing version
of who I am now. So the first I would
(04:23):
say real iteration of the business was really built on.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Me being able to express myself and me being able.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
To be honest about bodies, and like, the biggest thing
I wanted was to be able to travel. I would
just pick a place and pitch a bunch of brands
and be like, would you pay me to take photos
in this glorious place and then like share those photos
of your product and tell be able to buy that?
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Would you like, is that like a thing?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
And they kept saying yes, And so I just kept
choosing amazing places in the world to go.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
And then also I.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Think I was feeding a little bit of this version
of me that wanted to be in front of the camera,
that wanted to be on stage, that was like, this
is okay, and it's safe for me to shine and
be bright. Because I had to really fight that story.
So there was like a freedom in saying I can
show up and shine and be on television and be
speaking in front of big crowds and teaching in Paris
(05:15):
and New York and it just felt so glamorous. I
knew deep down I was still supporting my why, but
I didn't care so much about profit. I just wanted
the business to be self sustaining and for me to
feel fulfilled. That was it, and it's obviously changed now we're.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Going to get more into that. So I'm very cool. Yeah,
I'll hold off. Okay, Sarah, so a brief introduction, and
then what drove you to build your previous version of business?
And two I also want to mention, so obviously I'll
share my story. I shut my business down last year,
so I had to have like a full hard stop,
and Kim May did not do that. Kimay is just
(05:52):
evolving her business, and so Sarah, I don't know if
it's like a full stop for you or just an
evolution for you. So if you'd add that on as well,
that would be helpful.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
Hello. My name is Sarah Khan. I am the founder
of Niche Strategic and I help who I call dangerously
competent women move from being the backbone of everybody else's
success to finally being sought for their own thinking so
they can scale their impact, They can build that legacy
that they want without working harder, particularly when they get
to midlife. And this is a floor cry from what
(06:21):
I was doing before. I never wanted to be an entrepreneur.
I'm the reluctant entrepreneur. I became an entrepreneur because of necessity.
I had been working in corporate for over twenty years,
various corporate entities, and I was happy toying the party line,
being the girl who you know, did whatever the job wanted.
I was the consummatet unicorn. When we moved from Europe
(06:43):
back to Canada and I couldn't find a job, That's
when I sort of started a consultancy and I was
kind of working behind the scenes in people's businesses with
operations and event management and that. Then when I did
get a job, I kind of put that as a
side hustle. Fast forward ten years and it became a
full time thing when COVID hit to leave my position
for anever of reasons, and then I just I really
(07:03):
fell in love with it. I started the business just
doing what I had done in corporate, doing operations, doing
the things behind the scenes. It helped other people achieve
their goals, help other people build their businesses. It was
fulfilling because I was making money and I was making
people happy, and I was you know, and we'll touch
on it later, but it was so rooted in my identity,
like this is who I am, this is what I do,
(07:25):
that it never occurred to me that I could actually
do anything else. Last year, in January, I did my
TEDx talk, and that's a story in and of itself,
but I had such a profound experience and there was
such like an awakening in me after that because the
response that I got from women in the audience when
I shared my TEEDX talk, I didn't expect it. I
(07:47):
went home, I cried for three days, and then I
decided that the business that I had spent over ten
years building, I just didn't want it anymore. It was
not aligned with who I had become, really kind of
unbeknownst to myself, like I wasn't acknowledging the fact that
I had evolved into this entirely different person, or maybe
not even an evolution into a different person. I just
(08:08):
awakened the person I'd always been. When I was able
to let go of too, everybody told me I.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Was supposed to be mm hmm, yeah, oh that's so
good and there were so many parts of your story
that I so deeply resonated with. I'll share quickly. So
what drove me to start my first business, my fashion
business was really just I want to keep my skills
alive and I'm not living in a place where I
can have a job in fashion. Let me just play,
let me just create, let me just tinker, like, oh,
(08:35):
this person wants me to make a bridesmaid's dress. Cool.
This person wants me to make a flower girl dress. Cool.
I just got a homecoming dress and it kind of
unfolded that way. Also very you know, accidental entrepreneur. And
then truthfully, starting my coaching business in twenty fifteen was
completely from a place of scarcity and scrappiness, which I
also want to say for anyone listening to this, I
(08:57):
don't necessarily think that they're a bad or good reasons
to start a business, but I think it's really important
to also recognize that what you focus on growth. I
completely started my coaching business from a place of scarcity.
I had gotten the word from the universe to shut
my fashion business down. I didn't have an income. I
was applying for jobs and everyone was telling me I
was overqualified. For everything. I needed money in the door,
(09:20):
and I didn't really have much of a choice. And
then I started looking at the bread crumbs. And there
had been people asking me to help them in this
way for a very long time, and I had said no.
So I did follow the bread crumbs. But also it
was I was following them from a place of scarcity.
Me having my coaching business for ten years was a
personal journey of me confronting and healing all of the
parts of scarcity. And my journey was that I had
(09:43):
to shut it down in December December thirty first, just
six weeks ago, I signed the PaperWorks to just like
shut it down. I had to shed this old identity
of being a struggling entrepreneur, of being an entrepreneur in scarcity.
I'm curious to know for the two of you, well,
have there been any parts of your identity? And Sarah,
(10:03):
you touched on this briefly too. They've been really conscious
of being like, well, that has to go or that
can't come with me in the next version of my business.
And also kind of related to that, are you guys
experiencing any grief with this process? I definitely I held
a funeral for my business wow in November of just
(10:25):
like really honoring the journey we had been on together
and recognizing that it was time for it to pass.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
My entire identity from when I was a very little
girl was completely dependent on the belief that I was
only of value if I was doing something for someone else.
I learned at a very young age that I had
to be what other people wanted me to be in
order to be accepted. If you look at the trajectory
of my business and probably even my career, there was
(10:53):
a lot of conformity. There was a lot of I
would like to explore, No, you know what, I don't
think you should because that doesn't seem like you. I
think you'd be better off doing Oh, okay, I'll do that.
There was a lot of that. And even in my business,
even when I was doing operations and I had several
clients so I worked with long term, and you know,
i'd express an interest in maybe dabbling in answer dabling,
which are so good at operations you should totally stay
(11:14):
behind the scene. And I really really believed that I
was only as good as how good I.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Could make other people look.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Oo say that again, just like I want you to
just repeat that, and if you're listening, hone in on
what Sarah just said.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
I truly believe that I was only as good as
I could make other people look good. Like if I
could make other people look good, then I was a
valid human being.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Right.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
I don't even remember what the turning point was. I
just know that I started to feel this immense heaviness
over a period of probably eighteen months. I thought more
coaching would get rid of it. I thought better marketing
would get rid of it. I thought mindset would get
rid of it. I thought, you know, better branding will
get rid of it. And I'd invested in all of
those things, only to realize that I hated all of it.
(12:01):
And if it really took sitting down with myself and
I had to go to the business. There was a
point where I said to myself, Okay, I'm I'm gonna
just stop posting. I'm gonna stop recording my podcast. I'm
gonna stop everything for just like two weeks and then
I'll come back to it. And every time the two
weeks would like come to an end, I'd be like, well,
maybe two weeks more.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Until it was like a year.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
I needed that year to be able to actually say,
this has nothing to do with business, Sarah, and this
has everything to do with you. You outgrew this identity
so long ago, but you've been holding on to her
because you are terrified of what it means to not
be her, and then having to embrace and explore who
I was without that identity. It only ever experienced that
(12:43):
once before. I had spent ten years in my very
early career being an event manager, and I had put
on events of all kinds. I had so much joy
when I was doing that job. When we moved back
here to Canada and there was no longer that level
of industry for me, I remember pulling over on a street.
I was driving my girls a daycare, and I pulled
over and I just sobbed for like forty minutes because
(13:05):
I had to admit to myself that that part of
my identity was gone, and I hadn't given myself a
chance to do it this time. So I had to
take like a year and just be like, Okay, who
are you when you're not doing things for other people?
And this is who we've landed on.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Love it. We're going to dive more into that woman.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
I love that story.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
So much, and there's so much about I think when
we first, Like I was twenty nine when I started
my business. I'm forty one now, so there's things that
have changed automatically. But bre you reminded me too, Like
I first started my business because I was actually working
at a bra company and I had been a brofiter
for many years, and then I ended up like getting
recruited by sax fith Avenue and then recruited by Laperla
(13:47):
and Mom Popshop. I then was working like online customer service,
and then I was their store manager and trainer, then
the marketing manager and marketing director, and not because I
went to school for marketing, but because I knew our
customers so well. And it was in that job that
I started doing content marketing, which was twenty eleven written
with blogs and social media were first a thing, and
I just loved educating. I loved teaching people and I
(14:10):
knew exactly what people were going to say. But the
business was failing and they didn't have the structure for
the job that I had anymore, so they put me
back into profiting and at first I was really mad.
I remember being in that fitting room and I had
already started doing a little bit on the side. A
person who was on she was a producer for Tim
Gunn's Guide Style, which I had been on seven years
(14:32):
earlier working for La Perla, and she came in and
it was I was like, hey, do you remember me?
And we had this whole conversation. She's like, what are
you doing? What are you doing here now? And I said, well,
actually thinking you started my own thing. And it was
her who said, then just go do it, just go
And I was like what and she was like, listen,
you're not going to take yourself seriously and your clients
won't take you seriously if you just don't go and.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Just do this. So I quit my job like a
week later.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
And then a week later to the day was it
go Wednesday to a Wednesday and my husband lost his job,
and then two weeks later I lost my only client.
I sort of just started from scratch, and that scarcity
mindset that you were talking about. I was just trying
to freaking survive. I was like, how can I make
some cash and not go back to working for these people.
That's really what the impetus was for my first business.
(15:15):
But the change really came and the identity changed for me.
At age forty. I was the person that thought, oh,
forty is not going to matter to me. When I
was younger, I saw people turning forty, women especially turning forty,
and being like, oh, my world is over. I'm so
over the hill now I'm so old, and I was like,
I don't feel that way.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
I feel amazing.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
I feel like it's fine, It's all gonna be great.
The first three months of being forty were great. I
was on the Drew Barrymore Show twice. I was doing
a photo shoot in France. I had this amazing Parisian
client that I was working with, that's a federation of
lingerie in France. Like, it was so amazing, and I
booked a keynote speaking job in Spain.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
I was like, I am good.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
And in March we decided to try IVF and I
swear that was the thing that changed things the most
for me and change my perspective. This is a little
bit of a trigger warning for infort two, I'd already
been trying to get pregnant for like five years. At
that point, I had also even joined business and entrepreneur
groups specifically for mothers because I was like I'm going
to adopt this identity, I'm going to be mom and
(16:11):
that will come, and it wasn't coming. And so we thought, Okay,
let's do this IVF. Folks out there who are listening,
who've done IVF or no of somebody who has. Everybody
experiences this so differently. For me personally, it was so intense.
It felt like a second job. It felt like I
was so booked with doing this thing physically with my body, emotionally,
(16:31):
with my soul, mentally with my mind.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
I was booked.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
So I thought, Okay, I'm going to do what all
my coaches have been telling me to do, which is
to delegate higher team blah blah blah, and so I
hired obm's hired team members.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Just like thought.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
I was building up this really strong structure, and I
read a book. I'm still actually in the middle of reading.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
It, so don't cool me.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
I thought, Great, the rest of it's going to be
She's really popular in the business world. But Stacy Tuschel
has a book, a really simple, simple book called Well
Oiled Operations. I remember it struck me like lightning because
through that whole process, I was delegating, delegating delegating, But
what I was actually doing was just outsourcing my anxiety
of the business. Sarah, maybe you know this as an
operations person. I did not have study firm foundations, and
(17:17):
I had like twelve revenue streams.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
At one point, I.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Was doing way too many things. I just kept being
the yes person. I just kept saying, yes, I can
make that happen.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Yes, I'll do that. Oh that's a great idea. Well
let's do this.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
And I wasn't really finding a steady place. So IVF
we had a transfer, we had one embryo that was viable,
and we thought for sure this was going to work out.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
And it didn't. And this was July.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
I was broken, like truly broken. I can say this
now because it's February and the following year with some
spaciousness here that I'm actually very thankful. I don't say
that lightly. Infertility and loss and grief are were so hard.
Like I was very very very very very upset, but
it also kind of forced me to pause. It forced
(18:01):
me to slow down, and it forced me to only
do what was essential. I had to look at my
business and be like, what is actually essential here? I
at first kind of brought everything just down a little bit,
and I realized that wasn't enough, so I took a
full break in September my husband, I went to the
a National Park and then I actually ended up doing
a solo trip by myself, and in that realized, and
(18:23):
this was so humbling, what I've built here is not sustainable.
And what I built worked in my thirties and is
not going to work in my forties. I was really
holding onto this identity of like boss lady, person who delegates,
person who works in her genius and lets everybody else
do the other stuff. I'm going to be honest. My
ego was a little bit inflated, and I was too
proud to do what I would have considered essential but
(18:46):
not glamorous part of the job.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
I had to let go of that.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
But I actually had a very hard conversation with my OBM,
and at first I was going to hold on to
one or two people, and it was actually her who
said I think you should pause completely. And I was like, girl,
I'm going to make money, and she was like, I
think it will be very.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Good for you to pause completely.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
I paused everything everybody and just allowed myself from basically
September through December to just coast, pray, sort things out
a little bit. What I was really grieving was this glamorous,
big business lady, and I've had a vision from God
that I have a giant business, and I was sort
(19:24):
of like, how the heck can I get there if
I take this pause, if I slow down, if I
break everything apart and bring it down to the studs,
that's the opposite of progress, right, But I think I'm
finding now that's not the case. I think I'm finding
now that the pause and the stopping and getting back
to what's essential and rebuilding the foundations is actually for
the next phase of my life, not for my thirties,
(19:44):
but for my forties. Now I'm forty one, is what
will actually get me to the next stime. So humbling,
Holy moly.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
It's so interesting. I've had the same thought two days
in a row, from two very different conversations, and it
just popped up for the second day in a row
when you were talking. I honestly think the whole girl
boss era that we all came up in in business
was necessary maybe at the time, but also looking back
on it, I'm like, man, it really just put these
(20:13):
unrealistic ideas of business into all of our heads. Yeah,
had us build these businesses that were not sustainable, didn't
focus on the right things, were not rooted in the
identity piece. I feel like that's so much of the
deconstruction that I've done. And it reminded me when you
were talking, Kimy about we had all these ideas about
how glamorous and oh you just used social media to
(20:35):
like blah blah blah, which people talk about, and then
also teaching us to build businesses in the masculine way
that people have built businesses for decades, when that's not
how we operate.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Yeah, oh my god, you're so right. And listen, I
love my girl Boss era. I still love pink. I
still love a great outfit like I loved it. But
I think the identity piece actually started with a previous
coach that i'd worked with, who really with this whole
motherhood idea. I was talking about this matriarch, which doesn't
work for everybody, because even if you're not a mother,
it can still work for you, but doesn't work for everybody.
(21:06):
What I'm really finding in the identity piece for me
is allowing myself to bloom and blossom and grow and
age and be honest about my capacity. In general, my
capacity and my energy has gone down, and I saw
that as a giant weakness because all I knew was
to do more, go more, build faster, travel more, pitch more,
(21:27):
just more and more and more. This is coming from somebody who
also led women's circles for six years straight and understands
feminine energy and the work work, work and waxing and
the waning and the rest rest rest, Like I get that,
but there was still something missing in my identity that
I needed to lay down. I needed to lay down
the work. Work, work was the answer. And sometimes just
let myself freaking pause, like when I prayed after the infertility.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Like, God, what do you want me to do? What
do you want me to do with my business?
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Just tell me? I'm listening, Just tell me. I kept
getting every freaking day rest, just rest.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
I just need you to rest.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
And I was so counterintuitive, which tons of people talk
about how rest is good for you, blah blahlah. I
knew that logically in my body it was still ingrained.
You will lose, you'll fall behind, You're never going to
be able to catch back up. You're wasting your time.
The only answer is to do don't rest.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
This gets me into my next question. I had a
moment last year in April of twenty five where I
was having a conversation with someone and she presented a
concept to me that had never landed or registered as
being something that was available to me. I thought it
was available to all sorts of other women, and it
really forced me to kind of sit down and be like,
(22:36):
who am I becoming? Who do I want to become?
What do I want the next era of my life
to include? What do I want to be driven by?
What are my priorities? And then from there what kind
of business would the woman I'm becoming built. What the
woman had presented to me was this idea of She said,
I help people build exitable businesses. And I was like,
(22:59):
excuse me, what When I say this word to so
many other women, They're like, I don't know what that means?
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Really?
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Yeah, I guess people don't think of building a business
just to sell it or just to exit it.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Yeah, they think this is it forever.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Our industry that we're all in. That's not the norm.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
But yeah, you're right, you're so rstrees.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
It's like, no, I'm growing this thing. Yeah, You're so right.
At the end of ten years or whatever, I had
to start asking myself, Okay, if I'm becoming the kind
of woman who has an exitable business, what is the
business model that aligns with that? And that conversation in
April has completely changed the trajectory of my life over
(23:37):
the last ten months. I want to hear from both
of you, how have you shifted your business model or
your business foundations now with this new understanding of this
new identity. And Sarah, what you said before is you know,
I'm only successful if I'm building up other people. Now
you're building up yourself more. And I'm just curious to
know how have things shifted for you now that you've
(24:00):
re engineered your identity or like re tapped into this
new vision.
Speaker 4 (24:04):
I think everything kind of came to a head last
year with the dissolution of the business and methetics and
level of bad client relationships, losing some very close friends,
being a lot of money to some coaches who were
less than trustworthy. The big shift for me was turning
fifty in December and then having a daughter who is
(24:24):
about to complete high school and go off university.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yeah, I know it's crazy.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
And I also have an eight year old, so it's
like like two worlds. It was really a time of like,
first of all, who the actual fuck am I? And
what have I been building? Because one of the things
that I remember most clearly was sitting down as my
teenager and saying, you've got to pick a major. You've
got to decide like what you're going to go into
because grade twelve you have to pick all your courses
that are going to get you into university. And she
(24:49):
was like, Mom, I don't know what I want to do.
It was such a departure from my experience because I
grew up my parents basically said if you're not going
to be a lawyer, you're going to be a teacher.
And I went okay, and I didn't know that there
were other options for me. As an aside, I did
want to be a lawyer, but my mom was like,
you will never have a personal life, so be a teacher.
So I was like, okay, that's what I did. Everything
(25:09):
that I did was you're towards being that thing. For
my daughter to say to me, I have no idea
what I want to do, and she's been showing an
interest in kind of like what I'm doing, And I
sat back and I thought, what am I building that
I could one day pass on to my kids, like
if that's what they wanted to do. So it's kind
of the same idea of like an exitable business, but like,
what am I leaving behind? Do I have a viable
(25:30):
business if there's no outcome to it, if there's nothing
that I'm leaving behind. This idea of legacy started coming
up for me. I had been thinking about legacy for
a long time. In fact, I'd wanted to talk about
it years ago, and I had a coach very specifically
say to me, people don't understand legacy, don't talk about that,
and I kind of let it drop. But it's always
been in the back of my mind. Turning sixty for
(25:50):
me was like, Okay, you're in like the last third
of your life.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
If you're lucky, what.
Speaker 4 (25:53):
Are you building? What are you leaving behind? What impact
are you making? Because so far you've just had a
business where you were providing a service that does not
scale past you. It doesn't matter how many team members
you have. When you stop working the business dies, you're
not making an impact. You are the backbone of other
people's brilliance and you got to stop doing that. It
(26:16):
was a real awakening for me in a sense of life.
If you want to build something you it has to
be something that can persist after you're gone, whether it
is as a business itself, whether it's my ideas, whether
it's something that I create and leave to people. Going
back to the teacher thing, I didn't actually teach. It's
not what I did. When I finally left university, I
fell into a lot of other really fun stuff. But
(26:38):
I did teach for about fourteen years and I did
love it. And when I left my career, I said
that that was the end of it. And of course
we hear online all the time, you know, don't teach
in your content. People don't like to be taught to.
There's rules that we're supposed to follow. One of the
things that I have allowed myself to embrace and believe
now is I like teaching my brain works in such
(27:00):
a way that I can see the how of a
lot of things. And if I can't teach that, then
what's the point of seeing it. The business that I'm
building narrow is really going to be around being able
to teach concepts so that these women who have spent
their whole life, like me, propping other people's genius up,
can take themselves out of that infrastructure and create something.
(27:21):
Because when you're an operator, when you have that proximity
to the work, your expertise goes a hell of a
lot deeper than a lot of people actually understand. Why
can't you take that genius and build something for yourself
that isn't dependent on your labor. That was the big
thing for me. I don't want what I leave behind
to be dependent on anybody's labor. I want it to
help them embrace the breadth and depth of their knowledge
(27:44):
and their experience, their lived experience, and what they want
to create in the world. That's the business that we're building.
Every single day. I have to remind myself because I
still have moments where I wake up and I go, ugh,
I've got to talk about the mechanics of this to them,
and it's like, no, no, no, You're not an operator anymore.
Even after the eur as and all of that, there
is still this default of like, you're an operator, so
(28:06):
you have to take clients who want you to do this,
or you have to No, I have zero clients right now,
very intentionally, because then I'm also having to retrain my
entire audience that I don't do that anymore. I refuse
to do that anymore. And if that's how you see me,
then you need to see me a different way right now,
in this moment, in Sebruary of twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
That is the work. Love it oough, so good. I
love that you love being an educator. Me too.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
That's why I named myself Undergramm my educator by the way, like,
because I.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Love teaching about bras and I love teaching people about
their bodies. Wait can you repeat the question?
Speaker 2 (28:40):
I got absolutely lost in Sara's beautiful answer, and I'm like.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
What are we talking about?
Speaker 4 (28:44):
Well, no, no, no, it's good.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
So the question I kind of asked myself was what
kind of business would the woman I'm becoming built love this?
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Okay, a smart one.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
I had a really joyous, delicious business in my thirties,
and I don't want to lose the joy I don't
I don't want to lose the deliciousness. It was fucking
fun to go on television and to travel to Paris
every year and to do photo shoots in my underwear
in front of the Eiffel Tower, Like, what a dream
come true? Thank God for that, and that that took
way too much precedent in a way that probably I needed.
(29:16):
If I'm being completely honest, I don't regret it at all.
And now I'm humbling myself to go in and build
a really smart business. Actually it's weird because I was
really tempted to throw it all away, and I think,
as you two have shown us, sometimes you got to
do that. I thought that was the answer, and if
I'm being honest, for me personally, I was just overwhelmed
with life and grief and the world that we're living in. Hello, Hello,
(29:40):
It was just too much. I didn't want to be
the person that was wearing all the hats anymore. I
didn't want to have to worry about steering the ship
and having the vision for the business. I didn't have it.
I was like, I'm broken. I can't even think about this.
So I had applications open to work in the Anthropology's
back office. I was like, let me run your influencer
program for Beholden whatever. I was like, I could do
this with my eyes closed. I was like, let somebody
(30:01):
else worry about steering the ship. I just come in
and do this one little piece.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Fine.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
I was searching and searching and looking all these different things,
and I was talking different people about different options and
really just praying about it, like really journaling. And I
remember opening up an application and I couldn't even type
my own name in.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
I couldn't get that far.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
I was like, I can't do this, and I knew
that wasn't actually what I wanted to do. So I thought, Okay,
instead of blowing this up or washing this away, what
if I brought it down to the studs, And what
would it look like if I created a really smart business.
The thing is that vision that I've had of the
big business, I think is still holding me. If I
didn't have that, I do think I would have stopped.
I do think I would have Maybe I'm not supposed
to run a business. But I've seen this vision, and Brie,
(30:42):
you're the one who prompted me to say, like those
visions are promises from God, Like that's that's really what
it feels like. So I've seen this vision of me
and my team on two floors of an all glass building,
and inside that we have a production room where we
can film and do whatever we want, shoot whatever we want.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
And then there was a stadium seating.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Style stage with like a live stream camera. I've seen this,
I've seen this, and I think I was so wrapped
up in the how worrying that I would never actually
get there, or worried that honestly I didn't have the
skills to bring us there, that it wasn't possible. And
I've just let that go. So that's number one. Number
two is that when I prayed about what to do next,
(31:21):
joy did come up, by the way, So it's not
just smart.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
The joy still has to be part of it.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
I mean, your name is literally hooray it know exactly business?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
What are you even doing exactly?
Speaker 3 (31:31):
And I will never forget this moment.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
I was driving the car and I was praying, which
you know, don't don't closurize and drive by, like praying
with my eyes open and remember asking God like what
And I was actually on my way in New Jersey
to go sing with my church, and I was like, God,
what do you want me to do?
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Please? Just tell me? Do I do this thing in
my business? Do I go this way? Should I pivot?
Should I do this?
Speaker 2 (31:49):
What? Do I do, And the answer I got back
was like, listen, the plan I have in general, but
especially even just for you is so big that if
you just slightly this way or that way, it's not
going to mess up my plan, babe, Like whatever, and
almost felt like this blank check was written to me
when he was like, you know what, you can do
whatever you want, which I was kind of angry at it.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
First.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
I was like, could you just tell me because I'm
tired and I don't want to pick. But then was like,
but as long as you are doing what brings you joy,
you will always be provided for.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
And I truly that.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
I was angry at first, and then I had to
go ask myself what does bring me joy? Because at
that time when I was grieving, I didn't know. I
couldn't I couldn't access it. Now I'm like, oh, is
it actually I really believe I am worthy and deserving
of doing something that just brings me joy? And will
that be enough in the world, In the world where
(32:43):
we see so much chaos and me so much hurt?
Is it really enough to just show up and do
what brings me joy? I'm telling you, like I've had
a thousand confirmations of yes, from examples of like birds
in our Lives to Steve Harvey of all people who's
it become like my motivational speaker at the moment, like
while all these examples of people who just stay faithful
(33:06):
and continue to go. So it's got to be smart,
it's got to be joyful. And then I also think
that the woman I'm becoming is building a business that,
just as Sarah said, has impact. That's the whole point
of having the giant business. And I saw this vision
another vision of me having a cruise ship sized business,
and I was like, well, that sounds so corporate, sounds
so big. I don't even know how to row a
(33:26):
robout let alone. Steer and the crower stup like no,
And I asked back in twenty fifteen, why does it
have to be so big? The answer I got back
was to make big waves. If I'm not making an impact,
I don't, It doesn't why, you know, Like, and I
think people make impact in all.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Sorts of ways.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
I do believe that for me personally, doing it through
my business and through the work that I'm doing is
what I'm meant to do. I believe I have everything
I need to do everything God has called me to
do right now. And I didn't feel that way before
getting in and doing my own books for the first
time in a freaking twelve years. I never did my
own books in my business has been so illuminating getting
in and looking at the SOPs myself and doing things
(34:07):
myself that I was like, oh, I have an assistant
to do that. Very humbling, very rewarding. I hope I'm
building a really solid, smart business on a very firm
foundation that no matter what direction it goes, it still
has that firm, smart foundation.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
So yeah, see, you're the kind of visionary that operators love.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Well the thing, can I.
Speaker 5 (34:25):
Be honest though, because now she wasn't Wow, It's more
I was gonna say, like, my poor Allline business managers,
if you're listening, forgive me, because I kind of threw
them in and my brain was working so fast with
all these different things and just was basically like keep up.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
I had this entitlement from I think some of my
coaches that were like, you know what, it's their job
to come in and figure out how to support you
because you're the visionary. I just felt like I was
way more important. I can commit that now with like
such humbleness. I realize how important it is for me
to be so clear on what we're doing and how
we do it. And I now have two and a half.
(35:04):
I say two and a half because like one of them,
we don't really do all the time. Two and a
half business streams dreams have been come down from twelve.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Yes, so I've learned.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
I do, obviously hope to rebuild a team. If we're
gonna get to cruise ship size, I gotta do that eventually,
but I'm just hoping to do it with so much
more wisdom and foresight and not just like the gumption
that I had before, which again thank God for that
era of my life. But now it's like this slow, steady, smart, wise,
impactful woman that I already am, but I'm like stepping
(35:33):
more into.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
Yeah, so many thoughts about all of this. First off,
I want to revisit the visual of if you were
in a rowboat in the ocean, the size of waves
that would literally be making versus right if you were
in a cruise ship on the size of the waves.
That visual in and of itself is so powerful it
reminds me. I said last week that I was like,
you know, the foundation that I had for my business
(35:56):
was not the kind of foundation that could hold a skyscraper.
One man I both lived in New York City. You
see the depth that the foundation has to go in
to support business that that is that tall. And people
talk about it all the time. Trees only grow tall
because they have roots.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Yepp.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
So my business, same thing, did not have the foundation
needed to grow as tall as it needed to go.
And to be honest, if we're being really honest, I
made myself the foundation.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Oh oh my god. Yes.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
When I manifested frozen Shoulder and literally could not right
at all in any area of my life anymore, I
was the foundation I broke. Of course, the business came
crumbling down along with it because I had made myself
the foundation. That's one of the other things I'm looking
(36:52):
at is how do I build businesses or the nonprofit
I run or whatever where it's not dependent on me,
Because if it's dependent on me, it's going to fail. Yeah.
If it does dependent on my time, my capacity, it
is going to fail, period because I'm limited in those areas.
And again, if frozen Shoulder taught me anything, it's that
I cannot carry at all.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
And also like what is the foundation made out of? Too?
Speaker 2 (37:16):
So like we can make a foundation of a house
out of wood, which is sturdy, but then skyscrapers, you
cannot make that foundation out of wood. So it's but
both how deep does it go? And then how many
beams are you using? And also like what's the material?
Like what are they made out of? Yeah, both of
you with by the way, talk about how we can
take ourselves out of the business and how it's not
so dependent on us. I'm still figuring out how to
(37:38):
do that over here. I'm gonna be really honest, like
I'm still in this process, and that's what I mean
about going slow and being steady.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
Talk to me.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
In a year, I might be in a totally different place.
But right now I'm still figuring out with a personal brand,
how to pull myself out of the process. There's some
part of the revenue streams and parts of it that
I can definitely see. Oh right, I can pull myself
out of this part. I can make this easier, especially
the course.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
That I have.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
But when I asked a financial person about should I
put all of my attention on this course instead of
the custom content that I'm creating for brands, which is
me me, Me, Me Me. She said no, and I
was floored, but it was because she was like, that
is only accounting for about ten percent of your business
income right now, and the other is accounting for about
seventy percent. So she was like, if you just slide
(38:24):
everything over there and try to catch up without actually
building that up to replace and only spending ten percent
of your time on it right now, and here's the
biggie refining the process of the thing that is bringing
in seventy percent. So she was like, if the pitching
process is too long, it's taking you forever to do.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
How can you get it down to ten minutes?
Speaker 2 (38:44):
If you only want to work X amount of hours
per week and you've got to get all this done
in that time. What is it that you need to do?
Is it to bring on people? Is it to strengthen
up your systems? Is it to let go of these
other things that you were doing that are no longer
actually serving and supporting you, Like really hard questions of
sand papering instead of bulldozing. And I was like, holy smokes,
I never thought of it that way. So I'm still
(39:05):
in that process y'all. If you figure out how to
do it, please let me know, because I'm I'm not there.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Those are the questions that we don't ask ourselves. They're
not the importance of being in the inquiry of those questions,
I think is almost more important than the answers to
the questions. And so then kudos for slowing down and
actually doing that work. The other thing is, I'm going
to text you later because I actually had a vision
of something a potential revenue stream for your business while
you were talking earlier, like early.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Amazing, and I'm going to add it another one grade.
I get it's a bit of a refinement, so I'll
okay refining.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
Yes, I love the refining grade.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
This has been incredible. I've had so many AHAs. I
want to just do some lightning rounds. There's a ton
more questions I want to ask, and I want to
ask them all. Let's do like quick lightning answers for
each of these. What did you tolerate in your business
before that you are no longer tolerating in this new
season of business people.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
Me to tell them what to do and not listening
to me.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Preach amazing, I would say high revenue but low profit.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Oh that's a good one too. Yeah, And I think
mine of what I'm building is something that doesn't require
my woman power to maintain.
Speaker 4 (40:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
What is the most important thing for success to feel
light in this season of your life?
Speaker 3 (40:25):
No more success at any cost.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
Love that I have a habit of planting a seed,
watering it, but then if it doesn't grow fast enough,
digging it up and being like wait, working so just
like trusting that it's all happening and those roots are building.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
The word that came up for me was rooted just love.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
So we talked earlier. What fueled you to start your
previous business? What do you feel like is your current fuel?
What's currently fueling your vision, your dreams, your business right now?
Speaker 4 (40:53):
Impact like and betting on myself?
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Yeah, deeply, almost irrational. Trust that we have our children coming,
and that my husband and I really we are really
worthy of the life of our dreams. It was a
belief I held for a long time that I wasn't
worthy of like that big, bold, beautiful vision. And now
I'm like, you know what, Yeah, I can have my
(41:19):
own TV show. It's a little bit of yolo in
there too.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
You know, we're going to reference this moment right here,
when Kimy has her own TV show, you and your
honest guest together, We're gonna be like, remember that one
time in twenty twenty six when we're talk amazing.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
I've been talking about having my own TV show forever.
If I look back in all my old journals, I've
talked about it forever. So I think I'm just sort
of like, what am I waiting on? It's like that Yolo,
you know, and sometimes Thosten. Things do need to wait,
but I feel this beautiful pressure to do it, just go, you.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
Know, so good and for me right now, what's currently
fueling me is I've started studying Kabbala spontaneously in a
really beautiful way, and it's a lot of things that
I've talked about for a very long time, but I'm
finding a new relationship with them and so faith, which
is a word that I've had tattooed on me since
two thousand and.
Speaker 4 (42:11):
Ten.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Maybe I feel like my only job right now to
fuel what I'm here to build is to make sure
my container is strong enough and big enough to hold
that light. And like that's the only thing right now
that I'm really pouring into and miracles are happening in
a really beautiful way. Okay, what is the biggest priority
in building your business right now?
Speaker 2 (42:34):
It's weird, but I'm going to say what you just said,
which is faith. I do not go a day without
praying in the morning, like God's my business partner, just
to be really familiar to like praying in the morning
and then working towards what I hear and what I
know I'm meant to do because all the other stuff,
like the learning and the foundations and the stuff I'm
talking about, the book keeping like that will all come.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
I think the faith is the part that I am
top priority.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Love it, I Pendon said it.
Speaker 4 (42:59):
But right the biggest party right now is that anything
I do needs to honor It's a theme that's been
coming up a lot, but needs to honor my intellect.
In my experience, I've had so many experiences, particularly in
the last five years, where people have hired me for
my smarts, for my genius and then turned around and
said no because it wasn't you know, sexy enough or
exciting enough. I'm very grounded and very rooted in Your
(43:22):
business is subject to the laws of business the same
way you're a subject to the laws of gravity. So
if you're hiring me for a thing, you're not going
to actually let me do the thing. Really, I don't
need she's out something else. She's out, yes.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
And for me right now, the big my biggest priority
in building a business is me. That may sound very selfish,
but like Sarah already said, gone are the days where
I am sacrificing myself for my clients or sacrificing myself
for a dollar. No, absol fusolutely not. If it's not
good for me, it is not good for anyone else, period.
(43:56):
I love that finish this statement. At this stage of
my life, success must include At.
Speaker 4 (44:03):
This stage in my life, my business and my success
absolutely have to include my reality. That is something I
have struggled with. I have a very specific reality, my
lived experience, the stuff that I deal and everybody does.
But I've I've always worked or built my business around
what I thought it should be and how I should
(44:24):
be showing up versus you know what you can't today.
Because so it's got to include the reality of my life.
I love.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
It's got to make space for that. I love.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Thank you, Okay, me, I would say I'm still defining this.
But at this stage in my life, my success has
to include my faith, my integrity, but also like my rust.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
I think I have to be honest with my capacity
and for me.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
At this stage of my life, success must include freedom.
Is the word that's coming up for me right now.
The final question, as we're all kind of like either
rebuilding or recon and figuring. Knowing what you know now
after decades of business, what are you committed to never
doing again?
Speaker 4 (45:06):
What's kind of a theme with me. I am committed
to never letting anyone tell me what I'm capable of
doing or what I should do ever again.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
I'm committed to never skipping the hard stuff because it's
uncomfortable or tedious if it's going to result in the
strength of the business.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
And I am committed to never again. What's coming up
from me? I feel like it's I'm being a broken
record right now, but I'm just gonna say I'm committed
to never again putting myself in second, I'm committed to
never again pushing myself, my body, my mind, my capacity
to the point where it literally is breaking me because
what's the point? What's the point? And I get we
(45:47):
have to have contrast, I needed to manifest frozen shoulder
to get to this point, and I can honor that
and respect that and also say, if I ever have
frozen shoulder again in my life, I'm done. I quit,
I'm out, come out, send me out faster. I'm done.
Speaker 3 (46:01):
So it's no fun. I've had it. It's no fun.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
It's so painful. I didn't know how painful.
Speaker 4 (46:07):
Yeah, and so it's going to be it's a menopause symptom,
which we won't even get into.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
It's yeah, yeah, it's right. Yeah, No, I've started on
some other things and changing my diet and supplements and
like all sorts of yeah, no, it's And then but
then also to like doing the emotional work to figure
out why is this physical manifestage, Like what's the energy
behind the physical manifestation of this thing that's happening. So,
(46:35):
you know, I just want to thank you both. Like
I said, I have known both of you for a
long ass time, and I am just so grateful to
have you both in my arm, in my life and
in our lives because you both know each other as well,
and you know, it's been really great just to reconnect
with both of you recently after some hiatus time. I
just really appreciate both of you and your journeys and
your experiences, and thank you so much for just sharing
(46:56):
everything with us today.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
All right, this is amazing. I'm glad to reconnect with everybody.
And also if anyone wants to come, say hi, I
am that weirdo that's like, yes, please come, actually send
me a dm be like I heard you on the podcast,
So come over to haayk may which is hu are
r a y k I m m a y on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
Thank you for that reminder. Sarah, where do we find
you as well?
Speaker 4 (47:16):
The best place to buy me right now is substack
or Instagram. You can find me. It's Sarah kN out Loud.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
I don't think I'm on your substack. I need to
be on your substack. Get all on the stack, girl.
I am loving substack lace lately.
Speaker 4 (47:29):
People there are just so chill and so wonderful and
it's like, oh, I can just show up and be
and it's fine, it's great. Love it.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
And I have to say, and maybe it's only because
it's the people that I'm following on substack, but I
haven't read any chat GBT shit like like slop on
substack like people are actually because it's writing. It's amazing.
Speaker 4 (47:48):
Yeah, it's it's for writers, which is great.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
I can't even hear the social media anymore, y'all without
being like you wrote that on chat tobt like that's
every single time I'm on LinkedIn, I'll be like God,
even the comments, I'm like the other all ei comments.
Speaker 4 (48:03):
Thanks ladies, thank you, love you both.
Speaker 3 (48:06):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
If this episode lit something up and you share it,
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(48:31):
and typing in Big Goal Energy. Your vision, your goals
deserve alignment, ease, and your fullest self behind them. Until
next time, Trust yourself, dream bigger, and never forget you
are here for greatness.
You were never meant for a small life. You have
bold ideas, audacious dreams and visions that keep you up
at night. But the truth is big goals don't come
with step by step instructions, and success doesn't come from
doing more. It comes from becoming more. Welcome to Big
Goal Energy, a podcast for high achieving women who are
done shrinking, striving, and second guessing and are ready to
(00:24):
defy reality in pursuit of the life they actually want.
I'm your hostess, free sealy, goal architect, subconscious strategist, and
your permission slip to want what you want. Join me
as we go beyond the service level success to explore
the mindset, identity, and inner work required to bring your biggest,
most delulu goals to life. This is your space to
(00:47):
be seen, to be expanded, and to remember that you
are not alone on this journey. Let's get into it.
Hello everyone, Welcome back to Big Goal Energy. I am
so blessed to be here with two incredible women that
I get to call friends and I get to call colleagues,
and that I have known for a hot second like
(01:09):
I don't even it's been at least five years, if
not more. I've gotten to know them in all of
our previous iterations of business. We just listened to be
on a call a week ago, and all three of
us are like, what drove us to create the businesses
we created in our twenties and thirties is not what's
now driving us in business in our forties and fifties,
(01:31):
and so like, what does that look like and what's
changed and how are we navigating that process? And I
was like, oh my god, this is going to be
such a good conversation. So I'm gonna let Sarah and
kim May both introduce themselves to you. If you've been
a listener for a while, you've seen Sarah on a
previous episode. But I'm going to let them both introduce themselves,
(01:51):
and I've asked each of them to also share what
is the thing that really drove you to building your
previous versions of business? Kimmy, do you want to kick
us off?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Hooray?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Was I also on a previous version of this show.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
I think it was a different show, which is so
funny because as I was just saying the name of
the show, I almost had a theme of my previous show,
and I was like.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Wow, girl, get this change. If you make in your
business all the time. I think it's what we do.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
So hooray.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
So my name is Kimy, my company is Hoay Kimay.
Really the umbrella company is called Horay Media, and I
am an undergarment educator, So I teach people how to
choose what to wear over their heart every day and
how to use bras and undergarments as a tool of
self love and confidence and body acceptance. But really like
the business side of things is that I work mostly
(02:40):
with brands to wear and share their product to those folks.
And then I also teach bra fitting to global people
around the world, how to fit with accuracy and empathy.
I do that through photo shoots with no airbrushing whatsoever, all.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Over the world.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I also do wel television, so if y'all watch Daytime Timevision,
you might have seen me. I've been on The Today
Show eight times, Rachel Ray, I was on ten times
up in Canada. Hey, I was on The Maryland Dennis
thirteen times, and now on The Good Stuff a couple
of times. So I love, love, love what I call
preaching the bra gospel to everybody, because nobody knows how
(03:16):
to wear bra.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Nobody was taught this.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
If I can help people find comfort and confidence in
this really sacred part of the body, I think then
we're going to have a better world in the end.
So that's what I do. The original form of my
business I started in technically, I formed my LLC in
twenty fourteen, kind of similar to you, Bree. My business
has taken on many forms in this time. The very
first version of my business was actually a very behind
(03:39):
the scenes job. I was doing marketing for brands like
bra brands, and mostly the ones that I was like,
you don't want to be like Victoria's Secret. You don't
want to be the brand that's like, look at this,
you want to look like her? Buy a brownlect No.
I wanted to help brands that were like, actually, who
you are is amazing. You look great, not the point,
but let's help you feel comfortable and confident inside your body,
and this undergarment can help you do that. I kind
(04:01):
of started from a place of panic because I had
no customers and just needed something, and I knew I
could do that. I was doing my previous job and
was really successful at it, really quickly held a lot
of great clients and realized real quick, oh, I'm not
a behind the scenes person. That right away was why
I changed and I became this more public facing version
of who I am now. So the first I would
(04:23):
say real iteration of the business was really built on.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Me being able to express myself and me being able.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
To be honest about bodies, and like, the biggest thing
I wanted was to be able to travel. I would
just pick a place and pitch a bunch of brands
and be like, would you pay me to take photos
in this glorious place and then like share those photos
of your product and tell be able to buy that?
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Would you like, is that like a thing?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
And they kept saying yes, And so I just kept
choosing amazing places in the world to go.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
And then also I.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Think I was feeding a little bit of this version
of me that wanted to be in front of the camera,
that wanted to be on stage, that was like, this
is okay, and it's safe for me to shine and
be bright. Because I had to really fight that story.
So there was like a freedom in saying I can
show up and shine and be on television and be
speaking in front of big crowds and teaching in Paris
(05:15):
and New York and it just felt so glamorous. I
knew deep down I was still supporting my why, but
I didn't care so much about profit. I just wanted
the business to be self sustaining and for me to
feel fulfilled. That was it, and it's obviously changed now we're.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Going to get more into that. So I'm very cool. Yeah,
I'll hold off. Okay, Sarah, so a brief introduction, and
then what drove you to build your previous version of business?
And two I also want to mention, so obviously I'll
share my story. I shut my business down last year,
so I had to have like a full hard stop,
and Kim May did not do that. Kimay is just
(05:52):
evolving her business, and so Sarah, I don't know if
it's like a full stop for you or just an
evolution for you. So if you'd add that on as well,
that would be helpful.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
Hello. My name is Sarah Khan. I am the founder
of Niche Strategic and I help who I call dangerously
competent women move from being the backbone of everybody else's
success to finally being sought for their own thinking so
they can scale their impact, They can build that legacy
that they want without working harder, particularly when they get
to midlife. And this is a floor cry from what
(06:21):
I was doing before. I never wanted to be an entrepreneur.
I'm the reluctant entrepreneur. I became an entrepreneur because of necessity.
I had been working in corporate for over twenty years,
various corporate entities, and I was happy toying the party line,
being the girl who you know, did whatever the job wanted.
I was the consummatet unicorn. When we moved from Europe
(06:43):
back to Canada and I couldn't find a job, That's
when I sort of started a consultancy and I was
kind of working behind the scenes in people's businesses with
operations and event management and that. Then when I did
get a job, I kind of put that as a
side hustle. Fast forward ten years and it became a
full time thing when COVID hit to leave my position
for anever of reasons, and then I just I really
(07:03):
fell in love with it. I started the business just
doing what I had done in corporate, doing operations, doing
the things behind the scenes. It helped other people achieve
their goals, help other people build their businesses. It was
fulfilling because I was making money and I was making
people happy, and I was you know, and we'll touch
on it later, but it was so rooted in my identity,
like this is who I am, this is what I do,
(07:25):
that it never occurred to me that I could actually
do anything else. Last year, in January, I did my
TEDx talk, and that's a story in and of itself,
but I had such a profound experience and there was
such like an awakening in me after that because the
response that I got from women in the audience when
I shared my TEEDX talk, I didn't expect it. I
(07:47):
went home, I cried for three days, and then I
decided that the business that I had spent over ten
years building, I just didn't want it anymore. It was
not aligned with who I had become, really kind of
unbeknownst to myself, like I wasn't acknowledging the fact that
I had evolved into this entirely different person, or maybe
not even an evolution into a different person. I just
(08:08):
awakened the person I'd always been. When I was able
to let go of too, everybody told me I.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Was supposed to be mm hmm, yeah, oh that's so
good and there were so many parts of your story
that I so deeply resonated with. I'll share quickly. So
what drove me to start my first business, my fashion
business was really just I want to keep my skills
alive and I'm not living in a place where I
can have a job in fashion. Let me just play,
let me just create, let me just tinker, like, oh,
(08:35):
this person wants me to make a bridesmaid's dress. Cool.
This person wants me to make a flower girl dress. Cool.
I just got a homecoming dress and it kind of
unfolded that way. Also very you know, accidental entrepreneur. And
then truthfully, starting my coaching business in twenty fifteen was
completely from a place of scarcity and scrappiness, which I
also want to say for anyone listening to this, I
(08:57):
don't necessarily think that they're a bad or good reasons
to start a business, but I think it's really important
to also recognize that what you focus on growth. I
completely started my coaching business from a place of scarcity.
I had gotten the word from the universe to shut
my fashion business down. I didn't have an income. I
was applying for jobs and everyone was telling me I
was overqualified. For everything. I needed money in the door,
(09:20):
and I didn't really have much of a choice. And
then I started looking at the bread crumbs. And there
had been people asking me to help them in this
way for a very long time, and I had said no.
So I did follow the bread crumbs. But also it
was I was following them from a place of scarcity.
Me having my coaching business for ten years was a
personal journey of me confronting and healing all of the
parts of scarcity. And my journey was that I had
(09:43):
to shut it down in December December thirty first, just
six weeks ago, I signed the PaperWorks to just like
shut it down. I had to shed this old identity
of being a struggling entrepreneur, of being an entrepreneur in scarcity.
I'm curious to know for the two of you, well,
have there been any parts of your identity? And Sarah,
(10:03):
you touched on this briefly too. They've been really conscious
of being like, well, that has to go or that
can't come with me in the next version of my business.
And also kind of related to that, are you guys
experiencing any grief with this process? I definitely I held
a funeral for my business wow in November of just
(10:25):
like really honoring the journey we had been on together
and recognizing that it was time for it to pass.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
My entire identity from when I was a very little
girl was completely dependent on the belief that I was
only of value if I was doing something for someone else.
I learned at a very young age that I had
to be what other people wanted me to be in
order to be accepted. If you look at the trajectory
of my business and probably even my career, there was
(10:53):
a lot of conformity. There was a lot of I
would like to explore, No, you know what, I don't
think you should because that doesn't seem like you. I
think you'd be better off doing Oh, okay, I'll do that.
There was a lot of that. And even in my business,
even when I was doing operations and I had several
clients so I worked with long term, and you know,
i'd express an interest in maybe dabbling in answer dabling,
which are so good at operations you should totally stay
(11:14):
behind the scene. And I really really believed that I
was only as good as how good I.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Could make other people look.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Oo say that again, just like I want you to
just repeat that, and if you're listening, hone in on
what Sarah just said.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
I truly believe that I was only as good as
I could make other people look good. Like if I
could make other people look good, then I was a
valid human being.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Right.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
I don't even remember what the turning point was. I
just know that I started to feel this immense heaviness
over a period of probably eighteen months. I thought more
coaching would get rid of it. I thought better marketing
would get rid of it. I thought mindset would get
rid of it. I thought, you know, better branding will
get rid of it. And I'd invested in all of
those things, only to realize that I hated all of it.
(12:01):
And if it really took sitting down with myself and
I had to go to the business. There was a
point where I said to myself, Okay, I'm I'm gonna
just stop posting. I'm gonna stop recording my podcast. I'm
gonna stop everything for just like two weeks and then
I'll come back to it. And every time the two
weeks would like come to an end, I'd be like, well,
maybe two weeks more.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Until it was like a year.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
I needed that year to be able to actually say,
this has nothing to do with business, Sarah, and this
has everything to do with you. You outgrew this identity
so long ago, but you've been holding on to her
because you are terrified of what it means to not
be her, and then having to embrace and explore who
I was without that identity. It only ever experienced that
(12:43):
once before. I had spent ten years in my very
early career being an event manager, and I had put
on events of all kinds. I had so much joy
when I was doing that job. When we moved back
here to Canada and there was no longer that level
of industry for me, I remember pulling over on a street.
I was driving my girls a daycare, and I pulled
over and I just sobbed for like forty minutes because
(13:05):
I had to admit to myself that that part of
my identity was gone, and I hadn't given myself a
chance to do it this time. So I had to
take like a year and just be like, Okay, who
are you when you're not doing things for other people?
And this is who we've landed on.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Love it. We're going to dive more into that woman.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
I love that story.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
So much, and there's so much about I think when
we first, Like I was twenty nine when I started
my business. I'm forty one now, so there's things that
have changed automatically. But bre you reminded me too, Like
I first started my business because I was actually working
at a bra company and I had been a brofiter
for many years, and then I ended up like getting
recruited by sax fith Avenue and then recruited by Laperla
(13:47):
and Mom Popshop. I then was working like online customer service,
and then I was their store manager and trainer, then
the marketing manager and marketing director, and not because I
went to school for marketing, but because I knew our
customers so well. And it was in that job that
I started doing content marketing, which was twenty eleven written
with blogs and social media were first a thing, and
I just loved educating. I loved teaching people and I
(14:10):
knew exactly what people were going to say. But the
business was failing and they didn't have the structure for
the job that I had anymore, so they put me
back into profiting and at first I was really mad.
I remember being in that fitting room and I had
already started doing a little bit on the side. A
person who was on she was a producer for Tim
Gunn's Guide Style, which I had been on seven years
(14:32):
earlier working for La Perla, and she came in and
it was I was like, hey, do you remember me?
And we had this whole conversation. She's like, what are
you doing? What are you doing here now? And I said, well,
actually thinking you started my own thing. And it was
her who said, then just go do it, just go
And I was like what and she was like, listen,
you're not going to take yourself seriously and your clients
won't take you seriously if you just don't go and.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Just do this. So I quit my job like a
week later.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
And then a week later to the day was it
go Wednesday to a Wednesday and my husband lost his job,
and then two weeks later I lost my only client.
I sort of just started from scratch, and that scarcity
mindset that you were talking about. I was just trying
to freaking survive. I was like, how can I make
some cash and not go back to working for these people.
That's really what the impetus was for my first business.
(15:15):
But the change really came and the identity changed for me.
At age forty. I was the person that thought, oh,
forty is not going to matter to me. When I
was younger, I saw people turning forty, women especially turning forty,
and being like, oh, my world is over. I'm so
over the hill now I'm so old, and I was like,
I don't feel that way.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
I feel amazing.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
I feel like it's fine, It's all gonna be great.
The first three months of being forty were great. I
was on the Drew Barrymore Show twice. I was doing
a photo shoot in France. I had this amazing Parisian
client that I was working with, that's a federation of
lingerie in France. Like, it was so amazing, and I
booked a keynote speaking job in Spain.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
I was like, I am good.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
And in March we decided to try IVF and I
swear that was the thing that changed things the most
for me and change my perspective. This is a little
bit of a trigger warning for infort two, I'd already
been trying to get pregnant for like five years. At
that point, I had also even joined business and entrepreneur
groups specifically for mothers because I was like I'm going
to adopt this identity, I'm going to be mom and
(16:11):
that will come, and it wasn't coming. And so we thought, Okay,
let's do this IVF. Folks out there who are listening,
who've done IVF or no of somebody who has. Everybody
experiences this so differently. For me personally, it was so intense.
It felt like a second job. It felt like I
was so booked with doing this thing physically with my body, emotionally,
(16:31):
with my soul, mentally with my mind.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
I was booked.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
So I thought, Okay, I'm going to do what all
my coaches have been telling me to do, which is
to delegate higher team blah blah blah, and so I
hired obm's hired team members.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Just like thought.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
I was building up this really strong structure, and I
read a book. I'm still actually in the middle of reading.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
It, so don't cool me.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
I thought, Great, the rest of it's going to be
She's really popular in the business world. But Stacy Tuschel
has a book, a really simple, simple book called Well
Oiled Operations. I remember it struck me like lightning because
through that whole process, I was delegating, delegating delegating, But
what I was actually doing was just outsourcing my anxiety
of the business. Sarah, maybe you know this as an
operations person. I did not have study firm foundations, and
(17:17):
I had like twelve revenue streams.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
At one point, I.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Was doing way too many things. I just kept being
the yes person. I just kept saying, yes, I can
make that happen.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Yes, I'll do that. Oh that's a great idea. Well
let's do this.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
And I wasn't really finding a steady place. So IVF
we had a transfer, we had one embryo that was viable,
and we thought for sure this was going to work out.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
And it didn't. And this was July.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
I was broken, like truly broken. I can say this
now because it's February and the following year with some
spaciousness here that I'm actually very thankful. I don't say
that lightly. Infertility and loss and grief are were so hard.
Like I was very very very very very upset, but
it also kind of forced me to pause. It forced
(18:01):
me to slow down, and it forced me to only
do what was essential. I had to look at my
business and be like, what is actually essential here? I
at first kind of brought everything just down a little bit,
and I realized that wasn't enough, so I took a
full break in September my husband, I went to the
a National Park and then I actually ended up doing
a solo trip by myself, and in that realized, and
(18:23):
this was so humbling, what I've built here is not sustainable.
And what I built worked in my thirties and is
not going to work in my forties. I was really
holding onto this identity of like boss lady, person who delegates,
person who works in her genius and lets everybody else
do the other stuff. I'm going to be honest. My
ego was a little bit inflated, and I was too
proud to do what I would have considered essential but
(18:46):
not glamorous part of the job.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
I had to let go of that.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
But I actually had a very hard conversation with my OBM,
and at first I was going to hold on to
one or two people, and it was actually her who
said I think you should pause completely. And I was like, girl,
I'm going to make money, and she was like, I
think it will be very.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Good for you to pause completely.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
I paused everything everybody and just allowed myself from basically
September through December to just coast, pray, sort things out
a little bit. What I was really grieving was this glamorous,
big business lady, and I've had a vision from God
that I have a giant business, and I was sort
(19:24):
of like, how the heck can I get there if
I take this pause, if I slow down, if I
break everything apart and bring it down to the studs,
that's the opposite of progress, right, But I think I'm
finding now that's not the case. I think I'm finding
now that the pause and the stopping and getting back
to what's essential and rebuilding the foundations is actually for
the next phase of my life, not for my thirties,
(19:44):
but for my forties. Now I'm forty one, is what
will actually get me to the next stime. So humbling,
Holy moly.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
It's so interesting. I've had the same thought two days
in a row, from two very different conversations, and it
just popped up for the second day in a row
when you were talking. I honestly think the whole girl
boss era that we all came up in in business
was necessary maybe at the time, but also looking back
on it, I'm like, man, it really just put these
(20:13):
unrealistic ideas of business into all of our heads. Yeah,
had us build these businesses that were not sustainable, didn't
focus on the right things, were not rooted in the
identity piece. I feel like that's so much of the
deconstruction that I've done. And it reminded me when you
were talking, Kimy about we had all these ideas about
how glamorous and oh you just used social media to
(20:35):
like blah blah blah, which people talk about, and then
also teaching us to build businesses in the masculine way
that people have built businesses for decades, when that's not
how we operate.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Yeah, oh my god, you're so right. And listen, I
love my girl Boss era. I still love pink. I
still love a great outfit like I loved it. But
I think the identity piece actually started with a previous
coach that i'd worked with, who really with this whole
motherhood idea. I was talking about this matriarch, which doesn't
work for everybody, because even if you're not a mother,
it can still work for you, but doesn't work for everybody.
(21:06):
What I'm really finding in the identity piece for me
is allowing myself to bloom and blossom and grow and
age and be honest about my capacity. In general, my
capacity and my energy has gone down, and I saw
that as a giant weakness because all I knew was
to do more, go more, build faster, travel more, pitch more,
(21:27):
just more and more and more. This is coming from somebody who
also led women's circles for six years straight and understands
feminine energy and the work work, work and waxing and
the waning and the rest rest rest, Like I get that,
but there was still something missing in my identity that
I needed to lay down. I needed to lay down
the work. Work, work was the answer. And sometimes just
let myself freaking pause, like when I prayed after the infertility.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Like, God, what do you want me to do? What
do you want me to do with my business?
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Just tell me? I'm listening, Just tell me. I kept
getting every freaking day rest, just rest.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
I just need you to rest.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
And I was so counterintuitive, which tons of people talk
about how rest is good for you, blah blahlah. I
knew that logically in my body it was still ingrained.
You will lose, you'll fall behind, You're never going to
be able to catch back up. You're wasting your time.
The only answer is to do don't rest.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
This gets me into my next question. I had a
moment last year in April of twenty five where I
was having a conversation with someone and she presented a
concept to me that had never landed or registered as
being something that was available to me. I thought it
was available to all sorts of other women, and it
really forced me to kind of sit down and be like,
(22:36):
who am I becoming? Who do I want to become?
What do I want the next era of my life
to include? What do I want to be driven by?
What are my priorities? And then from there what kind
of business would the woman I'm becoming built. What the
woman had presented to me was this idea of She said,
I help people build exitable businesses. And I was like,
(22:59):
excuse me, what When I say this word to so
many other women, They're like, I don't know what that means?
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Really?
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Yeah, I guess people don't think of building a business
just to sell it or just to exit it.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Yeah, they think this is it forever.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Our industry that we're all in. That's not the norm.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
But yeah, you're right, you're so rstrees.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
It's like, no, I'm growing this thing. Yeah, You're so right.
At the end of ten years or whatever, I had
to start asking myself, Okay, if I'm becoming the kind
of woman who has an exitable business, what is the
business model that aligns with that? And that conversation in
April has completely changed the trajectory of my life over
(23:37):
the last ten months. I want to hear from both
of you, how have you shifted your business model or
your business foundations now with this new understanding of this
new identity. And Sarah, what you said before is you know,
I'm only successful if I'm building up other people. Now
you're building up yourself more. And I'm just curious to
know how have things shifted for you now that you've
(24:00):
re engineered your identity or like re tapped into this
new vision.
Speaker 4 (24:04):
I think everything kind of came to a head last
year with the dissolution of the business and methetics and
level of bad client relationships, losing some very close friends,
being a lot of money to some coaches who were
less than trustworthy. The big shift for me was turning
fifty in December and then having a daughter who is
(24:24):
about to complete high school and go off university.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yeah, I know it's crazy.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
And I also have an eight year old, so it's
like like two worlds. It was really a time of like,
first of all, who the actual fuck am I? And
what have I been building? Because one of the things
that I remember most clearly was sitting down as my
teenager and saying, you've got to pick a major. You've
got to decide like what you're going to go into
because grade twelve you have to pick all your courses
that are going to get you into university. And she
(24:49):
was like, Mom, I don't know what I want to do.
It was such a departure from my experience because I
grew up my parents basically said if you're not going
to be a lawyer, you're going to be a teacher.
And I went okay, and I didn't know that there
were other options for me. As an aside, I did
want to be a lawyer, but my mom was like,
you will never have a personal life, so be a teacher.
So I was like, okay, that's what I did. Everything
(25:09):
that I did was you're towards being that thing. For
my daughter to say to me, I have no idea
what I want to do, and she's been showing an
interest in kind of like what I'm doing, And I
sat back and I thought, what am I building that
I could one day pass on to my kids, like
if that's what they wanted to do. So it's kind
of the same idea of like an exitable business, but like,
what am I leaving behind? Do I have a viable
(25:30):
business if there's no outcome to it, if there's nothing
that I'm leaving behind. This idea of legacy started coming
up for me. I had been thinking about legacy for
a long time. In fact, I'd wanted to talk about
it years ago, and I had a coach very specifically
say to me, people don't understand legacy, don't talk about that,
and I kind of let it drop. But it's always
been in the back of my mind. Turning sixty for
(25:50):
me was like, Okay, you're in like the last third
of your life.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
If you're lucky, what.
Speaker 4 (25:53):
Are you building? What are you leaving behind? What impact
are you making? Because so far you've just had a
business where you were providing a service that does not
scale past you. It doesn't matter how many team members
you have. When you stop working the business dies, you're
not making an impact. You are the backbone of other
people's brilliance and you got to stop doing that. It
(26:16):
was a real awakening for me in a sense of life.
If you want to build something you it has to
be something that can persist after you're gone, whether it
is as a business itself, whether it's my ideas, whether
it's something that I create and leave to people. Going
back to the teacher thing, I didn't actually teach. It's
not what I did. When I finally left university, I
fell into a lot of other really fun stuff. But
(26:38):
I did teach for about fourteen years and I did
love it. And when I left my career, I said
that that was the end of it. And of course
we hear online all the time, you know, don't teach
in your content. People don't like to be taught to.
There's rules that we're supposed to follow. One of the
things that I have allowed myself to embrace and believe
now is I like teaching my brain works in such
(27:00):
a way that I can see the how of a
lot of things. And if I can't teach that, then
what's the point of seeing it. The business that I'm
building narrow is really going to be around being able
to teach concepts so that these women who have spent
their whole life, like me, propping other people's genius up,
can take themselves out of that infrastructure and create something.
(27:21):
Because when you're an operator, when you have that proximity
to the work, your expertise goes a hell of a
lot deeper than a lot of people actually understand. Why
can't you take that genius and build something for yourself
that isn't dependent on your labor. That was the big
thing for me. I don't want what I leave behind
to be dependent on anybody's labor. I want it to
help them embrace the breadth and depth of their knowledge
(27:44):
and their experience, their lived experience, and what they want
to create in the world. That's the business that we're building.
Every single day. I have to remind myself because I
still have moments where I wake up and I go, ugh,
I've got to talk about the mechanics of this to them,
and it's like, no, no, no, You're not an operator anymore.
Even after the eur as and all of that, there
is still this default of like, you're an operator, so
(28:06):
you have to take clients who want you to do this,
or you have to No, I have zero clients right now,
very intentionally, because then I'm also having to retrain my
entire audience that I don't do that anymore. I refuse
to do that anymore. And if that's how you see me,
then you need to see me a different way right now,
in this moment, in Sebruary of twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
That is the work. Love it oough, so good. I
love that you love being an educator. Me too.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
That's why I named myself Undergramm my educator by the way, like,
because I.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Love teaching about bras and I love teaching people about
their bodies. Wait can you repeat the question?
Speaker 2 (28:40):
I got absolutely lost in Sara's beautiful answer, and I'm like.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
What are we talking about?
Speaker 4 (28:44):
Well, no, no, no, it's good.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
So the question I kind of asked myself was what
kind of business would the woman I'm becoming built love this?
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Okay, a smart one.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
I had a really joyous, delicious business in my thirties,
and I don't want to lose the joy I don't
I don't want to lose the deliciousness. It was fucking
fun to go on television and to travel to Paris
every year and to do photo shoots in my underwear
in front of the Eiffel Tower, Like, what a dream
come true? Thank God for that, and that that took
way too much precedent in a way that probably I needed.
(29:16):
If I'm being completely honest, I don't regret it at all.
And now I'm humbling myself to go in and build
a really smart business. Actually it's weird because I was
really tempted to throw it all away, and I think,
as you two have shown us, sometimes you got to
do that. I thought that was the answer, and if
I'm being honest, for me personally, I was just overwhelmed
with life and grief and the world that we're living in. Hello, Hello,
(29:40):
It was just too much. I didn't want to be
the person that was wearing all the hats anymore. I
didn't want to have to worry about steering the ship
and having the vision for the business. I didn't have it.
I was like, I'm broken. I can't even think about this.
So I had applications open to work in the Anthropology's
back office. I was like, let me run your influencer
program for Beholden whatever. I was like, I could do
this with my eyes closed. I was like, let somebody
(30:01):
else worry about steering the ship. I just come in
and do this one little piece.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Fine.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
I was searching and searching and looking all these different things,
and I was talking different people about different options and
really just praying about it, like really journaling. And I
remember opening up an application and I couldn't even type
my own name in.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
I couldn't get that far.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
I was like, I can't do this, and I knew
that wasn't actually what I wanted to do. So I thought, Okay,
instead of blowing this up or washing this away, what
if I brought it down to the studs, And what
would it look like if I created a really smart business.
The thing is that vision that I've had of the
big business, I think is still holding me. If I
didn't have that, I do think I would have stopped.
I do think I would have Maybe I'm not supposed
to run a business. But I've seen this vision, and Brie,
(30:42):
you're the one who prompted me to say, like those
visions are promises from God, Like that's that's really what
it feels like. So I've seen this vision of me
and my team on two floors of an all glass building,
and inside that we have a production room where we
can film and do whatever we want, shoot whatever we want.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
And then there was a stadium seating.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Style stage with like a live stream camera. I've seen this,
I've seen this, and I think I was so wrapped
up in the how worrying that I would never actually
get there, or worried that honestly I didn't have the
skills to bring us there, that it wasn't possible. And
I've just let that go. So that's number one. Number
two is that when I prayed about what to do next,
(31:21):
joy did come up, by the way, So it's not
just smart.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
The joy still has to be part of it.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
I mean, your name is literally hooray it know exactly business?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
What are you even doing exactly?
Speaker 3 (31:31):
And I will never forget this moment.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
I was driving the car and I was praying, which
you know, don't don't closurize and drive by, like praying
with my eyes open and remember asking God like what
And I was actually on my way in New Jersey
to go sing with my church, and I was like, God,
what do you want me to do?
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Please? Just tell me? Do I do this thing in
my business? Do I go this way? Should I pivot?
Should I do this?
Speaker 2 (31:49):
What? Do I do, And the answer I got back
was like, listen, the plan I have in general, but
especially even just for you is so big that if
you just slightly this way or that way, it's not
going to mess up my plan, babe, Like whatever, and
almost felt like this blank check was written to me
when he was like, you know what, you can do
whatever you want, which I was kind of angry at it.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
First.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
I was like, could you just tell me because I'm
tired and I don't want to pick. But then was like,
but as long as you are doing what brings you joy,
you will always be provided for.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
And I truly that.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
I was angry at first, and then I had to
go ask myself what does bring me joy? Because at
that time when I was grieving, I didn't know. I
couldn't I couldn't access it. Now I'm like, oh, is
it actually I really believe I am worthy and deserving
of doing something that just brings me joy? And will
that be enough in the world, In the world where
(32:43):
we see so much chaos and me so much hurt?
Is it really enough to just show up and do
what brings me joy? I'm telling you, like I've had
a thousand confirmations of yes, from examples of like birds
in our Lives to Steve Harvey of all people who's
it become like my motivational speaker at the moment, like
while all these examples of people who just stay faithful
(33:06):
and continue to go. So it's got to be smart,
it's got to be joyful. And then I also think
that the woman I'm becoming is building a business that,
just as Sarah said, has impact. That's the whole point
of having the giant business. And I saw this vision
another vision of me having a cruise ship sized business,
and I was like, well, that sounds so corporate, sounds
so big. I don't even know how to row a
(33:26):
robout let alone. Steer and the crower stup like no,
And I asked back in twenty fifteen, why does it
have to be so big? The answer I got back
was to make big waves. If I'm not making an impact,
I don't, It doesn't why, you know, Like, and I
think people make impact in all.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Sorts of ways.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
I do believe that for me personally, doing it through
my business and through the work that I'm doing is
what I'm meant to do. I believe I have everything
I need to do everything God has called me to
do right now. And I didn't feel that way before
getting in and doing my own books for the first
time in a freaking twelve years. I never did my
own books in my business has been so illuminating getting
in and looking at the SOPs myself and doing things
(34:07):
myself that I was like, oh, I have an assistant
to do that. Very humbling, very rewarding. I hope I'm
building a really solid, smart business on a very firm
foundation that no matter what direction it goes, it still
has that firm, smart foundation.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
So yeah, see, you're the kind of visionary that operators love.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Well the thing, can I.
Speaker 5 (34:25):
Be honest though, because now she wasn't Wow, It's more
I was gonna say, like, my poor Allline business managers,
if you're listening, forgive me, because I kind of threw
them in and my brain was working so fast with
all these different things and just was basically like keep up.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
I had this entitlement from I think some of my
coaches that were like, you know what, it's their job
to come in and figure out how to support you
because you're the visionary. I just felt like I was
way more important. I can commit that now with like
such humbleness. I realize how important it is for me
to be so clear on what we're doing and how
we do it. And I now have two and a half.
(35:04):
I say two and a half because like one of them,
we don't really do all the time. Two and a
half business streams dreams have been come down from twelve.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Yes, so I've learned.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
I do, obviously hope to rebuild a team. If we're
gonna get to cruise ship size, I gotta do that eventually,
but I'm just hoping to do it with so much
more wisdom and foresight and not just like the gumption
that I had before, which again thank God for that
era of my life. But now it's like this slow, steady, smart, wise,
impactful woman that I already am, but I'm like stepping
(35:33):
more into.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
Yeah, so many thoughts about all of this. First off,
I want to revisit the visual of if you were
in a rowboat in the ocean, the size of waves
that would literally be making versus right if you were
in a cruise ship on the size of the waves.
That visual in and of itself is so powerful it
reminds me. I said last week that I was like,
you know, the foundation that I had for my business
(35:56):
was not the kind of foundation that could hold a skyscraper.
One man I both lived in New York City. You
see the depth that the foundation has to go in
to support business that that is that tall. And people
talk about it all the time. Trees only grow tall
because they have roots.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Yepp.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
So my business, same thing, did not have the foundation
needed to grow as tall as it needed to go.
And to be honest, if we're being really honest, I
made myself the foundation.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Oh oh my god. Yes.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
When I manifested frozen Shoulder and literally could not right
at all in any area of my life anymore, I
was the foundation I broke. Of course, the business came
crumbling down along with it because I had made myself
the foundation. That's one of the other things I'm looking
(36:52):
at is how do I build businesses or the nonprofit
I run or whatever where it's not dependent on me,
Because if it's dependent on me, it's going to fail. Yeah.
If it does dependent on my time, my capacity, it
is going to fail, period because I'm limited in those areas.
And again, if frozen Shoulder taught me anything, it's that
I cannot carry at all.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
And also like what is the foundation made out of? Too?
Speaker 2 (37:16):
So like we can make a foundation of a house
out of wood, which is sturdy, but then skyscrapers, you
cannot make that foundation out of wood. So it's but
both how deep does it go? And then how many
beams are you using? And also like what's the material?
Like what are they made out of? Yeah, both of
you with by the way, talk about how we can
take ourselves out of the business and how it's not
so dependent on us. I'm still figuring out how to
(37:38):
do that over here. I'm gonna be really honest, like
I'm still in this process, and that's what I mean
about going slow and being steady.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
Talk to me.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
In a year, I might be in a totally different place.
But right now I'm still figuring out with a personal brand,
how to pull myself out of the process. There's some
part of the revenue streams and parts of it that
I can definitely see. Oh right, I can pull myself
out of this part. I can make this easier, especially
the course.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
That I have.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
But when I asked a financial person about should I
put all of my attention on this course instead of
the custom content that I'm creating for brands, which is
me me, Me, Me Me. She said no, and I
was floored, but it was because she was like, that
is only accounting for about ten percent of your business
income right now, and the other is accounting for about
seventy percent. So she was like, if you just slide
(38:24):
everything over there and try to catch up without actually
building that up to replace and only spending ten percent
of your time on it right now, and here's the
biggie refining the process of the thing that is bringing
in seventy percent. So she was like, if the pitching
process is too long, it's taking you forever to do.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
How can you get it down to ten minutes?
Speaker 2 (38:44):
If you only want to work X amount of hours
per week and you've got to get all this done
in that time. What is it that you need to do?
Is it to bring on people? Is it to strengthen
up your systems? Is it to let go of these
other things that you were doing that are no longer
actually serving and supporting you, Like really hard questions of
sand papering instead of bulldozing. And I was like, holy smokes,
I never thought of it that way. So I'm still
(39:05):
in that process y'all. If you figure out how to
do it, please let me know, because I'm I'm not there.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Those are the questions that we don't ask ourselves. They're
not the importance of being in the inquiry of those questions,
I think is almost more important than the answers to
the questions. And so then kudos for slowing down and
actually doing that work. The other thing is, I'm going
to text you later because I actually had a vision
of something a potential revenue stream for your business while
you were talking earlier, like early.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Amazing, and I'm going to add it another one grade.
I get it's a bit of a refinement, so I'll
okay refining.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
Yes, I love the refining grade.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
This has been incredible. I've had so many AHAs. I
want to just do some lightning rounds. There's a ton
more questions I want to ask, and I want to
ask them all. Let's do like quick lightning answers for
each of these. What did you tolerate in your business
before that you are no longer tolerating in this new
season of business people.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
Me to tell them what to do and not listening
to me.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Preach amazing, I would say high revenue but low profit.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Oh that's a good one too. Yeah, And I think
mine of what I'm building is something that doesn't require
my woman power to maintain.
Speaker 4 (40:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
What is the most important thing for success to feel
light in this season of your life?
Speaker 3 (40:25):
No more success at any cost.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
Love that I have a habit of planting a seed,
watering it, but then if it doesn't grow fast enough,
digging it up and being like wait, working so just
like trusting that it's all happening and those roots are building.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
The word that came up for me was rooted just love.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
So we talked earlier. What fueled you to start your
previous business? What do you feel like is your current fuel?
What's currently fueling your vision, your dreams, your business right now?
Speaker 4 (40:53):
Impact like and betting on myself?
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Yeah, deeply, almost irrational. Trust that we have our children coming,
and that my husband and I really we are really
worthy of the life of our dreams. It was a
belief I held for a long time that I wasn't
worthy of like that big, bold, beautiful vision. And now
I'm like, you know what, Yeah, I can have my
(41:19):
own TV show. It's a little bit of yolo in
there too.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
You know, we're going to reference this moment right here,
when Kimy has her own TV show, you and your
honest guest together, We're gonna be like, remember that one
time in twenty twenty six when we're talk amazing.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
I've been talking about having my own TV show forever.
If I look back in all my old journals, I've
talked about it forever. So I think I'm just sort
of like, what am I waiting on? It's like that Yolo,
you know, and sometimes Thosten. Things do need to wait,
but I feel this beautiful pressure to do it, just go, you.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
Know, so good and for me right now, what's currently
fueling me is I've started studying Kabbala spontaneously in a
really beautiful way, and it's a lot of things that
I've talked about for a very long time, but I'm
finding a new relationship with them and so faith, which
is a word that I've had tattooed on me since
two thousand and.
Speaker 4 (42:11):
Ten.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Maybe I feel like my only job right now to
fuel what I'm here to build is to make sure
my container is strong enough and big enough to hold
that light. And like that's the only thing right now
that I'm really pouring into and miracles are happening in
a really beautiful way. Okay, what is the biggest priority
in building your business right now?
Speaker 2 (42:34):
It's weird, but I'm going to say what you just said,
which is faith. I do not go a day without
praying in the morning, like God's my business partner, just
to be really familiar to like praying in the morning
and then working towards what I hear and what I
know I'm meant to do because all the other stuff,
like the learning and the foundations and the stuff I'm
talking about, the book keeping like that will all come.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
I think the faith is the part that I am
top priority.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Love it, I Pendon said it.
Speaker 4 (42:59):
But right the biggest party right now is that anything
I do needs to honor It's a theme that's been
coming up a lot, but needs to honor my intellect.
In my experience, I've had so many experiences, particularly in
the last five years, where people have hired me for
my smarts, for my genius and then turned around and
said no because it wasn't you know, sexy enough or
exciting enough. I'm very grounded and very rooted in Your
(43:22):
business is subject to the laws of business the same
way you're a subject to the laws of gravity. So
if you're hiring me for a thing, you're not going
to actually let me do the thing. Really, I don't
need she's out something else. She's out, yes.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
And for me right now, the big my biggest priority
in building a business is me. That may sound very selfish,
but like Sarah already said, gone are the days where
I am sacrificing myself for my clients or sacrificing myself
for a dollar. No, absol fusolutely not. If it's not
good for me, it is not good for anyone else, period.
(43:56):
I love that finish this statement. At this stage of
my life, success must include At.
Speaker 4 (44:03):
This stage in my life, my business and my success
absolutely have to include my reality. That is something I
have struggled with. I have a very specific reality, my
lived experience, the stuff that I deal and everybody does.
But I've I've always worked or built my business around
what I thought it should be and how I should
(44:24):
be showing up versus you know what you can't today.
Because so it's got to include the reality of my life.
I love.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
It's got to make space for that. I love.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Thank you, Okay, me, I would say I'm still defining this.
But at this stage in my life, my success has
to include my faith, my integrity, but also like my rust.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
I think I have to be honest with my capacity
and for me.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
At this stage of my life, success must include freedom.
Is the word that's coming up for me right now.
The final question, as we're all kind of like either
rebuilding or recon and figuring. Knowing what you know now
after decades of business, what are you committed to never
doing again?
Speaker 4 (45:06):
What's kind of a theme with me. I am committed
to never letting anyone tell me what I'm capable of
doing or what I should do ever again.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
I'm committed to never skipping the hard stuff because it's
uncomfortable or tedious if it's going to result in the
strength of the business.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
And I am committed to never again. What's coming up
from me? I feel like it's I'm being a broken
record right now, but I'm just gonna say I'm committed
to never again putting myself in second, I'm committed to
never again pushing myself, my body, my mind, my capacity
to the point where it literally is breaking me because
what's the point? What's the point? And I get we
(45:47):
have to have contrast, I needed to manifest frozen shoulder
to get to this point, and I can honor that
and respect that and also say, if I ever have
frozen shoulder again in my life, I'm done. I quit,
I'm out, come out, send me out faster. I'm done.
Speaker 3 (46:01):
So it's no fun. I've had it. It's no fun.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
It's so painful. I didn't know how painful.
Speaker 4 (46:07):
Yeah, and so it's going to be it's a menopause symptom,
which we won't even get into.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
It's yeah, yeah, it's right. Yeah, No, I've started on
some other things and changing my diet and supplements and
like all sorts of yeah, no, it's And then but
then also to like doing the emotional work to figure
out why is this physical manifestage, Like what's the energy
behind the physical manifestation of this thing that's happening. So,
(46:35):
you know, I just want to thank you both. Like
I said, I have known both of you for a
long ass time, and I am just so grateful to
have you both in my arm, in my life and
in our lives because you both know each other as well,
and you know, it's been really great just to reconnect
with both of you recently after some hiatus time. I
just really appreciate both of you and your journeys and
your experiences, and thank you so much for just sharing
(46:56):
everything with us today.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
All right, this is amazing. I'm glad to reconnect with everybody.
And also if anyone wants to come, say hi, I
am that weirdo that's like, yes, please come, actually send
me a dm be like I heard you on the podcast,
So come over to haayk may which is hu are
r a y k I m m a y on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
Thank you for that reminder. Sarah, where do we find
you as well?
Speaker 4 (47:16):
The best place to buy me right now is substack
or Instagram. You can find me. It's Sarah kN out Loud.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
I don't think I'm on your substack. I need to
be on your substack. Get all on the stack, girl.
I am loving substack lace lately.
Speaker 4 (47:29):
People there are just so chill and so wonderful and
it's like, oh, I can just show up and be
and it's fine, it's great. Love it.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
And I have to say, and maybe it's only because
it's the people that I'm following on substack, but I
haven't read any chat GBT shit like like slop on
substack like people are actually because it's writing. It's amazing.
Speaker 4 (47:48):
Yeah, it's it's for writers, which is great.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
I can't even hear the social media anymore, y'all without
being like you wrote that on chat tobt like that's
every single time I'm on LinkedIn, I'll be like God,
even the comments, I'm like the other all ei comments.
Speaker 4 (48:03):
Thanks ladies, thank you, love you both.
Speaker 3 (48:06):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
If this episode lit something up and you share it,
text it to a friend, post it to your stories,
or leave a review. Because Big Goal Energy is meant
to be felt far and wide, and if you're ready
to go deeper, explore the tools, hypnosis, sessions and support.
Because your vision deserves more than hustle, join us on
the Big Goal Energy app by visiting your app store
(48:31):
and typing in Big Goal Energy. Your vision, your goals
deserve alignment, ease, and your fullest self behind them. Until
next time, Trust yourself, dream bigger, and never forget you
are here for greatness.
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