Have you ever wondered what it takes to become the hero of your own story? Emily from the "Empower with Em" podcast joins us to shed light on how she transformed her life from feeling stuck in an unfulfilling career to launching her own spirited coaching business. Emily is a trailblazer who embraced the unknown by stepping out & listening to the whisper of her intuition! We talk about the importance of KNOWING YOUR SUPERPOWERS & taking leaps of faith!
Connect with our guest:
Emily-Jane Sarroff | 6 Figure Business & Mindset Coach (@empowerwithem) • Instagram photos and videos
CLICK THE LINK BELOW TO JOIN the JOURNEY TO LIMITLESS COMMUNITY:
Community — Journey to Limitless (jtl-lifecoaching.com)
Connect with your host, Court:
Court | Podcast Host (@journeytolimitless_) • Instagram photos and videos
Love the Journey to Limitless Podcast?
Leave us a 5-star rating and review on your favorite listening app! Take a screenshot of the Journey to Limitless podcast on your phone and share it to your Instagram stories! Make sure you tag @journeytolimitless_ so that I can personally say “Hey thanks!”
Showing your support for the podcast is SO appreciated and I definitely don’t want it to go unnoticed!
Have you ever wondered what it takes to become the hero of your own story? Emily from the "Empower with Em" podcast joins us to shed light on how she transformed her life from feeling stuck in an unfulfilling career to launching her own spirited coaching business. Emily is a trailblazer who embraced the unknown by stepping out & listening to the whisper of her intuition! We talk about the importance of KNOWING YOUR SUPERPOWERS & taking leaps of faith!
Connect with our guest:
Emily-Jane Sarroff | 6 Figure Business & Mindset Coach (@empowerwithem) • Instagram photos and videos
CLICK THE LINK BELOW TO JOIN the JOURNEY TO LIMITLESS COMMUNITY:
Community — Journey to Limitless (jtl-lifecoaching.com)
Connect with your host, Court:
Court | Podcast Host (@journeytolimitless_) • Instagram photos and videos
Love the Journey to Limitless Podcast?
Leave us a 5-star rating and review on your favorite listening app! Take a screenshot of the Journey to Limitless podcast on your phone and share it to your Instagram stories! Make sure you tag @journeytolimitless_ so that I can personally say “Hey thanks!”
Showing your support for the podcast is SO appreciated and I definitely don’t want it to go unnoticed!
Hey, girlfriend, welcome to Journey to Limitless Podcast. Together on this show, we are on a mission to build belief in ourselves and live a life of freedom, despite what tries to hold us back. I'm your host, court, an empowerment coach, travel enthusiast and a chronic illness warrior who, over the last seven years, has built a life that I am so obsessed with and proud of. But it definitely has not come easy. So on this show, we're going to keep it real as we talk about adapting positive mindsets through hardship, taking action towards our dreams and finding peace and freedom from hustle, culture and chronic stress. Are you with me? Let's get going on your own Journey to Limitless. Welcome back to another episode of Journey to Limitless. Thank you for joining. I'm Courtney, your host and today's episode. You're going to find a lot of empowerment in this episode because we have Emily on the podcast. Emily is the host of the Empower with M podcast and she's here to help us become our own superhero in our life, because the reality is no one's coming to save us. We have to be the ones to take action. We have to be the ones to overcome the fears and let go of the limiting beliefs in order to create the lives that we really want to for ourselves. So I think that you're going to love this episode. Emily is sharing with us how she has become a woman who helps other women start businesses, and how she really followed the curiosities of starting her podcast, which has led her to a path that she didn't even realize was possible for her, and we also talked about her recent travels in Canada, where she left her home country of Australia, followed the curiosity of that and solo traveled in Canada for six months. We talked about the lessons that she's learned and what really has came from that experience. So I think you're going to love this episode and if you do, you can follow us on Instagram and tag us in your Instagram story. So take a screenshot of you listening and tag us. So I am at journey to limitless, underscore, and Emily's Instagram is at empower with M, so you can hide the show notes and find both of our Instagrams there and tag us in your Instagram stories if you love this episode.
Speaker 1:And before we jump into the episode, I wanted to make sure that I reminded you about journey to limitless the community. It is the community space for journey to limitless podcast listeners and women who are getting behind the mission here, which is to break the cycles that are holding us back and not letting our circumstances hold us back from the lives that we want to live, full of freedom, joy and confidence. So it is a free community space. So we have a WhatsApp group. We also host monthly events.
Speaker 1:So this past Jan well, this past week we hosted a welcome 2024 event and I'm planning out some really epic events coming up. So we have a breathwork coming up and then we also have some other workshops and just mingles and stuff. So different ways to connect in the community space. So it is a free space. So if you are looking for more community in your life and for women to really support your dreams, this is going to be a really great space for you. So head to the show notes and find the link to join the community there and I look forward to seeing you in there and we'll go ahead and jump right into the episode. Welcome, emily, to Joining to Limitless podcast. I'm so excited to have you today. We have connected through the DMs recently and I just think that your story just really aligns with what we're about here. So really honored to have you. So thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I'm so excited to be here. I can't wait to dive into our conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, yeah. So today's episode is really a story of becoming our own superhero and living a life that is an alignment for us, and can you just tell us first of all just a little bit more about you, like where you're from, what you're currently doing, and then what has your journey to limitless really looked like?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, it's been a couple of years that I've probably intentionally been on this journey. Now, on December of this year, it'll be three years that I've been in business and I'd say when I really did first take that leap into starting my business was probably where I really would consider fully leaning into my journey to becoming limitless. So it was probably around July of 2020. At the time I was 22 years old and I was studying my Masters of Architecture and I was also working a job in the architecture industry and at that time I was just experiencing this insane amount of emotional turmoil within myself. I was so unhappy in the degree that I was in. I was so unhappy going to the 95 job that I was going to Beautiful environment, beautiful people but I just deep down felt like I was on a path that was not meant for me and this was a path that I had been following since graduating high school. So I had been really committed to this path for the last five years of my life. I had spent thousands and thousands of dollars on university tuition and thousands of hours slaving away to. You know, get to that point in my degree and I was kind of reaching a breaking point where I took an intentional moment to pause and question why am I feeling the way that I'm feeling and how do I want to be feeling, moving forward from there? And so it was at that point where I really realized I needed to take control of my life, and that meant changing the path that I was on with my career.
Speaker 2:At the time, I didn't know that I was going to start a coaching business specifically, but I had my podcast, which is the Empower them podcast that I had been building as a passion project just around documenting my own personal development journey, and that was the thing that was lighting me up. That was the thing that I was excited to be building, that I wanted to be building, and so I decided to start to build an online community around that, and through doing that, I then ended up aligning myself with the coaching industry, and so it was about 90 days I gave myself from that point of deciding that I did not want to be in the architecture industry anymore, that I wanted to drop out of my degree. I gave myself 90 days to get my shit together, essentially, and so by the end of those 90 days we rolled up to around December I decided it was time to hand. In my letter of resignation I was pulling the plug on that path that I was on and I was going all in on starting a personal development coaching business, and so that was really where I had to push myself to step into a limitless mindset because I knew I had massive goals for what I wanted to achieve in that space.
Speaker 2:I had never run a business you know of my own like that before. I had never even coached anyone before, you know and I knew that I had to put myself in a limitless mindset in order to succeed. So I did that. I did everything I could to really frame my mindset as I was taking that leap out of my nine to five job and into doing my business full-time. And eight months later I hit six, six figures in my business and I largely, largely put that down to the limitless mentality that I really pushed myself to embody during that transition yeah, so it really started with your podcast.
Speaker 1:So I kind of want to talk with you there, because I know that there is somebody listening who is maybe in a job right now that isn't feeling aligned and they're kind of afraid to follow the cure, the curiosities, because maybe they're afraid of putting them themselves out there, they're afraid that they're going to fail.
Speaker 1:They're afraid of, you know, just doing something and maybe not liking it right, and so I just kind of want to understand, like your mentality when it came to starting your podcast, like what was that whole process like for you? Because it truly again the the power of listening to your curiosities. You started that podcast and it propelled you into this direction that you couldn't have even imagined for yourself. So, yeah, can you break that down for us?
Speaker 2:well, when I started my podcast, I definitely did not see it going in the direction of the business that I started. At that time I had been like dabbling in network marketing and that was really where I got my first exposure to the online business space, and so there was so much personal development involved in that type of business structure that that's what prompted me to really start that podcast, because I was like, well, there's so many other people my age, younger, older, like there's just so many people in that network marketing community that are on the same sort of journey, and so I figured, well, if I could share my story with them, share my personal growth experiences with them, then you know I'm going to feel like I'm making a positive contribution and what goes around comes around right. So I wasn't really thinking, oh, I'm going to start this podcast to make money. It was more I'm going to start this podcast to serve and create those connections. So if you are like really leaning towards trying something new, maybe exploring a new career path or starting a passionate, passion project of some sort, just don't place pressure on yourself. I never put any heavy expectations around the podcast for it to have to be anything, you know, and so I just gave myself that space to experiment and have fun with it, and and I backed myself in doing so as well.
Speaker 2:Right, of course, there's going to be fears that come up in the process. A big one, particularly for me when I was starting my podcast, was the fear of judgment. Right, because you know how it is we're laying ourselves out there and anyone can get access to this stuff, and I was thinking, what if my co-workers find this, or what if my uni friends find this, or what if my boyfriend finds this right? And so there was that fear of judgment, of like, what are other people going to think if they see me doing this? And so I had to release that judgment and any other fears that would come up as well. So then I could fully embrace that opportunity and that experience.
Speaker 2:And maybe you are interested in trying podcasting for yourself, but then through trying that, you discovered that that's not fully for you. You should be proud of yourself for trying. Anyway, that was me with network marketing. That was the first business model that I really tried in the online space and I gave it a shot, but it turned out that it wasn't for me. But because I started network marketing, I then started my podcast and then I started my business. So by giving something a try, it's going to open you up to other opportunities that maybe you otherwise wouldn't have become in alignment with. So remove that pressure off yourself. Don't place expectations.
Speaker 1:Be open to giving it a try and just release whatever fears you need to in order to fully embrace what it is that you want to do yeah, oh my gosh, I feel like I can see so much of my story in yours, because I, first of all, I actually started a blog back in 2020 because I was like I just want to document my health journey and then, through that, I wrote one blog and I was just like I hate writing, like this is not for me. And then when I found the pot like found, you know, found the idea to start a podcast, it just felt like a yes for me, even though I had no idea where I wanted it to go. And again it me showing up and podcasting and helping people. And I found the love for helping people and that propelled me into becoming a certified life coach. So I feel like podcasting it either.
Speaker 1:I mean, either way, it's all feedback. Right, it's either you. You try it and you decide like, oh yeah, maybe I don't really like this, that's feedback. That's like, oh, okay, so you maybe don't want to speak, maybe you want to share in a different platform. Nothing is a failure. I don't know where, along along our human journey as a society, we came to the conclusion that trying something and it not working out is a failure, because I think trying things is a part of the human experience. We do not know whether we like things or not unless we try them, but for some reason our ego and society tells us that we are just supposed to know what we want to do, and that's just not the way that it is, you know, yeah exactly that.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like dating when you think about it right like you're not going to find the perfect partner the very first time that you know, the very first time you go out on a date with someone, because you don't necessarily know what you like, what you're looking for and all of that. But through going on multiple dates, trying multiple people, you're going to become clearer and clearer and clearer on who that ideal partner is that you are looking for. And it's the same with business, it's the same with anything your hobby is, you know, whatever it is in life. You've got to try multiple things to gain the full understanding around what you do want, what you don't want and then it actually cut you off a minute there.
Speaker 1:So can you just repeat that, so can you just say it's going really well. But I think when you said, it's kind of like dating, and then can you just give us that whole spiel again because it like completely cut out. So sorry, yeah you're a good.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like dating when you think about it. Right, you're not going to go on your very first date and all of a sudden know that that's the exact person that you want to spend the rest of your life with. If that's the only person you've ever connected with, you've got to put yourself out there. You've got to explore options and discover what do you want, what don't you want, until you really can get clear on who is our perfect partner and who is an alignment with that. And so it's the same when it comes to business or starting any projects, you really need to be gaining that experience for yourself, right, in terms of giving different things to try, giving different things a taste, seeing what you do like, seeing what you don't like and then navigating from there. It's the same way that you know through um, testing out network marketing and a couple of other different business ventures in my lifetime.
Speaker 1:Then was I able to discover, okay, I do want this or I don't want that, and I was able to then align with where it is that I know, and it is just removing that like societal expectation, because I think a lot of people get caught up who you know, are in their 30s or their mid 30s and they're like I'm still in this trial and error period, like when am I going to figure out what I want to do?
Speaker 1:And it's just like again surrendering to the process and not putting the expectation and, uh, just getting rid of the societal expectations of like you need to know what you want to do by age 30. Like I'm almost 30 well, I'll be 30 next year and I'm like I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know. Yeah, I'm like having a crisis and I'm like I just have to surrender to the process of I'm in trial and error period and like that's so OK, yeah, exactly. So you talk a lot about becoming your own superhero. Like what does that mean? And how can people really start to show up as their own superhero in their own life?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, it's really interesting.
Speaker 2:So this year, at the start of this year, I decided to start seeing a psychologist because there's a lot of baggage that I just wanted to work through from past relationship that I was in that was really triggered through that situation and a lot of it really came back to wanting to work on my self-esteem and really build that in new ways.
Speaker 2:And there was actually this exercise that my psychologist got me to do one session where it was sitting down and while we were on the call, I had to draw myself as a superhero and then I had to explain what it was that I drew, why it is I drew myself that way and so on, and it was a really powerful exercise to do.
Speaker 2:I know it sounds so childish in a sense to sit there with some textors and some pencils and draw yourself as a superhero, but what that really enabled me to do was tap in and connect deeper to myself and actually start to identify what are those qualities about me that are actually my superpowers, that I want to be able to celebrate more and leverage more and just recognize more. So it's a really simple exercise that you can do for yourself and it was massive for me, because it really allowed me to just sit and recognize how powerful I am as an individual and what it is that I really do have to offer and bring to everyone that I work with, anyone that I'm in a relationship with, my friendships, my family, all of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that so much because I think a lot of times we as humans, I think we struggle with taking action, because I think that there's a doubt that we can actually make something of it, and I think also, I think a lot of times people think that it will just happen for us and the reality is that we are the only person that can change our life.
Speaker 1:We are the only person that can bring our dreams into life. And I love what you also said about finding your superpowers, because I think that's just a good thing to always know about yourself, to always reflect on, because it can be so easy to be in the self-loathing cycle of feeling like we have nothing to bring to the table. But if you're a generous human, if you deeply listen to people, if you have the power to make people feel seen, there are so many superpowers that you can leverage in your life and really create something, really use those superpowers to your advantage and really hone them in and create something magical and really live your purpose through that. But I think it's becoming clear of what do you bring to the table, what superpowers do you have in you? Naturally, it isn't always looking for something outside of us. We have it within us.
Speaker 2:That's it, and we're all so unique as well, and when we're so focused on what someone else has, it can really put us in this mentality of what we lack and we become very scarce. We focus on wow, courtney, has this, that, and that I mean that devalues me because I don't have any of those things, and we get into this very self-critical mentality. So, when we can be really intentional about actually reflecting and connecting with what are these things that are unique to me, what are these strengths or skills that maybe I carry that are different from what you, courtney, have to offer to the rest of the world, and how can I leverage what I have and bring that in service of others or even just in service of yourself?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think what you said is it can be so easy to look at other people and see their power, see their skills, and be like, oh, I don't have that, so I have nothing to offer. When it's like, reality is the person that you're comparing to. They also have weaknesses that likely are your strengths sometimes. So I think it's always just reminding ourselves of that is, every single person that we admire also has weaknesses. No single person is just on this pedestal and is above anyone else, and then I just love the whole superhero of OK. So what are my superpowers? What are the things that people tell me that they appreciate about me? What are the things that I appreciate about me? I'm really good at like really becoming clear on that, because I think that's a confidence boost thing too.
Speaker 1:Always just really important to remind ourselves Completely agree, yeah, so recently you are currently in Arizona, but you have been. You're from Australia, but you've been on this side of the world in Canada and the US for four months now. Yeah, about that, yeah, so talk to us about that journey of picking up your life and moving across the world for four months and, just you know, really diving into your journey here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been a pretty wild journey, to be honest, and it's crazy that, like, this whole period of travel that I've been in is starting to actually come to an end, because I feel like I was so focused on getting to this place for so long that it's funny how you get there and then time all of a sudden flies and it's like you're blinked and it's over. So it was really last year. I went through a very heavy relationship, one that was like very narcissistic and had a lot of like mental and emotional abuse. That was really experienced throughout that and I remember getting towards the end of like leaving that relationship and all of a sudden I felt this massive pool to start like traveling and exploring the world and just breaking outside of that. You know that that nest that I had been in my whole life.
Speaker 2:Right, because I moved out of that relationship and had to move back in with family while I was trying to reground myself and refine my feet, and naturally I had my business, which I had been building for a couple of years, and so there was a level of like freedom that my business had already had created the potential to be able to afford me, and for a very long time, like even when I had first started my business, I knew that travel was something that I wanted for myself, but then, as circumstances would you know unfold, I never really fully ended up embodying this.
Speaker 2:So I had just gotten out of this relationship, I wasn't tied down to anyone or any lease anywhere or any job anywhere for that matter, and so I had this opportunity that I was like I need to grab this and I need to run with it.
Speaker 2:So I decided that I wanted to pack up my life in Australia, travel over to Canada and just go abroad for up to six months, because that was the duration of the visa that I had gotten for myself, and so I left it very open and I wanted to just step into a season of solo travel, so then I could fully come back to myself, start to heal my energy, start to experience life more, start to embrace and like fully um, I guess embody the freedom that the lifestyle, freedom that my business has afforded for me and, above all, I think, just like finding joy in life again.
Speaker 2:Right, because it was a very long time where I actually felt like all the joy had been taken out of me, and so it was such a big thing for me to just be able to lean into that season of solo travel and and just open myself up to whatever it is it was going to bring me. And so that brings us to today, where I'm heading home in about 10, 9 or 10 days from now, and I feel like all of those things that I really wanted to gain from this travel experience I've been able to gain, as well as so much more that I didn't even expect um for it to bring.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, I mean, I'm such an advocate for solo travel if you've listened to a few episodes um, I, I'm a solo traveler as well, so I just always love like hearing about other people's stories of solo travel, because it truly is. If you want to empower yourself as a woman, I understand it can be really, really scary to solo travel, but I feel like solo travel like I don't know if there's anything else that I've experienced in my life that is as empowering as solo travel. Maybe you can relate to that.
Speaker 2:I can agree completely, because before I actually came away to do the solo travel, I had never done any in my life before, and so I'm 25 now and this was the first time where I was really like stepping out onto my on my own, um, and for me there was like a lot of fears around, a lack of self-trust. You know. There was a lot coming up in the way of feeling like am I going to be able to carry myself through this experience? Am I going to stay afloat financially? Is my business going to crash? Like all these different fears. Will I be able to navigate around a foreign country? Like you know, I was really being flooded with every fear that was trying to keep me in that security blanket of my home.
Speaker 2:Um, but I knew what I needed was to actually step out and go do that solo travel to prove to myself that, hey, I can do this. And the thing is like I had proven to myself in so many ways that I can be independent, I can, you know, get resourceful and create things like. I was able to prove so much of that to myself through my business before I even started traveling but, honestly, just having stepped out into a world or into an environment where I don't have my friends, I don't have my family, I don't have the um comfort of a regular routine.
Speaker 1:It just even further strengthened that self-trust that I was looking for it to strengthen and when it came down to going, did you have anyone in your life that was like don't do it? Like what are you doing? You're crazy my mom.
Speaker 2:Of course, I feel like all moms are very much like that, um, but she's, you know, real home body, never been the type that really wants to go overseas herself and, you know very much, is the type that cradles her children also. So she was flooding, flooded with all these fears of like, oh, my baby is leaving, she's going into a different country. I can't protect her. So I very much understood where she was coming from with her concerns but nonetheless, like I was in such a state of mind where I knew deep down like it is what I needed to do for myself, and I could acknowledge her concerns and, rather than embodying them, I just kind of like put them in the back of my head as like something to just be conscious of and aware of.
Speaker 2:Right, like, of course, stranger danger being in different countries. I mean being in the US. Obviously there's guns you're allowed to carry around here and that's something that is so foreign in Australia and so naturally it's like you could focus on that and be scared of that, or you could put it in the back of your mind and just have it as an awareness and something to be cautious and conscious of as you do go around. So, all of those fears that you know she sort of did have around my travels, rather than allowing me to hold them back, I took them as like a pinch of salt, as something that it's like right, this is good for me to have in my awareness, but it's also not something that needs to limit me because, like you know, the fear doesn't need to speak louder than the reality of the situation totally and also the more that you do things that are true for you.
Speaker 1:First of all, that builds your confidence in yourself. And also what I found in my life I've been, I've been traveling. My mom, like has never left the east coast. My mom's never been on an airplane um the east coast of the USA. And I mean I've been traveling for eight and a half years now and the first trip that I took when I was 20 years old was like a cross-country road trip and I mean I had my parents talking all the fears into me.
Speaker 1:But when you just come back to yourself and you're like there's something in me that is telling me to do this, you have to listen to that and yes, you can take these things and be like okay, thanks for bringing that into my awareness, that you know, make sure that I carry mace, make sure that I carry a flat tire like a fixed flat tire thing in my car. Like, make sure all these things, yeah, make sure I. You know, just take care. You know I'm being cautious and everything, but like you cannot let these things hold you back. Um, and I noticed that the more that I do this as an adult. Like I just went to Greece solo back in March and this time my parents were just like all right, be safe, because they know that I'm gonna listen to myself, they know that I'm going to be, they know that I'm gonna be as safe as I can be and that them telling me not to do it, just like that's not gonna, that doesn't work anymore. You know, yeah, I completely.
Speaker 2:I think I feel like that's a big um thing, you know, connecting when you are building yourself trust, naturally, like your intuition builds with that as well, and so something that I've been really conscious of as I've been traveling is like listening to my intuition, listening to those gut feelings. If I feel like I'm in a situation that doesn't feel safe, remove myself, like listen to that sign, that signal that your intuition is giving you, and when you really do have that um level of self trust, you're then going to trust those feelings and you're going to be able to take the action to remove yourself from situations you don't want to be in. Or even, I think like one of the biggest things when it does come to fears, especially around traveling with a business, is that fear of well, what if I run out of money? What if I you know what if my clients um start dropping off? What if I then can't carry myself forward from there?
Speaker 2:And what is really funny is stepping into these travels. That was one of the biggest fears I had was okay, well, I'm not going to be in a stable environment, so what happens if my income stops rolling in? And then it actually hit a point in my travels, where I made the decision to stop signing clients, I was like you know what? I'm here in this foreign country, I've been traveling and working for two months. I've got two more months of you know, back to back travel that's ahead of me and I just felt deep within my gut that I didn't want to be doing sales calls.
Speaker 2:And so there's that fear part of my brain that's saying no, you need to keep doing sales calls because otherwise you're going to run out of money. But there was this uh, it was my intuition was calling me to actually put a halt on scaling my business and putting a halt on hard selling and just fully give myself space to just be here in this experience of traveling and soaking up everything that it has to offer that's outside of business. So I found it really funny when I recognized that, hey, the thing that was a fear in the back of my mind when I was stepping into this travel. I have actually said stuff you fear, I'm going to do this thing anyway because I don't want to be selling and I trust that the money's still there, I still have enough. I will still be able to call in more when and if I need it and because of that deep sense of self-trust, I then was able to give myself space to take like an entire month off of business, essentially right.
Speaker 1:So I think that was a really powerful like breakthrough of my own that I really came to in these travels and purely because I opened myself up to these experiences yeah, and I've seen you know from a lot of other business coaches or you know people in business that I've watched is that all the same, A lot of times that the more that they travel, the more that they take space, the more money they actually make.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good, because ultimately a lot of us who I mean I'm building a coaching business as well, I mean I'm not anywhere at the spot where I'm ready to go full time yet at all, but like that's the dream. And I think a lot of times when we see people like, oh, she's taking a month off of her business, traveling, like I want, I want what she's having, I want to be a part of that. Like you're embodying you're not just like you're not just, you know, stuck into the work and showing you know you're showing that it gets to be both. Like you get to be wildly successful and you also can take time off of your business and enjoy yourself. Like that's ultimately what people want.
Speaker 1:I know for me, I don't want to go full time in my business so I can be stuck to my computer all the time. I want to be full time in my business because I want to have this space and the capacity to be able to go, you know, be a digital nomad and travel the world. Like that is the most attractive thing for me, and I know that someone else who's listening to this podcast feels the same way.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, so yeah, that's exactly it. Oftentimes we're in business to create that freedom for ourselves. I know, when I first started my business, I started it because I wanted lifestyle freedom. I wanted to be able to go and do what I want when I want to be able to experience traveling the world and so on. But then our fears can really get us stuck in those sort of like patterns or habits where we actually end up working a nine to five job just from the comfort of our own home right. And so I had realized, prior to traveling, that that's where I was Like I was becoming a slave to my business.
Speaker 2:I was working in and out long days and it just wasn't feeling good to me, because what I wanted to begin with was the freedom to be able to travel and to explore and to experience life, and it took me having to go to the outside of the world to actually fully realize that, hey, like I can create this space for myself. It doesn't always have to be working. I can create that balance where there's even periods where I don't do any work at all.
Speaker 2:So yeah, if you are in that position where that's something that you're wanting to work towards. I mean, a large part of why I've shared so much of my holidays and adventures on my Instagram has been to strike inspiration. You know, when people like yourself who want to create that for yourself also, it's just really important to get clear that that is what you want and then start to take that aligned action within your business in order to make it happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, as a business owner, we always think that the more that we do, the more that we do, the more that we do, that's gonna help us not be in our lack mindset. Right, that's going to, the more that we have, the more that the lack mindset won't be there, the more safe that we will be. And a lot of times I feel like a lot of us. We strive for these six figure businesses and then we get the six figure business and then we're like but that's still not good enough, that's still not enough. We still need to do more, more, more. And it's like actually doing less is actually where the power is. I think. For me, when I think about structuring my business in the future, knowing that I want to live a life of travel, I cannot be doing more, more, more, more, more. All the time I'm gonna have to create systems and strategies to allow me to have the capacity. But also it's quality over quantity, right.
Speaker 2:Completely, and here's the thing it's about finding the balance for you. There's always going to be. This is always gonna look different in everyone's businesses. I think there's also gonna be seasons where you're probably gonna push a little bit harder than other seasons as well. But it's about finding how do you want to run your business? And this is a question I always ask my clients when they enter my world is okay, what does being in alignment with your business look like for you? Does it mean having only four-week work days? Does it mean being able to travel full-time? Does it mean something else? And you really want to get clear on that so then you can actually build out a strategy that's in alignment with that right.
Speaker 2:So I go through seasons myself. So far, while I've been traveling, it's been a season where I've wanted to step back, where I've wanted to work less. I've really just prioritized nurturing the students that I have, rather than pushing to do big launches and scale my income. That's not what it's been about for me while I've been traveling, because this has been a season of me right and a season of just experiencing life. But I've also been in seasons where I have wanted to lean deeper in, particularly when I first started my business, that was very much a season of fully leaning in, taking big action and, yeah, making some sacrifices so I could get myself further ahead.
Speaker 2:But when it comes to just business in general, I like to personally embody that mentality of less is more, because that is how I want to run my business. I want to run my business in a way where I have space to even just sit and do nothing on a Wednesday if I feel like taking a day for myself, and what that then means is I need to make sure my systems are set up to support that. I need to make sure my team structure is set up to support that. Even though I've been traveling, and even though I took a whole month off of business while I was traveling, my business was still moving forward because my team was in place to ensure that it continued to move forward, even when I wasn't fully in the front end of it, right? So it really really comes back to asking yourself that question of what does having an aligned business look like for you? What does that balance look like and what season are you in right now?
Speaker 1:And that's really gonna influence the way that you take action in your business and the way that you actually set up your business as well 100%, I think, definitely just being clear of, like, how do you want to feel in your business and the values and just definitely making sure that you have the structure, the systems of support and making sure they're not getting too far ahead of yourself If you want to have you only wanna work 20 hours a week. Making sure that you set aside time for the back end stuff and not just all of those being calls and things like that. So just being really clear about your structure, being really clear about how you want to feel in your business and your boundaries in your business. Like there's a lot to it that will help you set up for and I'm saying this because I'm saying this to myself too Like Courtney, remember this as you're building your business.
Speaker 1:Like, remember these things. But yeah, just, you know we have to have the systems in place in order to really not get to a place of overwhelm. I think always just reminding ourselves that more isn't always better, right, like we don't need to be doing more, doing more, doing more. Like I think also, when it comes to business, it's just making sure that you're always aligned and in what you're doing, and also just kind of releasing releasing the pressure for more, because if we, like, are always striving for more, we're never going to be satisfied. We're never gonna feel like we have enough. We're never feeling like we're gonna be at a place where our nervous system can actually calm the F down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, One of the biggest things with that as well is the way you want your business to feel when you get to the destination needs to be taken into consideration on your journey to actually building there.
Speaker 2:And there's actually like in the past year or two in particular within the coaching industry, I've actually seen a lot of seven figure coaches stepping down from their businesses because they were so focused on hustling to get to that seven figure point that once they reached that seven figures, their business wasn't actually set up to be in alignment with the lifestyle that they desired, right? And so if you desire to have that space when you get to that point of making six or seven figures, then you need to be taking action to create that in the journey to actually getting there, because simply reaching that milestone isn't then going to bring you the lifestyle that you want. If anything, it's just gonna create a whole lot of stresses because, and a lot of cleaning up because of the lack of care that was put into the journey to ensure that you had those core values that you desire of the lifestyle, the space, whatever it may be, at the actual destination.
Speaker 1:Right and I think it's so important, like thank you for that so much, but I think that that is missing so much when it comes to the coaching space, like, oh, when I hit this milestone, then I can do this. It's like, no, if you embody the way that you want to feel, if you were set up your schedule in the way that you really would love it, ideally, that's gonna set you up for when you actually do hit these big markers, like six figure, seven figures, like it isn't just like getting to a finish line and then you deserve to have the system that make you feel good. You deserve to have the systems that make you feel good from day one. Exactly that. Yeah, so, aside from you know the realizations and the life lessons that you've gotten from your travels when it comes to your business, Like, are there any other Thing, like epiphanies or things that you have doing a lot of? You've been doing a lot of reflecting on since your travels.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like I've had a lot of space to myself while I've been away and I also went a bit offline when it came to, you know, constantly being in communication with friends and family back home. Like, I really did just take a lot of space for myself and I think doing that, I really naturally became More curious about what I want for myself when I get back home. What do I want to be creating? And, yeah, I guess an epiphany that came to me was just realizing, like, what is it that I really want with my next steps in life? Like, what do I want to be focusing on when I get home?
Speaker 2:A big thing as well was like this Realization that I really can create anything that I desire for myself.
Speaker 2:You know, I was able to create this experience of traveling for four to five months on my own and I was Flooded with an abundance of opportunities in that, like I haven't gone without, you know, anything that I wanted to experience on this journey, and then that made me really realize that, hey, when I get home, like it can be the same, whatever I desire I really can call into my life, and so I've just found a lot of clarity in terms of, like you know what I really want to be planning roots with when I get back home and, big picture, like you know, for the Long game of my life, what is it that I desire?
Speaker 2:You know, really finding that clarity and having that space to actually create those ideas, create that vision of what I really want to be stepping into next. So, if you are someone who has been feeling a bit blank or a bit stuck on what it is that you actually want, take the pressure off yourself from having to think and think and think it through and instead just create an environment for yourself that's naturally going to allow you to discover that. For me, that meant going away from everyone I know and everything that was familiar and having some forced time to myself, having some time for play, for experimentation, to really be able to come into alignment with yeah, what it is that I want to be creating next for my life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think a lot of times as humans I do this myself where we sometimes, like, we search, we hunt, we have to find clarity, when a lot of times, gaining clarity is just as simple as giving ourselves space and clearing out things that don't serve us. Like I always think of our, like you know, our being as kind of like a bottle. And you know, I think a lot of times, when we're trying to find clarity, we can't find it because we're literally filled up with all these things that don't serve us, all of these thoughts, all of these stresses, all of these triggers, all of these traumas, all of these things that don't serve us. I think we need to take space to release the things that don't serve us, and that's when clarity has the space to actually come in. So, yeah, space, I think, is the most important thing. I think, yeah, this is where a lot of times, we can get hung up because we're like, I need to find it and it's like, actually, you don't have any room to find clarity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right now. Yeah, you need to create that space, and that was very much where I was before, and you know it's not like anything in particular was creating that clock like within me to be able to not move and find what I desire, but it was a whole range of things. You know, there's the people around you who have certain opinions, impressions. There was baggage that I was carrying from the past. There was Environments that I was living in that were making me feel really stagnant, and sometimes just removing yourself from all that can really create that space for you to actually breathe and think clearly and Feel clearly, to then be able to step into alignment with those things. That, those answers that you're looking for.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and sometimes the answers come at the most unexpected times, like you know. Yeah, I mean, I think I want to travel when you're, when you're spending time by yourself. Yeah, I think I think clarity Will come, because I think a lot of times we just need to, we need to close out the noise of where we currently are, like, honestly, take a trip, like, even if it's like, even if it's just like a day trip out of your town it doesn't need to be going to the other side of the world to be impactful. Like you know, a lot of my friends lately you know I live in Colorado, but they've just been taking like weekend trips to the mountains, just looking in Airbnb it could just be an Airbnb an hour away just spending one night by yourself and just like allowing yourself to just be important to yourself.
Speaker 1:And it's crazy sometimes the clarity that can come through. But I think we need to like quiet the mind, need to quiet the environment, exactly that. Yeah, well, thank you, emily, for your time today. This was really incredible and it was one of those conversations again where I have my notes and I feel like I barely use them because our conversation was just so effortless and I love those types of conversations, but before we hop off, can you just share, like a song or an affirmation that you go to when you need the reminder that you are limitless?
Speaker 2:Yeah, what would it get a Affirmation be? I suppose I really just come back to the basic ones. When it comes to affirmations, you know, if you want to be limitless, tell yourself you're limitless, right, like say I am limitless or I am enough, I am powerful. I remember Before, like after a breakup I went through, I just kept on telling myself I am the prize, I am the prize, like. I like to keep them really simple and just find something that does connect with me on that sense.
Speaker 2:But rather than an affirmation for you, I might just give you a quote which is one that really carried me through my transition out of, you know, my my Architecture job into the coaching industry, and then it's also just followed me throughout everything I've been doing, even my travels as well, and it's if you have the courage to begin, you have the courage to succeed. So whenever you are sort of like feeling nervous or Unsure about something that you're about to step into, come back to that and tell yourself you know, I have the courage to begin. Therefore, I have the courage to succeed. If you want to turn that into a little affirmation, I love that.
Speaker 1:I need to use that for myself right now. Yeah, thank you so much, emily, and where can the listeners find you to connect with you more?
Speaker 2:I am so easy to find because it's the same name on all platforms. So if you want to come check out my Instagram that's where I'm the most active and I'm just empower with em on Instagram or if you want to listen to my voice more and have a listen to my podcast, I've got I think it's over 200 episodes, since I've been running this podcast for the last three years of my journey, so you can go check out the empower with them podcast, which is streaming on all platforms.
Speaker 1:Yay, amazing, yeah. So thank you so much for being here. It was such a joy to connect with you and I feel I feel really empowered just chatting with you, so I'm sure the listeners do too, and just appreciate your time.
Speaker 2:I'm so glad. Thank you so much for having me. It was such a powerful conversation.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for tuning in. It means so much to me that you're here and that you're taking the time to listen to the Podcast. If you found this episode to be valuable to you, it would mean so much to me if you shared it with your friends, who you think could also really benefit from this message. You can take a screenshot of you listening and tag me in your Instagram stories. I am at journey to limitless underscore. That also gives me the chance to connect with you and say thank you. So until next week, I hope that you have an amazing week ahead of you and I'll talk to you then.