Stacked Keys Podcast
The idea to talk to women who are out there living and making a difference is where the Stacked Keys Podcast was born. There are women who make a difference, but never make a wave while paddling through life. Immediately I can think of a dozen or more who impacted me, but I want more. I want to talk to those I don't know and I want to share with an audience that might need the inspiration to find their own beat. This podcast is to feature women who are impressive in the work world-- or in raising a family -- or who have hobbies that can make us all be encouraged. Want to hear what makes these women passionate and get up in the morning or what they wish they had known earlier in life? Grab your keys and STOMP to your own drum.
Stacked Keys Podcast
Episode 221 -- Maggie Boillot -- You Can't Get Life Wrong: It's Happening For You, Not To You
What happens when you finally find the courage to walk away from a decade of "familiar chaos" and reclaim your authentic self? Maggie Boillot story will stop you in your tracks and make you question what comfortable prisons you might be living in right now.
Maggie joins us to share her remarkable transformation from successful hairstylist and fitness studio owner to becoming a powerful voice for women seeking to rewrite their stories. With magnetic energy and hard-earned wisdom, she reveals how leaving behind a toxic relationship that had held her hostage for ten years became the catalyst for discovering her true calling as a mentor, speaker, and podcaster.
At the heart of our conversation is Maggie's revolutionary "AWARE" technique—a practical framework anyone can use to navigate life's challenging crossroads. Acknowledge what's happening, become Willing to change, check for Alignment with your true feelings, Release what doesn't serve you, and Experience something new. This simple but profound approach strips away the confusion that keeps us stuck in situations long past their expiration date.
What makes this episode essential listening is how Maggie dismantles our conditioned fear of failure. "You can't get it wrong," she insists. "You're just going to get the feedback you needed to make the shifts." This perspective transforms paralyzing perfectionism into liberating experimentation, giving us permission to pursue dreams without the crushing weight of potential disappointment.
The distinction Maggie draws between passion and purpose offers clarity for anyone feeling successful yet unfulfilled. Purpose, she explains, is your calling—the impact you're meant to have—while passion relates to how your daily life feels. Understanding this difference helps explain why external achievements often fail to deliver the satisfaction we expect.
Ready to stop comparing your day one to someone else's year ten? Want to recognize when you're choosing familiar discomfort over unknown possibilities? Join us for this transformative conversation that might just be the permission slip you need to start stomping to your own drum. As Maggie reminds us: "Your uniqueness is your superpower." It's time to embrace it.
Music "STOMP" used by permission of artist Donica Knight Holdman and Jim Huff
I'm walking all alone down my yellow brick road and I stomp to the beat of my own drum. I got my pockets full of dreams and they're busting at the seams, going boom, boom boom.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Stacked Keys Podcast. I'm your host, amy Stackhouse. This is a podcast to feature women who are impressive in the work world or in raising a family, or who have hobbies that make us all feel encouraged. Want to hear what makes these women passionate to get up in the morning, or what maybe they wish they'd known a little bit earlier in their lives.
Speaker 1:Grab your keys and stomp to your own drum. Whatever you do, it ain't nothing on me, because I'm doing my thing and I hold the key to all my wants and all my dreams Like an old song everything will be all right when I let myself go Well.
Speaker 2:Today I am excited to introduce a guest, maggie Bio. Welcome, maggie.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 2:Oh thrilled to have you, and right out of the gate. Let's start off with Maggie. How do people know you, both personally and professionally?
Speaker 3:That's a great question. I love that. So, so I have, uh, a lot of enthusiasm. I have a very bright personality, and so I was a hairstylist for 19 years, um, and also owned a fitness studio for 10 years, and I just had this bright light about me that, um, once I was in front of people, my magnetic energy came out. Um, and then also you know, that's kind of personally I'm quirky, fun, exciting, love to be playful and fun. And then professionally, I actually have now taken off the hairstylist cape and also the fitness journey, and I have stepped into being a podcaster, speaker and mentor through life experiences that have basically given me a degree of hard knocks and I like to teach, as the mentor that I am is all about experience and that you can become your own self-awareness tool to be able to change your life and rewrite your story.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, All right. So teaching that you must have had some mentors along your way to where you could see some importance and validity to that. What kind of mentors did you?
Speaker 3:have. So it's it's funny that you asked that when I first was out of my very rough, abusive, toxic relationship, I really didn't have any mentors and I was doing a lot of it on my own. I really feel like a lot of times healing comes from within. Hence, all of the umbrellas that I kind of teach from is the power is within us. And, yes, we need mentors and coaches and guiders, but a lot of times it comes from your own self-awareness.
Speaker 3:And so when I kind of started to solidify the decision of walking away from the career that I had to become this speaker, you know mentor and podcaster I started looking into hiring people and you know coaches and mentors I have to speak this out because I have also had this happen to me where you have to speak this out because I have also had this happen to me where you have to align 100% with their product, their knowledge, their basis, all of the things, because you can quickly get into the wrong situations.
Speaker 3:Um and I think that becomes another thing of self-awareness Um, I was in a relationship with my business partner or business coach, I should say and I quickly realized I think I might be in that toxic relationship that I got myself out of so with coaches and mentors, it's very important to pick the ones that have the most alignment with your values, your, you know, your, your desires and your wants. Cause it can. It can really be the the deciding factor whether you keep going after the life that you truly want or it kind of holds you back.
Speaker 2:Wow. So do you have a method that you would suggest, or that you've kind of figured out, to be able to find that alignment, because you know you could? You could waste six months figuring out. Hey, we don't really jive on what we're saying here. So how have you come up with a method?
Speaker 3:You know.
Speaker 3:So I have lots of different methods in my world around the awareness factor and really, truly, we all have that inner voice, that inner guidance, and I think that a lot of times I'm actually crafting some of this into my keynote is we have the answers pretty much right in front of our face, but most oftentimes we kind of look to the left or look to the right, thinking maybe it's, maybe it's okay, but really I think it comes from what does your body feel like, what does your mindset feel like, what does your attitude feel like?
Speaker 3:And if, if they don't feel good, if they don't feel aligned and you kind of feel like a wobbly old mess and you're kind of I I was doing this myself, beating my head up against a wall, sometimes trying to figure out like what is what's, why can't I figure out this, why can't I figure it out? It's probably not an alignment. So I like to talk about just feelings. How are you talking to yourself about it? Is it making you feel crazy? Is it making you question yourself? And then you get to have that as your feedback. And I also like to say that no investment or no mentor is a good, bad, right or wrong experience. It's just the feedback that you need in that very moment of your life.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, you know you mentioned self-talk there. So in talking to yourself are you a self-talker.
Speaker 3:Yes, I am getting much better about positive self-talk instead of negative self-talk or that self-sabotaging talk, and it is a practice. It's a daily practice and I think a lot of people think that with positive self-talk, it's just about. You know, I can do it once in a while and we really need to start to spot them, our thoughts, as soon as we start to have them, and if we think I'm saying something that's more on the negative side, you just have to say to yourself you know not right now and and replace it with a new, new thought and I do that a lot.
Speaker 3:I think sometimes I'm like, ah, you know, start to kind of beat myself up inside. But really that self compassion and self talk is so, so, so important, especially when you're trying to align with the next best version of yourself on a daily basis, with the next best version of yourself on a daily basis.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, what you've done is a little bit scary. I mean, you had two careers that were pretty solid, that people are always into and they understand. You know, it's like I am a hairdresser. I work with hair Okay, I have a visual picture of what that is. I know what you do. I work in fitness Okay, what kind? All, right, now I have a visual picture of that. You jumped off into something that people are like huh, so how does that feel?
Speaker 3:How do you wrap your head around that? And not oh what, what did I do? Yeah, um, I think it comes from. I talk a lot about three words courage, trust and strength, but the I think courage on this one is my answer. Um, courage to be able to trust yourself um enough and know that anything in life is an opportunity to make a decision that could change your life forever.
Speaker 3:And I was kind of living in the you know, when we're going in through what do you want to be as an adult and what do you want? It was like, well, I don't really know. I don't want to go to college, so I picked hairstyling. I quickly just fell into it. You know, I don't think I ever really truly had this ultimate passion for it, and then with fitness, I have a huge passion for it. So it still is very court, like kind of combined into a lot of the things that I do with coaching and mentoring.
Speaker 3:But that was stripped away from me when I did make the courageous decision to leave behind the life that I thought I had created. But I just knew that I had to trust myself enough to understand what I had been allowing for a decade of my life was actually molding me into this person, and I could either surrender and let go of the past and forgive the past that I had gone through, or I could hold onto it and have it keep me hostage. And that's what it was doing for 10 years, was I was held hostage of someone else's dream, someone else's life, someone else's passion? Yes, did I have the passions for it, but was it mine and was it the true, aligned direction I was supposed to take?
Speaker 3:No, and that again goes to the how do you feel? Were you waking up every day, miserable, trying to figure out why the heck you felt so bad and trying to always question yourself? That's when you know you're. You're just not meant to be in that place. And that's one of the things I talk about is power shifting, and you have to be in your own power to say you know what I don't like this and I need to make the shifts harder. Hard or not, worth it or not, no one knows, but you have to trust yourself to try it yeah, wow.
Speaker 2:Well, you're young and so, but you've got all this life experience. Do you ever find yourself and look in the mirror and go, oh, what am I doing? And feel that I guess it's called imposter syndrome of like maybe I shouldn't be the one telling you, you know, coaching along. Do you ever have those feelings?
Speaker 3:Oh gosh, yes, and I think that's a natural, normal person. You know, we think we don't have a story to tell. We think we don't have an experience that is bigger or cooler than the other person, have an experience that is bigger or cooler than the other person. We tend to also compare our journey at our day one, or our even year one, to someone's journey of 10 years into what they're doing, and so that, I think, is a big part of the picture. I am very guilty of doing that where it's like well, how do they have all these clients, how do they have this and why are they doing it this way at all? I want that, I want that, but I also like to think of that as that's your inspiration. If those are the things that are calling to you, it means they're on your heart and that they're meant for you as well. So it's not about comparing yourself. It's about how do I take the action. Comparing yourself it's about how do I take the action.
Speaker 3:How do I get myself into that position? Because I think a lot of times, comparison is just jealousy, because you want to be there, you know, you're like, ah, I want to do that. And so, instead of it being comparing and having the jealousy feeling, think of it as like this is what is in your forefront. That's almost your higher self reaching to you to say this is what you want. And that's almost your higher self reaching to you to say this is what you want. And I'm here to show you that it's possible for you to.
Speaker 2:So what would you say? The difference between wishing and realizing your dreams might be.
Speaker 3:Ooh, um, this might have to kind of drop in for me for a second. Um, I think a wish is a desire and I say this over and over and I'll say it till I'm blue in the face. What you desire, you deserve for something to happen. I think you sit with that and you think about it. You have to do the whole alignment check again. You know how does it make you feel.
Speaker 3:If it's something that lights you up and you feel that it's a desire for you to have it, whether it's be coaching, mentoring, owning your own business, stepping into a completely different world, like I did, you have to decide.
Speaker 3:You have to say to yourself is this something that I'm wishing for, or is it something that I really, truly want to do? And here to tell you failure and setbacks and all the things are going to happen, but it's kind of facing that and doing it anyways, and then truly reminding yourself that if it doesn't feel aligned and it doesn't feel good, that is the decision you can make. Again to say, what else can I try? And I think that's where most people get stuck is they think I have this dream or I have this wish, but how do I get there and no one knows. We're all figuring it out. No one's different than anybody the people who are where you want to be. The difference is is they just took the steps and they got bumped backwards or sideways and they continued to just say that it wasn't just a desire or a wish. It was the dream that they were supposed to fulfill for themselves.
Speaker 2:And with that takes a lot of work. From what I'm hearing, Two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward, three steps sideways. I mean that just it just sounds like it's kind of a give and take pull that you embrace.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and I always say, like life is a dance, and also, too, it takes imperfect bravery we don't have. There's no perfect time, there's no perfect setting, there's no perfect experience, there's no perfect mapped out road. Most of us want that, like, here's the yellow brick road that we get to follow and we just know that on the other side of that is that pot of gold or whatever we're looking for, and it's just not that way. And I think that that's another thing that scares people off of following their heart and their passions, because it's not a linear path, it is bumpy and it does require, like you said, give and take, push and pull, dust yourself off and continue to pull yourself up, because a lot of times I always say this too we fear the unknown, because it's uncertain, but we're not fearful of the chaos that we live every day.
Speaker 2:Well, that's interesting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's what I say all the time. It's like we love to stay in this familiar certain chaos because we're uncertain of the beauty that could be right here on the other side of that. One courageous step to change your life.
Speaker 2:Wow. So what would you say is the biggest?
Speaker 3:waste of time. Overthinking and procrastinating. I do it all the time too. Still, I mean it's a waste of time, it really is. Overthinking and procrastinating is just another form of perfectionism. I think, or I know that, and, like I just mentioned, perfect is actually boring. And if we were all perfect which, by the way, nothing in life is perfect, and that's actually the beauty in this world is that we're all imperfect humans doing the best that we can with the knowledge that's at our fingertips.
Speaker 2:You mentioned the word failure a little while ago and it's like failure sometimes can make you pause and not want to go forward. How do you feel about failure?
Speaker 3:You know, when I first started the journey called life failure, to me it didn't seem like anything. You know, when you're a kid it's kind of like we failed at a game or we did and we just kept going. You know, we were like, we were resilient, I feel, and we tend to overthink as we get to be adults and we think that failure is really truly the disaster. It's the point of it didn't work, it's never going to work. But if you think about a lot of people in this world I mean even like I think somebody referenced, you know, the light bulb. I think it took him like, however many thousands of tries, and if he would have given up we probably wouldn't still have light bulb.
Speaker 3:So we have to think about failure as I used to think, as failure was. It's not meant for me, it's too hard, it's not worth it. And now failure to me is that redirect I talk about. Sometimes it's the beauty and the blessing in the skies that comes through that failure and it's also feedback. It's feedback for you to either say, man, I learned from this and I can grow from it, or I can let this be the thing that just stops me dead in my tracks.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, so much of what you've talked about so far takes a great deal of thought and kind of raking through and getting rid of the negative and reaching for more and so many different subjects. What subject or aspect really makes your brain just ache?
Speaker 3:So I think in my world, what makes me just like cringe a lot of times and ache and and and honestly feel for people is awareness, and that is why one of my biggest modalities and biggest trainings I ever do with people is one simple word and it's aware, and it's a way of, it's a technique to with any experience I'm talking any experience and any emotion or any thought or any feeling. You can work through one simple word and that's awareness, and I talk it, I just work you through it. The A stands for you know, we can work through that. If you want, I can kind of dive into that a little bit or we can. Okay, so think of it this way.
Speaker 3:Like I've mentioned three or four times, everything in life is feedback, right, we. Nothing in life really is good, bad, right or wrong. It's just our own perspective and our own experience we all talk about. I always like to reference this because it's a very easy reference. If you go to a movie and I go to the same movie, you come out and you're like gosh, that was the best movie I've ever seen and I'm like, wow, I really didn't catch it. I didn't like it. Perspective, that's awareness, that's your self-awareness around. I loved this movie and mine was. I didn't really care for it. So good, bad, right, wrong. There's neutrality in the middle Right, and so I like to work through aware. With this simple word you can do this with anything.
Speaker 3:Is you have to be aware, or acknowledge what's in front of you. Is it helping you, or is it creating chaos? Or is it what? Is it right? We have to acknowledge it, because first step of awareness and change is acknowledging behaviors and then willingness. So we go to the W, we go for willingness to change. We have to tell ourselves are we lying to ourselves and we're trying to make things work and we're trying to push the peg into a round you know, round peg into a square hole, trying to figure all these things out? If it's not working and it's feeling like that, you have to have willingness to move through it.
Speaker 3:And then that comes to the next A, which is alignment, that feeling that we've talked about. How does it make you feel? Are you feeling confident? Are you feeling excited? Are you feeling motivated? Are you feeling driven or are you beating your head up against the wall, like I was for a long time? And then you have to be able to release what doesn't serve you. What is it the thought? Is it the emotion? Is it the action? Cause you got to release it because it's going to hold you hostage if you don't. And then the E leads us into experience. Go out and experience something else. It's just like pieces of clothing. If you feel like they don't fit anymore, what do you do? You go buy a new shirt. So you can do that with any experience in your life. If it doesn't feel right, it doesn't fit into your life, it doesn't work anymore. Try something else on, take a new experience, and you will never know what opportunity holds the key to changing your life wow and that's great.
Speaker 3:That's my aware technique and that's just like I said. You can literally do this with any, anything throughout the day. I mean five different times every day. I go. Let me get aware. How am I feeling, how it also can help you to not be so reactive. It can help you to not be so reactive. It can help you to become more aligned and more slower. You know, kind of started dressing. How does this make me feel? Because if we're not aware, we're never going to change.
Speaker 2:Right. So, is it callous? Is it this? Is it calculating everything that comes through, and does it make you more, less feeling about situations or events?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I don't want to say less feeling, I think it actually makes you feel more.
Speaker 2:Permission, I guess.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it gives you permission to understand, like I've been saying, that good, bad, right, wrong. What if you went about life knowing you can't get it wrong? You know, if you went about your day, instead of the fear of the unknown, the fear of the failure, the fear of the uncertainty, if you knew each day what you were doing, you couldn't get it wrong, you were just going to get the feedback that you needed to make the shifts. What would, how would you live your life differently? And that's how I started living. My life is living it worried and fearful of like, well, what's he going to think if I left? Or what's my business going to think if I just pick up and leave? What are my clients going to think if I just want to not do hair anymore?
Speaker 3:You can't get it wrong. You have to just decide.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, my mind went to being a parent, a young parent, and you know who you surround yourself with of like, whether you're using cloth, diapers or paper, or whether you're nursing or using formula, or whether you're giving vegetables or you're giving fruits or you're letting them play here or play there, and you can every situation go well, there's one right way, and when you find out, no, there's a million right ways, and so it's kind of that same thing. You kind of embrace the freedom of making a choice because you know you use formula or you nurse, if you don't starve them, they're fine, and somehow they'll grow up to be great adults, and so it just it's the weight that we put on things sometimes can be so unbearable. So do you think our daily actions kind of make us who we are?
Speaker 3:100%, 100% Because you know, I'll even think about my daily actions. Five years ago, my daily actions were I rolled out of bed. I said, oh God, here we go again, but I still pushed my. You know, I still did my daily actions.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But I was. It was almost like walking that yellow brick road we talked about, but it was like this road. That was just like normal, robotic. It was, oh, I have to do this, this is the way my life is supposed to be. This is what I chose. These are the things I did. So I just lived that way. Oh, I have to be cheated on, I have to be manipulated. I have to have that because I want this. So my actions led me to allow the behaviors because I thought that was as good as my life got. And that's what most people think is. I chose this.
Speaker 3:Whether you're married, you're not, you're engaged, you're this. Whatever it is, life changes, people change, opportunities change, experiences changes. If it doesn't feel good anymore, that's when you have to use the aware technique walk yourself through it. What am I allowing that is not serving me, that is holding me hostage of living a happier, more fulfilling life.
Speaker 3:And I like to always ask that question when you think about that person, like we kind of referenced earlier, if that person's living that happier, more fulfilling life that you want, and you look to the right and you look to the left and you look forward and you think who is deserving of living that happier, more fulfilling life, and the first person that comes to your mind if it isn't yourself, that's the feedback you need. Yeah, wow, you know. I mean plain and simple. The first person that should come to that forefront of your brain is yourself, because we're always constantly worried about what everybody else is thinking. What's the opinion of this person, how's this person going to act? How's it? Well, how about we start thinking about ourself first? And that's a whole debacle we could get into about. That's selfish. How is that selfish If I want to live a life that is happier and more fulfilling. And guess what, if I'm living that life, you're going to be more fulfilled too, because I'm going to treat you better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it has a way of coming back.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it has a way of coming back. Yeah, and also, it could also help that person think, if she's doing it and the world isn't colliding, maybe I could do it too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so complete this sentence for me we were put on this earth to live a happier, more fulfilling life. I would think that, right there, that's just a mic drop for me. Like we, we were put on this planet to live a happy, healthy, fulfilling life and, honestly, I think it's through passion and purpose, and each of us has had a dream that is either dropped into us I like to say wisdom showers, I like to say when you're sleeping the things around you, the opportunities, the synchronicities. I believe that there is a path that we are meant to be taking and the redirects are there to put you on your most aligned path, but it also takes the awareness and the willingness to be able to try that out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you said passion and purpose, meaning that there's two, that those are two, those can be two different things. So what do you, how do you feel about passion and then how do you feel about purpose? Kind of define those for me and then how do you feel about purpose, kind of define those for me?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so for me, I think, passion comes from everything in between. Your purpose Do you? Are you passionate about your life? Are you passionate about your partner? Are you passionate about the future that you're going for? And your purpose is your calling. So for me, my purpose is to impact women.
Speaker 3:Right now, specifically, I would love to do a collective, but right now, my purpose in life is that I went through what I did to be able to stand in front of women, mentoring and podcasting and speaking about my experience and my life. That's my purpose, and I think a lot of times people are like well, I don't know what my purpose is. Well, you went through something in your life that you are one step ahead of the person that you could mentor and maybe that's not because not everybody wants to be a coach or a mentor, but there's something in your life that brought you to where you are today and who you want to be a coach or a mentor. But there's something in your life that brought you to where you are today and who you want to be. And a purpose is what has been put on your heart or in your forefront, and passion comes from.
Speaker 3:How does it make you feel? How does your life look? Is it? Are you passionate about waking up? And that leads me to my second technique is I talk about? If you're not aware, you are not alive. If you are not alive, you are not in your own power. You are letting other people dictate how your life is going to look.
Speaker 2:Wow. So you seem really strong and really focused and I think there's been a lot of work to get you there. But growing up, did your family life, did your mom, kind of pour into you and begin to create this strong, young, young lady?
Speaker 3:I have always loved my mom dearly and both, both of my parents were always there for us as kids and I don't ever say anything, um, differently and I think that, yes, I saw the strength in my mother, but I also saw a lot of weakness in my mom and I think that, um, there's a lot of behaviors that I might have held on to because of what I saw through my own relationship with my parents and their relationship.
Speaker 3:And I think that you allow behaviors because you're like well I, but I kind of saw that modeled and I think for me, the strength actually truly came from, like I mentioned in the very, very beginning, it was on the inside of me. My strength was stripped away from a lot of things in my childhood and also, too, through life experience. But it's up to you to decide if you want to find that again, because we're all born, because we're all born pretty confident, we're all born pretty courageous. You know we like to take action and try to walk and fall and stumble and walk again, and we try to talk, and we don't know how to talk, but we sure do start to learn how to. So it's all about where was it stripped away and how can you then reclaim it, and that's a lot about. What I talk about, too, is release, reclaim and rewrite. If you don't like the narrative, change it.
Speaker 2:Well and that takes a lot, a lot of willingness to be vulnerable with yourself. So do you kind of prepare to be vulnerable? And I mean you've done a lot of the work, but is it still ongoing?
Speaker 3:Oh gosh and I think that's one of the biggest compliments that I get almost daily is your vulnerability, as in my, vulnerability is what makes people I don't want to say crumble in a bad way, but crumble to be able to say you know what? I want to start breaking these bricks down as well. I want to start moving forward, because if you can be vulnerable I mean I'm vulnerable every day and I think that's a huge part of being in the growth period, and growth is not the destination, it's the journey that we take each day to step into that person. Do I have good days? Absolutely. Do I have really good days? Absolutely. Do I have really bad days? You betcha, I do, Because that's normal.
Speaker 3:That's the imperfect bravery, that's the imperfect person that you have to be to understand life. You know, life is just. It's just mess. It's messy and it's meant to be chaotic, but it's also meant to be the chaoticness or the chaotic crazy that we think is normal, to show you that there's actually a way to live in more peace and harmony and alignment with your true, authentic self.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow. So rich can mean so many different things to us. It can be monetary, it can be getting your career where you want it to be. It can be anything. In what way do you feel rich?
Speaker 3:You know it's interesting. I was listening to something yesterday and it talked about like, what does money mean to you, like, what is it going to feel? Because you have to feel that feeling. And for me, like mine, is impact. And so when I think about, oh, how can I like have this rich feeling, it's for me, it's that impact, it's that feeling of the vulnerability, the shares and letting people understand that everybody in life has a story. We all have a unique way that we've walked through life. But being able to be vulnerable and open up and share about it and know that you're not alone is the key to that richness, I think.
Speaker 3:And richness in life doesn't just have to be, like you said, monetary. The monetary almost kind of flows in when you're in line. You're in line with you know, you're feeling like you're floating right. Things feel good. It's not effortless, but it's aligned and it feels flowy. It doesn't feel like I mentioned the heading beating up against a wall or feeling as if you're stumbling over your own two feet. It's part of the process and for richness, I think that that's such a label for me that it's about impact and fulfillment of my own self and being able to know that I am out there each day taking the steps to leave. That impact comes with the simple text messages, the comments being on podcasts like these. Knowing that someone in your audience or someone in my own audience feels lighter from what I said is the richness.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, wow. Well, you know, being an entrepreneur can be scary, lonely, frustrating at times, as well as fulfilling, fabulous and freeing. So have you put in place some systems to kind of protect yourself, to where you don't go down a dark hole?
Speaker 3:I think I'm working on that right now. I think, when it comes to entrepreneurship and you know, being solopreneur really and doing all the things you do, you have to protect your energy and your space. I mean because half the time you know I'm this person, that person and this person, and each day I'm like, oh, how do you juggle it all? And so I think for me, with that question, it's like what do you not feel is your zone of genius and I've been told that from a mentor when I very first started this journey was stop trying to do the things that don't give you fulfillment and maybe you don't have the money to do it right away.
Speaker 3:And that's one of my things is I'm working through being able to say, okay, how can I systemize? Because I think once you systemize, things also can start running in alignment and things just start to happen. And so for me it's the system is being kind of placed right now is how can I be the one that's out there in my zone of genius doing the podcasting and speaking on stages and hosting retreats and workshops, but also still have that backend where it's like that is not my zone of genius? Computers and things like that I didn't do it for two decades of my life. I'm almost 40. And now I'm like how do you create this? How do you do it? And so those are the things that you can eliminate from the need to have to do until you're really ready to do it and focus on what brings you fulfillment and passion.
Speaker 2:It's interesting because when I first started my advertising business, you know we focused on small and medium businesses, because if they were having to focus on meeting everybody that and at that time everybody who came in to sell a billboard or you know some kind of form of media they would spend a whole day meeting people. Well then they couldn't do their job, their their real work. So it's finding that part that takes up too much of your day. You know that that can be passed off to somebody else. What are you most proud of?
Speaker 3:I think I actually just said this to myself, maybe even yesterday. I am proud of not giving up. Yeah, and I'm talking through life. I mean, like I mentioned even just a minute ago, we all have a story and we all have experiences. Being almost 40, I've had a lot and, like I said, I have a master's degree in the school of hard knocks, and so for me, it's the most proud I have ever been right now in my life is that I went through that and I have had some bumps along the road of still standing in my true passion and purpose, but I'm not willing to give up. I'm not willing to give up. I didn't give up on a 10 year long, decade, toxic, abusive relationship, so why would I give up on my dreams? Why would I give up when it gets tough?
Speaker 3:I wasn't willing to let go of that toxic certainty. So why would I give up on the thing that means the most to me? So I'm proud of myself, for even though I was beating myself up and beating my head against a horse or a dead wall or whatever a dead horse all the things literally that's how my brain felt for a while is not giving up and trusting that in time and the process, it will all fall together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, trusting time and process, that takes a lot. That tenacity takes a lot. So would you say that's probably the scariest thing you've done is not give up on yourself.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I think it's been the scariest, the hardest, the most rewarding all of it in the same breath, because it's your own perspective each day. Sometimes, when I don't give up, I'm like why am I not giving up? It's hard, but then it's the perspective of who can I impact and who can I change, or whose life can I change. And if the answer continues to feel like I'm not doing it or it can't happen, that's the feedback I need to then be aware of. But each morning I still think I have a story and I have a mission and I have a vision of who I can and what I want to do to this world to impact people, to be able to stand in that truth and to be able to create a life that they have never thought possible, because I did it Five years ago. If I could say what my life looked like then to what it does now, people would, you know, do the huge bug-eyed and the jaw drop, because it's night and day difference.
Speaker 2:Wow. So how do you decide what direction you're going to go for your day to have this impact? How do you do you? Do you have a a two year, three year, five year, 10 year business plan, or you?
Speaker 3:know how do you figure out your direction? It goes back to the awareness and the willingness is what am I willing to do today that will impact me for tomorrow and that's for me right now. I'm in my connection. My word of the year is connection connection, and it's absolutely insane. When you live through intention and you live through what you're wanting, things just start to happen. I mean the people I've connected with, the opportunities I've already had in my lap and what we're just now through, two months basically of the year.
Speaker 3:You know, and and for me I've never been much of like a goal setter, like this is what I'm going to do today to get the goal tomorrow, because a lot of times we don't really know, and I think that that can hinder us a little bit too, because if it doesn't happen in the timeline that we thought it would, that's failure instantly. Well, if I failed, I didn't get it done in 30 days, well, what if it takes 60 days? And so for me, my goals aren't necessarily projected. To say like I'm going to stop on my dreams in three years if I'm not at a hundred million dollars, let's just put it prospectively.
Speaker 3:Mine is is what am I willing to do each day to feel like that still lights me up inside, because when you're doing something that doesn't really fulfill you, why would you're doing something that doesn't really fulfill you? Why would you keep doing it? I mean, I was living for 10 years of something that wasn't fulfilling me, but I kept doing it because I thought that was the, that. It was the choice I made. I was raising children. They're not mine, but I was. You know, I had so many levels and layers to this molded story that I thought was my reality and I think that's what a lot of people do too is as well. I'll just stay stuck for it Cause I have kids, or I'll just do these things because of this, or I should I heard that the other day. Stop shitting on yourself.
Speaker 4:You know it's it's.
Speaker 3:it's really cute because it's like you know we should on ourselves all the time. I should be here. I should have done this. I should have this by now, why that's that blinded story that you've been telling yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I guess that's where you know. You hear people talking about the entitlement. Should is an entitled word and maybe that's where there's the difference. That's putting, you know, muscle and effort in place of the word should and patience and tenacity, you know, followed, you know, with the work of it, perhaps. What do you fear the most?
Speaker 3:Um, I think it might actually have already been kind of answered. I think fear for me is giving up. Yeah, I fear giving up on myself. I fear that because it has been hard and I think that a lot of people in this world, like you just said, kind of entitled, but it's almost like this sense of facades and fakeness through Instagram, tiktok, facebook land that I think a lot of people think well, because that person did it and it was 30 days, I can do that and if I don't, it's a failure and I'm going to give up on myself and trust me, I've fallen into the comparison and the trap of hey look, I can help you make X, y, z amount of money in 30 days.
Speaker 3:I can do these things because it worked for me and it's that cookie cutter system that doesn't work and that's why I I talk about that in my, my coaching and mentoring program is this ain't a cookie cutter system. I'm not going to give you something that worked for me because, guess what, it's not going to work for you. It could, it might, but we have to try it on first. We have to make sure it fits for you, cause that's what I think is like I talked about that circle, you know circle sticking to the pay, whatever we. We see all these things on Instagram and Facebook and it's the highlight reels and it's all these things.
Speaker 3:And so if it doesn't happen for you in the timeline that happened for that person, you give up on yourself. And so for me, I've thought about that. Well, if they're doing it and it took them 30 days, but it's taking me three years it's not worth it. I'm going to give up on myself. But, like I mentioned, if I didn't give up on that life I had created, I had built two businesses, I had built a family, I had built a lot and I never gave up on them, why would I give up on myself? And I fear that sometimes that I have wanted to throw in the towel because it gets hard, and I think that's why most people don't want to try is because that familiar chaos that's really hard.
Speaker 2:It's just gotten comfortable seems easier than a new lease on life yeah, I just heard something the other day about throwing in the towel and where that came from and it and it came from being in the fight ring and they used a towel to to kind of clean up and get the fighter back on their feet, to be back in for the next round. And then it became throw in the towel. When they threw it to the middle, then okay, the fighter's done. And it was kind of like that is really interesting, you can use the towel but you don't have to throw it in. And it just kind of struck me as a kind of a metaphor to life of like, yeah, yeah, you, you might have to clean up a mess and keep going, but, um, but you know it, it's, there's strength within that of cleaning so much.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean that that right there just was like oh wow, it could get messy and, yes, you might have to use that towel, but don't throw it in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I like that. Can you tell when you need an adventure, where you need to just put a stop to whatever of your day and just go be adventurous?
Speaker 3:There for a while, no, there for a while, no, um.
Speaker 3:But I feel like now, because I am in more in alignment with what I want to be doing, um, I was pressuring myself a lot so for a good three or four months, like I had mentioned, with mentors and things that weren't aligned with me, um, I, I was, I was constantly working, you know, constantly feeling like, well, it has to change now because I've done this and I've invested in all things and I wasn't taking the time and I think that adventurous side and that creative side and that thing I talk about this too.
Speaker 3:I ask people this when I mentor them all the time, I'm like when was the last time you did something like that Adventurous or creative or exciting that brings you that passion right, that, that, that that excitement. And most oftentimes people are like you know, and have to think about it for a while, and then they say it and I said, okay, well, when was the last time you did it? So for me, I'm starting to realize that there's days where I'm like you know what I'm going to go for, that afternoon walk, and people are like, why would you do that? That doesn't sound fun. Well, for me, it gets me into the flow, it gets me into. It actually gets me out of here and into here.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So you got to find those things that do that. So I think, yes, for a long time I wasn't listening to that. I just needed to take a break. I needed to to pause and reflect.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I wasn't doing that. So if you need to take a, longer break.
Speaker 3:What do you like to do? I love to travel. My fiance and I really do like to just take little short weekends up with our dog and do whatever we need to. But you know, I think a lot of times a lot of people are fearful of the pause or fearful of the stop for a second, and I was for a really long time. I heard that from a mentor gosh back, even when I was in that really terrible spot of my life and it was you have to slow down, to speed up, and I was like makes no sense.
Speaker 3:But you know, taking a longer pause sometimes I just got back from a trip in Mexico and I literally had no. I mean, I had my phone and I checked things and I was looking at things, but I didn't have any like well, what's going to happen today? And it feels good to come back, and I do. I felt fearful coming back, like how do I get back into reality? And I do that sometimes where I'm like, yeah, well, I got off the horse and it's hard, you know, and so I think that's what people think is like I can't stop, I'm in this momentum. But sometimes that momentum is the thing to say this is where you need to be, but still live your life as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow. So are you a heart listener or a head listener?
Speaker 3:you must listen to your intuition a lot and I'm like, well, yes, I do, and so I think a lot of times I listen to okay. So let me rephrase this I love to listen to my inner soul, my heart center, my intuition, I feel like sits a little bit more in kind of in my gut, but I love to listen to that. And I was saying this yesterday if I don't listen, I am rewarded with something I don't want. If I listen to my head, I'm redirected pretty quickly and it's like hey, remember what, what, what, what was here and what was here? And that's when I've made some pretty poor decisions in my life and they've had the biggest consequences. As when I've made some pretty poor decisions in my life and they've had the biggest consequences. As when I thought with my head and not with my heart or that inner knowing of is this a good decision or is this a decision that you're making that doesn't feel good for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, what would you tell younger Maggie that's coming, or to prepare for, or don't do?
Speaker 3:or to prepare for or don't do so. There's this whole thing on Instagram right now. That's like this trend of you took your younger self to coffee and what did you tell her? And I think for me, I keep thinking about like what would I say? And I'm like, well, first off it wouldn't be coffee, but I think for me it would be. It's okay to show up who you were then, as in, I've always had a unique trait. I've always been different. I've always stood out from the crowd. I have never been in that clique, I have never had that, and I've always thought of myself as different and it doesn't work, but it actually truly is my superpower. My uniqueness is my superpower, and I am now saying to her like I love you for who you were then and I am you now. I want to show up for you how you were when you were a kid.
Speaker 2:Huh, I like that. I like that because you're, you know. So many people say just survive it, you're going to be fine. That's what I would tell my younger self and it's like, but that because you just embraced, you're encouraging. Don't just survive it, embrace it. So that's. I like that, maggie. We've talked about a whole lot of different things, gone over many, many subjects. Is there something that we haven't touched on, that you want to make sure we do?
Speaker 3:touched on that you want to make sure we do. Um, no, I think we've, we've, we've definitely hit a lot of uh, the the pain and pleasure points for me is is how I like to kind of share who I am and what I've gone through. Um, I think that you know, I think just my one thing that always stands out so much in my life is is that, like I just said, is, if you think you're weird, you think you're different, you think you're this, embrace that, and that could be a whole new episode. But you know, just embrace yourself, embrace who you are. I mean, we do grow and change, but technically we actually enhance who we were brought into this world.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Before everybody else decided to say you're weird or you're this or you're different, or society told you you should be this way or that way. Just embrace it, like you just said Fully embrace what life is doing for you. It's for you, not to you. I caught that four verses too.
Speaker 2:I like that.
Speaker 3:And I say that all the time and it's funny how it has become a saying, you know, but that's because life is happening for you, not to you, and I was told that by a mentor. It was my first very ever mentor and he's a huge celebrity now at this point and I love just listening to the fact that, like that has stuck with me about eight years ago that it was like it happens for you and when you can truly decide to rewire your thought around, it's happening to me, because to me is victim, to me is I'm going to sit and suffer, I'm going to be the one that pouts and I'm going to be the one that pouts and I'm going to be the one that stomps and says life's unfair. But when you can say life is happening for you, you can find the beauty in the chaos and you can say I went through this or this happened to me because I can now be something else because I can now be something else.
Speaker 2:That's fabulous.
Speaker 3:How do people follow you, get in touch with you? Yeah, so my biggest platform or the place that I am most active on is Instagram. Powerwithinherinc and powerwithinhercom is my website, and those are the two best places to find out who I am, what I'm doing, all the events that I'll be hosting and all different kinds of stuff that's coming. It's just, it's been such a pleasure to talk with you. It's been such a good conversation, but, yes, I love people connecting with me and sharing their vulnerability and their takeaways from anything and everything, and perspective is such a cool thing for me. What do you feel? How do you feel? Because it's different than how I do.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love that. And you are able to coach. You're able to do some of this virtually, so people can connect no matter where they are.
Speaker 3:Yep, absolutely I love to work. I do love in person because I just love as a hairstylist. So that physical I always say physical touch that seems a little out of context, but, you know, just being able to feel and I have an event this weekend and just that, that, that energy of in person. But yes, I love virtual because it connects me with. I have, you know, people from over the world that I work with and just seeing the difference, the difference in cultures, but the similarities in life. Oh isn't that crazy.
Speaker 2:It is. It is. It makes the world smaller, more understandable. Put a face on it and it changes perspective Absolutely Well, that's great. I have one more question. Yes, and you may have already alluded to this a little bit, If you had a superpower for 24 hours, you can use it personally or professionally what superpower would you choose? And then, how would you use it and why would that be your choice? How would you use it and why?
Speaker 3:would that be your choice? So I think I have a superpower of reading people, and so I think it would be reading someone from the inside out, not from the outside in, because outside in is perspective, inside out is understanding. I think. So how would I use that? It would be able to be able to make bigger impact, because when you look at somebody from the outside, that's your perspective, that's your story and that's your lens. But if you can actually go inside and work from the inside and really truly dig into the layers and the deepness, that's the person you're looking for.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, I love that. That's great, maggie. Thank you, this has been a fabulous conversation.
Speaker 3:Yes, thank you Very much enjoyed.
Speaker 1:It Got my pockets full of dreams and they're busting at the seams, going boom, boom, boom to my own song.
Speaker 4:Gotta stomp to my own drum, stomp to my own song Stomp.
Speaker 2:Hey, find stacked keys podcast on spotify, soundcloud and itunes or anywhere you get your favorite podcast. Listen you'll laugh out loud you, you'll cry a little, you'll find yourself encouraged. Join us for casual conversation that leads itself, based on where we take it, from family to philosophy, to work, to meal prep, to beautifully surviving life. And hey, if I could ask a big favor of you, go to iTunes and give us a five rating. The more people who rate us, the more we get this podcast out there. Thanks, I appreciate it.
Speaker 4:Hey, gonna put on my boots and move. Got a stomp to my own drum, stomp to my own zone, stomp hey, ooh ooh, gonna sing it out loud and say it real proud.
Speaker 1:Nobody's gonna step on my cloud Cause I stomp, stomp to the beat of my big drum. I got a big drum. Whatever you do, it ain't nothing on me, because I'm doing my thing and I got the key to all my wants and all my dreams.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Because I stomp to my own drum, stomp to my own song, stomp. Hey, gonna, put on my boots and move. Song to my own drum song, to my big drum song. Yeah, got my pockets full of dreams. Yeah, they've been passing out the same singing. Wow, wow.