Episode 4 – Mentoring Millionaire Women with Ali Brown

Michelle: Welcome to the “InFlow” podcast. I am your host Michelle Bosch. I see a gaping hole across society that focuses on the outer work and forgets about the inner work when what we really need is to bridge the gap between prosperity and spirituality. To live a life in flow with inflows of light, inflows of cash, inflows of creativity, inflows of grace in our lives. Each week, join me for powerful messages and interviews that will leave you inspired and ready to step into flow in your higher work. So now, let’s go.

Welcome to the “InFlow” podcast. I am your host, Michelle Bosch, and today I have the pleasure of having a guest at the podcast, at the show, and she is actually one of the ladies that I admire the most. She is right now currently my mentor and coach, as well. In fact, this past spring I decided that I needed a coach. And so I started looking around and once you have experienced the pinnacle of success as a woman in business, there’s only very few people that can stretch you beyond what you think is possible for you, and this lady that I have today on the show definitely has done that for me. And so I will tell you a little bit about her. Her name is Ali Brown and Ali over the last 15 years has advised and helped nurture the businesses of many of the 7 and 8-figure online thought leaders that you see thriving today. And her mentoring has even been spotlighted on cnn.com.

Ali has been dubbed the entrepreneurial guru for women, that’s one of the reasons why, you know, I decided that I wanted to work with her, by Business News Daily. And she has taken her company to the INC 500 list rankings. She was named a Forbes’ Woman to Watch, one of Ernst and Young’s Winning Women Entrepreneurs, and an entrepreneur delegate for the United Nations Foundations Global Accelerator, which is amazing. Fantastic. Ali has been featured on major media, including the ABC hit primetime show “Secret Millionaire.” She provides leadership and business advice to over 250,000 followers via alibrown.com. Her social media channels and her award-winning “Glambition Radio” show. She was also named by “Entrepreneur Magazine” as having one of the top 10 Twitter accounts every entrepreneur should be following. So definitely follow her. Ali is an angel investor with a special interest in women-led ventures. She and her Australian husband, Brett, are parents of five-year-old twins and they are based out of Scottsdale, Arizona. And I know they spent a part of their year, also, in Sydney, where Brett is from. So welcome my friend and mentor, Ali Brown.

Ali: Hi, hon, and we’re neighbors.

Michelle: I know, we are. We are. We are here in town. I remember the first time you called, you’re like, “Oh man, most of my clients live out of town. I couldn’t figure out how to dial.”

Ali: I had to dial locally on a landline. You know, because you’re different…I think you’re a different area code, though, even though you’re close. And so I’m like, “Do you need the one? Do you need the area code? Like how do I dial across town?”

Michelle: Yeah, I live in…

Ali: Now we’ve figured it out.

Michelle: I live in Phoenix and you live in posh Scottsdale, so that’s why. Anyway, so I wanted to start the conversation, Ali, I’m so thrilled, so excited, so honored to have you, around money. My prior episode was an episode devoted to the topic of money and what it meant to me and how I grew up around it, and so I wanted to start the conversation around that and ask you what are some of the mindset shifts that you help women entrepreneurs make to breakthrough into multiple seven and eight figures? Because you must be thinking about money in a completely different way.

Ali: So related to money or in general?

Michelle: In general, yeah.

Ali: Well, you know, it’s something that I think will help everyone listening, even if you’re not, you know, near those numbers yet and that is the formulas that get you to a certain stage are almost never the same formulas that will take you to a greater place. But I especially see this with the entrepreneurs I work with when they’re breaking through the seven and then beyond there, you know, they really want to start scaling the business. You can’t use the same formulas. It’s not going to be either sustainable or what’s interesting right now, we see online is that everything changes so quickly that things you may have learned even last year about marketing, about social, you know, all these little tricks and tips and things that people teach, could likely be obsolete this year. And so this is where I get my clients to kind of step back and look at having less information that they’re taking in and really slow down, and this is where it’s challenging because they don’t want to slow down. They’re like, “I just signed up for coaching. Let’s go. What are we doing?” You know? And I’m like, “I want you to take a strategic pause and let’s really look at now what you want to create and how you want to create it. You don’t need to know the how but I want you to feel exactly how you would like to do this. “Because that’s a great place to be and, see, they forget once they’re there the joy of what they’ve created. You know, they’re making money, things are good, and now it’s a place now you really have so many more choices. And so I think it’s an important place of choices and that’s where I try to get every client back to when they’re ready to make that next leap.

Michelle: Yeah, and I’m glad that you mentioned that. You know, that you make them slow down because that is something that I am a big fan of. Of not just living on purpose, making money purposefully, but also taking pauses so that we can actually reflect and contemplate and have gratitude for the accomplishments that we’ve made and just, generally speaking, rejuvenate. You know, take care of ourselves and have basically the bandwidth and the headspace after, you know, a pause to actually take a more deliberate, new approach or new path. And so…

Ali: Yeah, and in the business culture, you never hear people talking about that. Everyone’s bragging they’ve doubled their business every year. I’m sure in your industry, as well.

Michelle: Oh my God. Yeah.

Ali: Everyone’s like, “Oh, I’ve been doing more investing. I’m doubling my returns. We’re not stopping. We’re growing.” And no one…it’s this startup culture and that massive scaling culture. You see this in tech companies. You know, they’re all bragging about users. They’re not saying, “You know what? We’re going to slow down this year and actually figure out how to be profitable.”

Michelle: Yeah, exactly, and…

Ali: They don’t do that.

Michelle: And you’re right, and that’s the biggest sign of maturity of an entrepreneur is when they actually start thinking about profits instead of about revenue. And everyone is looking at that, you know, topline dollar amount and not really thinking about what they’re actually bringing home. And so, yeah, excellent. Excellent.

Ali: Can I talk about that for a minute because it’s…

Michelle: Absolutely.

Ali: It’s really interesting. You know, I will have clients come to me who’ve built very, you know, quote successful, multiple seven figure business, especially in coaching, consulting, you know. A lot of these personal brands that you’d see online. And there comes a point when they want to work with me, usually that they’re ready to make some changes. They want to keep growing but also I feel something else is in there. I say, “Can we really look at your numbers?’ And they’re like, “Sure.” And I said, “You know, there’s a word called net and I want to understand what that is. And I want you to break down your…” You know, they’ll be like, “Oh, I have this amazing program and we sell people into the seminar.” Many of you know this model. You know, seminars are a great place to invite people into your programs but this client I was looking at, for example, more money was going into the entire process of bringing people to this event and then hiring the coaches to train them and all this stuff. When we really boiled down to what she was making herself, not her team. I mean her in the bank at the end of this thing, it was about $150,000 and she was shocked. And it was a great…

Michelle: [inaudible 00:08:47] herself a job.

Ali: She said, “You know, I could write a freaking e-book right now and make that.” Right? “And not even have to pay a team member. I could stick it up right now and send some emails.” It was a great lesson. Very awakening. Now, there are times where you will want more money going out. Maybe you need to reach a certain revenue level to be invited to certain circles. You know, I remember breaking that first million dollars for me was just this epic feeling of being able to do anything, and I wanted to do it to prove to myself that I could do that. And I was also invited then into some other circles and programs once you’re in a different level. There may be reasons, right? If you have more of a tech or user-focused company, you may want to be scaling up your users to, you know, maybe attract more investors. Just look at the reasons behind doing what you’re doing that are outside of the social media egos, right, that we see everywhere. Of people just saying, “Oh, I have a thousand people in my program.”

Michelle: Yeah, and for that, you sometimes need the process to not just be crazy and busy movement and going very fast nowhere. Absolutely.

Ali: Yes.

Michelle: Now, digging a little deeper here, you mentioned that it was a thrilling experience for you, you know, to hit that million dollar mark. Tell me a little bit about how you grew up around money and what it meant to you personally to break through seven figures. Has your relationship with money changed?

Ali: Growing up, very traditional family. My dad worked and my mom did not. I think she had a little job at JC Penny one year, you know, when things were tough. She worked in accessories and I went to visit her. We never talked about it. Very probably not uncommon for some families, but I remember the only conversations I heard about it is when my parents were arguing. So I didn’t really have an opinion about it. I didn’t think it was bad but we just…you know, no one ever taught me much and I remember getting out of college, and I don’t know if you remember back then, Michelle, but like the banks were lined up with credit card offers in the ’90s. And I’m signing up for them all because I’m thinking, “Free money,” and, “What’s APR?” I didn’t understand anything. So my 20s was a lot of let’s just say exciting lessons with credit counseling, realizing that, you know, a credit card from the limited has a 25% APR. Do you remember that?

Michelle: I know. It’s insane and they’re waiting for you, like, at the student union, outside of classes, you know, with the little pamphlets. Yeah.

Ali: Yeah, yeah. So I learned very, very quickly but really, when I started my first little business is when I learned the most because you have to get really smart with money. You’re going to be putting money out the door. How much are you going to be making? And for me, it’s always been now a blend of practicality, you know, there’s the literal numbers and looking at what’s in the bank and what’s coming in projections and all the kind of bean counting work. But balanced with something that we don’t talk about a lot, and I know you’re starting to talk about it now, Michelle, and that is that more than half this game is like this magical mystery tour. And money to me has always been energy and when I get my mind around it and get in the right place, it flows so much more easily to me. And so it’s a balance there of the energy and then, you know, money also to me, it’s power. It’s ease. It’s opportunity. Life is so much better with it than without it and, you know, it just all goes together.

Michelle: Absolutely. Generosity is one of the keys that I talked about in my prior episode of keys of prosperity. And in order to think about that, you know, you have to come to the conclusion that money is, in fact, an energy. That it’s neither bad nor good. We hear a lot about money is, you know, the root of all evil but in fact, it is a neutral energy and it has the charge that you give to it. If you’re generous, it amplifies that. If you’re a jerk, it amplifies that, as well.

And I was curious because I know that when I introduced you, you mentioned that…or I mentioned that you are now investing some of your hard-earned money on women-led businesses. On doing angel investing. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and why you decided to start doing that and how does that all work for the people listening?

Ali: Yeah, the first experience I had with it was…I’d never even considered it. It’s so funny. I’ve heard about, you know, angel investors and I think of people on “Shark Tank” who have, like, an extra 100 million. Right? And so it was something I didn’t really understand until someone who was a colleague came to me and said, “I’m raising some money for this idea.” She’d done some amazing things before. I don’t want to mention who it is because it also just blew up and I’m going to be honest here.

Michelle: That’s good. You’re going to get a great [inaudible 00:13:53]

Ali: No, no. I mean, like, not in a good way.

Michelle: Oh, I’m sorry.

Ali: Sorry. Blew up, like…and they were like, “Yeah, man, it blew up.” Like, no, it really blew up. This is a great lesson, right, because that first experience, though, got me a lot smarter about that. Right? That because someone’s had a track record and I was like, “Well, this would be great,” and my biggest advice in that category is, you know, when you’re starting to play in that territory, that has to be play money. That really has to be, like, your Monopoly play money because you don’t know what’s going to happen. And understanding more each time about the types of investments you make and… I mean, I remember years ago when I first started making money, I didn’t have the right people around me to help me make the best decisions. So I started putting all my money into real estate, which is a great idea but it was the wrong kind and I had people around me who were just looking for a piece of the deal. You know, friends in the real estate business and people who knew someone who had a great property. And so really the lessons learned have been even more important than the investments. You know? And I think this is where we need to get really clear on where are your strengths and what you do understand and where are the categories and topics of investing that you do not understand? And just because something kind of looks good and sounds good doesn’t mean it is good, and that took me several years to really take that in. If that makes sense.

Michelle: Any investment will be risky if you are not knowledgeable on what that investment looks like, smells like, what collateral is behind it, how will you get paid, and it’s even riskier if you have no control over the asset, sometimes in a business where you are putting all your trust on the management expertise of the company, and the same works in real estate, as well. Especially for us right now doing multi-family. It is, like, a little business and so it is very important for investors to know that when they invest with someone that it’s not just the asset, the collateral that is going to be there for them in case things blow up but that there’s management there that knows exactly what they’re doing. That knows how to be metric centric about it and operate and so on and so forth to turn around the property and that has a track history of doing it, and sometimes in a startup, well, you don’t have that. But you do have…I see a lot in the real estate place a lot of people jumping in and not knowing what they’re doing.

Ali: Yeah, and sometimes things just sound sexy, right?

Michelle: Yeah, exactly.

Ali: Like, ooh. You know? Because I know a lot of people in that angel investing space, it just sounds so sexy and cool because they talk about that on TV and it’s been fun to play with but, again, I think it’s getting clear on, like, knowing what investments are more risky and which ones are more solid. And then, you know, having a…you know, there’s different theories on this and I’m no expert by any means. I want to let people know. You know, I’m an expert in making money. There are other people, like Michelle here, to listen to on investing and if I say real estate, run screaming. If I tell you to buy something, run screaming the other way.

Michelle: Yeah, but…

Ali: Listen to Michelle.

Michelle: But that’s the point. That’s what I’m trying to get to is that like anything, everything is a team sport and real estate investing is no different and so you need to just align with people that have the right values, the right knowledge, the right track history and so on.

Ali: And let’s just say now I rely on expertise a lot more than my own. Right?

Michelle: Yeah, absolutely.

Ali: When things are happening so quickly and, you know, I made decisions probably much more quickly than I should have in places.

Michelle: Yeah. Now, you are an expert at making money and we do want to listen to what you have to say around that, and so I would like to get into a little bit about the keys to becoming iconic and how do you see your iconic work or your higher work and how does that relate to money?

Ali: What I see a lot of women, and some men experience as well, is they reach a certain point of success where, you know, they actually reach their goals because the people I work with are very much achievers. And when they come to me, they’ve typically reached already a point that a lot of people would dream of but they have this calling to something either higher or different or greater and it’s not just about a greater goal usually. It’s not just about a higher revenue or more people in there. The game kind of becomes stale to them and they’re ready to try something different, and if they let this become this really juicy time of exploration, of innovation, of letting themselves be creative, they start moving into what I call their iconic work. There’s a great book that I picked up several years ago and it’s something I still refer back to with my clients all the time. It’s called “The Big Leap” by Gay Hendricks and in that book he talks about we often reach a point of excellence but we get trapped there when inside we’re yearning to be in our genius. And it’s more than I can go into on a show. It could be a day-long workshop.

If you get that gist, I know some of you are listening right now, you may be like, “Yeah, like, this is all good but really, what’s next?” And it’s not just some type of spiritual calling or feeling unfulfilled. There’s really just something greater to be birthed out of you and to be done, but often we’re kind of trapped, though, in what we’ve created. You know, we’ve created the machine. We’ve created the business that works. We’ve created the coaching program. We’ve created our niche and now, though, we want to move either, you know, deeper into that or beyond that or make what I call a sharp right turn. So as this relates to money, it’s a terrifying place to be because you’re about to make changes to what has been proven to work for you and this is where what you’re talking about, Michelle, you know being in the flow is absolutely critical. And it’s something that I think we remember in the beginning when this is all exciting. You’re like, “Yeah, I’m going to think positive and set my intentions and really stay in a good place,” and then you start building a business and then you’re dealing with a lot of realities. But then you need to get back to that place of remembering that as long as you are tuned in to what you really want and watching your numbers, let’s be real.

Michelle: Yeah because I mean…

Ali: Right? You can’t be…yeah.

Michelle: You have to be grounded. Absolutely.

Ali: Totally. There’s a total balance. If you’re floating around your upper chakras all day, you’re going to be homeless. Right?

Michelle: Yeah, absolutely.

Ali: It’s all a balance but we often forget to stay in that mindset during the transition, and when I’m working with clients through this, it’s often a terrifying time because they’re waiting for that invisible bridge to appear.

Michelle: Yeah and they don’t have a formula to follow. This is something new. I heard you say the words innovation, being creative, and all of that requires you to basically stop some of the planning and let the divine source, God, whatever kind of, like, just flow through and help you see what that next big step or that new thing that you’re giving birth to is. And, yeah, there’s this give and take of making sure, watching your numbers, but there is this new thing that is being infused with something magical that is coming about and that you’re bringing new into the world. So, yeah, it totally goes with the topic of, you know, this entire podcast which is flow. Absolutely. Now, based on that, tell me a little bit about your experience on the “Secret Millionaire” show and can you share how that was a turning point for you and how that changed the trajectory of your business?

Ali: When we got the phone call about that show, it was probably…I think we had just broken INC 500. The business was on fire. We were on track to do, like, $10 million that year. It was insane and it was the perfect time for this to happen because what I just shared with you, the excellence versus genius. I was trapped in excellence. You know, I was starting to get a little bored, didn’t want to admit it, you know, because everything was great, but I was starting to get a little board and think, you know, “Okay, what’s next? I’ve bought everything I want to buy and, you know, I’m checking all the boxes,” and I’m kind of like…it sounds so cliche but you are kind of like, you know, “Now what?”

And my team said, “We got this call from this show they’re doing for ABC.” And I’m like, “Ooh, TV.” They’re like, “Wait, let me tell you what this involves. Hold on. Hold on. You’re going to be living on welfare. You’re going to, you know, be taken away from your normal life, kind of living underground for, like, a week and put in some emotional situations. And at the end of the week, you’re giving away $100,000.” And my first question was, “Whose $100,000?” This did not sound like a good idea to me and, you know, they said, “Oh, it’s yours.” Okay. And the first thing I did was do some research on the show because also, remember, this was when, you know, the reality shows…I don’t know. Are they dying down finally? It seems like there’s less of them. This was during reality show peak, you know? Like 2011-ish.

Michelle: I’m still with you. I’m still watching the Disney Channel so I have no idea what’s going on outside of that.

Ali: Okay. I never know what’s going on. I think “The Bachelor’s” still around. I have no idea why. What a stupid show. And so this was when, you know, all these reality shows are out and so the first thing I was thinking was no way because, I mean, I’m giving away money. How am I going to be betrayed? You know you sign a 20-page contract basically saying that they can edit this any way they want to, they can edit together words so it sounds like you’re saying things you’re not, and I had to be prepared to give away that money even if the show didn’t air. So this couldn’t be done just for publicity or for promotion. Like I had to do this for the experience.

And so I did a lot of research on it. The show had been done already in Australia, which is kind of funny now that I think about it because this is before I met Brett, my husband, who’s from Australia. And something about it, I just kept sitting with it and I told my team, I said, “I’m gonna do it.” And I felt like I needed something to kind of shake me up. Something exciting again and it’s like when your phone, you’re looking at the map on your phone and it gets stuck, the GPS, and you have to shake it. I felt like that’s what I needed and it was a wake-up call for me when, you know, halfway during the week I actually was enjoying it so much I didn’t want to come back.

And what I mean by that is I hadn’t had that space and time to really just be with people and connect with people and have amazing conversations and not be scheduled from dawn to dusk and be responsible for so much. So, you know, you’ll see on the show, you will see me transform. If you…I think it’s still on Hulu and I think it’s on Amazon. It’s like four bucks. If any of you really hate it, I’ll give you your money back but you will see me transform on that show and it was an amazing journey of just kind of getting back to who I was and who I needed to be for that next level of what I was creating. But you’ll see me on Venice Beach, like, hanging with the heroin people and holding babies at the shelter and I do want to give the producers credit. That show was 100% completely authentic. You hear stories about these shows being scripted and, you know, some of the introductions were arranged because the filming was limited to a week, but everything that you see was absolutely real and I always want to give a shoutout to them because it was quite an amazing experience. A really positive experience for me.

Michelle: Yeah, I bet. I mean you find yourself there, you know, one moment with access to everything, credit card, money, and then all of a sudden you’re stripped of everything and you’re just there. Yeah, that must have…

Ali: Another thing was, too, you didn’t think about, like, I had $50 for the week to live on. Right? Which it’s challenging but it’s doable. Right? Okay, you’ve got to think about it but then I realized where I was. I was starting to not panic and I’m like, “Okay, I’ll go to Safeway or whatever.” But you know what? I wasn’t near a grocery store. I was near all the little, like, 7-11 places which…and you start thinking about people with no money and how they do get trapped, and I realized that I couldn’t get to the grocery store. You know, I had to spend more and get more junk food at these little…it had me really looking at and thinking how someone lives when they’re very limited like that and the limitations they have to endure.

Michelle: Yeah, it’s like money is a constant in your mind and you’re constantly thinking about, “Oh my God, how am I going to make things work?” And so you have that aspect but you also have the aspect of, like, if you have too much or like, “Oh my God, how am I going to protect it?” So, I mean, in either case, you know, it’s depending the charge that you’re giving it. It’s what’s either, you know, liberating or trapping you when thinking about money. Wonderful. So I wanted to dig a little deeper into the…you mentioned something about excellence and I know that you have coined a term called excellence burnout, and I think I know what that is from having attended one of your workshops but I’m not sure exactly what you mean by that. Can you explain a little what you mean by that and are there any signs to watch out for?

Ali: This is along the lines of kind of what I’ve been referring to but, you know, if you’ve reached a point that you’ve created something successful or are in a successful position, even at a company, and things are going well, but you start having, like, a little bit of boredom. A little bit of resentment and even if you stay on longer than that, some things start kind of disrupting or blowing up without you…it’s kind of like that, you know, self-destructing kind of thing. You’re probably in excellence burnout. You’ve been doing what you do well but doing it so long that you haven’t had time to make room for that higher level, for what I call your iconic work, and this happens, by the way, to everyone. I just interviewed for my show, “Glambition Radio,” Zainab Salbi who founded Women for Women International. I mean, started this at 23. She grew up in Saddam Hussein’s palace. Incredible stories. So she’s been growing and running this organization for, like, over 20 years, 30 years now I think, that helps women in war-torn areas find their freedom again, empower themselves. So it’s such heavy work and she’s been doing it so long, but in her book, her new book, there’s a story in there that shocked me and it was that she realized she had been in there too long when she was starting to listen to another war-torn story from this poor woman who’s situation was just incomprehensible. I won’t even repeat the details. It’s just horrible. But she found herself kind of checking out. You know, making a list of what’s for dinner and kind of like, “Oh, I’ve heard this story before.”

And she realized she’d waited way too long. She’d been doing it way too long. She’d built this company and then she said that she created such a pressure on herself for her role in that company that she nearly had a breakdown. So that’s an example of what I would call excellence burnout. What she did, she did very, very well. She was nonstop fundraising, going around the world speaking everywhere, and then was just really done. Had to check out and she wished she’d done it earlier because she could have done a little smoother job there and not shocked everyone. So it’s an interesting thing for women because this is new for us. We are the first generation to have the opportunity and the privilege of excellence burnout. If that makes sense, right? Our moms didn’t have that privilege. They weren’t in the workforce. Most of our moms weren’t. Now most of us are. It’s really just a whole new time and it’s a wonderful privilege to have that awareness to say, “You know what? I want to create something different now.”

Michelle: Yeah, yeah. And that topic is close to my skin because, I mean, I’ve had this happen twice already to me. When it first happened, I couldn’t really just, like, check out but I had to figure out a way to replace myself and my company, and then by the time…and, you know, sometimes we don’t learn our lessons and it happened again, but by that time I was able to…everything was in place, the team was in place, the procedures were in place, you know, the processes, the systems, everything was in place that I could literally give one-day notice and be like, “Okay, guys. I am completely out of operations and I will only be there for vision and strategy.” And it’s that thing where you don’t know it. It’s kind of like, you know, that analogy of, like, if you put I think a frog in the oven and it slowly starts heating up and you don’t notice when you’re already fried.

Ali: Poor frog.

Michelle: Yeah, poor frog. But that happens to a lot of ladies and that’s from us not realizing that, you know, we are at our max. Our bandwidth is completely gone. Our headspace…

Ali: It creeps up on us.

Michelle: Yes, it does creep up on us.

Ali: Yeah.

Michelle: Absolutely and…

Ali: And because we don’t talk about it, it sneaks up on us, especially. We don’t even realize it.

Michelle: Yeah, and if we don’t talk about it as ladies, men for sure don’t talk about it and I know it happens to them, as well.

Ali: Yes.

Michelle: But, yeah, for us there’s this stigma of, like, oh my gosh, if she’s not juggling the business and the home there’s this guilt about it, and we need to…just like we’ve upleveled, you know, our businesses, we need to uplevel our homes, as well, and get the help that we need. And we seldom do. We put ourselves last and it shouldn’t be the case, especially if we’re talking about being in flow, being in our genius, and in order to be in our genius we have to be committed to being there and in order to be committed to that, we need to stop doing a lot of other crap that gets on our plate. And so with that, I would love to ask you a couple more questions and that is what are the top three advices that you would have for women so that they can get inflow? Not just inflows of cash but inflows of creativity, inflows of lightness, of grace in their life. What are some of the things you do that you would advise someone to do?

Ali: The first thing I want to…if I could even just give one thing, and I’ll give three, but if I only had time to give one, it would be that you need more support than you think and I have this conversation every day with…and women even who are in multiple seven figures. I just had one this morning that I could detect just something was a little off and I asked again, and sure enough it’s all the home stuff, family stuff. Her business team was doing pretty well but still not good enough and just we need more support than we think, and I use that language on purpose because women seem to wait too long to get that.

I’ve had two clients even come in after being in the hospital and saying, “I need to work with you because I know you’ll work with me differently. I’ve been working too hard. I’ve been working this male model.” So it’s cliche and I hate the fact that we still need to talk about this. It’s like the whole life balance question but here we are. Here we are still having meltdowns and still trying to do the million dollar sales call and then thinking, “Oh my God, I forgot to take the chicken out to defrost.” Right? And so this is our lives, right? Systems are the solution. I’m going to probably do a whole show on this but it sounds silly but really, look at ways to get yourself more support than you think you do.

The second is…this is just very general, quick advice but most of us are undercharging. There is always a way to charge more for what you’re delivering and if you’re having a hard time, you feel like you’re blending in with your whole industry, it means you’re not doing things differently. You need to look at your positioning. You need to look at how to be a category of one instead of one of many, and when I spend time with clients on this it’s a huge relief because then they realize they don’t even have to compare to anyone else anymore. They become so special or so different and so individual that they really are picking their lane. You know, when I got lost really…when all this was happening and I did “Secret Millionaire” and this was also during the time when I got started early on as a coach, I was more in the online space. I was teaching opt-ins and funnels and, really, I was one of the first to be teaching all this. Guys were all teaching the pieces and it took a woman to put it together and I’m not even being funny. I literally looked at it all…I was at a seminar going like, “Well, that goes with this and this goes with that.” So I created the online success blueprint which I sold for many years. Like thousands of copies of this thing and suddenly, though, when social media came out, it leveled the playing field so then suddenly everyone became a coach and started teaching this stuff. And all I did was try to compete then. I was like, “Well, I’ll do it better or I’ll be bigger. We’ll have better programs.” And it just got exhausting and that’s when I realized, too, this is excellence. This isn’t my genius. So took that strategic pause, redirected, and claimed my spot in being the most recognized coach for entrepreneurs, for women especially, in the seven and eight figures. That’s my lane and suddenly everything got so clear. It got clear and it got easy. So look for something like that. Like how to make that turn. How do you make that turn or, you know, get off the highway and choose your own lane and become the only choice for those types of people?

The third is no matter what phase you’re in, I know that, you know, we’re all addicted to speed. We’re addicted to what we see. We’re addicted to showing the numbers and showing that we’re growing and looking cool and doing all this cool stuff, and strategic pause, really. Even if you just take a day and go sit in Starbucks with a notebook. For many of my clients, I advise them to actually go check into a hotel. It’s like checking yourself into the asylum, you know, for like addiction and some of my female clients, you know, they even say, “You know what? The first…” I warn them, too, now because they all say this. They say, “That first day I felt guilty because I just slept.” So now I tell them, I say, “The first day, you’re going to just sleep.” And they almost start crying it’s such a relief. I say, “The second day, you’re going to wake up and it’ll be like a new day. And I want you to have a flip chart, post-its, get some colored, fun markers.” Do you remember when you were going back to school? That feeling? Get some fun notebooks, get stickers, whatever it takes, okay? Give yourself that space to really think, “What do I really want to be doing?” And then start reverse engineering out of that and that’s…if I had to give three pieces of advice, that would be it.

Michelle: That is perfect. That goes so well. You know, pauses, support, clarity…

Ali: And unicorn stickers.

Michelle: …equals ins. Equals flow. And I mean all kinds of flow. Lightness, ease, cash. It’ll mean inflows in the whole sense of the word. So love it. So if listeners wanted to learn more about you, where can they go? Where can they come in and get more of Ali Brown?

Ali: Ali, A-L-I-, brown.com and be sure to listen to…if you liked some of the conversations today, you will love my show. It’s called “Glambition Radio.” It is on iTunes and we have incredible guests. These women are leaders and change-makers from all over the world and it’s a much different conversation than you’ll hear on most shows.

Michelle: Absolutely and I listen to the show. I’m excited expecting the new episode, so it is…

Ali: Excited to have you on there coming up.

Michelle: Yes, absolutely. Yeah, well thank you, Ali. It has been a pleasure having you on the “InFlow” podcast and you gifting us with inflows of wisdom for all the ladies listening and the men, as well. Who knows, there might be a few brave men listening to us, as well, and I thank you very much. It was an honor and I hope to have you soon again.

Ali: Thanks, hon. Thanks so much. This was great. Bye.

Michelle: Thank you, bye. I hope this episode left you feeling inspired and ready to get inflows of cash, inflows of light, and inflows of faith in your life. I welcome your reviews on iTunes. Please leave me a review and help me create an amazing community of women in flow. Thank you, as always, for sharing your voice by going to michellebosch.com and joining the conversation about the show. And while you’re there, grab a copy of my “10 Commandments to Living a Life In Flow.” You can also follow me on Facebook at Michelle Bosch and on Instagram @MichelleBoschOfficial. Thank you very much and until the next one.