66 | From Paychecks to Purpose with | AJ Bishop Andrews on True Wealth

Success that sparkles on paper can feel empty in real life, and that tension is exactly where our conversation with AJ Bishop Andrews begins. AJ is an internationally recognized speaker and wealth strategist who spent 20 years at major financial institutions, then chose legacy over ladder. She brings a candid origin story, a practical playbook for confidence, and a bold vision for how women will shape the next decade of wealth, power, and impact.

We dig into the messy middle of career pivots, from golden handcuffs to bolt cutters: detaching identity from income, replacing comparison with conviction, and learning to define success by alignment with values like family, faith, and service. AJ shares how confidence is built through daily promises kept and sharpened by reflection, try, fail, learn, adjust. We also get tactical about money and work: how to rewrite limiting money scripts with a “money mind map,” how to negotiate using facts and outcomes (not your worth), and how to design a portfolio career that leverages your three Ts, time, talent, and treasure, so you’re never dependent on one gatekeeper.

There’s a bigger horizon here too. With a historic wealth transfer moving toward women, AJ’s Feroz movement aims to equip one million women to make values‑led financial decisions. We talk collaboration over competition, healing old wounds from scarcity rooms, and building circles that amplify genius instead of draining it. AJ also opens up about her mother’s dementia diagnosis and the urgency it brought to creating a legacy her mom can witness, a powerful reminder that time is our rarest asset, and alignment is how we honor it.

If you’re ready to trade performative success for a life that fits, press play. Then share this episode with a woman who needs permission to ask for more. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: What belief about money or success are you rewriting this week?

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Transcript

Rethinking Success Beyond Titles

Intro 0:01

You're listening to the Off Balance Podcast, where faith, family, and business collide. Hosted by Brooks Deming, Doctor of Business Administration, Business Coach, and Resilience Expert. Each episode features real-life conversations to help entrepreneurs like you build resilience and lead with confidence.

Brooks 0:32

Welcome back to Off Balance. I'm your host, Dr. Brooks. Today we're diving into a conversation that hits close to home for many of us. What it really means to be successful. On paper, you may look accomplished, but inside, you fill the gap between achievement and alignment. That's exactly why I'm excited to introduce today's guest, AJ Bishop Andrews. She's an internationally recognized speaker, wealth strategist, and founder of Pharaohs with over 20 years of leadership experience at major financial institutions. AJ knows what it takes to build wealth and what it takes to make it meaningful. AJ, welcome to Off Balance.

AJ 1:10

Oh, thank you so much, Dr. Brooks. I'm so excited to have this conversation be with you today.

Brooks 1:16

I gave our listeners a short version of your story, but I love for them to hear from you. So can you introduce yourself and share a little about who you are and the work that you do?

AJ’s Origin Story and Early Loss

AJ 1:27

I would just first start by saying I feel like your mess is part of your message. And that really is where my story begins. So I am half Brazilian. My mom is from Brazil. She grew up in very poor conditions. And my father grew up on a cotton farm in Alabama. And so what they instilled in me, this version of success, was really the, really it was the American dream. It's you go to college, you get the job, you have the kids, and you make the money, and therefore success equals happiness. But what happened was when my mother was pregnant, well, about a year after I was born, my father unfortunately passed away very quickly from cancer and he was 37 years old. And at the time, my mother, still, you know, new to the United States, still new to understanding English and the financial services industry, made some decisions that I would say were not aligned with what she values. And the result of that was her making what could have been honestly a really comfortable lifestyle for me and my sisters. Unfortunately, she was taken advantage of and she invested in some really bad investments. Now, the idea of success, right, is that we have money to invest, that we have things or cars or homes that we're proud of. But when everything is taken away from you in a moment's notice, candidly, you really start to remember, right, what your priorities and your purpose is. So I always dedicate the beginning of my story to my mom because she is the ultimate Farroz woman. Ferroz in Portuguese means fierce. And she's ultimately what has inspired me now, after 20 years of being in the wealth management industry, to change the narrative around what does it mean to be successful? You know, what does it mean to truly be wealthy? What does it truly mean to be rich? And that's um why I'm really excited to be a part of your podcast today.

Brooks 3:35

You have a phenomenal story, a beautiful beginning. When it comes to success and making the decision to walk away from corporate, what did that look like for you?

Climbing Finance and Its Costs

AJ 3:46

Well, it was, I call it the yo-yo experience. It's it feels like oftentimes when you want something and when you are called to do something, sometimes they're not always in alignment. So I would say that I never had a passion for being in the wealth management industry. When I got married in my early 20s, I moved to a really small town and working at the bank was the best job that I could find right after high, or right after college, rather. And so I started as what they called like a licensed professional where I learned how to, you know, trade mutual funds and all of that. And it just stuck. And the reason why I stayed, and what the reason why I realized like my greater purpose was there just weren't any women in the room. And there definitely weren't any women that look like me. And so it kind of became almost a personal mission while I was in the wealth management industry to stay because I wanted to see women become confident in making financial decisions. I wanted women to see that it was possible to have all of right, have it all, if you will. But what it cost me on the way there is I got divorced. I was probably near right alcoholism. I was making poor decisions, I was moving all the time. And I really never was connected to the true meaning of me having all of this money, but really feeling unfulfilled and discontent on the inside. So about COVID time when everything started slowing down, I just really started to think about what this new chapter of my life looked like? I had met the man of my dreams. He had three kids from a previous marriage, which at the same time I also was like, I never thought I'd become a mother. So I really leaned into the value, one of my top values is family. And I thought to myself, how do I lead a successful life without the identity that I've grown so accustomed to? And so when I say it was a yo-yo experience, it literally has been a five-year journey, right? Here we are, 2025, where I'm still uncovering and still detaching from this idea of what success used to mean to me, right? Like success used to mean I'd walk into a room and receive an award or recognition for the growth my team had for the year or the number of clients' lives we impacted. And now I'm like, okay, success honestly to me means I'm bringing others along, right? I'm really reaching in and finding the women who need support and need what I can offer and helping them come over to the other side and decide, like for themselves, what does success really mean for me?

Brooks 6:31

Let's sit in that for a moment. So you were at the pivotal of your career. So how did it make you feel to make the decision to walk away?

AJ 6:41

Oh, it's something I knew I wanted. Like my heart was calling. As I mentioned, it wasn't a career path I thought I would have stayed even 20 years in. And I'm still very connected to the wealth management industry. I still consult, I still speak, I still write help and advise past advisors and clients that I used to work with. But it really became a situation where I had to get clarity around what this next chapter felt like for me. And for me, the word legacy kept coming back, right? It was a deeper meaning of contentment. It was a deeper meaning of being connected to my source, whether our listeners listen to God or the universe, abundance. Like for me, I really wanted to uncover what it feels like to be perfectly content despite the balance in my bank account. And it's been an undoing of being attached to having a certain income, having a certain amount of money in my bank, if you will, but there's been greater meaning and purpose behind the work. And I fullheartedly believe that success is repetition and consistency. So taking the leap was probably harder than I thought it would be in the sense of getting my mindset there. But my body, the way I felt, my emotions, like I've never been more joyful. I take morning walks every day with my husband, right? I'm really able to connect more with myself and with my family and my community than I ever would have been if I stayed on the path of trying to climb the corporate ladder.

Brooks 8:27

That leads perfectly into my next question. What mindset shift help you and how can others adopt it?

Leaving Corporate and Choosing Legacy

AJ 8:34

The core of what my message and what I love to work with women on is this idea of confidence, right? So their confidence comes from inside of you, right, versus comparison. And so in my upcoming book, it's the book's called Rich Like Her. It comes out in January, but it really was this exploration of what's the difference if you're rich like her, right? And I played off of that title from being external and comparing myself to someone else mindset versus I'm really going inside and looking at what I value, what has meaning to me, what feels like my person, my purpose, my mission, right? My divine assignment. Why am I here? Like the bigger questions that are juicy, but also sometimes uncomfortable. So it's this idea of having what I call an abundance mindset, a growth mindset, I'm sure some of you have heard, of really looking inside and saying, okay, what am I like, who am I? Really at my core, who am I? And if I could be honest, what is possible? What are some things that perhaps I didn't feel at the time, given what I call invisible roles or expectations that I couldn't really lean into? And that mindset helps you get clarity around what am I actually like what brings me joy, what lights me up? And then it takes the courage, right, to take the steps. And it's not always a big leap. Sometimes for some of the women I talk to or work with is it's just a small decision, right? Every day, I'm gonna shut my laptop off at 5 p.m. no matter what. Like that's my protected time. It's small little decisions like that move you towards building that confidence, right? Keeping your word to yourself and having that mindset of no one is gonna get in the way of my promise to myself. That's what builds confidence and this abundance slash growth mindset that I work with women to cultivate.

Brooks 10:40

Can you explain how does confidence work in practice?

AJ 10:44

Confidence, you hear the common like, I did it anyways because I was scared, or you know, I took the big leap of faith. And I think those moments definitely surface, but I think the more common confidence moments are really in this idea of conviction. So am I in a moment where I am convicted to take action? Am I in a moment where even though the noise, the haters, the drama, the negativity is telling me something, but my body, my gut, my intuition is telling me other, do I have the courage to take those steps? And so confidence in motion to me, it's a combination of not only the little steps, but it's really also the big ones and continuing to be in that practice, as I like to call it, like this dance of knowing where your limits are, right? Sometimes you'll take a chance or make a choice. It goes terribly. Okay, cool, awesome. Really, confidence is your ability to learn from the mistake because no one's perfect. Everyone makes dis mistakes. I've made plenty. And my confidence has been built from the fact that I know I can overcome, I can flip the script, I can change my mindset so that I can look at it as a gift or a lesson that I needed to learn to get to the next level. So when you have this ability to kind of, I sometimes call it being on the balcony versus being on the dance floor, when you can go and say, okay, I'm looking back at that perspective, I'm looking back at what happened. How do I, what would I have shifted? What would I have changed? And what did I actually do perfectly well? And it has nothing to do with me. So it's asking more questions, like confidence is questions and learning to ask yourself questions is one of the hardest things I think we do as human beings because we're especially as women, right? We're used to asking the questions of everyone else. Where what do you need for school? What time do you need to be there? And so taking the time to just be in questions that ask deeper things of you creates the confidence over time.

Confidence Over Comparison

Brooks 13:03

You work with a lot of women and you coach them and you mentor. What's a common mistake that most women make when they're trying to feel confident and how can they avoid it?

AJ 13:17

I would say the number one thing that comes to mind just right here is this idea that their worth is tied to their value, right? So a big piece of my journey and working with women, especially women who are considering leaving very lucrative roles, right? The golden handcuffs are real, or they're looking to start a business because they feel called to serve in a different way. It's this idea that, like, I am you find your value in what you do, right? Again, that idea of my action, my activity, my busyness is what I do. That's my value. And it's switching that and looking at it as no, what's my worth? What am I uniquely here to do? What is my zone of genius? Where do I see things that other people can't see? And how do I know it at a gut level in my bones what I'm actually worth? And sometimes that's not money, right? Sometimes that might be your talent. You may have the most creative mind that's out there and you just haven't tapped into it. You might have the most creative way to help others solve problems that you just in your sleep could fix. And knowing that just like it took time to get to the level of success or wealth or money or paycheck that you have, if you've done it once, you can do it again. So knowing and having that internal worth, that conviction and the clarity around how do I move forward in a way that's in alignment with me versus what I thought I should have been is the ultimate determination of your worth versus what you think you're valuable enough for.

Brooks 15:07

That leads perfectly into my next question. And I hope I'm is it say roles? Fair roles, okay. It's more than a brand, it's a movement. What does it mean to redefine wealth power and legacy for women today?

AJ 15:22

So one of the things and statistics that's very common right now going around in the wealth management industry, is in 2035, so exactly 10 years from now, starting really in 2030, the majority of wealth will shift hands into women. And what I know I've been put on this earth to do, like my God-given talents, is taking the complex and making it very relatable and simple. And at the core of being confident in making financial decisions, it's that internal knowing that you can get through any decision that comes across your desk, right? Or across your plate, or, you know, serve it up. Like how many decisions do us women have to make on a daily basis? But there's these core moments in time where your financial decisions mean everything to not only your future, but your children's and whoever it is that you're here to serve. And so Feroz has a vision and a mission to impact one million women in 10 years because the money will be transferring. And we just need to ensure that women feel confident with what they want to do with it. So that goes from looking at new levels of success that are possible that maybe you thought were impossible. It's looking at how what are my values? How do I want to be investing what I call my three, your three T's time, talent, and treasure? And that's the new economy I believe we're heading towards is more women focused on things that really move the needle, bring community together, and investing those three Ts, time, talent, and treasure, into things that are meaningful to create legacy for future generations. So that's the mission, that's the movement, that's why we exist is to get women to a place from, you know, maybe I feel somewhat okay about making financial decisions to know, like I got this. And if I don't, I have a community of powerful women who are going to have my back and help me get through it.

Brooks 17:30

What if you have women that are listening and they're like, AJ, I hear what you're saying, but I just don't think that I will be in a position in five living years to receive the transfer of wealth. So what are some strategies that they can do right now, today, to start preparing themselves when that shift occurs?

AJ 18:35

Yeah, such a great question. And ultimately, your what it's Tony Robins says this. It's so good. But it's he says in his book, I think I read it when I was 10 years old, but he says the your destiny is based off of your ability to make powerful decisions. It's a little, it's a little more poignant than that. But the reality of decision making is rooted in your belief system. And I'm not talking about whether or not you believe in right aliens or whatever. Like, how were you taught to have a relationship with money? And so the number one thing women can do right now, and literally if you're in your car or after you listen to this, if you have a piece of paper, write down the word money and I call it a money mind map. And it's looking at what are all of the existing beliefs I have about money. So, like one for me that I'm constantly coming up against is money doesn't grow on trees. Like my mom used to say that all the time in her cute little Portuguese accent. And as I grew up, what I made that mean to me is money, you have to work hard for money. If you're not busting your tail, you're not going to make money, you're not going to be successful. I have and continue to need to work through that limiting belief as I continue to rise to new levels of wealth that my mother could have never imagined, right? Because she had a her comfort bubble with how much money she was willing to receive. But ultimately, your ability to receive money to receive wealth is limited by your beliefs. And so if you take literally five minutes, maybe every day, even just now, write down the word money, write down every single, I call them wealth scripts that you can come up with. Money doesn't grow in trees, money is for bad people, money is, you know, I'm broke, like all of the things that come up. And then taking a moment to be with one, not all of them. You can't, you can't unfortunately do all at once, but choose the one that has the most power over you right now and learn how to rewrite that on your own. And you'll be amazed with all of the things that'll start shifting.

Worth vs Value in Women’s Careers

Brooks 21:03

That is really good advice because I grew up with limited beliefs around money as well. I can remember when I got my first job, I didn't negotiate salary because I feel I'm lucky that they're even considering me. So for those that are listening and they are going into corporate or they're starting their own businesses, what are some things to bring some negotiations? Because sometimes we downplay, especially as African American or brown women, we downplay what we're bringing to the table. What advice can you offer for that?

The Feroz Movement and Wealth Shift

AJ 21:37

This is the one of the number one questions I get from women in corporate, right? Who are unhappy in a role and they're staying because they're just worried it's the best that they can get. It typically is exactly what you're speaking to. It's this idea of my value. What am I worth? And again, we want to detach the worth. Like there's a whole other deeping, deeper meaning. Like wealth is worth, right? That comes from inside, but your value in the workplace, it matters. And what we've seen is the research around women and pay equity, it's not only because of the system, if you will, it is because we're still not confident asking for what we're worth, right? What our value is in the workplace. So one of the most common advice is that I give women who are trying to negotiate any kind of compensation. So whether that's you're starting a new job, you're asking for a raise, you're trying to raise your prices if you own your own business, is looking at the number that really scares you. So for example, if you're making $100,000 right now and you know I really would like a raise, what's actually that number that really that scares the living you know what out of you? Now, don't do anything with that number yet. Start your research, right? We live in a time where you can Google anything you could possibly think of and Chat GPT should, if it's not, already be one of your best friends. You could literally ask ChatGPT, I am a woman who has 15 years of experience in HR and I do XYZ PDQ. What is the average salary range for this position? Because here's the reality is when you have facts to take to your person, your hiring manager, your HR team, your client, and you can say, here is the value of the work I do, it no longer becomes about your worth and your value. It becomes about the work that you're doing on a daily basis. And so taking yourself out of the equation and making it about fact, making it about logic is just a it's a very freeing place to be because if they can't see the value, they will tell you that. And that gives you an indication of what's next. Now, let's say the value that's coming up is significantly less than what you think you could get. Well, that's where the creative talent, the T and the three Ts comes in is what could I be doing as well as or on top of or because of this? So a lot of women, right? We live in an online economy. You could start coaching women, you could start a podcast, you could start like the smallest of things to start getting yourself outside of your comfort zone, because I think the other thing we run into as women is the scarcity of time, right? We think about we don't have enough time in the day. But if you could add an additional 10, 15,000, $20,000 every year by putting your genius in a PDF and selling it online, like that's actually not extra work for you. Yes, it's gonna take a little time right now to build or to create or to grow. But longer term, as women, we need to be thinking about how do I, I call it a portfolio career. How do I make sure I have, you know, some people call it the seven seven ways of passive income. But ultimately, how am I building myself in different ways to have different streams of income coming in? And so the value that you're looking for, let's say it's more than what you're thinking, there's other ways for you to get there besides just asking your employer or your clients. And I think that helps it feel more solvable than you trying to make up the gap of wulda, coulda, shoulda's, or there's something about me.

Brooks 25:44

So that sounds more of taking a strategy of building wealth through alignment. So you're more told kind of talent that you have in order to bring in more income. So good.

AJ 25:59

You just you just dropped the mic for the podcast. Because that's a hundred percent it. When you're in alignment, right, there we all have a vibration. We're made up of molecules, where chemical reactions are happening in our body at all times, right? Science. People say that's woo-woo. I'm like, no, this is true science. And so when you start aligning yourself with what your God-given gifts are, the business, the opportunities, the connection, the like-minded individuals find you and you find them and create new opportunities. Now, the beauty, and I'm sorry, guys, if you're listening to this, but ladies, we are naturally collaborative. Like all the way back, we've had to help each other, we've had to raise each other's kids, we've taken care of kids. Like, we are naturally collaborative. And there's the African proverb: if you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far and go together, that has meaning and truth behind it. And if you're aligned, it's not burning you out. You don't feel stressed out. I love doing this interview with you because we're aligned. We have a common belief that women are powerful and that women are the key in the future to right, shifting all the things that are happening in the world right now, right? We'll just keep it really vague like that. But I believe women are the most powerful creative beings. And so when I align with other women who have that same vision, that same mission, that same goal, it doesn't feel like work. And who knows what's possible. So I think specifically with women, the more we think about how we can lean into each other and the more we can figure out how to collaborate and create our own connections, because spoiler alert, the dudes have been doing this for a long time. We're just we've been a little more proper about it. But the more we can do that, the more powerful all of our businesses will be and we'll just create an amazing economy.

Money Mind Maps and Belief Rewrites

Brooks 28:11

That is so good. But let's build on that. So, how does this connect to the confidence piece of even collaborating? Because sometimes women can be hesitant to collaborate, especially if they may have a bad experience in the workplace or in corporate. So, how can this connect with collaboration?

AJ 28:31

I just had a major flashback when you said that. And it literally feels like, in a way, exactly what you're saying is right here for me, right? Like the instant in theory, collaboration is how we should all work. And there's always that moment or that, like I can think of many women that I've worked with that made it clear to me they had no interest in supporting me. They were going for the one job that the one woman could get, and it was a race to the finish. And so that feeling of disappointment is a word I would use in my experience, or being burnt or being honestly taken advantage of is real. And I never want to discount that for women because it is truth, especially for women of color. Every day we have to deal with that. That's our reality. But what I've also found on the other side is when I've looked on the inside and I've done the work that I need to do to build my own value, my own worth, my own confidence, I become unstoppable. And so what happens is when other women see you in your power, sometimes they're afraid of it. And that tends to be the woman that's gonna come out as competition or comparing. Or when other women see you in your confidence and they're like, that is a bad girl. Like, I want to be a Miss Beyoncé Sasha Fierce. There's a reason we're called to her because we see her standing in her power and that gives us permission to stand in ours. And so it's honestly it's a trial and error, but you will see and you will know the women who stand for you and with you versus the one that tears you down by the way they interact with you. So what I'm saying is just put the haters in a box, let them go do their thing and find the women, right, that are like minded, your tribe, your circle of supporters, as I like to call it, that are gonna lift you up and want to see you be successful.

Brooks 30:41

Yeah, you are sharing so much wisdom. So if someone Is listening and they feel like you are a great fit for them, how can they work with you?

Negotiation Strategy and Portfolio Careers

AJ 30:50

I would love to say that I work one-on-one with people, but I don't because my mission is big and it's wide. But the best way to start working with me, part of my book launch, Rich Like Her, is about bringing women together in these environments where we want to build women, we want to collaborate, we want to connect, and we want to use the creative power within each and every one of us to build something great. So I typically speak into large organizations. And if you have a community of women and you would love for me to come and share what I like to call sometimes a masterclass or a workshop. That's how I typically work with women. But for the first time in a long time, I'm going to be bringing together a small group of women starting in 2026 to really go deep into some of these frameworks and techniques that candidly were gifted to me, right? Like I didn't make this up. I had amazing mentors, I had amazing confidants who have taught me along the way. And what I feel is now my purpose and calling is to share because I want the future generation of women to come out more powerful and more confident than I could have ever imagined. I want women my age to start rolling into their second chapter, thinking about how do I be the best version of myself possible? And it's going to take all of us living in their confidence to build each other up to ensure that by this in 10 years, right? In 10 years, when all this money and power starts coming towards us, we know exactly where we're heading with it.

Brooks 32:29

So if you are listening and if you have a company, a corporation, or if you are a lead HR and you can bring in speakers, then she would definitely come and to facilitate. So when it comes to your book, are you doing a pre-launch?

AJ 32:43

Yeah. So my pre-launch starts in mid-October. The book is gonna drop in January 2026. I'm super excited. It's been a year of me honestly just going in the cave, using my experiences, using the experiences of women that I have that had like the absolute pleasure to work with. And the beauty is it's not a nonfiction. It is a fiction book because I know that women build their strength and power through storytelling. So really the book is meant to spark the deeper questions that even we've been talking about, whether you're a stay-at-home mom, whether you're recently divorced, or whether you're in that corporate career where you're starting to burn out, like the book is meant to be a living fable allegory of the questions and the experiences of women that I love dearly and have worked and served with.com. So you'll start seeing the availability of getting on the list. But I will also have some really exclusive promotions and offers tied to that, which will give you the opportunity to work more closely with me in 2026 because I am convinced that next year is the year of women where women own wealth and we're working towards building a collective of women who want to make this next chapter, Future Generations, the just the most amazing and powerful source of their legacy and what they stand for. So be on the lookout. My social channels are all AJ Bishop Andrews. You can find me almost everywhere, Google it, but you'll start seeing the pre-launch and the pre-order for the book here pretty soon.

Brooks 34:35

That is so beautiful. So just sitting there for a moment, what inspired you to write your book?

Alignment, Energy, and Collaboration

AJ 34:42

I would say that for years, especially being in a predominantly white male industry, I have had to quiet my voice, right? I've had to learn how to fit into places and spaces that were never built for me. And when I finally kind of full circle coming back to the original question of where the courage and the conviction came to leave my very comfortable corporate job to doing something that felt more meaningful was, hey, I've been through some stuff and I've seen women go through stuff. And is there a way that I can give back and give what I call, one of my mentors calls a lightning bolt, like a leap over all of the mess after over all of the drama, over all of the second guessing? Is there a way for me to transport a woman standing here to 15, 20 years down the road looking back, saying, Oh, I'm on the same path, or perhaps I may not want to go down this road. And ultimately, what I've come to realize the most valuable asset we have in our lives is our time because we can't get that back. And unfortunately, this year, my mother was diagnosed with dementia. And I got really, really clear with myself that my time is now. I want to make an impact. I want to leave a legacy that my mother can actually remember because I don't know how much time my mother will still be my mother. And there's this vision I'm holding in my mind. I haven't actually talked about this publicly. So it's really just coming up real time for me. And it's right, I'm getting all body feels for it. I'm getting excited. I have this vision where my mom is standing on a stage with me and she's seeing her legacy in real life. Right. She's seeing a future for all the women that I'm impacting through my speaking, through whatever is to come. I'm not really attached to what that looks like because right now my purpose and my focus is my time with spreading confidence and success and the word of right power and shifting that in a way that women can really try it on, right? Make sure it's a good fit for them and walk out on the walk, right, on the walkway or the what is it called in the fashion world? The runway, right? Showing up exactly who they are. So for me, that vision is where I'm working towards. And I'm I don't have a lot of time. We don't the thing with dementia is you don't know, there's like no way to know where they're at in the process. She has good days and bad days. But man, when that good day comes, she's gonna be on the stage with me and she's gonna look out into an audience of women and know that she created that room for these women because she created me. So that was that was it. That was it. That was the reason. That was the spark, that's the mission, that's the fire, that's the feroz, right? The fierceness.

Brooks 37:46

It's all because my mama that's beautiful, is listening to you, your experiences, and just how you have wrapped it up in this beautiful package. You are definitely going to be a change agent at the macro level. There is nothing small about you. There is nothing small about your mindset, your passion that you have for women. So as we wrap, what's one message to leave with our listeners who is navigating their own journey of building confidence, their own journey of walking away so that they can be in true alignment with what God has placed on the inside of them?

AJ 38:21

Yeah, I think that the you just beautiful, beautifully said, right? Like God made us whole. Right. I used to think that setbacks and failures meant that something was wrong with me, or that I had I wasn't worthy, or that pe women like me weren't gonna have like I used to have all the complaints and the excuses. And when you realize that when you can master your mind and the way you look at your own inner abilities, like it is you become unstoppable. Nothing will stop you. The women you need to find, the men, the communities, the friends, the networks, they will all start coming when you are standing in your power. So the key pieces and the invitation is to do the inner work. It's not easy, it's not comfortable, but it is a powerful process that the divine God has given us to find out what we're really made of. And I think it's the key to where we're heading next.

Brooks 39:46

Lady, you heard it here. She told you it's time for us to stand in our confidence. It's time for us to walk in all of those things that God has created us to do. So again, AJ, it has been such a pleasure. And we will be flooding your website because we want to be on that wait list. Thank you.

Healing Competition Wounds and Finding Your Circle

AJ 40:03

Oh, thank you so much for having me, Dr. Brooks. I've enjoyed this conversation. It the time went by so fast, I'm like, wait, we're over. But I'm grateful for you and what you're creating for women and the future path. Like these conversations matter, they're important, they're impactful, and just keep doing what you're doing too.

Intro 40:25

Thanks for listening. Please rate this episode and share it with your family and friends. To learn more about your host or to book a coaching session, visit www.brookstdemming.com. Until next time, rise.