Ep #253: Do Less, Slow Down, and Create More with Saren Eads

Welcome to the Make Money as a Life Coach® podcast where sales expert and master coach Stacey Boehman teaches you how to make your first 2K, 20K, and 200K using her proven formula.

Hey, coaches, welcome to episode 253. Today I have one of my 200K Mastermind students, Saren Eads on the call. And I’m so excited to share her story because it’s in 100% alignment with what I want for all women in this world. And I have a very personal connection to it since I just had a baby too. So why don’t you just introduce yourself and then we’ll dive in from there.

Saren: That just touched my heart so much. I get emotional talking about just how special this is. But my name is Saren Eads, I am the Emotional Wealth Coach and I help people, especially women go after their big dreams so that they can create while also feeling really good in their life. They can have 20 extra hours back into their week that they can actually love and enjoy instead of overworking and hustling and trying to build what they have always dreamed of and make the impact that they’ve always wanted but by doing so much less actual work.

Stacey: I love it, so good, okay. So you have wrote in before we got on this podcast and talked about your story. So I thought we could just start there with your 100K year while you had a baby.

Saren: I actually want to back up because I miscarried before that and that’s actually how I found coaching. So if I even start there because I really believe that resiliency is the way to create abundance and it’s the way to create money is the ability to work through it all. And so I miscarried in 2019 and I was an emotional, anxious mess afterwards. My husband was like, “Will this ever end?” He was so supportive and so loving.

But it was nine months where I was just scared to go to the beach, scared to cliff jump the same cliff I usually would and scared to talk to friends that I know love me but I just thought everyone didn’t. My brain was just constantly scanning for things that could hurt me, that could go wrong in every scenario. And I didn’t even know I was having thoughts. So I Googled, literally Googled self-help podcasts on my way to babysitting one day. And I found one from The Life Coach School and she was repeating her very first episode.

So basically, she starts talking about how things that happen to you are just things that happen. They don’t create an emotional response in your body. There’s something in between and it’s a thought. And I literally was like, “I’m not having thoughts, she must be wrong.” Miscarriage equals anxiety. I was like, “There’s nothing there.” And so then I spent some time, I listened to it one more time. I spent a week or two just kind of meditating, thinking about it.

I was like, “I’m thinking I’m broken. I thought that I was emotionally broken. I wasn’t rebounding as quickly as I needed to. There’s something wrong with me in some way. So then my brain is now scanning for anything that could possibly break me more just in case.” And once I realized that, the anxiety started going away. I started having it as a normal human experience again, it wasn’t constant. And I was like, “That work, that changed my life.” And my husband’s like, “You’re a different person, what happened?”

I’m like, “A podcast.” And we’re talking about just that concept alone. And so then I was 22, almost 23 at the time and I had this thought, if I could do this one day. Maybe I should start now and help people now because I needed it now. And that’s kind of when I decided, I’m going to go practice and try to be a coach. And so this was in 2020. I got pregnant with my daughter and I was trying to be a coach. And by trying I mean I was in 2K, doing all the things. I did so many consults that were yeses turned no’s.

And was working full-time in an HR job that I just started at the beginning of the pandemic. And while I was there I was just, I knew that it was my thoughts in the way. I knew that there was something there. And that basically what was keeping me from getting all of my yeses turned no’s, I would hear a yes and I would just run with that. Be like, “That’s what I needed to hear. Thank you for validating me. I’m so content now, thank you so much.”

And I would just be like, “Sounds good, let’s start next week.” And then I would never ask them any questions about what was going on for them. And so once I realized that, I was like, “Okay, let me work through that.” I made $1,000 in December, I’m eight and a half months pregnant, I actually had preeclampsia, so I was induced with my daughter early. And so in early December, five days after signing my first client I went into labor and I had my daughter. And then on maternity leave, I was like, “My goal is just to replace my salary.” If I could do that and not have to go back to work after this.

Stacey: How long was your maternity leave?

Saren: They gave me six weeks, and unpaid, but I asked for more and so I got 10 weeks also unpaid with my work. And so if I could do that then I wouldn’t have to go back. I could actually live my dream of being home with my baby and also being able to do what I love and serve people. Coaching is something that fulfills me, to recharge for my home life. And so I knew it was something that I wanted in my life to do this role of service for other women and help them and watch them dream big and their dreams come into reality.

It was just so recharging for me. And so I started off doing a couple of consults. And in January I had eight people say yes, five people pay. So I broke the yes, but no’s, finally in January. This is January of 2021. And then in February I had, I think, another four yeses. Now, I was at almost 10 clients and that was my goal. If I hit 10 clients then I replaced my salary and I could quit my job, I already was going to quit my job, honestly. There’s nothing that was going to keep me there. And then I signed my final client, I think the first week of March or whatever so on my maternity leave.

But I was only, and this is the most important part, I was only working one to two hours a week. And then I was adding in these clients as I felt ready. So people are like, “How do you do that?” I’m like, “I literally just write copy or marketing your posts from what I’m experiencing and what I think would be helpful for other people.” And I’d write a couple of them and then post them throughout the week. And people thought it was incredible that I was doing this after having a baby.

They’re like, “Aren’t you supposed to shut down? Aren’t you supposed to have a dip?” And I actually want to back up one more time because I had the thought in October, maybe September of 2020 that this was going to be part of my journey. That I was going to have a dip in my business or I couldn’t get it off the ground once I had my baby. And I wouldn’t have the time or the emotional capacity to do so. And then I heard you coaching Jackie, you posted it in the 2K page.

And you said, “Not in this room, we are not going to take a pay cut on maternity leave. Women shouldn’t have to do that. Men don’t, women shouldn’t either. We’re not going to do that in this room.” And you talked to her about how she could do less work but create more results. And the first time I heard that, Stacey, I was like, “Can that actually be true, could that really happen?” And then I remembered I was this cute little 2Ker, and I typed in. And I was like, “I just changed my life. I can do less but create more.”

And you were like, “Not even create the same amount, you can create more, doing less will produce more for you, not just the equal amount that you are expecting.” And that’s exactly what happened. I ended that year making 100K in the 12 months of my daughter’s first year of life with the three month maternity leave in there and made my first 100K working less than 20 hours a week.

Stacey: That’s so good. Yeah. I think it’s so important. It’s so interesting. One little decision I made, I got actually coaching on this at a Life Coach School event. I don’t remember what it was. I don’t know if it was a Mastermind or a business event. I just remember I raised my hand, was this 2019? Yes, it was 2019 early in the year like February. And I said, “I really want to go on a road trip with my fiancé and my dog for one whole month, maybe even six weeks, but for sure one whole month. I want to drive across the US and just loop back.”

Saren: That’s so fun.

Stacey: And I also want to make $1 million and my brain was telling me that’s impossible because if you want to make $1 million you have to be working all of the time. You can’t let go of that grip on that at all. Every day you have to be focused on that. And I remember, Brooke said, “Well, just put it in the R line. You want to make $1 million while taking a month off.” And she’s like, “So really you want to make $1 million in 11 months?” And I was like, “Wait, hold on. What?” I’m going to make $1 million in 11 months. I ended up doing it in six, which is really crazy.

But that’s when I started thinking about these maternity leaves, some of my clients choose and want to work during their maternity leaves and some of them want to be totally off for two months, three months. I’ve had students take four months off. And I’m like, “It’s really just a math equation.” You just put how much money you want to make in the time you want to make it. And you put that in the R line and then you just figure out, what do I need to be thinking?

How do I have to be feeling to execute a set of actions that will create that result, whatever it is? I did a million in six months. I could have taken the rest of the six months off. So I think it’s so powerful for people to just start thinking that’s possible. You can work however much you want, if it’s eight months of the year and you want to make this much money, how do you have to do that? And then I did it again with my wedding. I took six weeks off. I had a destination wedding, so I took six weeks off to get married, and then we also went to Bora Bora for our honeymoon and the same thing.

I think that year I made $6.4 million. And then my maternity leave came up and it was the same thing, I took three months off and we made $9 million. We made more than the year before. So I do know it’s possible. And I think what is surprising me about that first time I coached Jackie on that from now is how many women have ran with that and said. “I can do that.” How many different versions they’ve created of that and how many success routes have been created.

And it’s not just the girls at the $1 million level. We’re talking about, you made your first 100K. I think Jackie was doing her first 200K year, I think if I remember correctly. And so everybody’s in a different place but can you just put whatever you want and just decide, this is how much money I want to make and this is the result I want. And then reverse engineer that.

So something that you said, I think is really interesting to kind of have you expand on a little bit is, you weren’t doing more action, you were doing less action. So if someone is listening to this and they haven’t listened to all my podcasts before, maybe they’re not in 2K. They’re definitely not in 200K. And so how would you explain to them how it’s possible to do less and make more, especially [crosstalk] like that?

Saren: So good. That’s actually the number one question I get asked is they’re like, “That sounds great, almost too good to be true, how? How do you actually do that?” And I think that coming back to who you are being and how you think about yourself. How you feel about yourself, how you think about your business and the relationship you have with it, the relationship you have with your clients, the relationship you have with marketing.

Just the way you’re thinking about what you’re interacting with in your life and changing the way you feel about those things. If you can have a fairytale business relationship, it helps a lot with doing the things that may feel more tedious and things like that.

Stacey: So let’s do a little before and after. Okay, so a lot of 2K students or coaches that come to me, their relationship let’s say with marketing because you mentioned you were just writing a couple of posts and then posting them throughout the week, which I am doing right now for consult month. So this will come out after that’s over. But it just took a couple of hours and wrote 26 posts that I just thought were really fun and just little tidbits.

I was just thinking, if I could just help one person with a couple of sentences, what would those sentences be? Is kind of where my brain was. I really realized, people don’t have a relationship with marketing like this. So let’s just say they come in and their thoughts are, no one’s watching me. I don’t know what to write about. I don’t even know who I’m serving. I’m confused about what my offer is. Marketing feels hard. I don’t have time to make posts. The posts aren’t enough. And some flavor of all of that. It’s not enough. I go to networking events, but it’s not enough. I’m not meeting enough people.

Their energy around the marketing is just, if I could boil it down to one thought, it’s, I’m going to put out energy into the world. It’s not going to be enough or I’m already putting energy out into the world, and it’s not enough. Okay, so that’s their before. So now let’s look at what your thoughts were. What were your thoughts about what you were writing, your thoughts and your relationship with your clients? What were your thoughts about what you were writing and how you were communicating to them and then your thoughts about them?

Saren: I remember this specific time in January, where I just felt it through my entire body that I can help them. They are here, that they’re in motion, that they’re going, that they have a couple of thoughts that I can help them with. And it turned me so much more in service to them. Because before was about me leaving my job for me, that I could replace my salary for myself and my family.

And when I thought about it for me and of course I wanted that too. And I wanted to serve them. I’m like, “This changed my life, imagine what it could do for women all over.” And so that’s really what got me out of the, I hate this, it turned into how can I serve them and love them. And what parts of my story would be helpful for them to hear. I want them to know they’re not alone in what they’re experiencing right now.

And that felt so refreshing and it created a lot of purpose. Even the feeling of purposeful for me is really driving and it creates a lot of action. And so that was one of those feelings that I wasn’t feeling bubbly every day. It’s not like I’m like, “I love posting every single day.” But it was like I feel purposeful in this.

Stacey: That’s so good. So it was almost your before and after was I want to leave my job and I hate this. How can I help them? How can I serve them? What’s something about my story that if I tell them that would help them? And I really love your story because I think everybody has this, for me, it’s, if I can build a business living in Super 8 motels and having two spoons and no money in my bank account literally anybody can do this. And yours is if I can use coaching to break out of the anxiety that feels like it’s happening to me after a miscarriage, you can do this too.

Those are just such powerful transformations that do give us such purpose to go out and help other people. So you tapped into that. You tapped into, I just need to help one person with this post right now today, which I think is what we talk about with the energy of 2K today. It’s being focused on one person right now and what can you say to help them just in this moment? It narrows in your actions to where I think what we think and you tell me if you experience this.

But I think what a lot of people think is, if I want to make 100K, I have to have all these actions and I have to go big. I’ve got to be on Instagram and TikTok and Facebook. The amount of effort when they think about making 100K or 200K, the amount of effort that they believe is required to make that happen feels so gigantic that they can’t imagine a to-do list that’s super simple and doesn’t take up all of their life and all of their energy.

And then they feel either resentful of it or they can’t even get started because it seems so big or they work themselves into the ground if they do get started. And because they’re so busy with that laundry list of to-do things, they’re not thinking about their thoughts. They’re not busy changing those as the first line of defense. Their thoughts about the marketing, their thoughts about their clients, their thoughts about themselves and their business, their thoughts about their value. Having that belief, you said it so simply.

But I want everyone listening to think about, do you on a daily basis, on a scale of one to ten, ten being the highest or ten being the most. How often do you feel the belief, I can help you radiating through your body? From your head to your toes, you feel it, literally you have the thought and it’s almost like you just drink tequila. You feel the warmth go all the way through your body. You feel that. How often does that happen? That’s the first line of defense.

That’s how you get a small action line is you take purposeful action and that feels like it will be enough because you’re so connected to your people, don’t you think?

Saren: Yeah. And it makes so much sense too why we would think that because we’re so conditioned that way. If we action and action and action then we’ll create results. And every level I get to, making 200K and now going to multiple six figures. past that. I have the same thought come up of I have to do a podcast now. I have to add all these things. And every level, my brain will say the same thing and I have to bring myself back to what works. Let’s remember what works.

And typically it’s a lot of thought work, a lot of feeling my feelings and taking really potent action on purpose but leaving out all the extra things. And I also had this thought one time of how it looks for me too is I remember I was sitting down to write a workshop. I was going to do a how to live your fairytale life workshop. And I was so excited about it. I knew exactly what I was going to teach. And I go to sit down to write it and I’m like, “I’m so ready to grind for my 200K.” I was going to make 200K that year. I’m like, “I’m so close.” It’s December of last year and I had all these thoughts about it.

And then I literally pause, I’m like, “Okay, I’m willing to grind for it. But am I willing to go live my life for it?” I hear people all the time say, “I would die for my kids.” But are we willing to live our best lives for our kids? And it kind of brought me back to that. And so I literally put a pause because I was trying to force myself into it. I was telling myself all the things I should be doing at the time. And instead I went and I pushed my daughter on the swing. And I had a couple of thoughts jump in. I’m like, “Maybe you should go back to that. You have free time.”

And I was like, “No, I’m going to enjoy my life.” And so we continued to enjoy our day. The next day I came back and I was ready to work on it. And in an hour and 45 minutes I had 17 posts and emails written and an entire hour and 45 minute workshop, the entire board ready. All the notes for it and 50 people signed up for it. I had about 20 to 30 people actually come. And then I signed three pay in full clients and made 30K in an hour and 45 minutes plus the time it took to teach it.

Stacey: That’s so great. I love that so much. This makes me think about the call we just had this week with 200K that I think would be worthy of kind of just expanding upon that. In 200K we’re doing the 25K in 30 day challenge. For those of you that don’t know, we do that once a round. And I should do a whole podcast just about why we do that. But one of the things that I told them, we went over, so at the live event they leave with their one sheet marketing plan which is a bullet point list of this is how I will get clients so that they’re never confused and they don’t know how they’re marketing.

And then I told them, “We’re going to do 25K in 30 day challenge. And then we’re going to review the marketing plans.” Because what happens when I introduce the 25K in 30 day challenge is all of a sudden it speeds people’s mind up and they want to add a bunch of stuff to their to-do list.

So I coached someone on I need to learn how to do a webinar. I’m going to launch a podcast. And one of the things I told her, I was like, “Okay, you could spend 30 days learning how to create a webinar and learning how to do a podcast and creating all this content. Or you can look at what has already worked for you in the past and maximize that.”

And I think that one of the things that people don’t do enough of, and this is an essentialist mindset, is you look at what has worked and then you say, “Okay, instead of adding more things that work, let me figure out of what’s already working, how could I 10X that? What’s already working? How could I be even better at that? How can I be bigger with that? How can I just put all of my energy into that instead of adding all these other things?”

Even my team when we went to do consult month they were like, “Have you considered TikTok?” And I’m like, “I could consider that in the future, but I don’t use TikTok now.” And my goal for consult month was, can I get people signing clients and making money from giving free value? Can I just infuse that with my audience and my current clients, can I just infuse coaching, enough of it for people to have a big bump in the month of October? And to believe that they could end the year in a bigger way than they intended.

So I could focus on what I already know, which is my podcast, my email list, my social media, Instagram and then we shared a Facebook. I could do that or I could learn some other thing that I’ve never done before ever and then try to build a following from there. I think you’re going to have so much more success.

And then my 200K students. My goal is that you all come in and you just keep maximizing and maximizing up until 200K so that you’re not having to constantly be adding things. And then your business all of a sudden is this complicated wheel that feels so out of control. And I think you’re just the perfect example of that of coming in, keeping things super simple, doing only what’s essential, being highly purposeful and making $200,000.

Saren: Yeah, I think too I give a lot of credit to how I used that circumstance for me on maternity leave. Because I could have thought that it was going to slow me down or that it was going to be a problem and to be able to use it for me. What I saw happen was I couldn’t blame it on my actions. One to two hours a month, sometimes a week wasn’t enough action to blame and create results from. It was enough to mix with my thoughts on who I was being and how I was feeling and the thoughts of service that I was having but it wasn’t enough on its own.

And we see that all the time with people who are like, “Well, then I’ll just slow down. I’ll just do one to two hours of work.” But if you don’t have the thoughts behind it, the action line really won’t be as potent. So my goal from the get-go was, I watched how potent my action line became very small, very potent. Knowing it was my thoughts, I had nothing else to blame. and giving myself that experience with that much patience. To be like, “Okay, this is a time period where I have no expectation of what I should be doing.” And I watched that work.

I invite a lot of other people in their businesses to give themselves a circumstance almost like that. Be patient enough not to over-action. Show yourself how simple it can be on purpose and then wait it out and see what it does. Because if you don’t, what you’re going to do is what you’re talking about is overcomplicating your business at every single level, because my brain still goes there. I have two lists of my marketing plan, one that has all the things that I thought I needed to do to make 300/400K. And a list of the essentials and the list of the essentials like you talk about are two, three, four things.

Stacey: Yeah, it’s so good. We should do that the next live event is, “Here’s the marketing plan that your brain thinks you need to make 200K. What is actually true? What is actually essential?” I mean, I find that to be true even at the multimillion dollar level for all of us as we make decisions and go bigger and bigger and bigger. We’re always having to be like, “Okay, wait, hold on. How do we rewind? How do we go back? How do we keep things simple?”

Your brain can really run away with you very, very quickly. Do you have an example that you can give them of a way that you maybe created more potent thoughts that then resulted in signing more clients?

Saren: I love that. I’ll talk about the ones that I’m working on more recently. And one of them is that it can work out better than I can imagine. And I shared this at the 200K event when I gave my thought for my 200K award. And I believe that even my failures are building me more than I could ever imagine. It’s all working for me more than I could ever imagine. And when I believe that about my failures.

For example, I had a launch for my first group ever and I had 15 spots and I did not sell 15. I sold a third of that and it was incredible. It could not have gone better. And this next launch I have 13 people on my waitlist and people are [inaudible] and they’re coming. It’s such a different energy. I had to learn so much about myself, about elevating my own self-concept. Believing I was a woman that could do something like that, holding a group that it wasn’t just for other people.

I had something so powerful with how I teach and talk about emotional wealth that people wanted it. And now my thoughts have gone from who am I to do this to a thought I’m believing currently is not that I’m the perfect person to do this. But I haven’t heard someone talk about emotional wealth in the way I do ever. And all the clients that came and paid me, they were like, “Tell me more.” They’re geeking out about emotional wealth. And I’m like, yes, “Same.” I didn’t realize so many women care this much about living their best lives.

And it was really incredible to watch. And so to see just my self-concept thoughts are a big one. Like I said, the relationship with my business, who am I to teach this was, I’m 26 years old. I was having so many thoughts about that in the beginning. And then I found most of my clients are young adults. They’re all coming to me wanting the same thing, wanting to build something, deciding to leave behind what was inauthentic to them, but that they thought was what they should be doing. And that gap and that transition, if you have emotional wealth on that path, it’s so much better.

Stacey: I love that so much. I have to just say this for everyone listening, if you are a young, and especially if you’re a young woman. My first coach that I hired was younger than me and she was about your age I think at the time. And I was a couple of years older so the gap wasn’t big. But then when I started, I had women that were twice my age hiring me. If I had gone into that with what do I have to offer them, I would have never signed them. And I’m sure that they had some degree.

I remember one of them may have even told me that, “What’s this girl going to teach me?” But then whenever I spoke, they were like, “Whoa, okay, that right there.” I just believed I have the model, I have this ability. That version of emotional wealth, I’ve told the story so many times. But I just remember it being winter in Michigan and me looking at my negative bank account not knowing what I was going to do about lunch, how I was going to get money. And I remember thinking I have the ability to choose my thoughts about this situation.

I have my ability to have a good day today. Today does not have to be a terrible day. I can go in and sell a lot and know that money is coming in, in the future. I can go make this day purposeful. I think I was launching some kind of six week group $25 low end offer to try to sell my one-on-one coaching. And I was like, “I can go out and post about this offer. I can talk about this offer. I have so many opportunities to move forward.” And then I had this thought, you know what? This is a powerful thing I have here.

I could literally live in a box and choose my thoughts and feelings and feel okay. People have got to have this ability, they’ve got to have this. And so when you have some version of that, whatever tool you have, whether you’re certified or not, when you’re like, “I have something that I can teach people.” It doesn’t matter how old you are, what your current life circumstances are.

It just matters that you could be daring enough to have a self-concept about yourself, that’s, I have something that is valuable to other people. And I feel really strongly that people want this value and I’m going to go after it. It’s so great.

Saren: I think too the skill that we talked about in, I think it was the Cabo live event, which is how to have your own back. What to do when things aren’t going well. And I think that that skill alone is what creates resiliency. And when you’re resilient, I believe resiliency is what creates abundance.

Your ability to feel and process any emotion, have your own back makes you so much more willing to take new opportunities or to talk to the next person. Or to say the thing on the consult or whatever it is that is keeping you from your next level of growth or your next income goals. And when you are that resilient, you create a lot of magnetism to you and people are like, “I want that too. I want to be able to do something hard and be okay.” Because if you really think about it, yes, we want to hit our goals, but we mostly want to be able to have our own back while we do it.

Stacey: I 100% agree. That makes me think of when I was building my business and my account was negative. I’m literally recording videos for this little group that I did for six weeks in the Super 8 motel. I’m sitting in the bed and there’s a background of a painting, but it’s a Super 8 hotel.

Saren: So good. You should post that sometime.

Stacey: I’ll have to find it. I think it’s probably on YouTube somewhere. But I remember being in a Microtel and filming a video, and my heart is broken. I’ve recently been just broken up with, humiliated, cheated on, all the things. I’m feeling absolutely terrible about myself. And I do remember one time I was crying on a bed of a hotel. Bare was so worried about me. He got in bed with me. And I just literally thought I might actually die from heartbreak. The feeling was so bad, I might have a heart attack and actually die.

And it’s at this period of my life where that resiliency that you’re talking about, every day I had to literally wake up and hold on to that resilience, grab on to that resilience. Whether it was, I used to have to work in Michigan and my heart got so heartbroken there. That I would drive across the Michigan line and have panic attacks, real visceral bodily reactions. And I would go stay with my friend and just cry on her bathroom floor and she would just be holding me.

And it was finding those moments where I could just pull myself up just a little and keep going. And every time I did that I learned a little bit more about my strength and then I would go post about it. So it wasn’t, I was living this glamorous Instagram life that I think we see and we’re like, “That’s it, that’s what people want.” It’s got to be this glamorous Insta reel of all of my European travels this summer. Instead of, I have to just go out in the world and show up and show people what it’s like to pick yourself up off the ground.

So many of my posts were, I would post India Arie. So I was just India Arie for an entire year. It’s all I listened to, all of her soulful songs and I would post the lyrics. She has one called Break the Shell. And I would post all the different lyrics about it and people responded. I attracted a ton of clients who also were in a lot of pain and they were suffering in their life. But what I was showing them was exactly what you just said. I was showing them resilience.

They didn’t even see my after. It’s not like they knew I was going to get married and make millions of dollars and have a baby and have a beautiful home and travel the world. They didn’t know that that was about to happen. What they saw was just me picking myself up off the ground and choosing to keep going. And I think that you’re 100% right, people want that. People want that as much as all the other things. They want to be able to go through the hard stuff and feel like I can do this and I can survive this. And you will sign just as many clients that way than living some big, fabulous life.

Saren: So good. I love this too because we talk often about the high value and the low value cycles. And oftentimes the low value cycles, I love how you said this too in the live event. You’re like, “Low value cycles, they get a bad reputation and the high value cycles are what we’re all trying to be in.” It’s kind of, we’re like, “This is the X we’re trying to leave. This is where we’re trying to go.” And what I believe is it’s the transition between having a low value cycle, the transition between the two before you even get to the high value cycle.

That is what creates so much value for us and our clients. And so it’s the transition between. We need both and that’s what I mean by resiliency. It’s the transition between the two. It’s not just high value thinking. I was having this happen for my next launch and even this podcast actually, I was getting nervous about it. I just said, No, you’ll be fine. You’re always fine. You’re articulate, it’ll be fine.” And I was like, “But what if I’m not articulate?” I was like, “It’ll be fine. It’ll be fine.”

And I would just try to keep myself in a high value cycle instead of looking at, okay, what am I actually concerned about? What am I worried about? And I was having a thought, this is my one chance to be on the podcast rather than I’ll have plenty of chances even with my own podcast to share about emotional wealth. I don’t have to share it all in one hour. And just to give myself that freedom felt so much better.

And so that was an example of me trying to just push it away and just high value myself out of it. It wasn’t actually high value. I got way more value looking at where I was at and being like, “Yeah, of course I’m scared of that.” And I get to add whatever I want to think about this too, and mix it into the low value that I was in. And then now we’re here, it’s just such a better experience.

Stacey: I love that. Okay, for all the 200K students listening and for everyone else listening, when you’re from a low value cycle. I need to do a podcast about low value and high value cycles. I don’t think I have yet, but when you’re going from a low value cycle to a high value cycle, the in between is where the value is for your clients. Yes, I 100% agree. I think people pay you for the knowledge and experience and wisdom from all of your low value cycles.

And the pathway from your in between, that going from a low to a high. And then they also pay you for what your thinking and behavior is in those high value cycles as well. But it’s the whole package, the entire package you have is valuable and beneficial to your clients. So good.

So I have another question for you, curious what your answer will be. What would you say if I said, “Explain to someone what emotional wealth is when it comes to business, when it comes to being a life coach?” So I have lots of thoughts about this being a life coach, making money, running a business, what would you define in that scenario as emotional wealth? How would someone know that they had it?

Saren: So good. So I think our society puts a lot of attention on the income on the money first, and as value, high value. And then I think that they value time really high. So it’s high time value. And the last one that I say has value but what I think is the most important is the actual energy and emotional capacity to enjoy those two things. And that’s what I think emotional wealth is.

And so when you think about running your business, you don’t only want the time, you don’t only want the money. Yes, those two things are important as well. But what you really want is this ability to enjoy those things, to enjoy your life. To know what’s really in integrity to you and make those decisions for yourself rather than doing what you imagine everyone else thinks you should be doing. And when you start with that emotional resiliency, capacity, wealth, the other two follow.

And that’s what I did with my maternity leave is I focused there and created so much more time freedom than I could ever imagine to the point where my husband’s like, “What if you did work 40 hours a week, what do you think you could accomplish?” And I was like, “I think I’d waste a lot of time.” I really do. I don’t know if I would actually be productive in those hours because I need the recharge. I need the ability to go to the beach and play mermaids and do all the things that I do in my day.

Stacey: Yeah, so good. I love that so much and I totally agree with you. I think about this all the time and I try to say it a million different ways and I think you’ve even maybe said this before earlier in the episode. We can’t forget that we got into this because we’re life coaches. And typically if you became a life coach, the way you became a life coach is you have a story like yours and like mine.

You have a story of you got some version of emotional wealth, whether you lost weight or you saved your marriage or whatever it is. You just got a hold of your brain, got rid of anxiety, you experienced emotional wealth. And then when you decided to be an entrepreneur, you decided I want time and money freedom. I want to play by my own rules. And what I really want is to create a job situation that fosters this emotional freedom that I want to have access to all of the time. And I believe if I’m in charge and that I’m coaching other people, I will get that.

I will have this ability to stay in this feeling I feel when I’m being coached all the time. And then, for whatever reason, we start thinking about selling and marketing and hitting goals and making money and we forget all of the life coaching things. And then we start obsessing over hitting goals and making more and more money. And we forget, wait, wait, hold on, why did you get into business? Why did you want to be here? And I really do think I have held onto that really, really hard.

There’s been so many opportunities, especially over the last year where I could easily let go of that as a priority. And for me, I built this because I wanted to be able to experience my life with my children in a different way than if I have been working for someone else. And so it’s constantly reminding yourself, wait, why did I get in this business? Why did I become a life coach? And then why did I want to become an entrepreneur? And can I make sure I always maintain those things as I grow?

Again, you’re just putting in the result line, I want this and I want this. I want to have both of these. I want to have a business that doesn’t run me into the ground. I want to have a business that gives me freedom as I grow. The other thing that I will add, because I’ve had so many people, as I hit 10 million and as I set bigger and bigger goals. Some people have lots of positive thoughts about that, but a lot of people have negative thoughts.

I’ve walked across the $10 million stage and was not prepared for the level of discontent that would run through about that. People were very, very unhappy. And one of the things I’ve been thinking about is the misunderstanding. The comments that I hear are, “She just wants money now, that’s all she cares about is money. It’s just everything’s a money grab for her.” And it’s either they’re not experiencing that or they misunderstand that in their own growth.

For me, if there’s any kind of grab, it’s my future self, grab. When I think about who I’m going to become from a low value cycle into a high value cycle. When I think about taking on that journey, I know everything you’ve said on this podcast. I know I’m going to have to change my self-concept to get somewhere bigger. I know I’m going to have to change the way I think about marketing, sales, my clients, myself, my time. I’m going to have to change everything about the way that I see the world. I’m going to have to change my thoughts about money.

I’m literally going to become someone different. And I think about that as I want the opportunity to live as many lives as possible in this one lifetime, become as many different versions of myself as possible. And I do see this version of me at $30 million that is so much wiser, so much more experienced, calmer, more purposeful. I just see a vision of her where I’m like, “I see the things I struggle with now, she’s figured out. That’s the only way she got there.”

And I think that if the money and the time isn’t attractive, consider the person, the person that becomes more successful or reaches a different level. That person there’s so much, I believe, on the other side of $30 million is a more emotionally wealthy person as well. I have so much evidence. I’m like, “I know if I solve this, this and this, I’m also going to have to solve this, this and this.” Just all the business stuff, I’m going to have to solve the brain stuff first. So how can I not become more emotionally wealthy as I make more money?

Saren: Yeah, I’m a big fan of entrepreneurship because it becomes a catalyst for that brain development if you let it be. And you are putting yourself in situations where you have to be really brave and you have to be really resilient. And you’re giving yourself these opportunities that really catapult that type of growth for your brain. And the number one thing I see that keeps people from living their dreams and I watch this even with my own clients, that they think that if I have this, I have to lose what I love with this.

For example, one of my clients is like, “If I start my yoga business then I’m not going to have enough time freedom to be with my husband and start a family.” Or this other one was like, “I want to travel the world but I’m scared I won’t be able to date anymore.” And just this fear of I don’t want to leave my corporate job because I love it, but I also want to start this cool cookbook project on the side and the different things.

Every single one of them had a reason of, I don’t want to give up what’s so good in my life now in pursuit of more alignment and that freedom. And I love just inviting women to know you can have both, that’s just conditioned. We were just taught one or the other. We watch examples of one or the other for a lot of our lives. And we can change that. We can bring both with us, that development exactly who you want to become.

You can have that in the R line, you can have it. And it’s not only possible, but it’s actually simpler because it feels more in alignment, meaning you’re feeling more purposeful. It’s taking up less of your energy because it feels really fueling and you get to steward your energy that way. So it doesn’t actually cost more, it gives more.

Stacey: That’s so good. You said brain development, entrepreneurship is great for brain development. And it’s so interesting you say that because I just had this thought, which is going to be really eerie. But I was thinking I’m solving some problems operationally in my business right now. Over the last year we’ve been really just, it’s like nothing anyone would see necessarily on the outside but so much change on the inside. And it’s been a really hard year. And I feel like this year has been solving a Rubik’s Cube that is endless, you just never find all the sides.

And my brain has had to work very, very hard. And I had this thought, it may be helpful for other people too. So in my family, dementia and Alzheimer’s runs pretty big. All the women get it. And one of the ways that they say to combat that is to always be activating your brain. And so just like you want to keep a healthy body as you age, which is all the women in my family, their bodies break down too. So I’m always like, “How do I keep my body from not breaking down?” That’s a huge priority for me. And then how do I keep my brain sharp?

And so then I’ve been thinking, the more I push it to solve things that it doesn’t know how to solve for, the healthier it will be and the longer I might have access to it. And to me, if you don’t have access to your brain, what’s the point? Your body’s physically here, but you aren’t. And I watched that happen with my grandmother. At the end of her death, she was literally in a nursing home. She had to have 24/7 care.

And they had to literally strap her into her chair because she would go try to hurt herself or other people. She was gone. The only person she remembered was my great grandfather. And it was such a painful thing to watch that happen and it’s really fueled my belief in this, this idea of also what I get when I shoot for big things and I try to solve the Rubik’s Cube of going from 10 to 30 million while also working three days a week when I try to solve that. I also think this is also keeping my brain sharp for my entire life.

I think if I ever choose an end point where I’m just not trying to solve problems and figure it out, that’s an opportunity for my brain to get lazy, for my brain to stop engaging in a way that will keep it healthy. So we’ve got to exercise our brains at the same levels as we exercise our bodies.

Saren: So good. I think that’s my favorite part of 200K is the emphasis on okay, let’s strategize. Let’s problem solve. Let’s use our brain the way it’s meant to be used and come up with solutions. This is awesome. It’s not a problem. And that emphasis, I just think it’s so healthy and so healing for a lot of us that are spinning in something. And it’s like okay, let’s problem solve. You have that ability. And I think that’s where resiliency really comes into play.

Stacey: Wait, hold on. You just said something really brilliant. Okay, I want everybody to hear this. Stop and listen if you’re driving, whatever you’re doing. If you are spinning in your head, how you get out of it is you just stop and you think about solving the problem. You walk through the problem, you actually get to a solution. The spinning is, I don’t want to feel the problem. The problem feels bad. I don’t want to feel this feeling.

So I’m just going to keep spinning instead of let me actually think about the problem, assert three theories as to what I think could be why we got here. And then start taking action on them. And in the taking of the action, you can’t be spinning because you’re actively future focused. So good.

Saren: When I look at a low value model for myself or my clients, often they’ll say, “I’m just questioning this and I’m asking this.” I’m like, “But are you answering it?” And the answer is usually no. We’re just spinning in the questions and we’re not actually answering them. That question I had earlier of, who am I to do this? I never once was like, “Let’s ask that. Let’s answer, why am I the person that can do this?” I never answered it in the low value.

Stacey: That’s so good. So you have to answer your own questions that you’re spinning in. Yeah, somebody messaged me on Instagram recently. And she was saying, maybe it was on Instagram, I don’t remember. But something about, “I want to leave my job.” I don’t remember all the scenarios, but it was like, “I want to leave my job and I’m not sure about posting on social media because then people will see me at my job. They’ll know that I’m building a business.” And she’s like, “So should I just build my business off social media?” She was spinning in some form of this.

And I said, “Well, I think you have two solutions. You could build it off social media, lots of people have. Or you could create a profile name, a business name that isn’t your name and serve people and give people that you meet that thing.” It could be health coaching for moms or it could be something that doesn’t have your name attached so your people wouldn’t necessarily find that unless they knew your business name. But it was just off the cuff. I’m like, “Here’s two solutions. These are both available.”

And I think it’s so powerful for us to do that instead of just spinning. I wonder how long I hadn’t responded to her that she would have sat in, I don’t know how to move forward versus what are the options for me to move forward. And then of these options, which one feels like the right one right now in this moment? Let me start there.

Saren: So good. I remember two years ago asking my one-to-one coach, “Does it ever get easier? And is this going to always just be problem after problem after problem?” I’m like, “In business I thought like there was going to be like a shiny rainbow and a pot of gold. I thought it would just come easier and not take as much of the mental and emotional regulation.”

And she’s like, “Do you want it to though, do you want it to end? Think about what your life would actually be like if you didn’t have hard, if you didn’t have challenge, if you didn’t have strategy and problem solving. What would that be like? And think about watching yourself in a movie, what would it be like to watch yourself not go through anything hard.” And at first I was like, “I don’t want to clearly bring conserving energy, avoiding the discomfort and seeking pleasure. Of course, it doesn’t want to.”

But now I have the mindset that the hard is the best part. The hard work, the things not going well builds me more than anything. My launch that sold a third or even I think it was a quarter of what I was imagining, built me more than I could have ever imagined. And my husband’s like, “Well, would you go back and change anything?” I’m like, “No, I learned so much. I’m going to change things futurely, but I have no regret because of how much the hard builds me.”

And I think that that mindset also makes it way more fun. And if you’re having more fun, your brain is way more on board. It’s like, “Let’s go. Let’s do that.” And seeking that pleasure, I think is really helpful. So, making it fun in some way or making it purposeful or valuable to your brain because your brain’s so willing to do something hard if it knows it’ll be valuable or purposeful.

And so those are my three go-to’s. If I can make this hard thing feel purposeful, valuable or pleasurable in some way or all three, then I’m going to get my primitive and subconscious brain more on board. And I’m going to create the new habits that I want to have.

Stacey: So good. I just am stuck in, I’m not even sure I heard what you just said. I’m so stuck in imagining your life without hard and challenges. I’m going to go run into that right after this call. I’ve got to really sit and think about that, what would it be like? It’s so good. That is a brilliant question. I’ll have to go back to listen to everything else you just said.

Saren: So good. It’s again, just we’re so conditioned to believe the hard can’t be the best part, the hard is the worst part, the part that we dread. But if it can be the best part, if it’s the part that makes our movie so interesting and our life so rich, when we think about emotional wealth. It’s the ability to feel the full range so that it feels really rich and really delicious to us.

Stacey: So good. It makes me think of every movie that you see, there’s some character that goes through a challenge. And then the challenge really puts them down. And they wallow in the challenge until they rise up. And then where the movie gets really good is when they’re executing the rise up. And then it ends always with typically with some happy ending for most movies, especially romcoms and things like that.

And I’m thinking about that because I have had this stack of books forever in my office. And I told my husband, I just came out with them today and I was like, “I’m reading all these books by the end of the year. I really want to tackle the stuff inside of them. I really want to go. I’m in the zone right now.” I feel like all of this year up until now, we’ve been solving so many problems that it’s felt just, not that we haven’t been moving forward, but it’s felt heavy. It’s felt like just almost that thing of, when are we going to be out of this? This year was rough.

And then I’m now, just now I’m like, “Oh, my God, I’m feeling alive from this.” I’m feeling the possibility of this shift. I’m feeling really excited to move forward. I’m seeing the turnaround. I am seeing who I’m becoming on the other side. I’m seeing the value of all of this. I’m seeing the benefit that all my clients are going to get. It’s just kind of ripple effecting and so my energy is so much different. And I do think sometimes we don’t realize how long a low value cycle could last or how long you could be in transition.

This year feels just like a year of, in transition between a low and a high. And every once in a while I get that high and then I’m back in the transition. But I’m feeling more and more like I’m in a high value cycle every single day. And I do think it’s really interesting to think about, who would you be without the challenges and then how could you make the hard be really, really juicy and really, really good?

And even the question is really, who do you want to be really, really proud of? What’s the version of you that’s in the hard that you will be really, really proud of? How do you think? How does it feel for you, not for other people to see you but for you, how does it feel for you that makes you really, really, really proud that you stood up to that, that you came to play. This is such a good conversation.

Saren: So good. I had an experience recently where I’m living in my dream house, the sun just came up over the mountain and you can see it all over. But literally beautiful Green Mountain of Hawaii just right behind me, five minutes from the beach, a gorgeous white sand, gorgeous beach. And I have made multiple six figures in my business annually. And my husband and I, so much romance, so much love. My daughter, she could not be more perfect. Life is going amazingly.

And I was thinking, I’ve peaked or almost this thought, it can’t get better than this. And it felt, let me tell you, so unalive, so almost, not dead inside but it just felt so incongruent. And I logically know, I want another baby. I want to make $1 million by the time I’m 30. I have actual goals and things that I’m achieving. But because I felt so actually sufficient at this level, I realized that that thought wasn’t serving me, it can’t get better than this. And so I love how you just said that you were feeling alive in the challenge.

And so then I went through more challenge and we had, my brother-in-law passed away and I started my group and it didn’t launch exactly the way I wanted, but it was still extraordinary. And I was like, “I’m feeling alive and purposeful because I know where I’m going.” And that thought, I know where I’m going felt so much better than can’t get better than this. The challenge really was what fueled me and made me feel alive compared to, well, if this is all that life is, what’s the point?

That was just such an interesting experience that I never thought I would get to, and I never thought I’d get to a point where I was like, “I crave the hard so that I feel alive.

Stacey: So good, I love that, the hard it can make you feel alive. So good. Okay, so we’re at time. I’m curious when you were thinking, I know you said you were thinking about this podcast and you had so much you wanted to talk about as people do when they’re going to be on the podcast. Is there anything we didn’t cover that you think my audience, the coaches listening, needs to hear from your story?

Saren: There’s one thought that I’ve been practicing recently and it’s been incredible and it’s the thought that the universe is working behind the scenes in my favor. So if you’re taking the approach of, I’m going to do less but create more, believing that you’re supported in a lot of miraculous ways. I remember my daughter was sick, my husband was out of town. I had some things I had to do in my business, but with a sick daughter, I was like, “I’m going to have to just turn this down a little bit in my workload.”

And I was having a thought, how am I going to launch my launch if I can’t write things up ahead of time and actually do the launching process? And then I had the thought I’m like, “But things are working out behind the scenes in my favor.” Turns out my husband’s like, “I met this girl and she would love to work with you”, on his work trip that he was on. Or my mom called me, she’s like, “Hey, the university that I’m getting my PhD wants you to come speak.” I was like, “Oh, cool.” Things just kept coming out of the blue.

And I was like, “When you live your life believing, you find so much evidence that it’s all working out behind the scenes in your favor.” And I’ve watched that happen in every area of my life. I’ve shared that with my clients, with my group program. We did an in person live event and we did things that typically, we released baby sea turtles. And typically that’s a group of 50 people that go and do that on the shores of Mexico. And we had a group of us, six of us. So it was not 50 people. I’m like, “How in the world did we get the one day that they don’t have 50 people here?”

And so we got to not only release all of the baby sea turtles by ourselves, but also help protect a new nest. And we had such an extraordinary experience. And afterwards one of my clients was like, “It was so cool to watch this thought that you’re having in action. So now I know I can believe that thought and watch it happen in action.”

So I just would love to invite all of us and all of the listeners, all of the coaches to believe what is being talked about behind the scenes, how are they selling themselves on you without you even knowing? How is it all happening behind the scenes while you’re doing less and creating more?

Stacey: So good. I love that so much. Thank you so much for sharing that. Okay, how do people reach out to you if they want to follow you and hear more about what you have to say? Do you have a website? You mentioned a podcast, I don’t know if it’s started yet, Instagram. How do they find you? We’ll link it up in the show notes.

Saren: Yes, I live on Instagram, so the best spot would be coming to find me on Instagram at Saren S-A-R-E-N E-A-D-S, Saren Eads. And there you can find my website where you can get more information on my group program or also my one-to-one coaching. And podcast coming soon probably Q2 of next year. We’ll see when it comes out but keeping it simple for now but cannot wait to do more of these.

Stacey: Oh, so fun. Well, thank you so much for coming on. This was such a good conversation, I know my listeners are going to love it. And I’m going to go sit and think about what my life would be like if there was no hard and no challenges. Such a good question. Thank you so much.

Saren: Such a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Stacey: Okay. Bye.

Hey, if you are ready to make money as a life coach, I want to invite you to join my 2K for 2K program where you’re going to make your first 2,000 the hardest part and then 200,000 using my proven formula. It’s risk free, you either make your 2K or I give you your 2K back. Just head over to www.staceyboehman.com/2kfor2k. We’ll see you inside.