
Live Your Extraordinary Life With Michelle Rios
Hi, I'm Michelle Rios, host of the Live Your Extraordinary Life podcast. This podcast is built on the premise that life is meant to be joyful, but far too often we settle for less. If you've ever thought that something is missing from your life; that you were meant for more; or you simply want to experience more joy in the every day, than this podcast is for you.I'm a wife, mother, business leader and motivational speaker, but at my core, I'm a small town girl from humble beginnings who knew she was meant for more. And through the grace of God, I've beat the odds, overcome adversity, and experienced tremendous success. I am now married to the man of my dreams, have a beautiful family, travel the world, and enjoy an incredible community of friends that spans the globe. Life isn't just good, it's extraordinary! And, it just keeps getting better. Each week, I'll bring you captivating personal stories, transformative life lessons, and juicy conversations on living life to the full. With the hope to inspire you to create a life you love - on your terms - with authenticity, purpose, and connection. Together, we'll explore what it means to live an extraordinary life; the things that hold us back; and the steps we all can take to start living our best lives. So come along for the journey. It's never too late to get started, and the world needs your light.
Live Your Extraordinary Life With Michelle Rios
Unperfected with Brooke Jean
What if the life you were chasing wasn’t the one you truly wanted? For Brooke Jean, a licensed therapist and coach, that realization sparked a transformative journey from corporate overachievement to authentic living. In this episode, Brooke opens up about how societal expectations, unprocessed trauma, and the relentless pursuit of perfection led to burnout—and how she found healing and fulfillment by embracing boundaries, balance, and her inner truth.
Together, we dive deep into the power of spiritual awakening and self-discovery, exploring how life’s challenges can lead us to uncover our true purpose. Brooke shares her unique perspective on integrating masculine and feminine energies, leaning into intuition, and creating daily routines that spark freedom and creativity.
This conversation is a rallying cry for women, especially high-achieving CEO moms, to redefine success on their own terms. By focusing on joy, intentionality, and the power of frequency, Brooke shows us how to shift from a life of striving to one of thriving.
Tune in to hear:
- How Brooke pivoted from corporate success to coaching
- The role of collective trauma in personal transformation
- Why spiritual awakening is essential for true healing
- The roots of shame in women’s lives and how to overcome them
- How balancing masculine and feminine energies can foster growth
- Simple daily rituals that boost well-being and productivity
- Why play and pleasure are the ultimate tools for success
- The ripple effect of individual healing on communities
Join us for a heartfelt, eye-opening dialogue that challenges the hustle mindset and celebrates the courage to live authentically. To connect with Brooke, visit liveunperfected.com or follow her on Instagram at @BrookeJeanUnperfected.
WAYS TO CONNECT WITH ME:
- New Course Alert - Extraordinary Wealth: Mastering the Art of Selling With Soul: https://michellerios.mykajabi.com/Extraordinary-Wealth-Selling-With-Soul
- Book: https://michelleriosofficial.com/book. (Coming in 2025. Join the Waitlist)
- The Energetic Blueprint for Financial Freedom (Free Audio): https://michellerios.mykajabi.com/extraordinary-wealth-the-energetic-blueprint
- My Daily Wealth Affirmations: https://michellerios.mykajabi.com/opt-in (Free)
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michelle.rios.official/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michelle.c.rios
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@michelleriosofficial
- Website: https://michelleriosofficial.com
Hello everyone and welcome back to the Live your Extraordinary Life podcast. Today we have the pleasure of welcoming Brooke Jean to the Live your Extraordinary Life podcast. She is a licensed therapist, a coach, a podcast host and a speaker dedicated to helping high achieving women, particularly CEO boss moms, transition from healing to high-frequency without the pressure to be perfect. She's a creator of the Signature Unperfected Method, which combines psychology, energetics and neuroscience to guide individuals in shedding societal expectations and stepping into their most authentic selves. I am so thrilled to have her here. Brooke, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm so excited to be here. My own little bio just turned me up and turned me on. Just listening to it I was like let's go baby, I mean you're speaking my language.
Speaker 1:You are speaking my language.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm like, oh, I can just feel it. This is going to be such a juicy conversation.
Speaker 1:It is. And okay, I have to start from the beginning, because we have very similar stories of corporate women out there trying to make it happen, change the generational experiences for here to come and then hitting that proverbial wall of burnout not that we weren't successful, we were very, very successful and then realizing we have got to find a way to do it differently. So why don't you tune us into your story? I'd love to hear a little bit more about how you went from that high power corporate job into what you're doing now.
Speaker 2:Yes, okay. So I basically my first part of my career right out of college was with Target Corporation. I got pregnant with my oldest, my son Camden, in college and so I was like, wow, we're going to need a steady, stable job with good benefits, upward mobility, all of that. I went to the career fair for the first time ever and was like, oh, the people at the target table were really fun and bubbly and they had a leadership program. So I spent a decade kind of climbing that corporate ladder as a single mom and while there was so much to be learned, so many growth opportunities, I mean I look back on the level of responsibility that I had, you know, in my early 20s and I'm like, well, that's throwing somebody in the deep end for a growth ride, you know, and so.
Speaker 2:But I climbed that corporate ladder and I was actually running a super target in Aurora, colorado, when the Aurora theater shooting happened and I got a phone call at three in the morning from my early morning logistics executive saying, brooke, you need to get down to the store. There's been a shooting at the mall, which was right across the street in the theater, and half of our team was in that theater and are unaccounted for. And it was that collective community trauma because we ended up losing a team member, and it was just absolute tragedy for our team and our team's families and our community. You know, your Target store is like a total pillar in the community, absolutely Right, and so we're just so close with our, with our guests, which are our community, and so it was that experience that really kickstarted a what I now know to be a spiritual awakening for me.
Speaker 2:So I stayed and I rebuilt my team. We rebuilt as a community. I led them through that, as any good empathetic leader would do. And then I went and got married and I sat on a beach in Maui for 10 days and it was the first time I had regulated in, probably since I was a teenage girl, and that's when I started remembering things from my childhood that were not super fun and I was like, okay, the universe is kicking me in the you know what's, because I think this is happening for me. I think it's my time to not do what I have to do, which was provide and raise my son and have this job and make the money and buy the house and do all the things I want to do, what I want to do, and so, like at the peak of my career, I'm, you know, the breadwinner in my family, and on my honeymoon I tell my husband I think I need to leave my corporate job.
Speaker 1:Welcome to marriage.
Speaker 2:He's like, really I'm like, yeah, I like knew honestly, Michelle, I like knew in my spirit that I was going to have some deep work to do internally to be able to curate this external reality that I was desiring. And so I took six months off to what I call shed the corporate skin. Like I literally didn't know who I was. I was like the target development queen, slash young mom Like that I didn't know. Like who am I really, under my roles and my responsibilities? What lights me up? What are my gifts? What brings me joy? Am I like I was just living in shoulds and supposed tos? And so I took six months off and then decided to go back to school and get my master's in counseling psychology and then launched my business two days after graduation, and that was nine years ago. So I've been doing the therapy and the coaching and the facilitation and all of that for the last nine years.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, and I do think it's important to note that at the time when the shooting happened I was so unhealthy trying to keep up with that. You know kind of vicious burnout culture that can happen. I feel like perfectionists and women and corporate America are a combination honey Recipe. They are a recipe for burnout if you're not aware, if you don't have boundaries, if you're not healed Like I was literally successful as a trauma response is how I explain it to people. A hundred percent.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent.
Speaker 1:Look, we have such similar stories and you know, a lot of my listeners know this.
Speaker 1:But like I didn't have any idea of how much trauma I was dealing with, that had been completely gone, undiagnosed, from childhood through adolescence into my 20s, and I used to think of it as what gave me the competitive edge, because I was, like, always full of anxiety and it pushed me to work harder until it almost pushed me over the edge right, like it works to a certain point until it no longer works. And I hit that proverbial wall and a lot of people go. But in your 20s, and I was like, yeah, I was in my late 20s and I hit the wall hard and it was the first of many awakenings. It wasn't the only one right, the first of many. It got me to a new level, but then there was a lot to deal with and a lot to unpack that I wasn't prepared to do right off the bat. In my late twenties it was a little bit at a time over years. Really, I always say decades now, but I get it.
Speaker 2:I get it. Yeah, we were running right. That hustle, that edge that you're describing that competitive edge is really it can be not for every woman. I'm speaking for myself and it sounds like you're in a similar boat. It's like we were just running from our own anxiety in our body, like I didn't want to be in my body so I'm just going to go do more and work harder and stay late and then I get promotions and I get bonuses and I get all these accolades and then that's tied to my worth. And so really it was me like running from myself and, I think, hiding my trauma behind my accomplishments, like my trauma. I didn't realize it at the time, but there was a lot of shame stuck in my body.
Speaker 1:And talk more about that. Where did the shame emanate from when?
Speaker 2:did it come from? Yeah Well, I think women in general carry a lot of shame. We carry it transgenerationally. We carry our mother's shame. I mean, I love to ask this question how many of you had a mom who loved her body?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, my mom didn't know how to love herself because back then it was considered how to love herself, because back then it was considered, I would almost say, taboo to love yourself. You were supposed to be the one that made the dinner, fed everybody else and waited on everyone else until everyone else was fed clean up the kitchen and then maybe you got to eat your meal in the corner, standing up, literally.
Speaker 2:I'm not joking Literally. So we've been shamed for having needs going back as long as history can track. So we have shame deep in ourselves. And then you add on our parents' pain, shame and suffering and they subconsciously added to that shame, not on purpose. This isn't about blaming the generation, but it is about pointing to the awareness that we are healing our mothers and our grandmothers wounds and our daughters at the same time and it's a big job, this generation it's a big, it's a big job.
Speaker 2:But then you're told if you, a lot of us this is an interesting thing that I've observed A lot of us that are super driven, type A perfectionistic burnout Bettys, we were big personalities when we were little and if you think that didn't get shamed in the classroom. I was like babbling Brooke, like it's too much, like you get shamed for our emotions. How many of us got shamed for our emotions? They were inconvenient. Well, I now know that my emotional sensitivity is actually intuitive superpowers, but they were not harnessed, they were messy.
Speaker 2:So the shame basically starts in utero honey, and then any trauma Stacks on top of it. And so, for me, this shame that I held in my body I was just running from in my achievements and then I just thought, if I could just achieve one more thing, it would mean I'm actually a good girl because I had this core belief that I was bad, I was unlovable, god didn't love me, all all this weird stuff, that nobody ever said those things to me, but I believed them. And so, yeah, going back to what you were saying, there's so much unpacking that we get to do. Once we realize like, hey, I'm proud of how I've gotten here, but there's a better way for me. I need to heal and become whole, and it turns out. Underneath all of that, there is still a spark in me, there is a drive in me, there is emotionality in me, but now they're harnessed in a beautiful way and so I can get results, but in a way that's fun and playful and all the other things. So, yeah, it's been a journey.
Speaker 1:I love that so much. I mean, look, there's so much universality in the vulnerability of being able to say I lived through a lot of trauma, and anyone who said, well, not me probably just is nowhere the fact that they were living through the trauma, because I think for a really long time I said I really had a pretty good childhood all things considered, and I did. That said, I am the product of a teenage pregnancy. There was a lot of shame for my mom. She held a lot of shame around that she was kicked out of her school, out of her home, and then there was a lot of pressure on me to perform, to do the things that she wasn't able to do because her childhood got caught short.
Speaker 1:And then my father working two jobs and so, while it was never verbalized, I was absorbing the pain and then, like you, I think, validating my existence through achievement. Okay, the next thing I achieve, the next award, the next promotion, the next scholarship, I'm going to feel a little bit better and that will make me feel whole or that will make me get to the place where I they know that I'm good enough, that I am enough and it never happened right. Here's the, here's the big spoiler alert You're never going to earn enough of those external accolades to ever feel like you're enough, because your validation shouldn't be coming from outside there, right.
Speaker 2:That's the truth bomb. That's the truth bomb right there.
Speaker 1:Okay. So I'm curious, all religion aside, just from a spirituality standpoint. I'm very curious, religion aside, just from a spirituality standpoint. I'm very curious. At what point did you sort of have that awakening of, like, wait a minute, this is the experience I'm having. But my higher self, there's part of me that recognizes there's divinity. There's divinity even in this messy, imperfect life that I'm living. I'm actually a spiritual being having a human experience. Have you had that? Did you have that? What was it like when you kind of like, whoa, wait a minute, there's a whole other dimension. I'm missing in the weeds of my everyday life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like people think a spiritual awakening is just this, and it can be One moment where you just like come online and you raise consciousness and you see the truth of what is. For me, it wasn't that way. For me it was. It started out as a healing journey, michelle. It was like, oh shoot, I just remembered a bunch of things from my childhood that I think I need to process and metabolize out of my body, and so it started with therapy, and then I like found Gabby Bernstein's. The universe has your back. And then Gabby Bernstein led to Rebecca Campbell, which and then that led to like Marie Forleo, and all of a sudden, just by saying yes to healing. So I believe a spiritual awakening is really just a coming home to the truth of who you are, and so mine was really like long winded and unsexy.
Speaker 2:Hey, however, you need to get there. That's right, and and with each new layer, I would have a new teacher come into my life that would help me see. Oh wow, like everything is energy. Oh wow, there is something divine here orchestrating this. Oh wow, I am the consciousness that is observing my thoughts, feelings, behaviors and actions. Oh wow, like all. And it's just been ever since then. I just keep climbing those levels of consciousness, but it was really probably from like 2012, which it turns out. 2012 is a major year that a lot of light workers had big ass tower moments. So look at 2012 and what happened in your life that year Cause, if it was a cluster F like mine was right, like the, the shooting tragedy, leaving my corporate job and getting married and remembering my trauma all happened in one year.
Speaker 1:And wasn't that the year that the Mayans had predicted was? Going to be the end of the world, the apocalyptic moment, and so you kind of look at like what actually transpired during that year. What did it mean? Because it certainly meant the end of something and the entrance of a new ushering into a new era of being.
Speaker 2:That's it. So everyone focused on the end. But with all endings come new beginnings, and so it was a massive awakening globally that year, and so, as I was healing, I was starting to see there's purpose behind all this madness, like there's a reason why I had my son. When I had him, there's a reason why I went to Target. There's a reason why I met my husband. There's a reason why this happened and I ran that store during that tragedy.
Speaker 2:There's a reason why I'm leaving that I have a bigger purpose here. I have a bigger calling here, and the more still I got here, I have a bigger calling here, and the more still I got, the more healing that I did, the more unbecoming I engaged with, that started to unearth and emerge louder and louder, and continues to do so. So that's what it was? It wasn't. But then it's like gosh. I feel like I hit another awakening last year. So I I believe we go through several awakenings. Some of them are like quick, some of them are long, but really it's like an awakening to the truth of who you are, which then raises your frequency and your consciousness and your divinity.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's so beautifully said, brooke, and I think you're 100% on target with that because, if I think back over the course of my life, there's never been a single moment of awakening. There've been many, some deeper, some not as deep, but nevertheless. I got this question on a different podcast that I was on, and the person asked me what was it like when you finally stepped into your most authentic self?
Speaker 1:And I sat there for a moment and I said I don't know, because I don't know that you're ever going to get to your most authentic self until perhaps you transition to the next experience of this spiritual journey that we're on. And I think I can tell you, for a matter of fact, that I'm much more authentic than I was 20 years ago or, for that matter, five years ago or even a year ago, but that it's a constant evolution toward authenticity and knowing the truth of who you are and to quite frankly accepting and remembering that divinity and spiritually driven part of you that is connected to all things right.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, I completely agree. We're never going to arrive at this ultimate. Here I am on top of the mountain. We're always growing and evolving and shifting and actually one of the, I think, obstacles women face in their ultimate becoming and the embodiment of their power and potential is that we limit ourselves, we don't give ourselves permission to be a work in progress, ever growing, ever evolving. It's like, well, I'm a mom, so I'm supposed to be this, and I'm a wife, so I'm supposed to be this, and I'm a corporate leader, so I'm supposed to be this. And it's like corporate leader, so I'm supposed to be this.
Speaker 2:And it's like no, queens, you get to decide today that none of that is how you want. You want to do it all differently. You can parent different today, you can relate different today, you can go for a different career thing today, but we really limit ourselves of like. But we're supposed to be the same what's digestible for society, what's dependable for society? And it's like no, actually, I believe our purpose is to just heal, come home and keep evolving into the truest version of who we are, and I don't know that we're ever done with that, but we do. I just had a masterclass called audacity, because I was like women. We need to have the audacity honey to permission ourselves to grow and change and evolve forever, until we take our last breath on this earth.
Speaker 1:And have that be enough as we're going through it, because I think that that is probably the hardest thing for women to get is that you can be a work in progress and that is enough at any stage.
Speaker 1:You're in Totally At any stage, totally. And I think that the truth bomb here is that we all, we all you and me too go through these moments where we don't feel like we're enough, even after having done the work Totally, totally. So let's talk about that a little bit, because I can tell you, up and over the holidays I was going through it and everyone was saying, oh my God, you know, you're just doing so many fabulous things, you're such a rock star. And I was like well, if I'm such a rock star, why is it at this very moment I'm feeling all of this anxiety or not enoughness about one thing or another? Right, like we are constantly having to remember that our worth does not come from our doing, or it is simply because we are, we exist, we are here. How do you work with women on that issue? Because I do think it's an ever existing issue we all grapple with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think naming it and normalizing it primarily is huge. So you have a brain that has evolved to keep you safe. Its only function is to keep you safe utilizing the least amount of energy, so you have a mechanism in your head that is constantly scanning for not enoughness, constantly scanning for where things could go wrong, like raise your hand if you've got a worst case scenario. Mind, you're not crazy, it's not just you. All of our brains have evolved to do that. So if you know that, then you have to know, though, that you're actually bigger than your mind. You're bigger than your nervous system. So the mind is looking for evidence that you could be doing more, that you're not enough, that it's not safe, that you're not loved, all the things, and then it fires up your nervous system, and then you have anxiety, and then we're just spiraling and we're getting nowhere, and then we break up the Oreos, ladies.
Speaker 1:Yes, don't do that. I do not recommend it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean talk about like working on like things, like drinking and binge eating, like this is what we do to literally cope with these very real, very humanistic entities.
Speaker 2:The problem is our brains have kept evolving, even though our environment is not as scary as it was when we were like living the caveman and cavewoman days. So you've got to and this is where I help women connect to and embody what I call the inner CEO, which is the self. If you know, internal family systems parts work, so the self, what I call the inner CEO, is your spirit and it is the queen who just she is enough. She knows that she's enough, she's already whole, she has what it takes, she trusts herself implicitly, she trusts others Like she is the leader of the team, and I teach them how to tap into her and leverage her to keep the monkey mind at bay, to keep the fear and the ego and the wounded parts and the protective parts. But it is like you have to realize that you are bigger than the parts of you that are telling you the lies that you need to do more and do it better. That's actually a protective part.
Speaker 1:Hmm, let's talk about masculine and feminine energies, because I think so many of us, as CEO, mom bosses, are just dripping in masculine energy and suffering from not enough feminine energy, or at least not allowing more of that in, because we have been taught historically that that is weak. It is not good enough. Talk a little bit about the importance of inviting both of those into your lives in order to create more harmony, more self-acceptance and, frankly, to get shit done.
Speaker 2:Yes, and this is something that I am still deep in working on, because your girl, all her protective parts are so masculine and they get confused with my inner CEO and then, all of a sudden, I'm accidentally in my mask. This is something that I have to work on every day and remembering that, as women, we were designed to receive. If you just look at the anatomy of the body we were designed to receive Like if you just look at the anatomy of the body we were designed to receive and create, we were not designed to hustle and execute and strategize and all the things we were literally designed to receive.
Speaker 1:Take good care of ourselves and create, and when we let's just hold right there, because this is so juicy and this is so important, and I know there are going to be people that are listening, that are going to hear this, and it's going to spark something and I don't want to leave it quite yet.
Speaker 1:Okay, we were designed differently. We were designed to receive and create. I want everyone to just soak that in for a moment, because we have been historically programmed to negate that part of ourselves and to assume these masculine energies as our persona, versus allowing both to occupy space in our lives. And it's so hard to let go of what the programming has created in our lives in order to welcome back what is naturally, innately, our most powerful state of being. Let's talk a little bit about that, because I think I'm just fascinated with the idea of, quite frankly, everybody, men included, have both energies, and yet we all as a society, for winning and being successful and doing all the things, we all gravitate toward the masculine energy, the do energy how do we even get to a place where the feminine energy is not just accepted but it's revered for the power that it has?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, before we even go into that, I want to explain at least my philosophy and theory on why we're so masculine. It's like, if you look back at history, everything was survival, it was war and it was the great depression, and so it was like you better go hunt and get shit. We became intense because of our environment and now we're just overexercising these as a way to get things done, even though our environment has shifted. So step number one is remembering that we were designed to exactly what we're saying today receive, allow, create, collaborate, feel pleasure. And then, in order to do it, step one is we have to create safety. If we're not safe, we're going to go get, and there's a lot of different ways that we do that. We start with creating safety in our own bodies. We make sure our environments are more safe. We set boundaries. We have to make it safe for men and women to be feminine. We have to make it safe at work, so we have things woven in like rest and creative time and play and pleasure and all the things. So there's layers to it. It's a complex question, but it starts with creating safety. And then, for women, once you can start to create that safety, it's like ladies, follow what feels good in your body. It's like ladies follow what feels good in your body.
Speaker 2:So many of us have become disconnected from our bodies since we were little girls and we first had the thought that we wish our body was different.
Speaker 2:From that moment, that precious little girl started abandoning her body in whatever way. For me it went really extreme, all the way to, you know, it's almost a deadly eating disorder, drinking problems, all of it. For others it's just a really nasty inner critic or, you know, even over-exercising, right Things like that. But our bodies have stopped communicating with us what feels good and what pleasure is and what, like, the intuitive nudges are, because we stopped listening. So we got to slow down, create safety and clean out the cobwebs in our channels of communication to our body, which holds so much effing power and wisdom. Because when you start to connect to that, the masculine in you gets turned on like what I have this, like whole well of power inside of me in my feminine that I haven't even tapped into. But yeah, you got to have the safety and we got to start to rebuild trust with our bodies and follow what feels good and that will guide you more and more to what is feminine and natural and in alignment with you and your design.
Speaker 1:Which you know for those of you who listen in regularly know we talk about the importance of really letting your intuitive part of you, the most wise part of you, have a seat at the table. Listen to those whispers of the heart, those whispers that and that's what they are. Right, they're whispers. They're not jumping up and down screaming. They're whispers. But those parts of you that are saying, hey, go this way. Even though it sounds really counterintuitive, it's because it knows a better path, it knows a shortcut, it knows the quantum leap.
Speaker 2:Yes, the quantum leap is so, juicy girl, we're going there, we're going deep. I love this we are All right.
Speaker 1:My friend, I want to talk a little bit more about how you've transformed your life, and I want to understand it from the perspective of how you craft your day as an intuitive, as a healer, as somebody who helps others heal themselves. How have you changed how you show up to your day and how you use your time? Because I think that the switch from corporate to the entrepreneurial space isn't necessarily a hard one. The problem is the reasons. Why we're drawn to it is to create the freedom and to have more choice over how we spend our time.
Speaker 1:And yet we know so many women in this space bring over those unhealthy habits and end up working three times as hard in the entrepreneurial space than they did in corporate, which has some mandatory shutdown times. So tell me about how you've navigated this. I know I haven't done it perfectly, but I'm getting much better. But tell me how you've navigated this and what does your day look like? What are your non-negotiables? What is it you've put into place as boundaries and parameters in order to show up not just for yourself, but for all the women you serve.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it started with this deep knowing and I feel like the more that I was sitting in the morning. I have a daily date with the divine. Okay, this is like the most important part of my day. I wake up in the morning. I have a daily date with the divine. Okay, this is like the most important part of my day. I wake up in the morning and the first thing I do is make sure that my thoughts are actually a mental projection of what I'm creating in the field. So the first thing I do is I imagine myself in the vision that I've created for myself, living the most alive, free, liberated, just turned on, turned up and I connect to her and I'm like I'm so happy and grateful to be alive and that's how I start my day, and I taught myself how to reprogram my thoughts and beliefs by doing this. And so, because I was able, I used to wake up every day with a shame what did you eat last night, drink last night and how short were you with the kids? Kind of jam.
Speaker 2:So I start with choosing my thoughts for the day. Then I go downstairs, I get some hot lemon water. While it cools down. I do meditation, I do breath work. I connect to the earth and to the divine, and then I move my body in ways that feel good. Sometimes it's a gentle stretch, sometimes it's a full-on twerk, and before I know it then I go outside and I face the sun. I am reporting to duty, I'm ready to go, but I literally believe now wholeheartedly that self-care is the vehicle to success for the feminine. So I like to spend about half my day in play, purpose and pleasure, and the other half in work, which is also purpose, though, and I also make work fun too, but it's like half the day I'm actually creating, with clients, leading masterminds, doing things the other half of the day, and people think this is crazy, but it's, and it took me years to get here. So I don't want to make it sound easy because it's not, but I am just a ritual queen honey. I have my morning ritual and then I'll have a couple of clients, and then I need to go on a walk, and then I have a client, then I need to do a yoga Nidra, and then I might have to have a Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, and then I. Then I might like, yeah, I literally and then I go to dance class and then you know, so it's like, if you really look at my day, and then it's like I get my girl from school and I take her to ninja and then we have family time and all that. So I really number one.
Speaker 2:I think you got to live intentionally. There is always time for what matters most. It's just about what you're prioritizing. The more I take care of me, the better everybody else is going to be in my existence. So half my day and it's not perfect Some days I'll be like, damn, I really booked myself back to back all day and I'm grateful for it and I get through it and I still take care of myself. But maybe it's a two minute breath work instead of an hour long walk. But an ideal day is I have that morning ritual, I do some work, I have lunch and a mental health walk, I do some work, then I have a yoga nidra, then I get my girl and then I have family time and maybe I'll do yoga or whatever. That, about half and half, is how I like to spend my days.
Speaker 1:I love this and I hope everyone's listening carefully because Brooke has become an incredibly successful entrepreneur, not by overworking, but by incorporating play and pleasure into her day, because anybody who's been doing this for any length of time, where they've started to turn the corner, recognizes that joy, pleasure, all of that is the portal. It's the portal, it's the jet fuel to the next quantum. It is not pushing yourself harder in the grind, and that's the thing. I think we see the men doing it because they're all like grind, hustle, grind, hustle, and it might work for them. They're getting somewhere. But we are designed differently and while we will hustle when we need to to get things done that need to get done, pleasure and joy are really our rocket fuel, and it is, I think, the biggest misconception that if you take the time to do those things that raise your frequency and your vibration, somehow you're not being disciplined enough about your business, and I cannot begin to stress to you that it is the exact opposite.
Speaker 2:That's exactly it. That's exactly. I say this all the time, Michelle, I'm like your frequency is better than any marketing strategy. Do you want to know why I get clients? Not because I have the perfect website, not because I have the perfect social media, not because I have the perfect offer. It's because people see me alive and they're like what is she on? I want some of that. That.
Speaker 2:My energy is my best investment in my business strategy. Hands down, and I've done it both ways. I did it the hustle masculine, and this doesn't just apply to entrepreneurs, this also applies to my corporate women. Oh, 100%.
Speaker 2:The more you tend to your frequency and you have play and pleasure, the more influential you can be for your missions on your teams. It's not about another meeting, it's about how magnetic are you being? Because if you're magnetic, you won't have to try very hard to influence your teams to get them to you know. Number one feel invested in the mission and what you guys are doing, but to be invested in you. And so, yeah, the play, the pleasure. And then I would also say, instead of hustle, now it's courage, it's audacity. So I have the audacity, like I will just pick up my phone and voice note you and say hey, girl, I have a retreat style mastermind. It is $35,000, but you're the perfect queen for it. You want to come? Do you know another queen who wants to come? I'm not afraid to ask, because I'm so in my purpose and I know this shit helps people, so that also helps too.
Speaker 1:When you know that you can help somebody get that transformation that's going to create the breakthrough they need to get to the next level of living, well then you don't hold back 100%. I do think energy is the new currency, right.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:Everyone asks me what's the thing? The money in the bank account? We you know, we know is not gonna be enough. We've experienced it. We all you know, on some level or another have experienced wealth. And so to get to a place where wealth is really a totality and that you realize your currency is your energy, it's your ability to magnetize that which you desire and to create opportunity and bring in the right people to go on the journey with you.
Speaker 1:And ultimately, I think it's not only just about coming home to ourselves, but it's this opportunity that we have to walk each other home. That's where the juicy experience of really being in it together is for me, of like when you realize you're like no, no, no, you're not doing this alone.
Speaker 2:Come with me come with me.
Speaker 1:Let's do this together.
Speaker 2:Yes, and this is why we're having this conversation and I believe this wholeheartedly is like now's the time. Now's the time for us women in leadership to embody our feminine and to create a new way to live, lead and work. There needs to be new infrastructure, new paradigms, new ways in which we create, and we are needed now more than ever. The old way isn't working. It has us in the biggest deficit ever and sicker than ever where it's not working. So now we need women to come together and connect and conspire and collaborate and bring our gifts and show there is a different way, and that's why I'm just like, I'm calling you all forward, like let's do this together. Like let's create the new normal in the way in which we work. It gets to be fun, it gets to feel good and you get to have legacy and impact. Be fun, it gets to feel good and you get to have legacy and impact.
Speaker 2:And yeah, speaking of wealth, like for me personally, the happier I am, the I can't help, but no, it's the more money I make. It's like I just become a magnet when I'm not focused on money. I'm focused on, like. Last year, my word was aliveness. This year it's infinity, but it was like every day there was intention to feel alive and that became a magnet for people, places, things, opportunities, conversations that brought wealth in. So to me it's like I don't think about making money, I think about how I can feel the most alive, and then the money comes.
Speaker 1:I love that. That, to me, is where it's at. When we talk about living an extraordinary life, we're not talking about an Instagram perfect, worthy experience. We're really talking about being fully alive for the experience of being human that we get to have on this journey and then, through that, being very intentional about where we put our energy and where we put our focus, and recognize that it's in that aliveness that we create the magnetism to bring in what it is we want to experience, that we are really creating our environment as we go, that we are the creators, we are the Davids of our own lives. Right, we are the masterpiece that we're creating.
Speaker 1:I love that so deeply. All right, I'm going to be remiss if I don't ask you this. So, first of all, I love that your word of the year this year. Last year was aliveness and now it's infinity. Right, it's okay. Last year, for me, was Elevate and this year it's Expand. Yes, yes, girl, yes, I feel it, I feel it all. All right, I would be more amiss if I don't ask you this and someone will catch me on it, because it's the question I ask all my guests, and I forgot to do it right at the top because I was so excited. And that is what does it mean to you, brooke?
Speaker 1:to live your most extraordinary life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's the perfect tie-in to what we just talked about. It's feeling aliveness in all the ways always. So, whether I'm working, I'm here. I'm fully here with you guys. I am all in, I am present, and this is such a beautiful expansive opportunity. When I'm reading my daughter books at night, I am fully with her. I see her beautiful eyelashes and her little freckles starting to form on her nose. When I'm on a walk, I'm juicing the freaking moment beyond belief.
Speaker 2:So it's not just about the big. I mean, I took an epic women's retreat in Ireland last year. That was aliveness, but it's also, in my everyday moments, an extraordinary life. Let me be clear you can want more, better and different, and we will get there by juicing the good that's already here, the good that's already here. So, my you're, you don't actually need anything to have an extraordinary night night, an extraordinary life and night. You've just got to see the beauty that's here now, and that takes presence and awareness. But the more that you focus on the beauty and the enoughness and the gold that's here now, you become a magnet and a master receiver for more on top of more, on top of more. And so for me, infinity is like how good does it get to get? The better it gets, the better it gets, the better it gets, the better it gets, the better it gets. So feeling alive in all the ways, always, that's my definition of an extraordinary life right now mic drop moment, mic drop moment.
Speaker 2:Oh, how fun you get to hear everybody's answers to that. What a juicy question. And, like I just love the invitation for women to ask themselves that because we don't Like I was just doing a live coaching on creating your epic life and we're starting with vision. I'm like when was the last time, truly, you badass woman asked yourself who am I really and am I happy? Is this my idea of an extraordinary life? And, without shame, allowed your real truth to emerge? We don't do that enough.
Speaker 1:No, we don't, and in fact, we guilt each other when we do so. I'll give you a real world example yeah, going back to the generational healing that needs to happen with our grandmothers, our mothers, our daughters and so on and so forth. Our nieces. Yeah, after having one of my biggest awakenings where I realized that I was sacrificing for an ideal that was never going to be attainable. Right, I had to have the perfect body, be the perfect wife, be the perfect mother in the perfect house and the perfect neighbor and the perfect professional right You're like and it's never ending.
Speaker 1:And I was just so burnt out and everything and I said, you know what? I'm going on this really juicy vacation, like juicy. So we were overseas and three weeks, three beautiful weeks, in a time in corporate America where nobody took more than 10 days, I said no, I'm going for three full weeks and I'm not answering the phone. And it felt so good and I leaned deeply into it and I convinced my husband to do the same and we were away for all this time and I got back and I had been on yachts, I had been in, you know, mansions in the waterfront, all the things I just said. What do I want to experience?
Speaker 2:I want to experience it all, not because I had to in order to feel good but because I wanted to. Because you deserved it. Because you deserved it, because you wanted to be alive.
Speaker 1:Yes and I got well. Aren't you lucky? I know, I know, and I said no, I'm very intentional. There is nothing lucky about what went down. I was not just sitting around and that was dropping in. What was happening is I was deciding in my mind what I wanted to experience and then I was acting on it, and you would be surprised at how easy it ultimately was. It didn't actually require me to have, at that point in time, seven and eight figure businesses in order to make that happen. It's actually quite doable. But you do need to ask and you do need to be intentional about what you want. And when you say out loud what you want, you'll be surprised at how fast the universe is ready to give it to you.
Speaker 1:And so that's been so much of the perennial teaching of you need to be able to first decide what you want to experience envision it and speak life into it, Because if you don't do that, whatever that is whether it's a better marriage, a beautiful home, a healthy family, more balance to your life, a healthy body, whatever that is for me at that moment in time it was I want to be on an epic adventure where I lose myself in Europe and I can put who I think I am on hold and allow myself to expand to imagine what I could be. Yes, I don't even know who she is yet, but I'm excited to expand to imagine what I could be. Yes, I don't even know who she is yet, but I'm excited to get to know what she likes.
Speaker 2:Yes, so let's go have some fun.
Speaker 1:It was the door opener to so many more good things. Yes, Because I was willing to do the same thing. Pick up the phone, in this case, walk into a store, talk to a stranger, ask a question, say yes to people who said well, you seem interesting, Come to dinner with us. Or you seem interesting, Come on our boat. Let's talk to a random stranger. My husband's like oh my gosh, are we going to get out of this alive? We had the most epic time. We ended up on a yacht. I said I wanted to be on a yacht. I'd love to be on a yacht. Wouldn't it be great to be on a yacht in the Mediterranean Boom. A guy walking by with his dogs who I said I love your dogs, Great looking dogs. Oh, that's my boat over there. What are you guys?
Speaker 2:doing later today, I guess we're coming on your boat.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, but we need to be able to recognize the power in creating a vision and allowing ourselves to speak life into it, even if it seems crazy to envision because we've never experienced it before. Yes, because that is the only way to create, and I think we have taken away our ability to think like a child, right To suspend disbelief and allow ourselves to make believe and see what happens. And that's where I want to play.
Speaker 1:That's my son said the most beautiful thing to me about six months ago. I have a son. We talked about this. Our sons aren't too far apart in age, but mine's here in high school now and he says to me mom, I don't know anybody your age who acts more like a kid. And I said my work is done, Thank you. I feel like my work here is done, Thank you so much. Yes, that's the nicest thing anyone could say to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because what you become available for in that energy, the imagination, the imaginative play, the infinite possibilities you become a match for that by allowing yourself to be that way. That's huge. What a beautiful compliment. And I want to say, when people are judging because you're having the audacity to dream big, to vision, to stand for your vision and to go for it, you got to know that it means that you're on the right track. So their judgment is really just about the envy because they wish they could. And so the way that I see that because I trigger a lot of people, you know, because I just say it like it is and I'm like not afraid, and so I do trigger people, and not on purpose. But when people get triggered, I'm like listen, and I mean this with love, invitation for you to look inside at where you're not showing up for your truth and your life, and maybe this trigger will spark something in you where you start living your extraordinary life and you can thank me later for this trigger now. But that judgment is to me I see it now is like this is what it means to be a trailblazing woman in leadership is showing what's possible, even when our societal programming judges it.
Speaker 2:It's like I remember on my 40th birthday I went on a solo Sedona spiritual adventure to Miyama, which is like a gorgeous spa tucked into this little canyon in Sedona, and to Miyama, which is like a gorgeous spa, tucked into this little canyon in Sedona, and in the airport I had this husband and wife be like where are you off to? I was like Sedona, it's my 40th birthday and I'm going on a solo spiritual adventure. I'm going to go find myself. I have a child, you know who's like older now, and they were like without your family. And I looked at the woman and I said, without my family. Yeah, it's going to be so good.
Speaker 1:She just knew she was like damn girl and there was a transmission.
Speaker 2:There was a transmission heart to heart, soul to soul, where the way she, they said it was quite snarky, honestly, but because I was so okay with my choice and I wasn't triggered by their lack of understanding and their judgment, we actually got to the heart to heart transmission where I gave her permission in that moment to do the same. And that's what we're, that's what we're out here to do. When you get to be successful, living like a kid and just being bewildered all the time, now you make it okay for other women and what's possible? Literally this is the kind of stuff that gives me freaking goosebumps every day. What is possible collectively when all of us women start living?
Speaker 1:and leading in this way. Oh my gosh. Well, first of all, just imagine the fact that all of these people, if we could just for a moment suspend disbelief, allow everybody to feel enough healing to step into that power Collectively. There'd be so much peace. It might actually nullify a lot of the stuff we're seeing in the world.
Speaker 2:Really 100%, 100%, because, think about it If we're not busy hating ourselves and our bodies and buying things and judging each other and shrinking to fit, if we're not busy doing that, what are we using that energy for? I'll tell you healing, I'll tell you awakening, I'll tell you creating, I'll tell you coming up with complex solutions to complex, freaking problems that just come to us Sisterhood, fricking problems that just come to us. Sisterhood, community, love the truth. That's what happens, and so that's really what my purpose here on the planet is to just remind us, like that's what we're here to do. Let's go, and when one woman heals, there is a ripple of good that goes on forever and ever.
Speaker 1:Amen for that. Okay, there you have it. There's so many mic drop moments in this conversation, I don't even want it to end but alas, we're coming to the end of our time together. Brooke, do me a favor. We'll include all the links, but please let people know where they can find you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so on Instagram at Brooke Jean Unperfected, I have a podcast. It's called the Unperfected Pod, and my website that has all my programs and all the juicy things that we do is liveunperfectedcom.
Speaker 1:So just go unperfected and you can't miss me All the links in there. Yes, and Brooke, talk to us a little bit about your latest offering, because I know you just launched the Audacity program. Talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm actually currently in the launch for the Unperfected Mastermind. So I did the Audacity masterclass. Now I'm doing a five-day Create your Epic Life challenge, because doors close next Tuesday so we might be launching this after that. So that's a six-month container for women to heal, become and rise. Lots of women who are in their midlife, awakening who am I, what do I want to do? Enter that container and so then I'm going to be welcoming in women for the alchemy mastermind, which is a 12 month.
Speaker 2:We only meet once a month, but we do three, three day deep, intense immersions in luxurious, beautiful places in the world where you heal, become and rise, but you get out of your toxic environment. This is for the queen that is afraid to breathe or heal because the house of cards is going to come falling down. We're going to go to Ireland, we're going to go to the Bahamas and we're going to get you right with yourself and then you get to come back and see that the world didn't fall apart. So doors are opening for that in April. I love it.
Speaker 1:Brooke, it's always a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time, your insight, your wisdom, your love. I just I've enjoyed every minute of it with you.
Speaker 2:Ditto, sister, you're doing such good work in the world. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:Thank you All right, everyone. Until next time, go and live your extraordinary lives.