A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To My Life® Maria-Ines Takeover

In this empowering episode of A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To My Life®, guest host Maria-Ines explores how intertwining diverse interests can lead to a vibrant, fulfilling life. Laura shares her multifaceted journey, from piloting to pottery, showcasing the richness of embracing varied pursuits. The episode takes a heartfelt turn as they discuss resilience and recovery from a devastating house fire, highlighting the importance of community support and proactive steps in overcoming adversity. The conversation wraps up with a discussion on the Queen Code, advocating for personal policies that empower individuals to manage life's challenges with clarity and confidence.

Maria-Ines is a Personal Brand Strategist, Photographer and AI Visual Artist Specialist.

Connect with Maria-Ines here:

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Welcome to a funny thing happened on the way to my life. This is the place to be for stories to inspire and uplift when life doesn’t go according to plans. I’m Laura Muirhead your host and the reigning queen of a funny thing happened on the way to my life. I can’t wait to share my plot twist stories and the stories of my guests with you!

Find out more at lauramuirhead.com

Transcript

Maria-Ines 0:35

Hi, hi. So I am Maria Ines. As you can see, this is not Laura, because today we're doing something fun and different. I am taking over her podcast and I'm going to be interviewing her instead of her interviewing guests. I actually know Laura for many, many, many years now and I adore her which I'm also sure if you know her, you also do because she's just a genuine, incredibly amazing and talented person and I'm just privileged to know her. So today, what we're going to be doing is I'm going to be asking her questions and she's going to share with us all the things that she's been doing in the last few years and all the amazing stuff that she has out there with you today. So if you don't know Laura, please go and listen to the other podcast, because that way you'll get to know her better.

Maria-Ines 1:31

But she is first and foremost for me, a multi-talented, multi-passionate person.

Maria-Ines 1:38

I think that those two words just really encompass a little bit of the depth of who she is, but I think that they actually help to paint a picture of who she actually truly is in the most beautiful way that you can portray that, and I say that because it actually has taken her some time to embody and really own that.

Maria-Ines 2:08

But it is something that has been so clear throughout her entire life is that it is not about being the expert in one little tiny thing.

Maria-Ines 2:20

She is amazing at everything she does, and one of the things that I love about her is that she shows us every time, with everything in her life and we're going to talk about this is how, no matter what the levels or the obstacles or the difficulties that come at you, in whatever way they may come at you, there's always a way to look to shift your perspective, to learn lessons, but also to ultimately get results from whatever the situation may be, and we're going to talk about this more in depth, but I think that that is something that I really, truly admire about her. So, without further ado, before this all just becomes me talking wonders about you, I want to get the mic over to you and just give us a little bit of a background behind. How did you start understanding that you are this passionate, multi-talented person, and when did it become obvious that, as you say, you're the jack of all trades, master of some? You say I love that, but yeah, just talk us through a little bit about how your journey has been to discover this.

Laura Muirhead 3:42

Oh my gosh, Thank you so much, marina. Can we just end the episode there, because I don't think I can add to what you said I don't want to like. Oh my gosh, thank you so much and thank you for hosting today. So how did I start to realize that I'm multi-talented, multi-passionate in life and business and, yeah, a jack of all trades, a master of some? So what happened years ago?

Laura Muirhead 4:09

Years ago, when I was growing up, at one point my dad said to me oh, you know, you're just a jack of all trades. And it didn't necessarily sit well with me at that time. It was sort of like wait, what are you? What are you actually saying? And so I, you know, as I kind of got older and realized, like I do, I've had, I've done so many different things and have had so many interests and you know from, from you know, flying airplanes to opening bread stores, to having a horse stable Like I can't, I, I'm not someone who was going to grow up and be like, like an excellent pianist or something. I don't have one passion. And so, as my life went on, I kind of started to think well, people probably think I'm flaky. I just jumped from one thing to another. And then I realized, when I looked at it for myself, I was like no, it's not being flaky, it's just being multi-passionate, multi-talented and embracing those, those passions, those talents. And so that's where, you know, I kind of had this aha one time, just driving in the car and thinking back on being called a jack of all trades. You know, cause the saying is jack of all trades, master of none. And I was like no, I'm a jack of all trades, but I'm the master of some, maybe even the master of many. So I just changed up the phrasing and started to embrace and and and then just acknowledge that I have different you know passions and I want to do different things and it's okay to follow those, those roads, those paths. In fact, one of the most recent things that I've done in the past few years is pottery and open an art slash pottery studio in Michigan. And I'm kind of, I'm kind of on the downhill side of that now I.

Laura Muirhead 6:26

But if I hadn't have done that, if I'd never had done it, I would still be wanting to do it. If I'd never had a horse stable, I would still be like, oh, had a horse stable. I would still be like, oh, you know, like no regrets, right? There's like, instead of doing the thing and embracing it and then changing course, when you're, when you're done with it for whatever reason and I'm not saying that things necessarily just happen that that way that one day you're just like, well, I'm done doing that, it doesn't. It didn't. None of it has happened that way. It just has run its course for whatever reason, different circumstances and in the different depending on which situation we're talking about. But yeah, it's okay. It's okay to change course and change your path and not have regrets for things that you wish you might have done.

Maria-Ines 7:21

Yeah, I love that and I think that one of the things that I've taken and I've learned from you, from learning your experience, is that you grew up in a time when maybe it's a little bit more acceptable and I say acceptable with quotation mark because it's still front front, front upon but I think that you grew up in a time where you had to specialize, like you know, you had to go to school for a certain degree and you had to work your entire life on that job.

Maria-Ines 7:52

You know, not necessarily in one job, but like applying what you, your degree, was on and shifting away from that was not something that you did in your and you know when, in the times that you grew up and went to school and all of that, um, as I said, I think that maybe is starting to become more acceptable.

Maria-Ines 8:12

Um, I still think that the that we are far from accepting the fact that all our passions can help us live a more fulfilled life, like I still believe that we still look at our passions as I still have to define one and use the other ones as sort of like past times type thing, where one of the things that I've learned from you is that you actually utilize all of your passions as means for fulfillment, for generating income, for, you know, just giving back to the community, to your family, to yourself, to you know. So I do believe that you're, in that sense, you're so much more holistic in that approach than what the mainstream is at the moment, right now, and I think that's that's very, you know, innovative and avant-garde to some extent, because I think we're still far from, you know, that part.

Laura Muirhead 9:16

Yeah, and going back to what you said, definitely when I was growing up, my dad started his first you know job, his career, at a very young age and moved up in the company, moved up in the company until he eventually retired from that same company. So that was definitely the mindset in my household was that you started somewhere and you moved up and up and up. So I think that also potentially played into the you know his idea of well, you're a jack of all, you know, you're a jack of all trades. And he would definitely criticize people who had different you know, jumped, you know, from job to job and even if it was several years in one job to another job, and it was definitely something he criticized and would say, oh, they're not going to have any retirement funds or whatever. But things are different. Like you said, this is a different time and it is.

Laura Muirhead 10:15

But having said that too, I want to touch on what you said about having just hobbies. It's OK to also have something that's a hobby and not a business. I guess I tend to not always do that. That's one of the things that at some point I kind of think about oh, do my friends think? Oh, for heaven's sakes, couldn't you, just, couldn't that just be a hobby? Do you have to go full in on it?

Maria-Ines 10:44

Yeah, I totally agree because, again, it's it's the point is not to make one choice better than the other, it's just to understand what is good for you, and I think that this is a beautiful segue to talk about and we may jump around a little bit here, but this is a beautiful segue to talk about.

Maria-Ines 11:07

Maybe we can start before we talk about one of your beautiful programs is how that program was born, because I think that one of the biggest, most challenging events in your life that happened, let's say, in the recent past definitely I think that for me personally, has taught me so many lessons from hearing you how you're experiencing and how you transformed from literally seeing your life down to ashes, and so I wonder if you would share with us, you know, that very dramatic life event, but also how you started, and I truly believe that, even though your entire life has been this preparation for this program that I don't want to mention yet because we will talk about it in a second but it this particular event, I feel that was the seed, that really where everything else stemmed from. So why don't you share that live event and how you approached what happened afterwards?

Moving Forward After House Fire

Laura Muirhead 12:16

right. So my husband and I had a, like you said, a bit of a traumatic life experience when our house burned down and we had it was a. It was a dream house for us. We had wanted to live on the water and living in New Jersey it definitely gives you a lot, as we would say, on the shore in New Jersey and we we had the opportunity and bought a house. It was 10 months after we bought the house that we woke up in the middle of the night. My husband woke up in the middle of the night, 3.30 in the morning, and the house was on fire and we were able to luckily get out of the house. Luckily he woke up and we were able to get out of the house with our pets, our dogs, and we actually found one of our cats the next day, the next day, and she survived. But we had to.

Laura Muirhead 13:21

There's a level of you just go forward. You know, you just go forward. We were never going to sit in the quote, unquote victimhood of that and it's not, it's not really my personality and it's definitely not my husband's personality to let that. I mean, everybody is different and everybody approaches things differently. But from the moment our house was on fire, my husband moved into what next? What next? What next, you know, from getting a long-term hotel for us to stay at, like immediately, we had that night, we had a place to stay, we had what I call a three-bedroom mansion at the Marriott Hotel, the long-term Marriott. We had two bedrooms and a living room kitchenette and we lived there for a month while we, you know, looked for a rental house, looked for a place to stay. We lived there with our three dogs and our cat, which was a bit of a challenging experience, but we, we did it. But even with there's so many stories that go along with this because we weren't going to just let even the insurance his insurance says, oh, we'll help you find a rental house to live in until you can either decide you're going to rebuild or you're going to, you know, move into your permanent home. We didn't just let that happen. We didn't just say, okay, yeah, you find us a place. We were making calls, we were looking on the internet, we were searching for rental properties. We called our real estate agent, who had become a bit of a friend after buying the house on the bay, and said, hey, help us out. Like he took us to view properties and view rental houses so that we could find a place to live. And I can tell you by the by the end of a month, that month, in our three bedroom mansion, I was. I was ready because, also in the meantime, we were collecting things that we knew we needed. We were collecting things that we knew we needed when the house burned.

Laura Muirhead 15:47

The very day the house burned down by the afternoon we went to the mall because what did we have? I had my nightgown and my underwear. I didn't have any shoes. Luckily, our neighbor across the street let us come into their house and stay while I watched my house burn down and while the firemen came out and set up and fought the fire and they loaned us some clothes. My husband had his brother's jeans and a shirt and he actually had shoes in his trunk of his car, which was in the driveway. So he had some things.

Laura Muirhead 16:21

But we had to go to the mall and I immediately went into. Okay, what do I need to run my business, our business, my main business, besides the other things that I do, is I'm the CFO and vice president and co-owner of our family business. So immediately it was I need a new computer, I need another, an iPad. At that time I had embraced some of my artistic talents and was drawing. But using Procreate on my iPad app, I was afraid that I had lost all my drawings that I had done, which are now a children's book. Thank goodness I didn't lose those, they were in the cloud.

Laura Muirhead 17:07

But we immediately went into what do we need. What do we need? What are the necessities? We went into the stores and said, okay, if I have, you know, two or three pairs of jeans and four shirts, I'll be good for now. If I can buy some underwear, if I can buy some socks, oh, let's buy some shoes. I we went in and bought a hair. You know, I need a hairdryer, I need a brush. Funny thing is, after my shower in the morning I realized I didn't have a comb. I was like, oh, I forgot to buy a comb. So these are the things you know. And after years and years of having, you know, long hair and short hair, and I had quite a collection of hair clips and hair ties and I didn't have a hair clip and I have a lot of hair, so to dry my hair I usually have to clip some of it up and get to the bottom of the rest of it. I didn't have a clip. So these are the things that you don't even you take for granted. You take, you know hey, how about a toothbrush and toothpaste, you know? And we had to get basics and but also really for me, a lot of besides the basics of clothing myself and having shampoo and toothpaste. We both were like, okay, what do we need to run the business? We needed I didn't want to be on the hotel's wifi, so we got a hotspot so that I could connect my computer to the hotspot and have a little bit hopefully faster bandwidth, but also to keep our accounts safe and not be on the hotel. So these are the things that we immediately started to implement.

Laura Muirhead 18:53

To say here, which was a real lesson in in in personal um, friendship was um. I called my friend in the morning when my best friend when the house was burning and I guess it was still burning, I wasn't still there and to tell her that our house had burned and she said what can I do? Do you want me to come out? She lives in California and we live in New Jersey. And in that moment I said I honestly don't see what you could possibly do to help us. And by that evening, she sent me a text and said I'll be there in the morning. That evening, she sent me a text and said I'll be there in the morning. And thank goodness, like thank goodness, she came out and she helped us immensely in so many ways and helped me immensely, and I'm so grateful for her just taking that initiative and not and not listening to me, because I also was probably in shock and being like what are you like? Literally, what are you going to do? And there was a lot that she did.

Personal Policies and the Queen Code

Laura Muirhead 19:57

So there are many, many lessons around that and, like you said, I do think that this is part of what happened with me moving forward, I do want to say that we also that side note and then we'll go back to what you want to talk about but that opened up opportunities that I would have never imagined If we still lived in that house. There were things that probably wouldn't have happened. That have happened. So I just like to look at it that way and we don't we don't sit in in the victimhood of it that, oh my goodness, and we lost everything. And there were, there were, there are things that were irreplaceable. Don't get me wrong, but we're so grateful to just be here and and you know, there are a lot of things that were maybe my kids thing. You know the kids made things or things. I have memories that I was holding on to pictures that we had that I can't get back, but we're here and there were new opportunities from that.

Maria-Ines 21:10

I love that and I mean there's so much to unpack here from that. I love that and I mean there's so much to unpack here. But I think one of the biggest takeaways for me is that of course this should go without saying, but I'm going to say it anyways is that of course, everybody reacts differently. I mean, we're talking about a very extreme example. Maybe, if the listeners are thinking about it, you know, maybe you can think of an instance in your life. It may not be a literal fire, but what was that fire for you in your life? What was the metaphorical fire in your life and how did you react? And again, also in that aspect of like, we all, of course, will react different to different situations. So this is not to say that if you've had a dramatic event in your life and you didn, will react different to different situations. So this is not to say that if you had a dramatic event in your life and you didn't react this way, you should feel bad about it. No, this is not about that.

Maria-Ines 22:00

This is about the fact I think that is important to note here is that, again, without extending this podcast to 10 hours, to talk about your incredible life, there have been already many chapters before that one that had helped you to reach to that point.

Maria-Ines 22:19

But the reason why I say that this, to me, from an outside perspective of course, seemed to have been sort of like, ironically, the igniter for what came after is that, um, it that the, the, precisely the, the dramatic event of like, literally you're starting from scratch, and then how you approached everything with such, um, an attitude of like, yes, in part may have been personality, but in part I think it was the compilation of what you and now we're going to go into, the nice and juicy stuff you call personal policies, because they in itself and I will let you explain it in a second but they in and of itself encompass already so many aspects of our lives and how we approach life that I think that you already had in you I mean not, I think you already had them in you.

Maria-Ines 23:15

And from that point onwards is that I think that you started to sort of put one and one together, and that's when you know the need and the yearn for what eventually became the Queen Code, became the Queen Code. So I would love for you to touch upon that, of course, if you agree that this was sort of like the seed that started it all, and if you can start by explaining to us, from your perspective and your words, what are personal policies and how or where do we find them. I will ask you more follow-up questions, but let's start there.

Laura Muirhead 23:55

Yeah. So the Queen Code and personal policies came out of the idea that businesses have policies. If you go into a bank that you don't have an account with and ask them to cash a check, they won't do it. It's just part of their policy. Or they'll say do you have an account here? No, I don't have an account here, I'm not going to cash your check. Or if you go into different stores, a lot of shops might have a sign that say no returns, only store credit or exchanges or whatever. So it came out that people have policies as well. Whether we know it or not, we have policies, we have personal policies, and some of them get crossed over a lot. Some of them are strong.

Laura Muirhead 24:50

I can give you an example of for me and I use food a lot with this, because I think people have a lot of it's relatable to realize that we have policies around food. I don't eat condiments, I don't eat ketchup. I don't eat mustard. I don't. I only eat mayonnaise if it's holding something together like a macaroni salad or tuna salad or something like that. But this is. I don't know where that came from. It came from my childhood. I don't like ketchup and I I don't like mustard. I don't know why I don't. A lot of people have issues with that too. They really like. And I think if you have food choices which we all do people will be like that, like, how do you not eat ketchup? It's easy for me to not eat it, so, anyway.

Establishing Personal Policies for Empowerment

Laura Muirhead 25:43

But personal policies are, you know, the guideposts of our life. It's like driving on the highway and when you hit the bumpy edge, saying hey, you're coming to the edge of the highway, it pulls you back in. And that's what a personal policy can do. It can keep you on your path. And what makes it for the Queen Code? It came up that, okay. So how can I develop this? How can we help people? How can I help people to strengthen their personal policies? How can we look at what they have set in their life for policies and what they haven't set?

Laura Muirhead 26:28

And a lot of times, the lack of personal policies is what's making you, you know, make, driving you crazy. It's what's making you frustrated. It's what it's the things that are keeping, potentially keeping you stuck into the whole idea of you're the queen, of your queendom, and there are supporting roles of a queendom and multiple supporting roles. A queen can't govern without these supporting roles. There's a princess, there are knights, there are servants in the castle that support your role, there's your inner sorceress. There's, um, the villagers, the people who own the shops or or are make you know, farming the land.

Laura Muirhead 27:24

And if you are a queen out of alignment, if you're a queen without your policies in place, then imagine a queen who just wants to go to war, who is just like cut off their heads and angry all the time, and it comes from potentially having things overstepped. So if we look at each archetype and the stories that are attached to the archetypes, and also the different areas in our lives, then we can change those stories. We can accept the ones that we want to accept and say, yeah, I'm okay, I'm okay being in having this story in my life and I'm good with that, but I'm not okay with this and it it's just a transformation of, of mindset, of the stories that we potentially tell ourselves, and we we do. We can tell ourselves any story we want and we'll believe it. Some people, you know you might just go hang on to that story so tight that you'll you know that's the hill you're going to fall on and it could be a story that could be changed and potentially enhance your life in a better way.

Maria-Ines 28:49

I love that, especially because I mean we all attach so much meaning to stories to mean something to us that, again, it's not to say or to remove. Let's say, if it was as we just discussed, if it was a dramatic event, it's not to say that the fire did not take things away from you. That's a fact, did not take things away from you, that's a fact. But what it took away from you and how you reacted to that perceived notion of it took things away from me, is what that personal policy would do and the power that you give that story to, whereas if you say there was a fire, I lost my house, I lost precious things and yet here I am, alive and well and thriving and flourishing in my life, and you know, just being alive, that is a completely different story than the. You know, I just like boohoo, I just lost everything in the fire, and I will talk about that every single day, like it is about removing the power that the stories can have on us and how we bring the lessons learned forward, because I think and correct me if I'm wrong but I feel like every time that let's say you are in a relationship and something that your partner does bothers you.

Maria-Ines 30:17

Time and time and time again I feel like when we don't acknowledge the personal policy of like that, this is where I sort of I draw the line and that person is passing that line. If I don't, I'm not honest with myself and say that's my personal policy is that you shall not cross this line, but that person keeps crossing it because I haven't said this is the line and you're passing it, but because we haven't taken the power back to ourselves and say it to even to our start. Start with yourself and then share it with the person. That is the place where you should look at. If something is bothering you, then look at that, because it's most likely a place where you need to establish personal policies and I would love for you to share what you think about that.

Laura Muirhead 31:19

Yeah, I definitely agree that if that is a case where you are being, you know, aggravated or triggered or feeling pushed or frustrated by what somebody else is doing, it is a signal to look at, because so many times we're like, oh, they're doing that to me and it frequently, almost always, it's not about, it's not about you, it's about them, it's about what they are doing, and if you don't, if you don't communicate with them, they're not going to know that it's bothering you. Number one. But part of what you said as well is that I am a big fan of personal responsibility as well. So if something's happening over and over and over again to you in your life, in your story of you saying, oh, that person and I frequently this is one of the things that I frequently notice people say is that, oh, they think this of me, you know. Oh, they must think I'm stupid or whatever it is. Whatever the story is that's playing out, that you hear yourself saying something like, like that chances are someone's doesn't think you're stupid, they're just doing whatever they do, and that is a story that is in your head of why, like, maybe have a look at that. Like, were there growing up, did your parents. I'm not going to say your parents thought you were stupid, but did they not give you the empowerment? Or there's a lot of reasons why some of these things could come up and these, a lot of our stories, are stories from childhood that we need to, would be beneficial for us to reframe and, you know, it takes your power back. It brings your power back and it, like you said.

Laura Muirhead 33:22

Like you said, if you have a partner or somebody, friend, relative, who keeps crossing a line that you, you can get to the point where you're you say no. If you have a, let's say, you have a friend that you realize maybe isn't such a good friend or maybe you don't enjoy spending so much time with them, it's okay to start to say no like and put up personal policies. Maybe you meet with them every week is your norm, like we have lunch every week, but it's starting to, it's not enjoying it so much when we have lunch every week, well, maybe you would enjoy it if you had lunch every other week. Maybe you would enjoy having lunch with them once a month. So these are things, these are, you know, personal policies you can put in place and things that you can have a look at, instead of saying I just don't really, I just don't enjoy it, I don't enjoy it.

Laura Muirhead 34:26

Stop putting yourself in in situations that you don't enjoy, and there are ways to communicate with people that are not in an angry way. In a, you know, reactive way, you can say to someone hey, when you do that, I don't, I don't appreciate it. Could we do it this way instead? And I do want to go back. Even though this is where we were talking about, I do want to go back to the fire for a minute and as far as, like, losing things and it's not that we what happened with me, and one of the reasons why I didn't continue to just be uber sad about the things that were lost, is actually as we were walking through the, through the mall, it hit me. You know when you're kind of, your mind is playing through like, oh, I don't have that anymore, I don't have that anymore, I don't have that anymore.

Laura Muirhead 35:32

I had a collection of finished glass that my mom had started to collect and she gave it to me and, for whatever reason, as I was, we were walking through the mall, I like stopped in my tracks and realized, oh my gosh, all of that collection is gone and it meant a lot to me and I started to get, you know, teary eyed about it and then I actually stopped because I realized that it wasn't going to serve me to sit and cry over all these things and I'm not going to say I haven't been emotional about things here and there, but how is it going to serve me, going forward to sit and cry over those things? And I realized that it wasn't going to, and I didn't wasn't going to sit and cry over everything that was lost because there is like there's there was no point in that. So, yeah, I just wanted to. I just wanted to backtrack on that that I wasn't completely inhuman in my reaction Exactly.

Maria-Ines 36:37

Again, this is not to say like, oh, if something dramatic or not even dramatic, if something happens in your life and you're not happy about it, you know you're not supposed to like give in to the emotions. Like the contrary, you have to feel and you have to acknowledge them. Because in feeling those emotions is when you can sort of check yourself and be like what am I feeling? Why am I feeling this? How you know and check and balance this type of thing? Why am I feeling this? How you know and check and balance this type of thing? So this is not to say that, yeah, you definitely do need to. I mean, emotions are, I feel like, are our gave of the bank. You don't go to the bank and the bank says, no, I'm not going to cash a check because you don't have an account here. And we get mad at the bank Like that's not how it works. We understand the bank has a policy, doesn't hurt to ask, but they say no, okay, fine, at least I asked. So the same way, I feel like when you are very aware of your personal policies and you're able to have them confidently, with the understanding and knowledge that not everybody is going to react well to it, because that's how it is, you know, like, especially as we go through life and we go. You know some people will go into the more personal development, others will not, or our journeys are just in different places at one given time. There may be, of course, people who don't receive it well, but that does not, or should not, give us a reason to stop doing them, because I feel, like once you, I feel like it's like a process. You know it will take you time. People will take time also to absorb it and accept it. Some will go, some will fade, some will actually probably be happy about that, you know. Thank you, because you know you're being honest with me and that means that maybe our relationship will even get better.

Maria-Ines 38:46

And not only that, but, like I feel like Queen Code spans so many aspects of of life and business in general.

Maria-Ines 38:55

So, like, once you do this work, it has so many important impact and repercussions on, you know, our life in general.

Setting Personal Policies for Success

Maria-Ines 39:06

So I think that that's why one of the reasons why I love this because it's not, you know, in my world I'm an online business owner and in my world it's always about business, business, business, business, while I take a more holistic approach to things and that's one of the reasons why I love the Queen Code, because it's not about business. You know, it's like it's what it does to my business eventually by having the personal policies, because when I do have them, I also can inform my clients. You know, like these are my personal and, yes, partly it goes into the business part, but a lot of them have to do with personal policies like that, that will make you have a much more richer interaction and experience with your clients, you know in my case. But again, I think that this spills over so many different aspects that that's one of the reasons why I think is so beautiful so many different aspects that that's one of the reasons why I think it's so beautiful.

Laura Muirhead 40:07

Yeah, and that's that's the thing about the queen code is it does touch on one of the things it has a there's a workbook that goes along with the queen code program and each week focuses on a different area of your life, and we touch on self-care, we touch on business and finance, we touch on your relationships with friends and family. So media, not just social media, but TV, what you're listening to, what you're taking in and what's interesting and this goes, I think, to what you're talking about as well is number one. It's an evolving process. What your policies are today can change. They're not set in stone. They can change as you change, and people may fall away, or you may choose to, you know, have people not be in your life anymore, or you might choose to just be more reserved with your time with them. Um, so, yeah, we have five areas of your life that we touch on in the queen code, but also when you have, when you know and respect your own personal policies, other people. You're not wishy-washy, so people know where they stand with you as well, and and there are some of your policies can be a bit, you know, situ like from this situation. No, I won't do it in that situation. I will do it in this situation. There are hard boundaries that we set, that we all have as well, and there are more softer personal policies that can give and take a little more. And that's up to you. It's all up to you. That's the beauty of it. But I'll give you another example.

Laura Muirhead 42:02

When you have, when you are strong in your personal policies and some of these can reach over into your business, I don't generally answer a phone call or a text message after about 9.30 at night, maybe 10 o'clock, definitely probably after 10 o'clock, unless it's an emergency. If it's my kids or my best friend or my husband, then I will. Obviously I also will not because I guess I'm old school. I still think business hours start at eight in the morning. So if you text me or call me before eight in the morning, again depending on the situation, but in general I'm not going to respond and everybody knows this about me now. So I might get a text message at 930 at night that says hey, are you still up? Are you okay to chat? Can you talk? And if I don't answer that they know. Nope, she didn't answer because they know this about me and I think a lot of people in business these days, especially with the internet and the way things are running your own business, a lot of people say my weekends are my weekends and you know I honor that with people and if I send a message I might sense you know my coach a message on a Saturday, because it's in my mind, I don't expect a response on a Saturday, I don't expect a response on a Sunday.

Laura Muirhead 43:47

But in order to not forget about it, I might send that message. But I don't get mad if they you know, I know that and I I'm the same way Like I. I think that whatever you want, if you're okay with doing business on a Saturday or Sunday, then then go for it. It's what it's your, it's your choice, it's your, it's your policy, you said it you said.

Maria-Ines 44:25

that I think is so, so, so important is that Queen Code helps you tailor, make it to yourself, and these are the kind of things that you would walk away with because, if I correct me, if I'm wrong but in the end you create your own policies, right, like, is it a one pager? That in the end you have your sort of like your policies. And again, you know, say again that you're an online business. I mean, this is in general, even with your kids, if you're a parent, you know, like there's certain I don't want to call it rule, but there's certain policies that you can implement, that you can put in place with all the flexibility that having kids, depending on their ages, requires. But my point is like, once you have that, you understand what your quote, unquote limitations are, your policies are, and as soon as you have that, it's easier for you to inform and enforce them with different.

Maria-Ines 45:13

You know the different aspects of your life and I think that that is so important and so key, because it's not you saying, like the example that you just gave, if you have to work on the weekends and you need your clients to answer you on the weekends, then by all means let them, you know, answer you before eight and after ten, because that's your schedule.

Maria-Ines 45:33

But if you need to work only at night, let's say don't, don't let your clients text you before, I don't know, noon, or something like that. As long as you're aware of your policies, then it's easier to communicate for others, as you explained earlier. So I think that one of the beautiful outcomes of Queen Code is that you will walk away with your own policies. So this is not something that you just go through the program and learn all about it and then just walk away and forget about it. You will implement them and you would also learn the process to, as you say, revisit them so that you make sure that they're always up to date. Essentially, has your life circumstances changed? Has your work circumstances changed? Whatever their circumstances may be, then you know how to keep them updated so that they're valid and current for you for your particular case.

Laura Muirhead 46:31

Yeah, it's absolutely true. You change the policies as you go along. The Queen Code has, like I mentioned, a workbook and each week, at the end of the week, going through the stories and the archetypes and who you align with and who you are unaligned with and what you want to change, at the end of the week you say, for example, in the area of self-care, in my area of self-care, these are my personal policies and maybe that could be, I'm going to have fresh flowers in my house every week. Once a week I'm going to buy fresh flowers. Or maybe you love to get your nails done. So, yes, I'm going to have my standing appointment every whatever Friday to get my nails done, because that makes me feel good and that makes me, that fills me up on a self care level. So at the end of the self care week you'll have your policies around self care. Maybe it's, you know, every Sunday that's my personal rest day and I'm going to do a salt bath on Sundays, whatever, it doesn't matter. And I'm going to do a salt bath on Sundays, whatever it doesn't matter, it's what you feel good about. I'm going to take myself for coffee once a week, or I'm going to have nice. You know, maybe my mornings, from seven to eight o'clock, is my time to have a coffee or a tea and read something. I want to read or meditate, it's totally up to you what you want to do. So that'll be your self-care week done, and then we talk about relationships and family and friends. Okay, so at the end of that week you'll have your personal policies around that.

Laura Muirhead 48:21

So at the end of the six-week program, what you have is you take each week the personal policies from self-care, the personal policies from finance, the personal policies from family and relationships, and you put them all together and that's your overall queen code. So you definitely have a strong takeaway when you're done and a roadmap going forward. But again, you can always revisit these and adjust them. Even if you implement them and go, you know what that one's not quite right for me. I need it to be stronger or I need it to be less. It's a constantly evolving but you, like you said, you know. Then you have your queen code and you know where you can make the changes and how to make the changes and how to revisit the archetypes and the stories that that come up, because life, we will have new stories, we will have new challenges. It's life.

Maria-Ines 49:23

Exactly, I love it.

Maria-Ines 49:24

I love it so I want to sing you praises and it's all related to this.

Maria-Ines 49:26

So, no worries, before I ask you one final question. But because, again going back to this holistic approach to things, one of the other things that I love about the Queen Code is that not only is the queen code something that is was born out of your own personal experience and is your signature process literally your signature, your experience, and you pour all the love and expertise um, because you have many accreditation to your name. So this is not something out of a whim or out of like you know, I'm just going to be like one of those people who's just going to put something out there. This is well thought out, this is well experimented and experienced from personal experience. But another aspect of this that we haven't touched upon yet and I want to to is that, amongst the other many talents and passions that you have, you can actually support people as they walk through this six weeks with many other different modalities that you are an expert in that you may feel like, oh, maybe you will benefit from going through this or doing that or doing the other thing.

Laura Muirhead 50:42

Because one of the things that Laura, that I personally because this is my style adore about her is that, while she's very, very well connected with the spiritual world, she is one of the most down to earth and, as you have experienced throughout this podcast interview, and as you have experienced throughout this podcast interview, one of the most down to earth persons that I know, and yet she has so much wealth of knowledge and understanding about other aspects approach, the holistic approach that you take here in the Queen Code tools in my toolbox that I can help people move through and, as they're working on the queen code or even in one-on-one sessions as well is I, I, I I do feel a strong connection to whatever you want to call it Intuition, higher, your higher self, the universe, universal energies, and in fact in the Queen Code we talk about your inner sorceress, which is your higher self, your intuition, and being in touch with that. It's really, it's really important and sometimes, just in general, we get stuck with our, our energies get stuck and we one of the one of the things that some of the tools that I have is moving those energies is having one-on-one sessions of energy healings. I've created three different meditations that you can connect to your higher self. You can do a general healing energy or a more specific energy healing. I just have learned so much and I respect so much the energies of our bodies and I know that sometimes when we're having uncomfortable things happening in our bodies, that they're connected to situations, the way we're feeling about things, or outward situations or issues that we're having in our life, situations or issues that we're having in our life.

Laura Muirhead 53:25

But, yeah, I definitely, I mean you can see in my background the crystals and the things. I definitely have a love of crystals and essential oils and just everything, all these holistic things because I think they're incredibly beneficial tarot cards, oracle cards. In fact, one of the unique things about the queen code is that I have now created a um Oracle deck to go along with the queen code. It actually can be a standalone deck if um, but it, it, it definitely um compliments the queen code and it asks you questions and gives you journal prompts to help you move through areas that you know.

Laura Muirhead 54:06

What are you feeling?

Laura Muirhead 54:07

Whether it's aligned or unaligned, even when we're aligned, there's things that we can think about to help us even, you know, be better at what we're working on or what we're doing in our life in general.

Holistic Coaching and Personal Development

Laura Muirhead 54:20

So, yeah, I mean working on or what we're doing and and our life in general. So, yeah, I mean I love being connected to the spiritual things as well as the you know, human things and I, I guess I, you know I've got one, one foot in the, in the woo and and one foot on the ground and we're living one foot on the ground and we're living. We're living on, you know, on this planet, but we're definitely connected to all kinds of energies and I think that that's one of the things that, over the last several years, has really become important to me is the energy that I am in and how it has really helped me and how I react to things and how I approach everything, even our you know business, our literal brick and mortar business, besides my own personal business. So it's definitely a big part of my life and what I do.

Maria-Ines 55:23

And, before I forget, your deck is also available online so you can share the link in the notes so that people, if they want to look at that, they can. And then the other thing I wanted to say is that I feel like this I respect this aspect of you so much because, again, as a holistic strategist myself, I almost feel like is a responsibility to my clients to bring all the possible tools to the table, because in your case, when you're going through this work that you go through, there's, it removes, it moves a lot of things within and just if you were to just do that without helping them navigate it with other tools, I know you and I know that you wouldn't feel happy about it and it's a sense of responsibility, like if I'm helping you with this, I'm going to help you through it, like to the best of my ability. Of course you're not, you know, perfect, but like to the best of your ability. I know that you, your thought is I I'm just going to help you through this as much as I can with everything. I know that has helped me and has helped other clients. So I really truly admire and really, yeah, respect that a lot, because it's not everybody does that, you know.

Maria-Ines 56:50

There's the more individual approach of, like you know, just go this way and then just go somewhere else to get the other solutions, which is not necessarily to say again that one is wrong or not, but the point is that when you include that more holistic approach to it, you already know your client, your student that goes through it, and therefore you can provide a more tailored approach to their particular situation, instead of having to start over with somebody else and tell them exactly what was going on.

Maria-Ines 57:25

And it's not the same experience but because, as you said, like if each week you're dealing with a particular level, then you can deal with that level at you know, with all the tools that you can have in your toolkit. So I think that that approach is really really interesting and honestly quite innovative because, again, we are still very much it's shifting slowly, but at least again I'm talking from the online world perspective there's still that very separate approach and not as much holistic. So I really truly appreciate it. And one final question sorry, let me if you have something to add to that.

Laura Muirhead 58:04

I know we could go on all day, but I did want to comment on that and I thank you for saying that. But yeah, I definitely when I'm working with people, it's all these things. And you know I've again because I'm a jack of all trades, master of some. You know I've been in business, I've had multiple businesses and I've navigated tough relationships. I mean, I've been on this earth for a few years and so I think that all my experiences plus my tools, really I fill my, I guess, fill my toolbox with things that you know some of some weeks in the queen code might be easier than others and if you come up against a difficult situation, then let's move through it, let's work through it together, not just, oh well, you know, keep working on your workbook. No, no, what, what, what else do you need to help you to, to help you get your personal policies in place?

Maria-Ines 59:07

So thank you for mentioning that, and having you there to help them walk through the process is invaluable, certainly, so I wanted to ask you is there anything else that you would like to add, anything that we didn't touch upon, that you would love to talk about?

Laura Muirhead 59:28

I think I think we've. I mean, like I said, we could go on and on and on. Yes, we know we can. This is just one episode there. There's lots to talk about. There's lots to talk about with so many things. But I really have so appreciated you doing this takeover and, and you know, enjoy talking about obviously my one of my passions with the queen code and and I love helping people put these in place because I do think it's such a transformational journey and can really enhance your life and you know, when you look at these stories and can move them, move areas where you might be feeling stuck, it's an incredible journey.

Maria-Ines 1:00:11

I love it. No, this has been fun. I wanted to ask you where can people and I know you will put all this information in the notes, but where can people start to learn more about the Queen Code or to learn more about you know the process, all of that Like what would you suggest is the best place to start for them?

Exciting Podcast Takeover Success

Laura Muirhead 1:00:32

Well, of course, my website, lauramirheadcom, is always available. Um, I am on instagram. It's laura underscore merehead, underscore, uh, facebook, laura merehead. Um, but definitely I. If you go on my website, it's got all the things and um side note, depending on when you're listening to this or hearing it, I've got my websites just about to make come out with a new, fresh, a new fresh face. So all the information will still be there, and my podcast as well, all of everything. So it's all there on the website. That's the best place, lauramirheadcom.

Maria-Ines 1:01:14

Yeah, go check it out because it's incredibly amazing. So thank you, my darling. This was so much fun and I cannot wait to hear it go live and do another one.

Laura Muirhead 1:01:26

Yeah, we should do just a whole series of takeovers because, again, I mean, I know I have a lot of stories, but I really appreciate you sharing your time with me today and I always want to thank the listeners for joining us on if anything happened on the way to my life.

Maria-Ines 1:01:46

Yes, thank you, bye, bye.