EP106: I Got Robbed -- and it Gave Me Back My Business

In this raw and revelatory episode, I share how getting literally robbed in Barcelona led to the most honest business clarity I've had in years. Stripped of my phone, my routines, and my digital reflexes, I was forced to sit with my own thoughts — and what came up wasn’t just discomfort, but truth. 

I unpack the toxic grip of “pics or it didn’t happen” culture, the myth of clarity through consumption, and why most ambitious women are chasing goals they didn’t even choose. 

If you've been feeling disconnected from your own ambition, this one will hit hard, and leave you asking better questions.

Chapters

• 0:57 Introduction to Business Blasphemy
• 1:32 Getting Robbed in Barcelona
• 8:46 Life Without a Phone
• 11:47 Pics or It Didn't Happen Culture
• 17:45 Consumption Obsession in Business
• 22:22 Finding True Clarity and Alignment
• 26:22 Three Decision Filters for Life

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:30

Welcome to the Business Blasphemy Podcast, where we question the sacred truths of the online business space and the reverence with which they're held. I'm your host, sarah Khan speaker, strategic consultant and BS busting badass. Join me each week as we challenge the norms, trends and overall bullshit status quo of entrepreneurship to uncover what it really takes to build the business that you want to build in a way that honors you, your life and your vision for what's possible, and maybe piss off a few gurus along the way. So if you're ready to commit business blasphemy, let's do it. Hello, hello blasphemers. Okay, so I was robbed. I don't know if you have heard the story. I talked about it on social media briefly, but I was robbed. Let me backtrack a little bit. So March was a really, really busy month for me. I spent quite a bit of time traveling. First week of March I was in Colorado. I did a keynote at the University of Colorado at Boulder and that was fantastic. I was in a room with just women students female students. They were so engaged and it really reminded me how much I miss being in the classroom. But I did a keynote there. And then the following week I was in New Jersey, and New York. I was speaking on a panel at the Success Tribes, connect and Collab Summit. There we go. I spoke about entrepreneurship and that was in, I want to say, staten Island. Yes, it was in Staten Island. And then I went to an event here locally. It was a two-day event. I managed to make one day because in the next day, of course, my kids were sick, but it was a wonderful networking event out in Guelph, ontario, and that was like most of March.

Speaker 1: 2:13

And then then we joined my husband for a two-week trip to Europe. First we went to Barcelona and then we were going to he had a work thing out there and then we were going to spend the following week in England visiting family, which you know we haven't done since 2019. Me and the kids anyway, my husband's been a couple of times in between now and then, and it was we were really excited to be able to go. We haven't been on a family vacation for a while because last year it was all about moving and you know that took up so much time and energy and finances and just you know. So it was something we were really looking forward to. We haven't been to Spain, so it was like really exciting and we had all of these plans. We wanted to go to the famous cathedral there, the Sagrada Familia. We wanted to go to, you know, montserrat and all these different places and really explore the city.

Speaker 1: 2:59

And as soon as we got there, my older girl got sick, and she was, unfortunately, sick the entire week, which sucks, because that meant we really couldn't do anything. I was lucky enough to go on a one-day excursion with one of my husband's colleagues she's like a friend of the family now and so we went out and we saw Montserrat and we saw Girona and Costa Brava, we went around and we did a bunch of stuff and it was a nice day, it was a really great adventure. And then the next day my kiddo finally rallied enough, it was our last day in Spain and we're like okay, you know what? At the very least let's get you to Sagrada Familia. She's a huge fan of Gothic architecture. So we went down, we stood in line, we went in and we took amazing photos. It is really truly a spectacular building. If you have not had the opportunity, I would highly recommend Googling it. I mean, pictures don't do it justice it. I mean, pictures don't do it justice, but we went and then we met my husband and my younger daughter outside and we went on one of those hop on, hop off city bus tours and we decided we were just going to take in as much of the city as we could because it was our last day.

Speaker 1: 4:01

So we get to this point, which is like, I think, the highest point in Barcelona, and we were able to, like, look out on the entire city and it was quite a stunning view. So we got out and it wasn't like a crowded street but it also wasn't deserted. You know, there was a little park and there was like a couple of families having like a picnic and they were playing, and there was like a birthday and there was a pinata and it was like all kinds of stuff. And so we got out, we took pictures and we started to walk back to the bus stop. My husband's a few feet ahead of us because he was on the phone and I'm walking with my girls I've got the little one's hand in mine and her older sister's next to her on the other side and we're walking and I feel someone touch my hand and take my phone right out of it.

Speaker 1: 4:44

This motherfucker took my phone out of my hand, took off, jumped on the back of a scooter and they were gone. It happened in like two and a half seconds and it's funny because I felt him grab my phone, like touch my hand, and I turned and kind of grabbed his sweater and he dropped the phone and then I went to grab the phone, still holding on to my little girl's hand, because in your mind like it's amazing how much goes through your mind in those moments my first thought which is always my first thought, is someone's going to snatch my kid. So I didn't want to let go of her and I tried to reach for my phone. He shoved me out of the way, picked it up and then took off. And this happened before your brain even registers what's happening.

Speaker 1: 5:23

And I've relayed the story and people are like, well, it's a really high pickpocket area. People know, yeah, I'm aware of that, I don't need anybody's. I told you so's. Like I went out of my way to make sure I had an anti-theft bag. I bought one of those like crossbody kind of bag that sits close to your chest and it sits under your jacket. I had like RFID wallets. Like I made sure I did all of the things that I could do to make sure that we were going to be, that our stuff was going to be safe.

Speaker 1: 5:49

And this was like one of those kind of just weird moments where I'd had my phone out because I was taking a picture and as I put my hand down to my side that's when he took it it came out of nowhere, like it was just one of those things that just kind of you know well, needless to say, we were very shaken. We did all the things we got into an Uber, went back to the hotel. I like locked down my phone, I called my service provider, canceled, I did all the things to lock down my phone, make sure they couldn't do anything with it, but we were still pretty shaken. We spent the evening in the police station to get a police report so that I can make a claim. You know, the kids were really badly shaken and we had still a week left before we could go home. So the next morning we flew to England and we spent the week with family and it's.

Speaker 1: 6:34

You know, it's weird because when something like this happens, it is incredibly violating, like you do feel personally violated, like I often wonder if it would have felt less, a little bit less of a violation if someone had like taken it out of my backpack or out of my pocket and I didn't notice until I'd gotten home or back to the hotel and realized something was missing, like this fucker took it right out of my hand, Like he touched me. It was one of those moments where you were just like there's so many things that go through your head Like should I have run after him? Should I have done this? Should I have done that? And the consensus is no, like you don't chase after people, you don't know if they've got weapons or whatever. So we did the right thing, but it really did throw a damper on the rest of the holiday.

Speaker 1: 7:16

I think one of the most challenging things for me was, you know, not having the phone, because not only could I not do stuff and you know what I mean when I say do stuff like you know doom, scroll and take pictures and read, and you know all the kind of stuff that you do on your phone but I couldn't do any business stuff either. So I was lucky that I brought my iPad with me, but I couldn't log into any of my business stuff, which is why that week there was also no podcast episode, because I had specifically taken my iPad so that I could record and, you know, put an episode up, and I had planned to take tons of pictures and use them for content. And you know, I'd specifically taken pictures of some of the places that we were at because I'm like this would make great B-roll. And I did all of this stuff that I was supposed to do and I couldn't log into anything because, obviously, using a new device, you're in a new place, so the IP address is different, and so every app that I tried to log into required a two-factor authentication code, which was, of course, going to my phone, and now my phone number is bricked and it was just, it was a whole thing. So all of that to say.

Speaker 1: 8:19

For the remainder of the week and a half that we were away from home, I didn't have a phone, I didn't have access to anything, I couldn't do anything. I was literally forced to experience life firsthand, and I say that a little bit tongue in cheek, but it's true, right. One thing I will say is we still had like a week and a half before we were coming home, and when something that violating happens to you, you do miss the comforts of other things in your life, right Like we were staying in an Airbnb. We didn't have anything of our own, the food is a little bit different, everything felt off, and so for the whole time that we were there, I think all of us were a little bit unsettled and it was just such a relief to be home and in my own bed and have my own snacks and my sofa and all those things. But, yeah, so the whole time that we were there, I didn't have a phone, which was duly frustrating because everybody else still did, and everybody else was still scrolling, taking pictures, sending text messages, talking, doing all the things, and I was like just sitting there, which sounds ridiculous when you say it. Right, like it sounds ridiculous. You were just sitting there.

Speaker 1: 9:21

Yes, I was just sitting there, but I had this weird moment where I was sitting in a cafe. So we were in Leeds, which is in West Yorkshire, and we were sitting in this cafe and I ordered a Kashmiri pink tea. If you've never had it, highly recommend it, but make sure it's authentic. It's not like powdered crap. It was delicious, it was authentic, it was like bright pink and they served it in this adorable little cup that had like a really lovely motivational phrase on it, and my immediate, like reflex thought was oh, I should take a picture of this and share it and tag the cafe. And then I remembered in the same moment that I don't have a fucking phone because I was robbed. So I had no choice but to sit and enjoy the tea for myself, like sipping it slowly, savoring the unique flavor of this particular kind of tea, slowly savoring the unique flavor of this particular kind of tea, savoring the just enough sweetness, you know, enjoying the warmth of the cup in my hand.

Speaker 1: 10:18

And I started thinking about how different the experience was to just a week before that, where I was sitting in a cafe, albeit in the hotel, but in a cafe in Barcelona, having what I think was an incredibly delicious cup of coffee, like I'm not sure, because I was more concerned with taking a picture of it and sharing it on social media. And then you know, scrolling as one does while drinking said coffee, because what else are you going to do? Like nobody wants to talk to you, everybody's on their phone, or you're sitting by yourself, and you know, just watching people is kind of weird and creepy, I guess Nowadays I used to people watch all the time. But what else are you going to do? Right? That's the question, and what I'm wanting to share today is not groundbreaking, it's not profound, it's not earth shattering, but it is something that I think we need to start talking more about, and it is this idea of you know, this whole culture that we have of picks, or it didn't happen. Picks or it didn't happen. We've heard this, but this culture of picks or it didn't happen is truly suffocating all of us out of our joy. It is suffocating all of our joy away from us, because we truly cannot live in the moment anymore.

Speaker 1: 11:34

And I started to think was my experience of the tea any less valid or legitimate or real? Because I couldn't quote unquote prove that it happened? I went on a 12-hour excursion in Spain and I saw some of the most beautiful sights. I saw the mountains of Montserrat and the beautiful coastline in Costa Brava, and went to the city of Girona, where I got to see the cathedral that they use as the stand-in for the Sept of Baelor in Game of Thrones. It's my favorite TV series, right? I didn't have to remember being there because the phone was going to do that for me and I could always go back and revisit them in my photos app, secondhand right, even though my experience was first person Sitting with that tea in that cafe in Leeds was honestly the realist experience I'd had over the two weeks that we were away two and a half weeks and I feel very much like my phone. Getting robbed was the best thing that could have happened in that moment.

Speaker 1: 12:41

And I started thinking about business, because that's what you do, because I see a lot of us running our businesses the same way, right, like we make decisions and we do things and we post content all for the validation and approval of others, all to prove it, quote, unquote it happened To be part of some cool kids group or to be seen as valid or whatever, but we post for clout. How much do you actually enjoy in your business firsthand? How much do you enjoy of your life firsthand and how much are you only enjoying when it is enjoyed by others, like when other people are liking it or commenting on it, or you're able to share a fancy reel that you made in CapCut to make it look like it was bigger than it was or better than it was, when the experience itself is really all you needed? How much of our life and our business are we only able to enjoy in hindsight, secondhand, through a lens that isn't even yours, capturing a small frame, a small fraction of the entire experience? Don't we deserve more than that? Like, truly don't we deserve more than that.

Speaker 1: 13:53

And then I started to think about all the ways in which we delay our gratification. Now hear me out, because I do understand that many of us need to learn the concept of delayed gratification in the sense of things do not happen immediately, right, like we post something about an offer and we just immediately want people to sign up, and if it doesn't happen, we somehow think that we're wrong or the offer isn't good enough or whatever. So there is that part of delayed gratification that we do have to cultivate in ourselves. We have to learn about that. But then there's this other side of it, the flip side of it, the other side of the coin, where we have lost our ability to actually enjoy what is happening in the moment. We think that we can delay our gratification, and you see this not just in the taking of pictures and not enjoying the moment, right, you're too busy capturing it rather than actually experiencing it. But there's also we accomplish something and we're already boom.

Speaker 1: 14:48

Moving on to the next thing, we're not allowing ourselves to actually experience it and enjoy it and digest it and embody the experience and say, oh my gosh, right, like really allowing all of our senses to experience the experience. Do you know how many cups of coffee I have had that were probably freaking delicious, but they're all just a blur, because I was doing something else or I was waiting for the next thing, or I don't know. I'll be honest, I was too busy taking a video of the coffee maker so I could use it as B-roll, right, and then not thinking about the coffee itself. It's a thing that we're all so burdened with, you know, and we've lost this ability to really ask ourselves like, do we actually even like what we're doing? Like, do we actually enjoy any aspect of it?

Speaker 1: 15:40

There are so many people doing things that are probably not enjoyable to them, but they're doing them because they've been told they have to or because, in order to be legitimate or valid in this, that or the other, you have to do it this way or you have to accomplish this thing, and I get it right. I understand the duality of life. Not everything is going to be a cakewalk and not everything is going to be fun and exciting and enjoyable and your passion is not going to eject you out of bed every day. You do have things that you have to slog through, but when it's everything that's concerning and most people will either believe or be gaslit into believing, that if you don't enjoy it, that's a you problem. You're coming at it with a scarcity mindset or a mindset of lack or whatever, and what you need is actually to take in more stuff. You need another course or another program, you need to work with a coach or you need to invest in this or this or this or this, and we never stop to actually think like are we actually happy with what we're doing?

Speaker 1: 16:42

Are we pursuing goals that we want to pursue, or are we pursuing goals based on what we think other people want us to have or tell us we need to have in order to be valid, legitimate, successful, right? Are you chasing the thing? You're chasing because someone's told you that that's what success is supposed to look like. And when you're chasing a thing and it doesn't feel right, it doesn't feel aligned, it doesn't feel easy, there's resistance what do we do? We invest in more. You know what?

Speaker 1: 17:15

I obviously have a mindset, issue whatever, and we are a culture that is obsessed with input. We are obsessed with input. It's this idea of you know. We need consumption in order to function, particularly the consumption of information More courses, more learning, more information, more downloads, more freebies, more, more, more, more. And we seek consumption in order to find clarity, and we've been conditioned to believe that clarity will come if I just have enough, learn enough, believe enough, read enough, listen enough, spend enough for access to people who already seem to have enough. And we believe that if we share enough into our brains, our brains will reward us with answers.

Speaker 1: 18:07

But the problem, the biggest problem, is that we tend to seek answers to questions we haven't even articulated clearly for ourselves yet. So what happens? The marketers and the content creators and the coaches and gurus they articulate those questions for us and then they work so, so, so, so hard to be clear in their identification of the problem so that they can sell us the solution. The problem is outlined to us with so much detail that we can't help but think that, yeah, we have that problem, even if you don't. It's kind of like those ADHD tests you can take online, right, or literally any quiz you can take online, where the symptoms are painted with the broadest of brushes, while they're trying to convince us that we're special. And it's just so surface level, generic, parading as deep that everybody's like, yeah, I think I got a little touch of that ADHD as well. Right, and so what do we do? We consume, and it doesn't feel like enough because it's too broad, and so we consume more. And it doesn't feel like enough, and so we consume more, seeking, and so we consume more, seeking, hoping, pining for clarity, but instead just getting further and further away from it.

Speaker 1: 19:38

What if I told you that you've always had the answers and that really there are no questions to be asked, there is no problem to be solved, there's only decisions that need to be made. And consumption isn't the key. Space is Conviction, is Alignment, is how would it feel to push away the plate of consumption and unbuckle your belt and just be able to take that deep, deep breath that you haven't taken because you've been breathing up here in your chest for so long? How would it feel to know that you could actually feel full and sated? And what if I told you that you're already full to the brim with enoughness we have just been conditioned to not trust that we know what we want. It has literally been conditioned out of us because if we don't know what we want, people can sell us whatever they think we need.

Speaker 1: 20:49

And all of this came as the result of two weeks without a phone, because I actually had to stop and think is this what I want to do? And all of the failings. And, oh my God, she's posting again today. I should probably post too. Oh my God, look how many clients she has. Oh, look at the testimony, like all of the things that immediately we shove into our brain and then it's like, oh well, what should I be doing today? I don't know if I've done enough. I didn't have any of that and it was in those moments where I was like I don't actually want to do any of that.

Speaker 1: 21:34

And if you've been listening to the podcast for the last few months, you'll know that clarity has been a little bit elusive for me. It's something that I've been trying to find, you know, and investing in coaches and networking groups and different things to find it, and really all I needed was a two-week break from my everyday. You know the things that I've been told I'm supposed to do? Create your content, engage three times over here, make sure you're reaching out to five people here, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm doing all the things, checking all the boxes, and none of them is making me feel lit up. And so the first thing I did when I came back home obviously it was order a phone because I needed it, but I joined a couple of in-person groups because I don't want to be on social media anymore.

Speaker 1: 22:21

Like the feeling of liberation, the feeling of spaciousness, and I'm not saying like, dump all social media, all right, this is not an all or nothing thing. Like I'm going to be on social media. Obviously I need to have a presence, but it's really made me rethink how I want to approach business and what feels right for me in this season of life, and I think that's the key right. Like, what does this season of life look like for you? And for me it is. I want to spend more time offline. I want to actually start making connections in real life again. I want to go to things, I want to experience things. I want to be able to sit in a room and listen to someone speak or, you know, have a cup of coffee with a friend and not worry about checking the time or making sure the Zoom is okay or like all of these things.

Speaker 1: 23:06

And again, nothing that I am saying today is groundbreaking or profound. We all know this. But we are so consumed with every day making sure we're checking the boxes that we're doing all the right things I say that in air quotes doing all the right things. We never stop to question whether or not those things are right for us. Are they right for us? Is this what you really want?

Speaker 1: 23:31

We have been conditioned to rely on other people to tell us what we want, whether it's for security or safety or acceptance, belonging, whatever. We've allowed other people to tell us what we want, to tell us what we need, to tell us how it's supposed to look to the point where we have collectively, as a society, forgotten how to make decisions for ourselves. And this happens very specifically, particularly for women high functioning, ambitious, driven women who technically do all the things for all the people, because we make decisions every single day for everyone else in our lives and when it comes to us, it's like being a chef at a five-star restaurant You're cooking all day long and when you come home, the last thing you want to fucking do is cook for yourself or your family. The number of chefs I know who are phenomenal chefs. They come home and they order pizza or takeout right. It's like that for a lot of multi-talented, highly ambitious women. We are so busy making decisions and doing things all day long, particularly if you're a mom, that when we get home at the end of the day, or the end of the day comes, it's like I don't want to have to make another decision. Can someone else just tell me what to do, please? And that is why so many women are so unfulfilled, despite having all of that success on paper.

Speaker 1: 24:56

So this begs the question do you actually know what you want Really for sure, for sure? Do you know what you want? Or are you still operating under a vision, an image, a goal that you either set five? An image, a goal that you either set five, 10 years ago, maybe even longer, or that someone else set for you, or you set because someone else had it and you were like, well, got to keep up with the Joneses. Right, and there's no shame if the answer is yes, because this is how we have all been conditioned to live life and run business. So what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about it? You need to make a decision about what you want to do, like really truly want to do, and I'll tell you. You may like the answer, you may not like the answer, it doesn't matter. It's better to change direction now than to get to the end of your life and be like what the fuck did I even do? I don't want to do any of this and I promise you your checklist it's not going to get you where you want to go.

Speaker 1: 25:59

In this season of life, you need to be absolutely ruthless about who you are, what you want and how you want to get it, what you're willing to give up. Those are the three filters that I run my decisions through. By the way, what do I actually want? Like if nobody had to approve or had to validate my choices, what would I really want to do? What would I really want? That's number one.

Speaker 1: 26:23

And then I ask myself okay, what's important to me in this season of life? What are my priorities right now? Hanging out with my kids, having time for my kids, being able to drop them off, pick them up, binge watch television on an evening because I want to watch TV Art getting back into my art is important. Going for walks is important. Being able to connect and have time to go out and hang out with real life people that's important in this season of life for me. So that is going to impact my business activities, where I'm showing up what I'm doing every day and the kind of time frame I'm allowing myself each day, each week, to do those things.

Speaker 1: 27:01

And then the third filter, the third question I ask what am I willing to let go of, what am I willing to sacrifice for the thing that I really want in this season of life? And right now it's being on all the social media all the time. I actually made the announcement last week that, after being on Facebook primarily Facebook a lot, consistently all the time since 2007, I am going to be winding down for the remainder of April and I'm just not going to be there anymore because it doesn't feel right. It feels like I'm shouting into the void lots of reasons, but I don't want to be on Facebook anymore. I've invited people to connect with me in other places.

Speaker 1: 27:42

The podcast is going to continue for a little while, but even the podcast I've been thinking like is this something I want to continue doing, or are there enough episodes that I can leverage if people want to get to know what my speaking style is like, or whatever it may be?

Speaker 1: 27:54

But these are the decisions that I'm making right now, like what am I willing to let go of, what am I willing to sacrifice to get the thing that I actually want in this season of life, and what are my priorities? Because everything cannot be a priority, because when everything is a priority, nothing is a priority, right? So getting robbed in Barcelona actually turned out to be one of the best things that's happened to me in a long time, and I would love for you to head to the show notes and send me a text and let me know if this episode resonated with you. There's a link right at the very top where you can send me a text message. It comes straight to my phone and I will answer. I will respond to you. It's not a bot, it's not anybody else, it's me, but I'd love to have this conversation with you. Where are you? What season of life is this for you? What do you really want right now and what are you willing to let go in order to get it.

Speaker 1: 28:44

I think it's time we all kind of did an audit of how we're spending our time, what we're consuming and really what the output, the outcome has been of all of that. That's all I got for you this week, but it was a lot, so thank you for listening. I'll be back next week, as always, but until then, remember that you can absolutely have success without the BS. You just deserve to ask yourself what success looks like for you, not anybody else. I'll talk to you next week. That's it for this week. Thanks for listening to the Business Blasphemy Podcast. We'll be back next week with a new episode, but in the meantime, help a sister out by subscribing and, if you're feeling extra sassy rating this podcast, and don't forget to share the podcast with others. Head over to businessblasphemypodcastcom to connect with us and learn more. Thanks for listening and remember you can have success without the BS.