Hey, Hey, Hey podcast fam today's episode is going to be a little different. I was asked a really powerful question in my Facebook group. If you're not in there, I highly recommend getting inside. I show up in there every single day, giving support. I go live in there. I sell in there. All the juiciness. You can ask questions, you can share your business, you can sell, like we play our own roles inside of that Facebook group. So I highly recommend getting inside. And I was asked a question, I've asked some personal stuff, and I know as a business mentor, coach and leader, the transparency and the realness behind the business, the good, the bad, the ugly. Really needs to be talked about. And if you've been in my world for a while, or especially inside of my Facebook group, you've seen me talk about this stuff a bit in written posts. I haven't done any audio really on this. I've kind of touched on it in podcast episodes, but today we're going to get into the nitty gritty, uh, really mastering the duality of. Going through a shit storm in here, personal life. There's really no other way to save that or put that and having your business grow, expand show up for your clients, hold space for other people and still reach your goals because that was really my 2021. Um, I think so many of us had a really. Interesting 2021. I don't want to sit here and put a label on 2020 was hard. I think it was hard for some people. I think it was some people's best year ever. Like I don't really have that many emotions toward 2021. My biggest reflection on that year is it taught me so much. Literally so, so much, it was a difficult year personally, and we're going to dive into that. Um, but I learned a lot. It was really a year and a season, or I needed to just learn some shit. And I'm going to pour that into you guys today. I'm going to read through the question. I was asked all the facets of it, and then we're just going to riff. I don't have any notes for today's episode. So I'm trusting that whatever I'm meant to guide you through teach you, give you today is exactly what you need. So I was asked Michelle, I would love to hear all things personal, obviously, whatever you're comfortable sharing, specifically, how you consistently show up in your power with all the family stuff you've been dealing with. Moving Excentra. If I hadn't read your post in this Facebook group, I would have had zero idea how much you went through in 2021. You're so incredibly strong and show up consistently and really great energy. I would love to know practically how do you do this? Like if you had client calls all day and then you've got a really upsetting phone call in between them, what do you do? I've struggled in the past with allowing emotions to overwhelm me and struggled to show up online during these super stressful events. Yeah. And so we're going to dive right in and I'm not going to hold anything back and I'm going to be really transparent with you guys here. And I've said this before in other episodes, especially when I talk about vulnerability, you've heard me talk about this and teach on this. When it comes to personal stuff. A lot of like my personal family ish, I don't really share on Instagram and the reason or my public Facebook. And the reason for that is because my family's on there. And so anything that's not directly mine to share, that's like my feelings from my point of view. It's my story. I don't share on those public platform. The last thing I want to do is hurt other people. And so I am very mindful of where I'm vulnerable. I'm very vulnerable here on this podcast as we're going to dive into today. And I'm very vulnerable in my Facebook group. So if you want to see that and be engulfed in all the things, I want to know more about me personally, and the things I just don't share on instance. During my Facebook group, because you're going to see it all inside of there. Again, the link is in the show notes, you can get inside there and learn all the things and be in all the things and be in the know. So in 2020. Couple of things happened. My mom found out that her cancer came back. Um, and honestly I'm not really an emotional forward person. You might gather that you might not. Um, I hate crying. I know it's good for you, but I don't love it. And being honest, when I found out that news, it rocked me to my core. Like literally my sister told me on the phone. Fell on a bathroom floor and cried there for probably two hours with cons sitting next to me, having no idea why I'm crying. Like I literally couldn't even say it out loud. So we found this out about mid summer. We found this news out and then a little while after maybe about a month or so after. My dad was admitted to a hospital and was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. And again, my world was rocked and in the midst of all of that, Rewind a little bit in the beginning of 2021, we have moved from, we were living in Miami for three months, three months, three years lived in the beautiful sunshine state, sunshine city for three years. And we made the exciting yeah, hard decision. It was hard. It wasn't easy to leave Miami and buy a house in New Jersey, which is closer to family. And so we dealt with a really big move in the beginning of 2021, which was amazing. And I so grateful still to this day for our beautiful home, we built a new home. The business bought us this home, and that's probably another podcast. If you guys want to hear how my business bought this home, feel free to message me. And I will definitely create a whole episode on how I was able to do that with my business. But with that move came. Life changes. And it was a hard adjustment for me, especially at first, because my life was different in Miami. My friendships were different. The things we did were different, things were more accessible. I mean, you're in a big city and then we moved to. South Jersey, which were by the water, but it is, it is much slower pace down here than it is in Miami. And so that was something we, I was navigating early on in 2021, trying to find my place and my groove in a new town, in a new state, everything, even though we're closer to family, we're still about two hours away. And so it still was finding our group. So we had that happen. Then we got the news about mom. Then we got the news about dad all in the midst of trying to plan oh, wedding during a pandemic it's like 20, 21. What was really kind of just like the perfect storm of navigating. That's really what it was in the best way that I can sum that year up. It was just. K here's another curve ball and what are we going to do with this? Right. So while moving to answer that first question, I'm like, how do you handle business, make money? Do the things show up while you're in a move? Let's be real. Moving is one of the most stressful things that you can do in your life. Personally, what I did, I planned what I was selling. And I showed up and I sold it while I was moving. I'm a firm believer that you don't need to be on 24 hours a day to make money. And I think that's something that we need to let go of, especially as we're heading into 2022, I didn't really stress about the move in the sense of like what's going to happen in my business when we move, because nothing needs to happen. I, my income doesn't need to go anywhere. People can still find me. People can still pay me. I can sell on the DMS. Nothing really changed. I actually made, I'll never forget. We were at the best buy buying her washer and dryer, and I was selling find your fierce. At the time I made $4,000 cash, literally standing in the best by sending invoices to people. And I share that with you because I was stressed from the sense of moving. It was a shit show. We didn't have a refrigerator, we didn't have food. We didn't couldn't cook anything. Every meal was being eaten out. We had no furniture for like a week. We had no wifi for a month. It was a shit. But I could still make money because I had a hotspot on my phone and I could be on Instagram without Wi-Fi. So it really, in those moments, the biggest piece of advice I could give is breathe and realize like, it doesn't need to be perfect. It can be so messy and make zero sense and you can still make money, just know what you're selling and show up for the thing that. Those two things know what you're selling and show up for the thing that you're selling in the midst of the chaos of your life. Because again, moving was wild and I was also able to share that experience with my community. I think you guys will love seeing our house, our move, our drive from Florida to New Jersey. I took you guys a long and I also sold, and I also looked at that life experience. Took pieces from it of what's relative to what I'm doing right now. And how can I incorporate this in my marketing to the thing that I'm selling? Yeah. So that's something I would pour into you it's like really allow yourself to let your messiness, your chaos. That is life sometimes. Be the thing that makes you make money and don't try and get it perfect. Like it's never going to be perfect. And I think that we sometimes think that when we a perfect calendar, the perfect schedule, or when I'm on my a game, that's what I'm going to make money. And personally, I feel like when I'm like less obsessed with my business and I'm more busy in my personal life and I don't have time to worry, I make more. 'cause I'm just like doing my thing. I'm showing up and selling and I'm trusting. It's going to work out. And of course it is, I'm showing up for the thing, I'm doing the thing, but I'm also outsourcing of like outsource to the universe. God source, whatever you believe in, like now we're going to work together and we're going to do this thing. Like here I did the action, bring the people. So really that was like that whole move in that whole, for lack of better words, like the whole experience of moving. Honestly, I think moving stressful. Do I want to do it again anytime soon? No, but what I do it and not freak about freak out about what's gonna happen in the business. Yeah. Like nothing's going to happen. I can still make thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars, no matter what I'm doing. And that's a standard I want to point to you literally, no matter what you're doing, you can make money, Netflix and chilling. I always joke with con that I make the most money when I'm sitting on the couch. It's so true. My app, my apple watch always goes off. Payment came through payment, came through and I'm like, literally I'm doing nothing, doing nothing. I'm like watching friends for like the 15th time and I'm making money. And like, that's what I want to just pour into you because like, life is messy. We're messy. Stop trying to make it perfect. And like sell the thing, know what you're selling show up and sell the thing, but it doesn't need to be incessant and it doesn't need to be perfect. And you don't need to be on. Now with dealing, dealing, dealing with family stuff and the stuff that's more personal and heart wrenching and emotional that this was really like my first time navigating that outside of a family death two years ago. And so while running my business, of course, we've all encountered. Devastating things in our life. But if I really were to look at my business, you know, in the last five years, we've been very blessed, um, in our lives. And we haven't really had to deal with this tough stuff up until this year. Last year, now that we're in 2022, still adjusting, uh, up until 2021, I didn't really have to navigate this stuff. And so for me, navigating and showing up in the midst of. Hardship and emotions and uncertainty. I'm going to be honest here, having something else to put my mind energy thoughts. Actions to is exactly what I needed. And so for me, focusing on the business, knowing my mom was about to start chemo or my, both my parents were in the hospital. Of course I would take the ample time and I call them FaceTime them, saw them when we were able to see them because COVID and all of that stuff. And I've got lots of siblings. So we're all taking our turns and the family group chats going off. But for me sitting there and harping and obsessing and overthinking about what's going to happen to them, wasn't the answer, right? Like that wasn't going to make them better in that moment. And so all I could do was run the business. Right. And so for me personally, the way in which I navigated that was really taking my emotions. Out of running the business and what I mean by that, not like that. I didn't care about what I was doing in the business, but what I mean by that was I was really able to compartmentalize of like, I knew what was going on with mom and dad. I was able to, I answer every phone call, move my schedule around when needed all of those things I was doing. But I was also able to still show up in my business because really what else would I have done in those moments? Me sitting by my phone, waiting for it, to ring me, pacing the house and driving myself crazy. Wasn't going to do anything. It really wasn't. And so this is where, and I've talked about this on other episodes, not this in particular, but like 2021 was really a year of me honoring, showing up in my business. How. I wanted to show up and really how that was going to work for me. And if you look at 2021, and if you follow me closely or followed me closely throughout that year, you'll notice on my story. I talk a hell of a lot less than I ever did, especially in 2021. And what I mean by that was my face. Wasn't really on stories a whole ton every single day or every single week. Of course you see me and there's photos of me and I take selfies and I put texts on them and I have photo shoots and I talk to you and I do lives and masterclasses, and you've got my podcasts. There's so many ways you're audibly hearing and seeing. But most of the time, I wasn't on stories, physically talking and selling, because guess what? In last year in those phone calls and seasons, and really emotional times, I didn't have the bandwidth to do that, but I did have the bandwidth to sell and create content. And I had creativity and I think to say, And programs that were coming. Cause I knew I had to bring out the program. This is going to change so many lives. I'm going to still move forward with the things that I'm doing and the things that we planned, things didn't stop, but things changed. So that's something I want to pour into you is I don't believe things need to stop, but I think things can change based on what's happening in your life. So for me, I I'm right now, you guys know this, I am the breadwinner of our family. So me stepping back and not making money would only have made me more stressed would have only made me freak the fuck out in simple terms. So me doing what I do best run my business. Help women create the most ultimate success in their businesses, help women make money, have money, save recurring revenue, all of it. I needed that. I needed that to stay sane. And so for me, it was really. Staying in my lane, staying in my power, giving myself permission to be powerful and show up and do the things I plan to do while dealing with hardship on the backend. I think so often we go through hard things and then we like make ourselves feel guilty for the moments that we are. Maybe not feeling sad. Or we're not crying about it, or we're not like moping around about it. I also know my parents didn't want that for us, for their kids. And here's the thing. Like my sisters, none of them are business owners. They all have full-time jobs. They all still went to work. So what was I going to do to sit around and do nothing? My business is a job. It's my business, but it also pays the bills. So I'm going to show up for that responsibility, just like my sisters go to their nine to five. While we're still navigating everything that's going on in our family. And so that's something I just want to pour into you. Is hardships going to happen 1000%? I wish I could sit here and say, we're going to escape it. But if I learned anything in 2021, life is fucking short. It is so short. And I want you to live your life to the fullest. I want you to take risk. I want you to show up when you don't want to show. I want you to get the fuck out of your way and do it your way. And that's really what this last year was for me was I had to navigate and do it my way. And no one else could have figured that out for me, except for me, of course, I had incredible mentors and they supported me through this and they held space for me. And one of my mentors, she literally said me. 99% of business owners. Michelle cannot do what you're doing, the duality of going through so much and then still running a wildly successful business. That's growing and scaling. And I think for me, if I can give you anything from this, for me, it was giving myself permission to be fucking powerful and not give myself grief or guilt myself for showing up. Putting out my magic into the world while dealing with tough stuff, because walking around sad all day everyday, wasn't going to help anything. And so I had to do what was best for me in those moments, of course, being there for my family undeniably this past year. And that's why we moved back to New Jersey and we're so blessed and grateful that we were, we are here, we were here and I mean, it's all still happening. And you know, even as we're in 2022, I'm still navigating all of it. And my schedule changes as needed, but that's the point of being a business owner. If I need to take a week off of calls, I can take a week off of calls, but that doesn't mean I can't sell this move things around. I think we put so much pressure on if the week or the schedule or the day things have to move. And we're not perfect and talking to work out, but that's just not, it is that why you became a business owner? I don't have a boss. I'm the boss. And if my mom says, Hey, would you mind coming up north and come and take me to the doctor today? You better believe I'm going up north and taking her to the doctor and moving my calls around because that's why I created my own. And that was something I overly felt and learned in 2020. One of like, this is why I'm my own boss. And I'm going to lean into all the reasons that I created this business. I'm going to lean into the fact that I can make money and sell and still be a mess behind the camera screen of my phone. And I'm going to share real. I'm going to be real and vulnerable and share with my community as always. I'm going to give you guys the whole picture. All. Always, but I'm going to navigate it the way that I need to navigate it. And there's no right or wrong way to do that. There really isn't. And I took the time off that I needed. I still take time off when I need to I'm on when I desire to be on and I'm selling, but I also do it my way. And if I've got, I've got the excited energy and I want to talk on my story, I'm going to talk on my story. But in that season last year, it was just, I just felt sold differently. I showed up differently and it all gets to work. And that's something I want to pour into you is deciding that this might look different as I'm navigating tough stuff behind the scenes. This might look different than it always looked, but I'm deciding that it's going to work. And that's really the key is I just decided this is different than we've ever done. But I'm deciding that it's going to work and it's going to work with better than ever before, because it's serving me. It's still serving my community. It's serving my clients and it all gets to work. Now, one last thing I'll add, because this question came up is if I have client calls and I get really upset between them, what do I do again? Really? That I find being honest, a lot of the calls and stuff I got, fortunately, didn't happen like in between client calls, maybe call it luck or whatever. It might be that one devastating call where I was talking about being on my bathroom floor with con happened on like a Thursday night. So I wasn't on client calls. I didn't have client calls the next day. I think universe is conspiring with timing and I'm grateful for. Um, but if, and when that does happen, it's just something I'll have to navigate. And here's the beautiful thing. Like if you work with soulmate clients, which I do, like if you're a client listening to me know that I love the fuck out of you. Like I work with the most incredible women ever. And if I ever needed to move a call for personal reasons, they wouldn't care. They wouldn't care. It would be, oh my gosh, of course. Completely understand, because I work with the most soul aligned, amazing clients, and I want to give them, and you listening permission to do that too, to work with soul aligned, amazing clients that give you grace when you're so human as a mentor and leader and coach, because we are, we as leaders, coaches, mentors, we're human. And so our clients. So we sit there and try and. Put ourselves on this pedestal of like, it's gotta be perfect and I can't move the call or I can't do thing. Like that's just too much pressure. And so I just, personally, I just don't put that much pressure on it. And if I need to move things, I just move them. And then I get the call back on my calendar and I make it up for that client or those clients, if it's a group thing, whatever, but don't put that much pressure on like, life can't happen and things can't happen. And I can't move things because of course you can literally, it's always fixable always. And if you have a client that's really pissed off. They're not a soulmate client. Like let's just be real. That's just like call a spade, a spade. But for me again, it's really just been navigating it, allowing myself to feel the fucking feels to allow myself to have days where I don't feel my best and know about on those days, I can still show up like a powerhouse and a bad-ass and be creative and still make money. Even though I'm not high vibe or high energy. That doesn't mean anything about me. I'm having an emotional day or an overwhelmed day doesn't mean I'm not a powerful leader or coach or bad-ass. And that doesn't mean I can't make money. And the same holds true for you. This was deep today. This is real. Know that I love you, whatever you're going through. Easy, tough. We all are going to experience it at some point, and it's going to look different for every single one of us. And if you get anything from this today, what I want you to know is you are fucking capable. You came up, became a business owner because you can, and you will, and you'll always figure it out and you'll navigate, navigate it when you need to navigate it, but hard things are going to happen. And that doesn't mean your business needs to suffer from. And that's a belief. I want you to stand in, take on hold. True, because it is the truth. Lastly, if you found this episode valuable, I would love, love, love. If you took a screenshot and you shared it on the socials and you tagged me to get this podcast into more business owners hands, I love you so much. If you're going through a tough time lately, just know that I'm sending you so much love. And if you want to talk about. And you need support. Just message me on the socials. Michelle hearts, man, I'm always here supporting you. I'll see you in the next episode.